A Wallusion Brings Closure.

VamoSanctity (Freedom of Movement) + Border/Shutdown Update (Premise).

Shutdown Volume 3 is now the U.S.’s longest ever, as shitters and shortfalls continue to pile high.

With Washington’s Pennsylvania Avenue paralyzed end to end, federal government employees are getting jobbed work and pay-wise, department by department, coast to coast. While we travelers are being sandbagged, shortchanged—denied customary quality experiences in the public places we value most.

Closed Ranks.

No ‘wall stall’ closures have been more evident and visible than those involving the nation’s parks and historical sites—clearly VamoSaga territory.

From Antietam and Gettysburg to Yellowstone, Yosemite and Joshua Tree, swarming visitors drawn by holiday season free time and suddenly free access have been finding unsupervised facilities, furloughed rangers/staffers, overflowing trash receptacles and filthy public restrooms toxically locked and loaded.

Consequences of this ‘partial shutdown’ have come to include scores of generous volunteers, NPS supporters to local businesses, along with states and municipalities, filling in to minimally maintain these treasured parks, monuments, heritage structures and landmarks. As the wall stall stumbles on, concern has grown over increasing misuse and vandalism heaped upon these officially unattended facilities, absent proper NPS guidance and supervision. Especially so, since many park gates and other entrances remain unsecured.

Desperation setting in, the park service is starting to use entrance fees to restore skeletal staffing (16k of 20k winter NPS workforce now furloughed) and operations at certain vulnerable popular sites, in the face of their physical abuse and deterioration. Signed off by the Interior Department’s acting secretary, such diverting of these fees for visitor services and  enhancement (115 of the agency’s 418 parks collect them) to fund operations and maintenance may well prove unlawful. National Park advocates fear that visitor fee switching will drain monies earmarked for long-term needs and protections (particularly since the current administration schemes to diminish the entire park/site inventory). Next to slam shut are the Smithsonians, other eminent museums—even the National Zoo, all having run through any contingency funding.

Controlled Burnout/Checkpoint Charley Horse.

But of greater concern as this shutdown drags on is the further straining of TSA staffing (already calling in sick or bailing) and resources, in terms of air travel safety and security (what ostensibly the ball of wallusion is all about). Dominos falling: the next department to shutter could be the air traffic control system, if not the F.A.A. itself, perilously grounding the entire nation. 

It appears controllers are already deserting airport towers. The older among them are retiring ( 1 in 5 are eligible); younger ones are moving on to other positions outside government. The ATC training center in Oklahoma has shut its doors, and controller union members are demonstrating in D.C.. If and when this shutdown ends, bringing the nation’s ATC system back up to speed will be hell on the skies. Peeled off shift layers, overworked primary ranks and lost training class time will exacerbate chronic staff shortages, could very well mean precariously slower and/or constricted air traffic for the foreseeable future—and the escalating risk of serious mishaps. Indeed, after the 1981 PATCO work stoppage and Reagan mass firings, it was nearly a decade before air controller levels were fully restored in towers nationwide. Reason enough why the FAA is now calling back already stressed furloughed workers under duress, working for no-pay with mandatory overtime—as in other federal workers deemed essential, namely inspectors at all air industry levels, to oversee airworthiness directives, quality control and more.

Such shutdown related incidents began with a January 2 flight from Atlanta to Tokyo, wherein, upon arrival, a passenger admitted slipping past TSA, carrying a weapon onboard. Since then, Miami International Airport has closed screener shorted concourses, while air terminals in Atlanta, Houston and Washington D.C. are closing, or at least experiencing checkpoint backups due to increasing screener sick-outs and no-shows (even screener demonstrations in Pittsburgh to end the shutdown). Such absences are bumping upwards of 10% of TSA staffs in those airports, as well as Dallas-Ft. Worth, forcing 90-minute to 3-hour boarding delays–presaging further slower boarding on fewer flights to come.

Moreover, NTSB accident investigations are on hold, including for those involving crash fatalities. Crucial aircraft safety inspectors (in-flight and ramp) are also being sidelined, or at least hampered by no pay, sinking morale and soaring turnover (many fleeing for other jobs). Instances are surfacing of customs agents resignedly waving incoming traffic through checkpoints, lapsing into a haphazard sieve mentality.

Reality check: All it will take to end this borderline foolishness is one resulting airliner disaster.

Mexican Standoff.

It is said that the Trump M.O. is to take a position (i.e., his Wallusion), then hold tight with his shakedown until blue in the face. When his rivals/opposition can no longer take the resulting heat/pressure and chaos, they are forced to cave in to his demands—however absurd and/or self-serving those may be—to where he gets his way.

Time will tell if his ‘Fart of a Deal’ wins out against House Congressional opposition, now that the president appears painted further and further into a political corner. But for now, as the days and disruption pile up all the more, Vamigré will closely monitor this ill-conceived border dispute, to help ensure Trump’s transactional tantrums—his fealty to the cheesy stinks of Coulter and Limbaugher—will not result in a travel/transportation tragedy.

Meanwhile, why deliver symbolic trash piles to the White House, when there is so much more dumping room for walls of refuse at certain golf courses and Mar-a-Lago?