Shut Down Madness! BREXIT! Pompeo! The End of the World is Nigh!

Sorry for the long break in posting. I have been deterred from posting by (1) the Diplowife going to Spain on a family visit leaving household chores exclusively to this elderly Toxic Male; (2) her report that her wallet, with all her cash, credit and debit cards, id, etc., went missing in Spain (since found at an honest local bakery); and (3) my having to remove hundreds, nay, thousands of dead bodies from the streets and fields in my neighborhood as a consequence of the US government shutdown.

Let's skip the two most important reasons and focus on the third, the government shutdown. Global climate change is now going through the roof as a result of this event; hundreds of thousands of children and women now go without food and shelter; our food and water have become poisoned; the supermarkets have no food, anyhow; filling stations no fuel; and hundreds of heavily armed men prowl the streets looking for sustenance for their beleaguered families. We, ladies and gentlemen, have entered the Apocalypse! I know this is true, otherwise, why would the Democrat Congressional contingent have fled to safety in Puerto Rico? No fools they.

OK. Look, as a federal employee for 34 years, I went through a couple of these shutdowns and survived quite nicely. I used to tell my crying associates that, "In the private sector when you get laid off, you get laid off. They don't come pay you back wages if you sat at home." Perspective, please.

Clearly the Democrats care more about pandering to illegal aliens than they do about federal workers and the "vital" tasks they perform. They care more about pandering to illegal aliens than about national security or even neighborhood security. They are the party of MS-13. Period.

Now, despite the shutdown (because of it?), Secretary of State Pompeo gave a terrific speech (here) in Cairo. This Secretary is an interesting person. He doesn't get or apparently seek a lot of publicity, and seems somewhat aloof (James Baker style) from the State Department machinery. He does some excellent work. He is low-key, clear and tough. Anyhow, read the speech. It is the undoing of the disastrous Obama Mideast policy. Long may it wave!

New topic: Can we blame Theresa May's disastrous handling of BREXIT on "Trump's government shutdown"? Well . . . uh . . . probably not. PM May must be considered the most clueless and hapless major politician on the world stage. Yes, she has usurped the crown from PM Trudeau! Another first for women! Sorry Merkel, you end up only number two . . .

The whole BREXIT strategy of the May government has made no sense . . . . unless, of course, it was meant to sabotage the whole thing.

Britain held all the cards in the poker game with the EU. In fact, Britain didn't even need to show up, and it would have won the pot! Instead, May's folks got themselves into some needless negotiations with the reptilian EU and came out, of course, second best. The absurd "Deal" they brought back violated the very spirit of the 2016 BREXIT vote and mandate from the British people. The "Deal" was the EU permission slip, to wit, you can leave but only under these conditions . . . No wonder that parliament shot this thing to pieces, and handed May the worst parliamentary defeat of any British government.

What's next? Nobody really knows, but I assume--and I am no expert on British politics and don't pretend to be--May will try to extend the March 29 exit deadline and squeeze a few silly concessions out of the EU in the hopes of making the "Deal" more palatable. I doubt that will happen as the EU is playing chicken. I heard Nigel Farage predict a better than 50/50 chance of a second referendum. That's too bad, because it reaffirms the long held prog tactic of voting and voting until the right result gets produced. I genuinely hope that come the March deadline, the Brits just walk out the door, giving the EU the "up your bum" V symbol as they go.

If Britain walks, none of the predictions of disaster will come about. That's just global elite fear mongering. Remember Y2K? Remember swine and bird flu? How AIDS would turn the world into a howling wilderness by 1995? The end of snow and ice? How the end of net neutrality would kill the internet? Yeah, yeah. It's all of the same piece.

In the end, as I wrote here, some two months before the vote,

I won't go into the economic arguments over whether it's better or not for Britain to remain in the EU. You can go here for a pretty good and somewhat balanced explanation of the two sides' arguments. Let's put all that aside, however, and generously agree both sides have some valid economic and financial points. . . 

At the risk of being reprimanded and corrected by this blog's one or two British readers, I offer that the force driving the pro-BREXIT movement is not solely or even mostly about economics, or finance, or currency exchange rates. It is about something much, much more important. It is about reclaiming the soul of Britain; preserving and restoring that which made Britain, notably England, one of the world's greatest countries, a nation of stunning consequence. It is about deciding whether the great British traditions and innovations that have made our modern world are worth saving or should be discarded.

Once again, BREXIT wasn't primarily about money, but about saving Britain, England especially. It sought to make the UK an independent state, again. Where Marxists and Libertarians both fail is by seeing people as just cogs in a material-producing machine. Other issues matter, to wit, the intangible qualities of life, e.g., safe neighborhoods, remaining in touch with your traditions and unique ways of doing things, reaffirming your bond to the people with whom you live, your sense of pride in nation.

Even the material issues don't need the UK as a prisoner to the EU. The Irish border matter, for example, can be dealt with after BREXIT by a sovereign UK dealing with a sovereign Ireland. They can reach any deal they want . . . well, that is, if Brussels allows the Irish to do so. Maybe Dublin should take a look at EIREXIT? Just saying . .  .

Blame it on Trump and move on . . .