(Illustration: MC Escher’s engraving, ‘Old Oliver Tree,’ found here.

Dark-clouds-overcast this early-evening Wednesday on California’s north coast, maybe some sunshine expected tomorrow, but mostly for the next few days is more of our current and upcoming ‘wet season‘ — we’ll see.

Out of season, and all reason is what’s top the news billboard tonight: a White House that’s totally fucked, and the whole drama just gets worse day-by-day.
The shutdown has quickly churned up some nasty, mean shit. This morning, the T-Rump suffered pride-shock during a negotiation-talk turned altercation with Democrat leaders at the White House. And as we’ve come to expect, it went/ended badly.
The New York Times:

President Trump slammed his hand on a table and stormed out of a White House meeting with congressional leaders on Wednesday after Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said she would not fund a wall along the southern border, dramatically escalating the confrontation over the government shutdown.
Stunned Democrats emerged from the White House meeting declaring that Mr. Trump had thrown a “temper tantrum.”
The president’s allies accused Democrats of refusing to negotiate.
Then he tweeted that the meeting was “a total waste of time.”

And the HuffPost continues — after the T-Rump realized Pelosi wasn’t going to move on bucks for wall: ‘“I said bye-bye, nothing else works.”‘
Baby…

Schumer confirmed Trump’s version of events, telling reporters gathered in front of the White House, “Well, unfortunately the president just got up and walked out” after Pelosi said she would not agree to funding for the wall.
“He just got up and he said, ‘Then we have nothing to discuss.’
“And he just walked out.
“Again, we saw a temper tantrum because he couldn’t get his way,” Schumer said.

And he’s also a clumsy, fuck-tard — during a brief gaggle with reporters later this afternoon, the T-Rump exposed himself. Via Vox:

President Donald Trump inadvertently admitted the emergency declaration he’s considering about the situation on the southern border is all about politics on Wednesday, saying it’s “the people that are unreasonable” who will determine if he declares one.
Asked by a reporter why he didn’t declare a national emergency during his Oval Office speech on Tuesday night, Trump said, “because I think we might work a deal, and if we don’t, I may go that route.”
“I have the absolute right to do national emergency if I want,” Trump added.
The reporter followed up by asking the president what his “threshold” will be to declare one.
But instead of citing the possibility that conditions could deteriorate at the southern border, Trump cited political considerations — rather than anything that’s happening on the ground.
“My threshold will be if I can’t make a deal with people that are unreasonable,” Trump said, alluding to Democrats who thus far have shown no sign of caving to his demand that more than $5 billion in wall funding be included in a government funding bill.

All about the optics, blended-in with the lying
One thing: the T-Rump is becoming unpopular.

Per the Hollywood Reporter early this morning

In preliminary numbers, the quarter hour (9-9:15 p.m. ET) containing the president’s speech drew a combined 28.1 household rating in metered markets on ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, CNN, Fox News and NBC.
The following 15 minutes, including analysis and the Pelosi-Schumer rebuttal, averaged 29.3 across those same networks, a bump of about 4 percent.

Also from Yahoo:

The New Year is kicking off pretty well for Nancy Pelosi as the past and current Speaker of the House of Representatives just hit Donald Trump where it hurts the former Celebrity Apprentice host the most – in the ratings.
With a 29.3/47 in metered markets results on CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News Channel and MSNBC, Pelosi and fellow Democrat and Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer’s live rebuttal topped Trump’s Oval Office speech on the government shutdown and his demand for a wall on the southern border.
Across the seven nets and down 4 from the opposition, the “temper tantrum” accused POTUS pulled in a 28.1/45 rating in the overnight metrics in the 9 – 9:15 PM ET time period.

And wait for it…

That may be the very first time the usual afterthought of an opposition party response has beaten a sitting President’s address to the nation.

In the short, right-here-and-now moment, anyway, a goodly chunk of Americans are sick of the Trump, and, turning blue because of it.