You're a Foul One, Mr. Trump

     If Congress had one shred of heart tissue left in its foul body politic (and we all know they don't), they would not have adjourned for their winter recess without giving the people the bestest Christmas gift ever- Articles of Impeachment or at least the groundwork for invoking the 25th Amendment.

     True, there's always the upcoming next Congress along with its 40 new Democrats and the Democratic majority and the impeachment resolution and subpoena power that comes with it. They could have given us some hope that this fecal-flecked administration won't come close to lasting all four years as Frank Rich maintains.

     Really, Donald Trump should have been the only Grinch in DC this past week. Because in short order, this is what Trump did in his Orwellian #somuchwinning campaign just in the past week:

     Withdrew our forces from Syria after notifying Turkey's Erdogan (and most likely Putin) but not the American general who oversaw the entire American operation.

     That and his Afghanistan drawdown made Defense Secretary James Mattis quit effective February 28th.

     Angry over his resignation letter, 50 copies of which which Mattis ordered to have printed and distributed to the Pentagon, Trump said on Twitter today he'd be gone by New Year's Day.

     John Kelly quit as White House Chief of Staff and the two weren't even on speaking terms when he'd done so.

     He rejected a stopgap bipartisan spending bill from the Senate after saying he would sign it because it didn't give him five billion dollars for his vanity wall.

     The Dow tumbled hundreds of more points, making it the worst December for Wall Street since the Great Depression.

     About a quarter of the government shut down at midnight on Friday.

     After preemptively taking credit for it, he then (predictably) blamed Democrats for it on (predictably) Twitter.

     This means those affected federal employees will have to continue working without pay, right before Christmas...

     ...less than four months after cancelling pay raises for those same employees because of "serious economic conditions" after beating his chest at one MAGA rally after another touting the strong economy.

     And that includes Trump's Secret Service detail.

     But the Mattis defection really stung him, along with the letter. Out of the countless dozens of firings and resignations that have come right out of the gate (starting with Flynn), this is the one giving everyone the shits. Because Mattis was more than just a senior Cabinet official. He was the Defense Secretary of the United States at a very unstable time in our geopolitical relations with allies and foes alike.
     And, yes, up to a point these Cabinet officials' jobs is to advance the president's agenda. But these are bizarre times in which even the expectation of presidential behavior has been lowered so much because of this treasonous freak that the bar's been buried six feet under. True, we do not belong in Syria any more than we belong in Afghanistan. But one does not just abruptly withdraw from these places without consulting your own commanders in the field and huddle, instead, with tyrants and dictators.
     And it wasn't enough for Trump to withdraw from Syria. He had to cockwand on Twitter and have his "Mission Accomplished" moment by declaring that we defeated ISIS.
     ISIS responded by posting a video of two female backpackers from Scandinavia captured in Morocco, one of whom was beheaded.
     Right after Mattis quit, Brett McGurk, US envoy, also quit. McGurk was the head of the global coalition dedicated to defeating ISIL, in other words, one of the few capable men still working for this now partially-paralyzed government.
     By now, after nearly two years of this 24/7 shitshow, it ought to be screamingly obvious to anyone with one eye, one ear and one hemisphere of a brain that Trump is actively rooting out all the men and women who are even nominally competent at their jobs and doing everything in his power to drive them out. And if they won't go, he fires them with all the forethought and consideration with which he fired people on The Apprentice.
     So, to summarize, we go into the holidays with:
     An Acting Attorney General
     An Acting Chief of Staff
     An Acting Defense Secretary
     ...all during a government shutdown.
     And while Wall Street is having a shutdown of its own unseen since the Depression. Remember, when Wall Street has a bull market, the investment class gets richer. But when Wall Street has a bear market, everyone, theoretically, suffers.
     Oh, and he very quietly removed all sanctions on Putin-linked oligarchs and a Trump Tower Moscow-linked bank.
     Just as a reminder as to who Trump really works for.