Feedback from Dec. 27 and Beyond 

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Cover story, Dec. 27, The Year in Photo Review
This is awesome!
@rootshighcharter
Via Instagram

Hits & Misses, Dec. 27, Sen. Mike Lee blocks another
public lands bill
With politicians like Mike Lee and Jason Chaffetz, Utah needs nothing more for complete and total embarrassment.
Mike Schmauch
Via Facebook

What a whiner this author is. I can't imagine being so angry about everything all the time. Hopefully Ms. Biele doesn't have access to guns.
Rodney Lambeau
Via cityweekly.net

News, Dec. 27, Pennant Penance
Proud to have my snarky bullshit take on SLC's future flag featured next to the hopeful, inspiring one Ella Mendoza created for City Weekly! It's people like Ella that keep this place afloat. Salt Lake would be nothing without your hard work and vision. Thanks for everything you do.
Robin Banks
Via Twitter

Dine, Dec. 27, Fondest Feasts
It's a damn shame if your editor didn't submit your Chuck-A-Rama review to the Pulitzer committee.
@SpryUte
Via Twitter

Beer Nerd, Dec. 27, Hops and Spice and Everything Nice
Why don't they make one that tastes like feces and coal for Trump supporters
Lynn Baker
Via Facebook

Opinion, Nov. 14, White House Report: Trump's Heart Condition
Not only his heart, but his mind is at risk at well. He is the most uninformed person in the world, except possibly the Freedom Caucus. We are going down the tubes without a working government in place.

It's not the Democrats' fault; it's the President's strong-arm tactics, and the Republicans' acquiescence.

It's no way to run a world.
Chas Madden
Via CW comments

Trump > Romney
Well, Mitt, you have begun your first day as a senator from Utah doing exactly as was predicted. You have opened up by criticizing our president, Donald J. Trump.

You had your chance at the presidency and you were unable to defeat an inexperienced, lazy street organizer. You sat in the debate with your superior attitude and lost the election for Republicans.

For you to march into the Senate or give information to any of the fake news papers against the policies of the president is extremely despicable. Are you intent on replacing the negative, egotistical late senator, John McCain?

I voted for you when you were a candidate for president. I admired you and your wife. But, your petulant, jealous attacks on our president over the past two years against his accomplishments has been highly offensive. I thank God that you were defeated in the election.
Mary Catherine Fuller,
Las Cruces, N.M.

Shutdown Theater
As I write this, the U.S. government is in its 18th day of a putative "shutdown." Some federal employees have been furloughed (sent home). while others are expected to show up each day but also warned to expect an empty pay envelope come Friday. The shutdown is set to become the second longest in history, surpassed only by a 32-day funding fight in December 1995 and January 1996.

Does anyone want to bet against President Donald Trump holding out for the record? He likes doing things in a big way. It wouldn't surprise me if he went for 33 days just out of the cussedness he's known for.

And at the moment, frankly, he's winning this fight. To understand why, consider what he's really after. Hint: It's not just a border wall.

On Christmas Day, Trump said that "many" of the furloughed/unpaid government employees "have said to me, communicated, stay out until you get the funding for the wall."

Two days later, he tweeted "Do the Dems realize that most of the people not getting paid are Democrats?"

He was right on both counts. A major component of federal employment is in law enforcement and corrections. Many of these people are, and others might well become, part of the "Trump Democrat" portion of his base that put him over the top in 2016. More funding for "border security" means more jobs in their line of work.

If the shutdown pain isn't too bad and doesn't go on for too long, he'll keep some of those government employees in, and move others into, his column for 2020.

And even if the shutdown pain is bad or drags on, many of them will blame Congress, not Trump. After all, he's "only" asking for $5 billion for the wall. That's 1/200th of what the government spent on Social Security last year and about 1/800th of total federal expenditures. Pocket change! And Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi are holding their paychecks over it.

Trump is also winning by signaling a divided Congress that things are going to start getting done his way or not getting done at all. It takes a 2/3 vote of both houses to override a presidential veto. Assuming Democrats (including those posturing as "independents") vote unanimously, forcing a spending deal on Trump that he doesn't accept would require 55 Republican Representatives and 20 Republican Senators to defect. That's incredibly unlikely.

I personally don't want Trump to get his wall, and I'd rather the federal government stayed "shut down" forever on general principle.

But if I was a betting man, I'd bet that the shutdown will end with something resembling the wall funding he's demanding and with a cowed Congress. You read it here first.
Thomas L. Knapp,
Director of the William L. Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism

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