The Shutdown: The International Monetary Fund says that a “protracted” shutdown of the US government will slow the US economy, probably joining the rest of the world in a downturn. It’s day 32 with no agreement on the table.

  The clouds over the economy are getting darker. The shutdown means that 800,000 unpaid government employees have cut back spending, or can’t spend at all. That ripples through the economy as stores, restaurants, landlords, and banks lose income. As many as 10,000 private companies have contracts with closed divisions of government.

  Another danger is that President Trump has placed punitive tariffs on 12 percent of all US imports, passing along the cost to customers. He threatens more tariffs on Chinese goods even as trade talks continue.

  It’s pretty chaotic and Ross Buettner and Maggie Haberman write in The NY Timesthat this is the way Trump likes it. They say, “As he did during decades in business, Mr. Trump has insulted adversaries, undermined his aides, repeatedly changed course, extolled his primacy as a negotiator and induced chaos.”

  Buettner and Haberman say, “His lack of public empathy for unpaid federal workers echoes his treatment of some construction workers, contractors and lawyers whom he refused to pay for their work on his real estate projects. The plight of the farmers and small-business owners wilting without the financial support pledged by his administration harks back to the multiple lenders and investors who financed Mr. Trump’s business ventures only to come up shortchanged.”

MLK Day:President Trump spent two minutes yesterday at the Washington memorial to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “Beautiful day,” Trump said to reporters. “Thank you for being here. Appreciate it.” 

The Gathering Crowd: California Sen. Kamala Harris yesterday joined the ranks of Democrats running for president in 2020. She makes eight … so far.

  Harris proposes some dramatic things, including a “Medicare-for-all” healthcare system.

  The NY Timeslists two more Democrats as “all but certain” to run — that’s New Jersey Sen. Corey Booker and former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper.

  On the “likely” list are former Vice President Joe Biden, Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Oh, please Bernie, don’t. 

Deep Freeze: Another major storm is gathering and descending from the Rockies heading to the Midwest while freezing weather hangs over half the country. 

  It’s 22 degrees in Colorado Springs; Chicago, 16; Buffalo, 3; State College, Pa., 1; New York, 14; Boston, 9; Rutland, Vt., -16. Yes, that’s minus 16.

Permawar: The Afghan Taliban announced yesterday that they would resume talks with American officials just hours after they delivered a vehicle bomb that killed as many as 40 people at an Afghan intelligence base. 

Police Blotter: American singer Chris Brown is being held in Paris on an accusation that he raped a 24-year-old woman in a hotel room. — The Taiwanese woman known as the “bikini climber” fell and froze to death in a ravine. Gigi Wu made her fame climbing mountains dressed only in a bikini. — A 12-year-old girl in a Chicago suburb died when the igloo she had carved out of a snow bank collapsed.

Cover Art:The University of Notre Dame plans to cover murals in a campus building that depict Columbus arriving in the New World. The murals have been criticized for portraying American Indians in submissive poses before cross-bearing white men. 

  The university’s president,  Rev. John Jenkins, said , “We wish to preserve artistic works originally intended to celebrate immigrant Catholics who were marginalized at the time in society, but do so in a way that avoids unintentionally marginalizing others.”

  Everybody’s a victim.

  In 2017, more than 300 students, employees, and Notre Dame alumni signed a letter in the campus newspaper that called for the removal of the murals.They will not be removed. They are permanently painted on the walls and the University says they may be occasionally unveiled to be viewed in their proper context.

The Manchurian Lawyer:President Trump’s toothy lawyer Rudy Giuliani was in damage control mode yesterday, walking back his statement over the weekend that Trump’s negotiations to build a Moscow tower continued almost through the 2016 election.

  “Walking back” in Washington is what they do when they realize they shouldn’t have told the truth. Giuliani was originally defending from a Buzzfeedstory that said Trump ordered his lawyer Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about the Moscow deal. He said Trump spoke to Cohen, but didn’t tell him to lie.

  Except that even Trump lied all through the campaign about whether he had any business dealings with Russia. Giuliani said over the weekend that, “The President’s recollection of it is that the — the thing had petered out quite a bit.”

  Yesterday Giuliani said his statement on the President’s recollection was “hypothetical and not based on conversations I had with the President.”One internet wag said Giuliani is the only lawyer who could get your parking ticket reduced to manslaughter.

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