Wow was that a bad speech last night with no news content whatsoever. More than a bad, wooden recapitulation of the same concocted talking points, just this time by teleprompter, it was a nadir.  Maybe even that elusive turning point on Republican support, if not media groveling.  Trump cried wolf and wasted his first Oval Office speech giving a wan replica of the same speech he gives everywhere so:

1. The networks that felt they had to give him the benefit of the doubt and grant him prime time will surely reject his next request won’t they?  The evolution of the press into more skeptical and appropriate coverage of the lying conman continues (too damn slowly).  Like a bad date you know you shouldn’t have even gone on, ABC, NBC and CBS woke up this morning feeling dirty.  Well, dirtier than usual.  Well, uncomfortable in an unfamiliar way, maybe.

2.  If you heard the speech it’s hard to imagine that it was a last ditch attempt to move public opinion towards the wall because it was so lame, but that’s what it was.  If 65% of the country had any question about whether this dope considered himself president of anybody other than his base, last night answered that, no?  The government is shut down over a farcical wall intended to fix a mythical crisis.  Nobody wants this thing except the marks that have bought into the entire Fox News con on immigration stranger danger, and hundreds of thousands of people are out of work because of it with millions more unable to access needed government services.  Furloughed federal workers are applying for SNAP, which will not be there for them.  No safety net and no savings – a uniquely American SNAFU.

It’s notable but too rarely communicated that A. there is no concrete (no pun intended) proposal for how to spend the $5.6 billion that is in contention which is ridiculous, but par for a Trump course, and B. even if the money were approved for any sort of wall, the land needed to build it on would be seized by eminent domain and those cases would be tied up in the courts for years!  There are dozens of cases still in the courts from GWB’s Secure Fence Act of 2006!  The wall wouldn’t get built until after Trump’s death (from my fingers to God’s ears), if ever.

3.  Sen. Republicans know now that Trump has led them into a box canyon with no back up and will back away from him to reopen the government, right?  They may be afraid of his base, but even in the reddest states pressure is building every day to end this bullshit and reopen the government.  The Senators in purplish states up for re-election in 2020 are going to fall like dominoes.  The ones in blue states (Gardner and Collins) have already said they’d vote to reopen without the funds.  They have to get to 60.

Would Trump dare to veto a bill reopening the government as the stories of put upon federal workers in Trump-imposed hardship proliferate and public opinion becomes overwhelming?

4. Is there anybody who can really assert that this motherfucker has a chance in hell of being re-elected?  Please.  He’s not added one vote to the 62,979,636 he got in 2016, which will naturally decline by 1-2% due to death.  One of the downsides of having an older cohort as your core.  Yes, they vote, but not when they die.  Every year more 18 year-olds register to vote as Democrats or Independents and more Republicans die.

Note to self:  invent a new phrase that is stronger than clusterfuck because Trump has worn that out.