A question Trump must answer

Trump met with Vladimir Putin without American staff present — again — during the November 2018 G20 summit in Argentina.

The issue is not that Trump met with Putin. The issue is that Trump met with Putin without American witnesses — except for his wife Melania. Trump didn't even bring his own translator.

Trump keeps meeting with Russian officials without other Americans present.

Trump confiscated the notes of the American translator on the one occasion such a translator was present.

What is Trump trying to hide?

This is not a question Trump can be allowed to evade.

He is not running his own business, he is running the country. He does not get to whisper sweet nothings into Putin's ear, or hear sweet nothings from Putin in his own, without other Americans knowing what was said.

A normal president is entitled to keep secrets for the good of the country. However, Trump is not a normal president. He has repeatedly demonstrated that he cannot be trusted to put the nation's interests before his own. He also has never explained his unfathomable tendency to favor Russia and Putin in defiance of both national opinion and his own intelligence agencies' urgent recommendations.

Absent a clear and convincing explanation, we can only assume that Trump is acting contrary to American interests when he holds these private, unwitnessed discussions.

Trump the traitor? That may piss you off. But what else can we conclude when he goes to such unprecedented and insane lengths to keep other Americans (besides his wife) from hearing what he and Putin say?

Either Trump comes clean or he gets comfortable with "Trump the traitor" as his official title.

The real shutdown holdout

Francis Wilkinson at Bloomberg identified the real obstacle to resolving the current government shutdown: Mitch McConnell.

Some of McConnell’s Republican colleagues are looking at an uncertain path to re-election in their states. They are eager to get the government open, appear sensible, moderate and competent, and move on.

Pelosi should put the onus for doing so squarely and completely on McConnell — not Trump. After all, when two parents have a squabble, they don’t sit around and wait for their 2-year-old to resolve it.

This has been bloody obvious for weeks.

Our domestic Dear Leader doesn't give a shit about penniless federal workers whom he suspects don't like him anyway.

He doesn't give a shit about average citizens who are hurt by closed federal agencies. Again, he suspects those citizens don't like him anyway.

He doesn't give a shit about anyone but himself. His bottomless neediness doesn't leave room in his shriveled heart for anyone else. So he can't be shamed into compromise or rational behavior like a normal person.

McConnell, however, is slightly more human. He's a cold-blooded political opportunist with the morals of a crime boss, yes, but he is also more sensitive to bad political optics than our domestic Dear Leader.

The Senate's resident snake has been keeping a low profile, hoping we won't notice he's hiding behind our domestic DL's abnormal girth. Those of us paying attention, however, have snickered at his excuse of needing to have a bill he knows our domestic DL will sign. That's a crock. Nobody can say in advance what Don Trumpone will do, perhaps least of all Don Trumpone himself. Reneging on agreements is a Trumpone specialty; it's why he has been sued so often. The idea that if Donnie says he will sign off on a budget, he actually will, is ludicrous.

However, by putting the onus on Donnie, Mitch hopes he can stay out of the bruising fight. That's cowardly and it's time Mitch was called on his cowardice. You got your Justices and federal judges, Mitch. Now it's time to pay the price.

Madame Speaker, bring the pain to the snake of the Senate. That's the only way this shutdown will end.

A nonpartisan suggestion for future shutdowns

Government shutdowns due to failures of budgeting are squarely the fault of Congress and the president. No matter which party controls which house of Congress or the Oval Office, the legislative and executive branches have failed to do their jobs.

Whether you deplore or cheer a given shutdown, including this one, you should feel a pang of pity for the folks caught in the middle: government employees. They are never the ones who cause shutdowns, but they're the ones who miss mortgage payments when shutdowns occur.

So if Congress and the president screw up and cause a shutdown, why shouldn't their salaries be docked until they fix their failure? Let the dollars that would otherwise go to the politicians instead go to the federal workers who are sidelined by the screwup. And neither Congress nor the president should receive back pay afterwards to make them whole. (Furloughed workers should still be made whole, minus whatever they got during the shutdown.)

Oh, and why shouldn't Congress and the president have to stay in session in D.C. until they fix things?

The docked salaries would only be a pittance compared to what the furloughed federal workers should have earned, but at least our elected representatives would share the pain they inflict by not doing their jobs.