I just want to remind people that the Republicans do not have the power to shut down the government–even if they wanted to. It takes sixty Senate votes to pass the Continuing Resolution (CR) to fund the government. (This could be avoided if we had a budget). The Republicans do not have sixty members in the Senate, so the only way that a CR can pass is if a few Democrats vote for it. Since enough Democrats did not vote for the CR to reach sixty votes, the CR did not pass. The Democrats have stated that DACA is the reason for their lack of support for the CR, but DACA does not expire until March, so that is questionable at best. Most of what you see on the news today will be political posturing. Hopefully, saner heads will prevail at some point, and the government will reopen.