then that is what we will have to do.

This is the Koch Brothers wet dream.

but odds are that Congress will eventually have to end it themselves- once the Republicans (or their donors) are worried enough about their own political futures.

This no longer makes sense (assuming it ever made sense): that he's doing it to appease his base. From what I gather, his poll numbers are slipping, and Speaker Pelosi easily out-manouevered him on the SOTU, and he looks like more of a chump than he already is.

Why else would he be doing it except to slow down the investigation? This criminal is openly intimidating witnesses, so he apparently is pulling out all the stops to slow the investigation down.

He doesn't care about this country or its people...he only cares about his bloated, amoral, narcissistic, juvenile, imbecilic large butt. IF a shutdown buys him time to cover up or slow down the investigation, it doesn't matter one iota to him about the damage he wreaks on this country and its people.

Nance warned of this in December. Punishment to the FBI for investigating him and his family. BTW,this is being behind the scenes by Putin. Destroy any and all Independent sources of checks and balances.

Trump is now playing all in game here,and he could give a rats ass about those whom he hurts. Talked to someone in TSA today.chatter is,they are now preparing for another two months or more. Twenty dollar fuel cards were issued by their Union couple of weeks ago.

Putin benefits greatly from this as does Trump. Both criminals get to cover up, and Putin gets the added "fun" of watching us discombobulating (while the EU is doing the exact same with Brexit and Eastern Europe). This is EXACTLY what Putin wants: a weak US and a weak EU, and he can then MRGA (Make Russia Great Again) as Czar Vlad.

A month ago, I wouldn't have "thunk" it, but now there is no other reason that makes sense.

This also slows things down for investigating the Repubs who got NRA/Russian cash, so they're in no hurry either.

Something about Occam's Razor comes to mind.

America breaks down by his doing absolutely nothing

It can't get better for him

Just as he did to the Speaker last night on the SOTU.

That's the first chink in his armor. He knows he has to yield, that signals he's searching frantically to get out of this mess he created without it looking like he caved.

What will probably happen is he will get word to McConnell to allow a clean CR to get to the Senate floor and voted on to open the government and then negotiate.

Repugs are losing ground and being blamed. They can't sustain it much longer.

Underneath all this is the most massive financial restructuring of the federal government we've seen in a generation. Through his selective closings, Trump is drowning the parts of government that serve the common good while continuing to fund (likely illegally) those parts that serve the top - like getting conservative judges appointed and issuing Alaska oil drilling rights during the shutdown. 'Splain to me how those have anything to do with protecting life, safety or health.

He'll back down on his shutdown. The overriding question that I hope the media ask and keep asking when the Trump Shutdown is over is why did it drag on so long, when the terms of the settlement could have been achieved weeks prior.

The backlash from "We the People" on Congress is coming soon. Congressional Representatives and Senators will be losing their jobs if they continue to back drumpf on the shutdown.

as for the opportunity to shutdown the gov’t indefinatey because this is what putin expected of him. We may be facing shutdown all the way till 2021 when dem senate and dem president will finally end it. Of course, by then most fed employees would have been long gone.

Don't laugh it off - laughing him off is how we got to this point.