A Christmas Peril

With Christmas only a week away, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi are cementing their names near the top of the Naughty List by threatening a government shutdown rather than allow funding for the border wall that President Trump is demanding.

Their gambit carries more risk than usual, owing to the fact that Trump is entirely willing to see the government shut down and take credit for it.

It's a bit unclear exactly what form such a shutdown would take, as Democrats are still smarting from the last time they pulled this stunt and became laughingstocks for punishing the public by closing national parks, monuments (including the Vietnam Memorial), and forbidding families from looking at Old Faithful or Mount Rushmore.

Here's what we had to say about government shutdowns way back in 2013...

The question of whether or not a border wall will be funded is more than just a "tinkle contest," as Nancy Pelosi would say. Consider this first hand report from a good friend of ours:

I was given a personal tour of our Arizona southern border today by a border patrol agent. Basically, not much of a border. Don’t believe what the MSM and politicians tell you about our secure border. This gent asked me to share photos and what he saw. They caught around 35% of what they actually "saw." There aren’t enough agents to cover the entire southern border. Drones don’t work if you can’t get to the bad guys fast enough.

Last night, he spotted 30 illegals, called in, they caught 7 at night and two more in the morning. Guess what, 21 got away. Thousands of them got away daily, he said. There is no such thing as natural barriers. They will go over 8,000 ft elevation to enter our country at will. When Pelosi and Schumer said we don’t need the wall, they’re full of sh*t. He also stated that the majority of the agents favor a gov shutdown. Middle easterners are caught weekly and those are the ones caught.

I could write a chapter on my four hours down there. I felt strange as if I was in another country. He often referred to the area as occupied land. I was downright depressed at the end of the day. Final note, these border patrol agents work nonstop day and night to keep the bad guys out with very little resources, but they show up 24/7 to keep us safe. 

Here's a picture of a section of the existing "border wall" that our friend took:

You MAY not have an effective wall if it needs to be bolted to the ground to keep illegals from stealing it.

Border security is a serious issue which is currently not being treated seriously by pretty much any politicians other than Donald Trump. Hopefully a real showdown may change that.

Rear Ended on the Hershey Highway

Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski (whose last name is the single most valuable word you can play in Scrabble) made an unfortunate on-air faux pas Wednesday, when she called Secretary of State Mike Pompeo "a wannabe dictator's butt boy."

It's another case in which if you scratch a liberal (and frankly, we think that's always a good idea), you quickly find the kind of deep-rooted intolerance and bigotry that they accuse others of having.

Here at Stilton's Place, we're unapologetically Gay-friendly and would never think of using a homophobic slur to demean someone with whom we disagree politically. Not that Brzezinski limited herself to that - just for good measure, she also questioned whether Pompeo's comments (about the Saudi Crown Prince's possible involvement in the highly kinetic killing of dissident journalist Jamal "Surprise Party" Khashoggi) were "the words of a patriot."

Mika later acknowledged that her insinuation that Pompeo is some kind of treasonous ankle-grabber represented a "super bad choice of words."

Pretty much like everything else that comes out of her mouth.

Hired Hams

Don't panic - Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez hasn't really been asked to host the Oscars, although if it does happen you read it here first.

Currently, the Oscars have no host lined up after they hired then quickly dumped alleged comedian Kevin Hart, owing to the fact that, some years ago, he made homophobic tweets. Although we'd say they were a little more than just "homophobic." Consider this thought-provoking tweet: "Yo if my son comes home & try's 2 play with my daughters doll house I'm going 2 break it over his head & say n my voice 'stop that's gay.'"

Hart has apologized repeatedly for his tweets in the past, but refused to make a fresh apology under the reasonable assumption that if past apologies didn't count, a new one wouldn't do any good either.

All of this is making it hard for the Oscars to find a Hart transplant for the awards ceremony, owing to the fact that pretty much no celebrity really wants to expose themselves to a potentially career-ending examination of their every word and deed since birth.

The best suggestion we've heard (and we wish we could give credit but we forgot where we saw it) is that Donald Trump should host the event, since the jokes would be about him anyway, and it would be a ratings blockbuster. Frankly, we can't think of anything else that would make us tune in.

And speaking of Trump and hard to fill jobs...

BONUS: OH, SHUT UP

It wasn't our intention to present a trifecta of unbelievably annoying women today, but then we saw Nancy Pelosi's comments (accurately quoted above) following a meeting that she and Chuck Schumer shared with President of the United States Donald Trump.

The idea that this loathsome old colostomy bag will likely again be Speaker of the House makes us feel like we've got skunk tinkle all over us.