The Art of No Deal: Democrats take over the House of Representatives today and departed Speaker Paul Ryan left with a 12 percent favorable rating.

  But ….President Trump dismissed the Democratic proposal for spending plans that would re-open  the government hours before his late afternoon meeting with the party’s leaders.

  “No, not $2.5 billion, no — we’re asking for $5.6”, Trump said during his first cabinet meeting of the year, hours before he hosted Republican and Democratic leaders to talk about border security. 

  “This is national security we’re talking about,” Trump said.

  The Democrats are willing to pay for border security, just not a wall. In rejecting the Democratic proposals, Trump cut off his own vice president at the knees. Mike pence had assured the Democrats that Trump was prepared to compromise on the amount of money he might get for a wall.

  At the same time, Trump is mysteriously claiming that the wall is already being built, despite having no money appropriated for it, and that Mexico is paying the bill.

  He tweeted, “Mexico is paying for the Wall through the new USMCA Trade Deal. Much of the Wall has already been fully renovated or built.” The truth is that none of his new wall has been built.

  The USMCA Trade Deal, Trump’s replacement  for the North American Free Trade Agreement, has not been approved by Congress and has not taken effect. And there’s nothing about the agreement that forces Mexico to pay money directly to the federal treasury.

  Trump did have his meeting with Republican and Democratic leaders in the White House situation room. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell came out and told reporters, “I don’t think any particular progress was made.”

Closed Until further Notice: As the federal government enters its second week of partial shutdown, the impact is beginning to take hold. Low-paid employees are beginning to miss paychecks and will be unable to pay bills.

  All 17 of the Smithsonian museums and galleries are closed, including the National Zoo. That includes the Smithsonian itself, Air and Space, American Indian, African American, and more. They are a huge tourist attraction in Washington.

  Garbage and human waste are beginning to pile up on the ground in national parks and monuments where the bathrooms are closed and there’s no garbage removal.

  The Small Business Administration and  Department of Agriculture are unable to grant loans. And despite huge backlogs, hearings in immigration courts are grinding nearly to a halt.

  Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are all still operating.

Dark Side of the Moon: China has landed its The Chang’e-4 spacecraft on the far side of the moon. China plans to follow up with missions to return moon rock to laboratories on Earth.

Spy vs. Spy:The mystery continues about why Russia arrested and accused an American man of being a spy. Paul Whelan is a former US Marine whose family says he was in Moscow to attend the wedding of a friend.

  Whelan is a 48-year-old director of global security for the Michigan-based automotive supplier BorgWarner. He has had a long-standing interest in Russia and has visited many times.

  Whelan was visited in custody yesterday by US Ambassador Jon Huntsman.

   The interesting thing is that Whelan was court-martialed for larceny and given a bad-conduct discharge from the Marines. That alone would make him an unlikely candidate to be  used as a spy by the American government.

  The working theory right now is that Whelan was arbitrarily arrested in retaliation for the US arrest of the Russian operative Maria Butina. They may be looking to make a swap. 

The Obit Page: Bob Einstein, the comedy writer who stepped out from behind the computer to be a character on HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” has died at age 76. Einstein played Marty Funkhouser, the friend Larry David was always screwing over.

  Einstein was the brother of actor Albert Brooks. He had a long career as a comedy writer, a rare scribe who also appeared on camera.

GAFA: Poor iPhone sales in China have caused Apple to reduce its revenue expectations so stocks are likely to slide today. A large part of the market’s value rests on the shoulders of the tech companies collectively know as “Gafa.” That’s Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon.

Celestial Snowman:NASA’s new Horizons spacecraft has returned pictures of the most remote object observed by earthbound explorers, a snowman-shaped rock called Ultima Thule. It’s  four billion miles from earth. The icy Ultima Thule looks like a snowman with one ball perched on top of a slightly larger one.

  Scientists theorize that Utlima is two big rocks fuzed into one, feeding their growing belief that planets were formed by a kind of aggregation rather than violent collisions. 

  Among the scientists on the team is Dr. Brian May — you might never have heard of him — then again, maybe you have. He’s an astrophysicist, but better known as a founding member of the rock group Queen. Scaramouche!!