DownWithTyranny!: Problem Solver Donald Trump And His Blue Dog/New Dem Allies Play The Blame Game... Poorly

Trump ally Marc Penn owns and operates the ridiculous Problem Solvers Caucus, ostensibly run by Congress' most far right Democrat, Josh Gottheimer (Blue Dog-NJ) and Trump rubber-stamp Tom Reed (R-NY). Although the Cuacus is supposed to be equally divided between the two parties, most of the Republican members were defeated in 2018 and lots of corrupt conservative Democrats were elected who insisted on joining. This is the current roster:

• Sanford Bishop (Blue Dog-GA)
• Anthony Brindisi (Blue Dog-NY)
• Julia Brownley (New Dem-CA)
• Salud Carbajal (New Dem-CA)
• Tony Cardenas (New Dem-CA)
• André Carson (New Dem-IN)
• Earl Carter (R-GA)
• Jim Cooper (Blue Dog-TN)
• Jim Costa (Blue Dog-CA)
• Charlie Crist (Blue Dog-FL)
• Joe Cunningham (Blue Dog-SC)
• Debbie Dingell (D-MI)
• Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA)
• Mike Gallagher (R-WI)
• Vicente González (Blue Dog-TX)
• Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colon (R-Puerto Rico)
• Josh Gottheimer (Blue Dog-NJ), co-chair
• Dusty Johnson (R-SD)
• David Joyce (R-OH)
• John Katko (R-NY)
• Derek Kilmer (New Dem-WA)
• Peter King (R-NY)
• Adam Kinzinger (R-IL)
• Susie Lee (New Dem-NV)
• Dan Lipinski (Blue Dog-IL)
• Dan Meuser (R-PA)
• Stephanie Murphy (Blue Dog-FL)
• Eleanor Norton (D-D.C.)
• Tom O'Halleran (Blue Dog-AZ)
• Jimmy Panetta (New Dem-CA)
• Scott Peters (New Dem-CA)
• Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)
• Dean Phillips (New Dem-MN)
• Tom Reed (R-NY), co-chair
• Max Rose (Blue Dog-NY)
• Bradley Schneider (Blue Dog-IL)
• Kurt Schrader (Blue Dog-OR)
• Lloyd Smucker (R-PA)
• Darren Soto (New Dem-OR)
• Abigail Spanberger (Blue Dog-VA)
• Tom Suozzi (New Dem-NY)
• Glenn Thompson (R-PA)
• Fred Upton (R-MI)
• Jeff Van Drew (Blue Dog-NJ)
• Steve Watkins (R-KS)
• Peter Welch (D-VT)

Why bother listing all those assholes? If you've heard any of them-- or at least any iff the New Dems and Blue Dogs-- discussing why they don't want to impeach Señor Trumpanzee, you probably noticed a common thread. Some examples: Staten Island Blue Dog Max Rose: "Then they should warm to the idea of going back to the minority. Right now we’re in this incredibly childish game of impeachment chicken, and everyone has to start acting like adults... let’s go back to actually doing the work of the American people that they sent us here to do." New Jersey Blue Dog Jefferson Van Drew: "If there really isn’t something significant enough there to impeach-- which I don’t think there is at this point-- then let’s move on and get the work of the people done." A Problem Solvers Caucus ally, Michigan New Dem Elissa Slotkin: "The thing that I’m concerned about is that we constantly risk losing focus on the legislation that affirmatively helps people’s lives, not going in the right direction right now."

Two Problem Solvers: Josh Gottheimer with Trump

And that Problem Solver lingo about doing the job the people sent us to DC to do... look who else is using it: Mr. Problem Solver himself. Team Chuck Todd: The owner of Washington gridlock, Señor Trumpanzee, tweeted this to his drooling followers Thursday morning: "The Democrats are getting nothing done in Congress. All of their effort is about a Re-Do of the Mueller Report, which didn’t turn out the way they wanted. It is not possible for them to investigate and legislate at the same time. Their heart is not into Infrastructure, lower... drug prices, pre-existing conditions and our great Vets. All they are geared up to do, six committees, is squander time, day after day, trying to find anything which will be bad for me. A pure fishing expedition like this never happened before, & it should never happen again!" A couple of hours later, he was back with the same false narrative: "When the Democrats in Congress refinish, for the 5th time, their Fake work on their very disappointing Mueller Report finding, they will have the time to get the REAL work of the people done. Move quickly!"

