monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

Meanwhile our attack submarines will make short work of any enemy submarines that might be hiding in the ocean.

Avoiding detection continuously throughout an entire war is something entirely different.

Yeah, like it's only been a clean sweep in Afghanistan, and a total success in Iraq, Vietnam, and Libya, right?

If you watch the video, the yanks broke the rules of engagement by using active sonar. They would have been targeted and destroyed in active combat if they did that.

The US government has begun shutting down many of its services after the Senate failed to agree on a new budget.

A bill to fund the federal government until 16 February did not receive the required 60 votes amid a bitter dispute over immigration and border security.

It is the first shutdown ever to happen while the same party, the Republicans, controls Congress and the White House.

The impasse will affect hundreds of thousands of federal workers, and the recriminations have already begun.

The White House accused Democrats of "[putting] politics above our national security, military families, vulnerable children, and our country's ability to serve all Americans".

But the leading Senate Democrat, Chuck Schumer, said President Trump had turned down two bipartisan compromise deals and "did not press his party in Congress".

The last government shutdown was in 2013, and lasted for 16 days.

As of 00:01 Saturday (05:01 GMT), many federal agencies are no longer open for business - although essential services will continue to run.

Most staff in the departments of housing, environment, education and commerce will stay at home. Half of workers in the treasury, health, defence and transportation departments will also not be going to work on Monday.

National parks and monuments could face closure, which provoked an angry public reaction during the 2013 shutdown.

Visa and passport processing could also be delayed.

But essential services that protect "life or human property" will continue, including national security, postal services, air traffic control, inpatient medical services, emergency outpatient medicine, disaster assistance, prisons, taxation and electricity generation.

This could be a protracted, ugly fight
Anthony Zurcher, BBC News, Washington


The game of chicken ended with a head-on crash.

Republicans are anxious to label this the "Schumer shutdown" and, essentially, they're right. Chuck Schumer and his fellow Democrats (with the help of a few Republicans) blocked a bill that would have kept the government open - at least temporarily.

Determining responsibility and apportioning blame, however, are two decidedly different endeavours.

Democrats will argue that they had a deal with the president on their bipartisan compromise that included immigration reform - only to have him back away during that fateful obscenity-laden Oval Office meeting last week. Republicans will frame this as liberals putting undocumented immigrant protections over military readiness and health insurance for poor kids.

The blame game began at midnight, and the winner has yet to be decided. Generally, the loser in these types of showdowns is the party entering the fight with the lowest popularity - bad news for Mr Trump and the Republicans.

The good news, for both sides, is that their political bases will be thrilled they are playing hardball. Midterm election years, like 2018, tend to encourage this kind of rally-the-base manoeuvres.

Now that the line has been crossed, this could become a protracted, ugly fight.

The main bone of contention has been Democrats' demands for more than 700,000 undocumented immigrants who entered the US as children to be protected from deportation.

These "Dreamers", as they are known, were granted temporary legal status under a programme established by former President Barack Obama.

In September, Mr Trump announced he was ending the programme and allowing Congress until March to come up with a replacement.

The Republican president and congressional conservatives have been using the issue as a bargaining chip in an attempt to wring concessions from Democrats.

Mr Trump wants funding for tough new border controls, including his proposed US-Mexico wall.

Republicans added a sweetener to the bill in the form of a six-year extension to a health insurance programme for children in lower-income families.

But Democrats want this programme extended permanently.

The legislative negotiations went up in flames last week after Mr Trump allegedly complained the US was letting in immigrants from certain "shithole countries".

Despite blaming each other, both the Republican and Democratic leaders said they would continue to talk over the weekend.

Mick Mulvaney, the head of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), said there was a "really good chance" it could be resolved before government offices open again on Monday.

But the White House took a tough line after the midnight deadline passed, tweeting that it would "not negotiate the status of unlawful immigrants while Democrats hold our lawful citizens hostage over their reckless demands".

However, with mid-term elections looming in November, neither party wishes to be held accountable for closing the government.

The shutdown began on the first anniversary of President Trump's inauguration. He has delayed a trip to his Florida resort where he is due to host a party - with attendees paying as much as $250,000 (£180,000; €204,500) - to mark the event.

Many federal employees were forced to take a leave of absence - officially known as being furloughed - during the 16 days of shutdown.

At its peak, some 850,000 employees were off work each day. It cost the government $2bn in lost productivity and led to "significant negative effects on the economy", the OMB said at the time.

Donald Trump, interviewed by Fox and Friends at the time, laid the blame for the shutdown with the then president, Barack Obama.

