DC NEWS

   With only three days before the government will be fund-less there has been a flurry of activities in DC the past two days. Tuesday the house passed another stopgap spending bill which probably will not please the Democrats in the Senate.

Meantime Senate Democrats and Republicans claim to be near an agreement on a long term spending bill including an $80 billion boost above the existing $549 billion in spending for 2018. Non defense spending would rise by $63 billion from its current $516 billion.

    The subjects of immigration reform or DACA are not part of the present discussions although Trump has said that it must be his plan or nothing.

   Tuesday Trump is supposed to have said he would welcome a government shut down if the bill does not provide for his WALL and included changes in immigration that would allow to deport any alien with a criminal conviction .

    In the spirit of bipartisanship “President Trump on Monday accused Democrats who did not clap during his State of the Union address of being un-American and even treasonous. His remarks came in a rambling, discursive speech at a factory in Ohio”

“Can we call that treason?” Mr. Trump said of the stone-faced reaction of Democrats to his speech. “Why not? I mean, they certainly didn’t seem to love our country very much.”

  Although the House Committee unanimously voted to publish the Democrat response to Nunes’s memo Trump is not expected to approve.

  Trump was so impressed by last year's Bastille Day parade in Paris that he is planning to have a similar event

  A date has not been selected, although officials said Trump would like to tie the parade to a patriotic holiday. Officials are weighing weather patterns as well as competing events, such as the massive annual Independence Day celebration on the Mall. Trump officials had discussed Memorial Day on May 28, and July 4, but the Pentagon prefers Veterans Day on Nov. 11
  Trump is acting like any Autocrat under stress. In an article by E.J. Dionne Jr in the Washington post on Monday he wrote:  “The autocratic leader lies and then falsely charges his opponents with lying. He politicizes institutions that are supposed to be free of politics by falsely accusing his foes of politicizing them. He victimizes others by falsely claiming they are victimizing him.
  The autocrat also counts on spineless politicians to cave in to his demands. And as they destroy governmental institutions at his bidding, they insist they are defending them.
  In her classic 1951 book, “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” the philosopher Hannah Arendt offered two observations that help us understand the assumptions and purposes behind the memo created by the staff of Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the chair of the House Intelligence Committee turned propagandist for President Trump.
The totalitarian method of the 1920s and 1930s, she noted, was to “dissolve every statement of fact into a declaration of purpose.”
  She also said this: “Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow.”
  These are critical times for America.