Maybe you should wait to buy that plane ticket

Some of the latest things my sources are saying about the shutdown, now in day 34.

Commerce Secretary and rich dude Wilbur Ross was puzzled about federal workers needing to use food banks. Why not just get a loan? He also said 800,000 workers is not a big deal in our economy. That prompted Paul Krugman to tweet a chart showing the 800,000 unpaid federal workers, the 1,200,000 unpaid federal contractors (who probably won’t get missed paychecks), and the less than 100,000 steel industry workers the nasty guy so wanted to protect that he raised tariffs on steel. Priorities!

Sara Kendzior tweeted about a week ago quoting a bit from her podcast Gaslit Nation:

Why is the FBI not acting with any urgency? We have a Russian asset who shut down the government. We know the FBI was purged -- that was predictable. Why not act *before* you're purged? Why not act before the country collapses?

A couple days ago Kendzior added:

Now the FBI says they can barely act at all in the shutdown. *This was predictable*. It was also predictable that an autocrat would try to eliminate or co-opt any agency with prosecutory or investigative power. Why did no one have a back-up plan?

Seriously, this is the dictator's playbook. Yes Trump will shut down the govt, yes he will purge the FBI and other agencies -- that's why they had to act *early*, so the country doesn't collapse and citizens don't suffer even more.

Melissa McEwan of Shakesville shares a report from the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. Staffing at air traffic control facilities was already a problem with many controllers working 60 hours a week. Hiring is frozen, the training academy is closed (I think this happened long before the shutdown) and almost 20% of them are eligible to retire. Safety inspectors, TSA agents, and federal cyber security staff are not up to full strength. There is low confidence in safety reporting data. The situation deteriorates daily.

McEwan adds:

It has been an explicit objective of the conservative agenda to shrink the federal government for longer than I've been alive. They have actively endeavored to defund, disempower, and destroy the federal government. Failure is the point.

Two bills, one GOP, one Dem, were voted on in the Senate. Neither passed. But that exercise seems to have prompted discussions by senators, giving a bit of hope. About the GOP bill Greg Sargent tweeted:

The WH deliberately got poison pills inserted in Senate GOP bill reopening govt, NYT confirms. "WH officials conceded privately they had tacked on controversial proposals anathema to Dems that would block many migrants from seeking asylum"

Now that we've seen text of Trump's plan to reopen govt, it's clearer than ever that this "compromise" is a sham.

Max Kennerly tweeted a reply:

People other than @sarahkendzior need to start discussing how Trump *wants* the government shut down. People also need to start asking Republican members of Congress why they are in favor of the shutdown -- not "the wall," but the shutdown itself.

Meaning, GOP in the Senate want this.

Judd Legum, as reported by Daily Kos contributor Bill in Portland Maine, explains the nasty guy’s negotiating tactics:

A man slashes your car tire and then demands you buy him a Rolex. You refuse and then he offers to “temporarily” patch your tire if you buy him a Rolex. Trump thinks this is what it means to “compromise.”