"The problems start from the top and have to get solved from the top," he said. "The president is the leader, and he's got to get everybody in a room and he's got to lead."

US shutdown: 10 unexpected consequences

A closed sign on national parks and monuments across the US is the most visible consequence of a budget wrangle that has caused large parts of the government to shut down. But what about the more surprising consequences?

1. One person maintaining the Canada border

It's a 5,525-mile (8,891km) border, with 8,000 obelisk monuments dotted along it. These are cast-iron and stand five feet high, on a three-foot concrete base. Cleaning and maintenance is usually in the hands of eight field officers but seven of them have been told to stay at home.

That leaves acting commissioner Kyle Hipsley on his own. Speaking from a field office in Montana, he said everything was under control.

The other main job of his team, the clearing of trees on the border, can still carry on because it's in the hands of two five-man teams of contractors. But only until the money runs out.

2. Cemeteries in Europe are closed

Some 125,000 US soldiers, mostly killed in the two World Wars, are buried in 24 graveyards around the world, 20 of them in Europe. They are all closed, according to a statement on the website of the American Battle Monuments Commission.

"I think the way the shutdown has included our overseas veterans' cemeteries is a great shame," says Perry Jefferies of the TexVet organisation in Texas, who served in the first Gulf War.

"These are places of honour and many who travel to them will only have one chance in their lifetime to pay respect to a fallen comrade, family member, or buddy."

3. Sanctions respite for Iran

The under-secretary of state for political affairs, Wendy Sherman, says the ability to enforce sanctions on Iran has been significantly hampered.

"Note, our ability to do that, to enforce sanctions, to stop sanction evaders, is being hampered significantly by the shutdown," she told the Senate foreign relations committee on Thursday.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control, the Treasury team responsible for overseeing the sanctions, was "utterly depleted", she said.

4. A meat rush in Kentucky

A strange sight greeted shoppers in a store on the military base Fort Campbell on Monday. Aware that the shutdown could close the shop for days, shoppers were stacking their trolleys high with meat.

"I'm doing my weekly shop with my two boys and I see these women with their carts stacked high with six, seven, eight or nine packages of ground meat and eight big packages of chicken breasts," says Amy Bushatz, wife of Captain Luke Bushatz

"I was thinking, 'What's going on?' but then I remembered the shutdown... So there was a meat rush."

There's a Walmart a mile outside the base, says Amy, a military spouse blogger, but it's generally more expensive, especially for meat.

5. That race you've trained a year for... it's off

The Grindstone 100 running race, in which 200 elite athletes run for 100 miles along the southern Appalachian mountains of West Virginia, has been suspended because it was due to go through a national park.

That's a year's training for nothing, says race director and creator Clark Zealand. Even if the race is rescheduled, there are plenty of entrants who won't be able to make it.

"It's very disappointing. This is the sixth year of the race and it's been building each year, with people from 30 states including Hawaii, and Canada," he says.

The race starts at Camp Shenandoah, Virginia, and has 23,000 feet of climbs. It's never been run in less than 17 hours.

This isn't normal distance running, says Zealand. Competitors must train the gut to digest food on the go, and then there's the mental battle. "You can go through the highs and lows of life during a 100-mile race."

6. More James Bond buffs

Smithsonian museums in Washington DC are closed, so visitors to the capital - and civil servants with time on their hands - are visiting private museums and galleries instead.

The International Spy Museum in Washington DC has seen a 30% increase in visitors, says its PR manager, Jason Werden. "There's been a benefit - we've certainly seen an uptake in visitors." Its current highlight, he said, is its exhibition on 50 years of James Bond villains.

Other institutions that have enjoyed a spike in visitors include the Newseum, the Phillips Collection, the National Geographic Museum and the National Building Museum.

7. Free food for civil servants

Cafes and restaurants are offering discounts and freebies to any of the 800,000 federal workers who are no longer at their desks.

At Sugarfire Smoke House in St Louis, the so-called Government Shutdown Sandwich - beef brisket, smoked turkey, pulled pork, lettuce, tomato, onion and pickle - has been snapped up by employees unexpectedly kicking their heels this week. And it's free, no identity card required.

"We have a lot of government employees in St Louis," says restaurant owner Mike Johnson.

"I'm upset they're out of work just because these guys can't get along. We gave away 50 yesterday and 100 today. I'd give away 1,000 and I wouldn't care. If I lose a bit of money, so be it. I opened a year ago and it's been a good year."

There are dozens of similar deals - especially for sandwiches and baguettes - to be found in the cafes and restaurants of Washington DC and over the Potomac River in Arlington, Virginia.

