Yep. My 'day job' is for a Government agency, but me and my coworkers are among the Excepted groups that are considered essential to Government function and public safety.

It'll be interested to see if they in the Senate can come up with a solution over the weekend - but I suspect its going to hold for at least a couple of days into next week.

I stayed up to 1:30 am on east coast watching idiot Mitch McConnell and intelligent Chuck Schumer give their arguments. trump caused this-his fucking wall-no DACA , no opioid programs funded, racist policies on immigration to make America white again. THIS SUCKS BIG TIME!

Shut down is the only way this government runs effectively

Its just for the weekend. They're still trying to save those poor people from getting pushed back to the country they came from. I heard that was a deal breaker last night. Am I wrong?

It's just another play in the illusion. You can blame the republicans if you want. Or the democrats even. I blame all of those still voting within the 2 party system unwilling to step out of the illusion of managed perception. While our representatives have an approval rating of 14%, they enjoy a reelection rating of 95%. That's a sure sign of insanity, when you have another option to end this by supporting peace, people, and our planet, but chose to totally ignore it after at least 4 decades of the same destructive politics by both of these parties. It took a while for me to see it myself. I voted for Ross Perot as I watched the beginning of jobs being sucked out of my area then. Then fell into the Clinton trap. Never listened to Nader close enough! The illusion a 3rd party can't win was strong. Obama twice. Yes we can became no we can't. Throwing away 2 years of owning all 3 houses and not getting a dam thing done for the people. It's all show for the club we're not in. We took Sanders to the top via grass root donations only. Only to have a primary cycle engulfed in shenanigans of all aspects imaginable and stolen. Then betrayed by the con artist himself. But the one thing we have proven to the country by that primary cycle, even though most in this country refuse to see it, is that we can take a 3rd party to the top the very same way! BUT, what will it eventually take for people to finally stand up and remove all those representatives they disapprove of and walk out of that illusion that controls the entire world today? If you're worried about the shut down and want to place blame somewhere, look no further than the mirror the next time you look into one.

Thank you nutty republicans. Given your control of the government, you’ve proven yourselves to be every bit as incompetent as I knew you would be.

I say keep it shut down as long as we can....keeps them from mucking things up anymore than it already is lol

I considered it effectively shut down the moment T.p. took office.

Sucks to be You...S...A.

No, seriously, I was kidding. I don't know politics, let alone U.S. politics...but I find it unusual that with one party controlling the majority of the highest seats of government, the government had to shut down.

Apart from Trump going back on his word that he would "sign to law anything that the bi-partisan team proposes in regards to both DACA and immigration (the wall, chain migration, etc.)", was there anything else?

To me, it looks like this is what he (or more likely his administration) actually wants. it smells of a party playing politics in expense of public good.

Okay.