Wall of Lies:The federal government shutdown continues today as negotiators fail to find common ground — or a common wall.

  “Not much headway made today,” President Trump tweeted after a meeting yesterday adjourned. “Second meeting set for tomorrow. After so many decades, must finally and permanently fix the problems on the Southern Border!”

  He was up this morning tweeting that “Walls Work!” 

  Trump insists on getting $5.6 billion for his southern border wall even though he says the wall is already being built and Mexico is paying for it.

  He said Friday, “In fact, what we save on the U.S.M.C.A., the new trade deal we have with Mexico and Canada, what we save on that just with Mexico will pay for the wall many times over, just in a period of a year, two years and three years. So I view that as absolutely Mexico is paying for the wall.”

  So if Mexico is paying for the wall, why ask for billions from Congress? Why close the government? Because Mexico is not paying. The new trade deal is not in effect and whatever savings might be reaped go to businesses, not the federal government.

  The administration is also bolstering its campaign with fictional claims about terrorists entering the country. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen claimed last week that more than 3,000 terrorists were apprehended along the  U.S.-Mexico border in the past year.

  Three thousand terrorists. So, where are they? Thrown among the regular population in migrant tent cities? Not if they are terrorists. They haven’t been sent to Guantanamo either. Nielsen described them Friday as, “Aliens who the intel community has identified as a concern,” She said, “They either have travel patterns that are identified as terrorist travel patterns or they have known or suspected ties to terrorism.”

  Statistics from Nielsen’s own DHS throw doubt on her clam.  In fiscal 2017, DHS discovered 2,554 people on the terrorist watch list traveling to the United States, but only 335 were attempting to enter by land.

Demonstrably Unfit:NY Timesconservative columnist David Leonhardt has a scathing piece this morning saying Donald Trump is unfit for office.

  “He has repeatedly put his own interests above those of the country,” Leonhardt writes. “He has used the presidency to promote his businesses. He has accepted financial gifts from foreign countries. He has lied to the American people about his relationship with a hostile foreign government. He has tolerated cabinet officials who use their position to enrich themselves.”

  Leonhardt goes on to say that, “The unrelenting chaos that Trump creates can sometimes obscure the big picture. But the big picture is simple: The United States has never had a president as demonstrably unfit for the office as Trump. And it’s becoming clear that 2019 is likely to be dominated by a single question: What are we going to do about it?”

Shrinking China: Population and fertility studies in China say the country is beginning to shrink and must prepare for a smaller work force. The population now is estimated to be 1.41 billion people, but the Chinese are having fewer children despite the end of the one-child policy. Estimates say the population could drop to 1.17 billion by 2065.

Arrest:Police in Texas have charged a 20-year-old man with the shooting death of a 7-year-old girl while she was riding in the car with her mother. Eric Black Jr. was charged with capital murder in the death of Jazmine Barnes. 

 Black is white and the Barnes family is black.  Jazmine and her mother were shot Dec. 30^thwhen a driver pulled up alongside them and opened fire. The mother was hit in an arm.

 “Investigators do not believe Jazmine’s family was the intended target of the shooting,” a police statement said. “They were possibly shot as a result of mistaken identity.”

No Escape: Five 15-year-old Polish girls died in a fire while they were having a birthday event in an “escape room” set up in a private home.  They never got out. The fire is believed to have started in a bottled gas heating systems.

  So-called “escape” rooms have become the rage around the world. You get locked in a room and have to find a clever way out. 

Cyber Love:Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Love Sunday. Today is predicted by online dating sites to be their busiest day of the year. This is the day when the lonely and lovelorn act on their New Year’s resolution to find love in 2019. And to think people used to go to a museum for that.

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