Forget the 'border crisis' - it is Trump's shutdown that's made us less safe

[DonViejo]

With thousands of FBI and TSA staff furloughed and critical functions hit, the shutdown is a disaster for national security

Michael H Fuchs

Sun 20 Jan 2019 06.00 EST

resident Trump closed the US government over a fabricated border crisis, and in doing so has sparked a real national security emergency. By shutting down the government, Trump has disabled America’s defenses against threats to national security.

Trump decided to shut down the government over the claim that America needs a wall to deal with a crisis at the border with Mexico. But there is no crisis on the border other than the humanitarian crisis of his own making, best illustrated by the thousands of children separated from their parents and the two children who died in Customs and Border Protection custody. Trump’s claims of more terrorists and crime flowing across the border are lies and the vast majority of hard drugs coming across the border come through official ports of entry, not between ports of entry where a wall might stand.

The trumped-up shutdown is Trump’s doing. Just days before reversing course, Trump was ready to fund the government without funding for the wall and supported the bill the Senate passed without wall funding. And despite trying to blame others since then, Trump claimed responsibility: “I am proud to shut down the government … I will be the one to shut it down.”

The impacts on the economic wellbeing of hundreds of thousands of federal workers, the economy, and the image of a broken American political system are very real and grave. Equally grave are the ways in which Trump’s shutdown is endangering US national security.

more
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/20/forget-the-border-crisis-it-is-trumps-shutdown-thats-made-us-less-safe

[lark]

1. Upfront, yes, I am paranoid.

But... what if compromising our security is the plan, his way of staging a Reichstagg Fire. He could even get Russia to supply the terrorists, making sure they were all brown skinned so he could say they were from Mexico. He'd say it's because of no wall and because the Dems refused to built it so they invited in the terrorists and he'll declare a state of national emergency and shut down constitution. He will shutter the news as his first step saying they were complicit, but what else will he do? Pardon himself and family because he can't be bothered with Mueller when we're in the middle of a crisis is a given, but what would he do to the country to fuck it up?