Recent indictments and sentencing memos from Mueller and SDNY (Southern District of New York) of Flynn and Cohen, mostly. They’re all very careful not to NAME Trump but simultaneously make it very clear who “Individual 1” actually is (by referencing Individual 1’s presidential campaign, Individual 1’s electoral victory, etc).
Right. The only thing Trump has ever done is put on a show for his base, and because they’re morons who will lap up any BS he pulls out of his ass, I really don’t see how this event hurts him.
Coming from a jurisdiction where the mantra is always “The [Qeen’s/King’s] government must be carried on”, it’s hard to believe that shutting your government down isn’t ipso facto a sacking offence. Ours may have got itself into a shambles trying to bridge the impossible, but at least the business goes on.
As I recall, past shutdowns involved announcements that nonessential government employees don’t need to show up for work — which sounds (a) less like a big deal, and more (b) like a tautology; and which sparks inevitable wisecracks, especially from folks for whom ‘during the shutdown’ and ‘after the shutdown’ seem at first glance to be pretty much unchanged from ‘before the shutdown’: people who only know there’s a shutdown because they hear that there’s one, and who only know it’s over when they hear that, and who otherwise see no difference.
To coin a phrase, “business goes on”.
Mueller’s people must have been having giggle fits when they wrote things like “Individual-1, who at that point had become the President of the United States …”
Here’s the text in PDF form —
I see the opposite, lots of people don’t think it’s a big deal and then they find themselves impacted in ways they never imagined. National Parks are closed and vacations are disrupted; checks from various agencies aren’t cut, etc. People don’t notice government when it’s working well until it stops.
Heck, if there’s a shutdown in February/March/April (and were I an American), I know I’d be annoyed since I like to file my taxes as early as possible.
Except they (Congress?) try to make it painless by exempting essential employees from the shutdown. So air traffic controllers are still working, soldiers don’t get recalled back home, etc.
Mexico said that they wouldn’t pay for the wall.
Yeah, but then they show up at the National Christmas Tree and find out that it’s closed. It’s why the Republicans will certainly punt again until after the holidays.
I hope if it happens it’s in February. I’m already scheduled to take PTO 
It isn’t painless if it happens to affect you. For example, passport services do not operate during a shutdown, as that is not considered essential. So tough luck if you discover you need a passport right then.
Similarly, a few years ago a colleague was stuck overseas for a while because he needed to renew his visa and the visa offices were closed during a shutdown.
Good thing MEXICO IS PAYING FOR THE WALL!:
I often stated, “One way or the other, Mexico is going to pay for the Wall.” This has never changed. Our new deal with Mexico (and Canada), the USMCA, is so much better than the old, very costly & anti-USA NAFTA deal, that just by the money we save, MEXICO IS PAYING FOR THE WALL!
I guess that means, no Trump shutdown.
A few tweets after saying literally that Mexico will pay for the wall, he has a tweet video of himself groveling to the Dems, begging for border wall money. What a pathetic man.
He vacillates between “we’ve secured the border SO TREMENDOUSLY!” and “we need a giant wall or else the border will never be secure.”
No one who supports a man like him is respectable or rational.
Also, the office that is responsible for making benefits payments to the family of military personnel killed in action shuts down (while other parts of the DoD and VA stay open); so not only is it another Christmas without a loved one, you benefits check is going to be delayed.
To be completely honest, for the non public-facing, non-critical employees (like me), a shutdown at this time of year means we retract all our vacation requests (almost nobody in the office between Christmas and New Year) so we get the same time off, but get to save our vacations to use later - so (assuming we get back-pay like every other time) it’s just pure taxpayer expense.
I’m assuming that the funding for the leopards that eat people’s faces has already been secured.
Unless you are already maxing out the leave you can carry over (which I have), then it’ll be lost. It also means our 2nd paycheck of the month will be delayed. But yeah, it’s just “first world problems.”
Or else he is just waiting for the day when Our Donald sticks his trotter in his mouth and it comes out the other end. So, it is best to say nothing, not be a part of the train wreck, and just get up and smile when his chance comes. He might get swapped out for another cipher if he contradicts the Orange One, so from his point vie it is simply a version of “Buggin’s turn” (this is a reference to the “election” of the Lord Mayor of London). All he has to do is wait until his time comes, and he does not need to do anything.
I assume he also takes to heart the old adage that people may think you are a fool, but they can’t prove it if you son;t say anything. Of such things are great politicians made.
Pence was in a no-win situation. There really was nothing he could have said to make matters better. If he appeared to support Trump, he’d look like an idiot. If he appeared to either calm Trump or go against him, he sabotages his career. All Pence needs to do for now, is to be quiet and wait out the Mueller investigation – don’t do anything stupid (in this case, that means don’t do anything – because anything he does is a losing proposition).