8. Satirical T-shirts

T-shirts lampooning Washington's dysfunction have been selling well. Raygun, a business based in Des Moines, Iowa, didn't waste any time in launching a shirt with the slogan "The shutdown 2013 - no productivity, no mercy". About 200 were sold on Tuesday and 150 on Wednesday.

"Depending on how long this goes, we'll be able to roll out an 'I survived the shutdown' with some barrel fires and 'The Road'-esque desolation," says founder Mike Draper.

Other companies also got in on the action. "Furloughed, non-essential employee. Don't ask me, it's my day off" said one T-shirt.

9. Cancer drug trials on hold

The National Institutes of Health will turn away roughly 200 patients each week from its clinical research centre in Maryland, including children with cancer, one of its directors has said.

Trials at the centre are usually for people who have tried other treatments without success. While existing treatments will continue, it will not take on new patients until Congress agrees a budget and government reopens.

Other trials have also been affected. In Massachusetts, father-of-three Leo Finn, who has a rare bile duct cancer, was told a clinical trial he was due to start next week had been put on hold.

The reason, he was told, was that the trial was unable to be correctly registered during the shutdown - but late on Thursday he was relieved to hear that the Food and Drug Administration had found a solution.

10. British people now know what 'furlough' means

It's a word that is rarely heard in the UK but it's been inescapable in the media coverage of the latest political crisis to grip Washington.

While very familiar to Americans, its mention will have had the British reaching for dictionaries.

"To grant (a person) a furlough; to give leave of absence to," is what they will find when they open them - at least, if it's the Oxford English Dictionary.

It could yet infiltrate British conversations, although it might require a US-style shutdown at Westminster to do it.

Also called off
Ku Klux Klan rally in Gettysburg
Weddings on the National Mall in Washington DC
Any boating on Georgetown Waterfront in Washington DC
Haircuts in Congress buildings

What is Trumpism?

It was repeatedly said during the 2016 presidential campaign that the press never really got why Trump was doing so well, summed up in a brilliant sound bite coined by a US journalist, who said that the media took Trump literally and not seriously, while the American public took him seriously but not literally.

In other words, Trump supporters knew there was boasting and braggadocio. They knew he wouldn't do exactly what he said, but they liked the sentiment, all summed up in his blood and thunder inaugural speech.

Now that we are a year into the Trump presidency, maybe we in the fourth estate were right to take him literally. He has cut taxes. He has pulled the US from the climate change agreement. He has tried to unwind Obamacare. He moved ahead with his travel ban. He still wants to build his wall.

So should we be now adding an "ism" to the end of his name? Are we dealing with a thought-through philosophy, a carefully mapped world view that historians will look back and call Trumpism? Or are we dealing with instincts and impulses guided by a populist desire to please his base that delivered his astonishing victory?

Trumpism is "what the president believes on any particular moment on any particular day about any particular subject," says Ron Christie, a Republican analyst who worked in the White House of George W Bush.

"He could believe he's against climate change on Monday, and Tuesday, he could come back to you and say I am the most ardent believer in climate change, but by Wednesday he could go back to his previous position."

Certainly this is not the coherent intellectual approach that we had in the 1980s with Reagan and Thatcher.

That approach was inspired by Milton Friedman's monetarism, supply side economics, rolling back the frontiers of the state, the Laffer curve to guide to taxation policy (broadly speaking the less you tax rich people, the more money will flow into state coffers). In foreign policy, everything was seen through the prism of the Cold War.

"Reagan took great criticism from the press like Trump does and Ms Thatcher did too, but you knew where they were headed 'cause you knew what they believed in," says Haley Barbour, who was a political director in the Reagan White House.

Barbour says his boss was always willing to compromise, but only if he thought a good thing would come out it.

"Today, the consistency is not there or it's not apparent," he says.

What we have now is the slogan America First. But what does it add up to? Well for all the chaos, the one apparently consistent thing the president has wanted is to undo anything that seemed to be a signature Obama-era policy - health, climate change, the Iran nuclear deal, better relations with Cuba.

But beyond that is there rigidity? One of my favourite stories from the Trump presidency is when the Financial Times went to interview him in the Oval Office. There was so much overall weirdness to it, but when eventually the newspaper's journalists got in to see him, everyone was there - the chief of staff, the communications director, the press secretary, the chief strategist, the top economic adviser, Kellyanne Conway, this one and that one. It was standing room only. And then mid-interview - because the president's schedule had gone haywire - a whole bunch of submariners in their best uniform walked into the Oval Office.

When I interviewed President Obama two and a half years ago, only his press secretary was there. Why the difference? Because all of President Trump's key advisers want to be the last person in the room to speak to him.

