With regards to the President's sanity, I've read that high-ranking officers in the military must undergo a psychiatric evaluation of their fitness to command before they can get promoted. Might it not make sense for the Commander-in-Chief to undergo a similar evaluation?
Anyway, here's a quickie 'splainer on how the Trump Shutdown came about.
Remember, the GOP controls the House, the Senate, and the White House. So any proposals must start with them.
There are two big policy things here at stake - CHIP and DACA. Pretty much everyone agrees that funding health care for kiddies is good, especially since it saves the gov't money in the long term, and it's even cheaper than putting the kiddies onto an Obamacare plan. DACA, meanwhile, has good bipartisan support in principle.
So WTF happened?
Last fall, the GOP was so busy trying to kill Obamacare that they forgot to renew funding for CHIP. Afterwards, there were a couple of funding renewal bills floated, but the GOP decided to hold off on it, figuring they could use CHIP as a bargaining chip in future budget negotiations.
At about the same time, El Presidente ended the DACA program, even though he has continually stated that he is in favor of it. His idea was that he could use it as another bargaining chip with the Democrats, holding it out in exchange for his favorite things, including limits on legal immigration and his border wall.
Earlier this month, Trump said that if the Senate came up with a bipartisan bill that included DACA, funding for border security, and restrictions on legal immigration, he'd sign it.
Guess what? The Senate did! They came up with a proposal that included all of that!
But before Senators Durbin and Graham could present their 98% complete proposal to Trump for his "OK, go ahead and write it up for me to sign", advisor Stephen Miller and Chief of Staff John Kelly got ahold of Trump and reminded him just how EEEvil all these Haitians and El Salvadorans and Africans are.
So when the meeting finally took place, Durbin and Graham and others were stunned that Trump had suddenly done a 180. The deal was off. That was the "shithole" meeting, BTW. You probably forgot the real purpose of the meeting, didn't you....
And now, Mitch "Turtle" McConnell doesn't know what to do next, because like everyone else, he doesn't know what El Presidente wants. How do you come up with a bill for Trump to sign, when you haven't a clue whether he'll sign it or not?
Well, we all know what Trump really wants. He's been griping to staff that he had to cancel his big party down at Mar-a-Lago.....
Yep, the GOP
OWNS this. You know, one would think a guy who "wrote"
The Art of the Deal would have figured out a compromise here....
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/01/18/if-the-government-shuts-down-trump-and-the-gop-will-fully-own-it/http://wonkette.com/628490/are-you-ready-to-shutdown-a-wonksplainer-of-yeah-no-really-its-republicans-fault