What a coincidence-- the Blue Dogs, New Dems and the rest of the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, pushing the same phony-baloney excuse for dropping the inconvenient impeachment investigation of the worst criminal to ever occupy the White House. The Problem Solvers should be very proud. CNN's Stephen Collinson pointed out that Trump "is doing what he always does when he's in a dark political corner: fight harder than any man alive, adopting a relentless strategy of total political warfare and lashing out in a way that may ultimately be self-defeating." He ran to the TV cameras with his grievances about how unfair it all is to him, complaining "about taking hits from the courts, from Democrats, from the press, from enemies old and new. He bemoaned the treatment of his son, Don Jr., who he said was a 'good young man who's gone through hell.'... Trump's Wednesday walkout marked a clear strategic shift. He's decided that as long as he's under investigation, his hopes of finding any common ground with Democrats on issues that could help both sides in 2020 are a busted flush."

"You can go down the investigation track, and you can go down ... the track of let's get things done for the American people," he said.

"We're going to go down one track at a time. Let them finish up," Trump said, adopting an absolutist position that could strip his legacy of badly needed domestic achievements.

By Thursday morning, the President was trying to spin the stalemate to his advantage, painting Democrats as uncooperative on issues important to Americans including health care, infrastructure and high prescription drugs prices.

"All they are geared up to do, six committees, is squander time, day after day, trying to find anything which will be bad for me," Trump tweeted.

"The Democrats have become known as THE DO NOTHING PARTY!"

Trump's strategy of torching a meeting, turning on his heel and raising the stakes is familiar from his life as a real estate magnate. But there is increasing evidence that walking away from the table doesn't work as well for a President as it can for businessmen.

He tried it with North Korea, and the Stalinist state still has its nuclear weapons. He did it with China, and a trade war is deepening. A previous walkout also killed off a nascent immigration deal with Democrats that could have funded his border wall, the centerpiece of his 2016 campaign.

"To watch what happened in the White House would make your jaw drop," said another old Trump foe, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, twisting the knife.

...In theory, it is possible for a President who is under scrutiny from a hostile Congress to still get things done. Bill Clinton proved that in the 1990s even as he was impeached.

"The President is, frankly, taking a position that no other president in history has ever taken, which is that somehow if you are being investigated by the Congress you can't do anything else," said Clinton's former chief of staff Leon Panetta.

"Bill Clinton did not always agree with what Speaker (Newt) Gingrich's Republicans were doing in the House. But at the same time, he was working with Speaker Gingrich on getting legislation passed," Panetta told CNN's Jake Tapper.

But Trump lacks Clinton's supernatural capacity to compartmentalize bad news. The current President showed Wednesday that he's driven by emotion and grievance. And he's just being true to himself in responding to perceived insults by striking back hard.

The result of Wednesday's angry exchange is a Washington facing the prospect of a prolonged period of complete breakdown between the Congress and the White House.

Infrastructure reform may always have been a pipe dream. It's been a consistent punchline after multiple failed efforts during the Trump administration. But there is crucial business that Democrats and the President need to get done. If they don't, there could be grave economic and even global reverberations.

On Tuesday, hope rose in Washington for a budget deal that would stave off $120 billion in automatic cuts, head off a fiscal cliff over raising the debt ceiling and set spending levels for two years.

But it's not clear whether such an agreement between House and Senate Republicans and Democrats and the White House would survive Trump's refusal to stop working with Democrats until they stop investigating him.

And the President's aspirations of finally passing his replacement deal with Canada and Mexico for the North American Free Trade Agreement-- a plank of his 2020 reelection platform-- could also fizzle in a prolonged estrangement between the White House and the Democrats on Capitol Hill.