Last week, it looked to all the world Donald Trump was about to cut a bipartisan deal on immigration. But then according to reliable sources his young, immigration hardliner speechwriter, Steven Miller, got to him, told him it wouldn't play well with his base - and he abandoned it. Something similar happened over health reform.

Even John Kelly, his chief of staff, has said the president is "very, very flexible in terms of what is within the realm of the possible".

And then there are the fights that he gets into. Distractions, says Haley Barbour.

"He gives the press something bad that usually smothers his good story," he says.

So if you ask, is there a Trumpian way of doing things? The answer is an emphatic yes. It will be noisy and loud. It will involve a lot of argument and shouting. It will also, of course, be the "best ever".

But is there such a thing as Trumpism? Well that might be stretching it. But in November 2016, the American people weren't voting for a philosopher or intellectual. They wanted someone who would get things done.

Last spring, Rick Perlstein, a historian of the American right, published a mea culpa in The New York Times Magazine explaining how the election of Donald Trump had led him to reconsider the settled narrative of modern American conservatism. Perlstein bemoaned the fact that 20th-century political historians mostly restricted their attention to establishment figures like William F. Buckley Jr., Barry Goldwater, and Ronald Reagan. Instead, he exhorted his colleagues to look fringeward, to “conservative history’s political surrealists and intellectual embarrassments, its con artists and tribunes of white rage,” in order to understand the foundations of Trumpism.

Though much of its contents were written and published prior to this call to arms, the updated edition of Corey Robin’s The Reactionary Mind can be read as a powerful rejoinder to Perlstein’s argument. Robin posits that the roots of Trumpism are not on the right’s fringe but rather among its standard-bearers, going back as far as Edmund Burke, the father of modern conservatism, and winding through respected figures like Joseph de Maistre, Friedrich Hayek, and Antonin Scalia.
(...)
Robin sees conservatism less as an autonomous intellectual tradition than as a series of reactions to the progressive left. He defines conservatism as “a meditation on — and theoretical rendition of — the felt experience of having power, seeing it threatened, and trying to win it back.
(...)
Robin rejects those who define conservatism as a commitment to limited government and liberty; these ideas, he allows, are perhaps “byproducts of conservatism,” but they are not its “animating purpose.” In one of his most provocative formulations, he contends that the fundamental difference between the left and the right is not that one values equality and the other freedom, but rather that “the conservative has favored liberty for the higher orders and constraint for the lower orders.”
(...)
The Reactionary Mind argues that the right has increasingly come to understand, over the course of the past few centuries, that in order to defend the old regime and preserve the power of elites they have to build alliances with the masses, and practice a form of “upside-down populism.” He argues that “conservatism really does speak to and for people who have lost something,” and to be politically successful the elites need to convince the masses that they have lost something, too.
(...)
...one of Robin’s most important insights, and a central part of his book’s argument, is his recognition of the ways in which the right borrows from the left’s repertoire of political tactics. “To destroy that enemy by some means or other,” Burke wrote of the Jacobins, “the force opposed to it should be made to bear some analogy and resemblance to the force and spirit which that system exerts.” Robin contends that, ever since Burke, conservatives have copied and learned from the revolutionaries they oppose.
(...)
The linchpin of the new Reactionary Mind is Robin’s essay on Donald Trump (...) he reveals how Trump’s spontaneous philosophy embodies many of the central features of conservatism. Though Trump was frequently portrayed by both liberals and conservatives, especially during the campaign, as an unholy anomaly within the history of the modern Republican Party, Robin has little trouble assimilating him to the broader reactionary canon. All the things that supposedly separate Trump from the conservative tradition — his racism, his populism, his inconsistencies and contradictions — are in fact, in Robin’s eyes, central features of that tradition.
(...)
Robin views Trump as the symptom, not the cause, of widening fissures within the conservative movement primarily around its inability to balance elites and masses. In a somewhat counterintuitive argument, Robin argues that the weaknesses and instability of the Trump administration and the Republicans on Capitol Hill are a result of conservatism’s past successes, and proof that that it is on the decline. The decline of conservatism as an intellectual tradition — its increasing instability, incoherence, and irresponsibility — has occurred, in Robin’s opinion, less because of Trump’s furious tweet storms and doctrinal sloppiness and more because the right does not have a credible left to borrow from and react against. Over the last half-century, he argues, conservatives have been so successful at thwarting emancipatory movements that now it has nothing to unify it.

“He’s like the incredible shrinking man. It’s like his spine has been removed and he’s trying to diminish himself as a moral human being, as a leader, by the hour, by the day.”