He who must not be named intends to keep the government shut down indefinitely to stop the Special Counsel (Mueller) investigation– fortunately, it’s too late for him.

Just sayin’.

When you think about it, the whole thing makes perfect sense: he who must not be named is being true to the radical conservatives’ famous goal, “to shrink the government to the size that it can be drowned in a bathtub.”  By shutting down the 1/4 of government that the House didn’t finish appropriating money for, he has been able to hold citizens hostage to special funding appeals and online fundraising drives and forcing even his personal security guards to work without pay.

The whole point is to impair government, to weaken it, to shrink it.  For some reason these people have not accounted for the economic effect of shutting down government, or else they don’t care.  A White House economic expert said that the first quarter might show zero growth if the shutdown continues.

By coincidence, this aligns with the goals of Vladimir Putin, president of the Russian Federation.  Relative weakening and disunity in the United States fits right in with his aims.  Whether this makes he who must not be named an agent of Russia depends to some extent on how much they have given him.

The numerous apartments sold to Russian figures, as well as the sale of a mansion in 2008-9, make the total amount of payments from Russian sources over the years quite large.  More recent subsidies, such as the $20 million given through the NRA, swell the totals.  Then there are the payments into the inaugural fund– totalling $100 million from all sources, only half of which was actually used for the inauguration.

The bottom line is bottomless corruption and treasonous collaboration with the Russians, before and after he was elected.

The way forward begins with intensive investigations by the House Oversight Committee, followed by consideration of an impeachment resolution by the– relevant committees in the House.  To be most effective, we should move slowly and try to time the consideration of an impeachment resolution by the full House shortly before the 2020 elections– perhaps in the spring of 2020.  That is only a year and a half from now.

Now is the time to be resolute.  Offer the president $5.7 billion in extra border security funding but NOT a wall– more agents, better ports, more judges, more detention barracks, everything except a wall.  Repair and reinforcing of existing barriers, but no new barriers.  Drones, manned patrols, balloons, more of everything mobile and service-related, but no new walls.

At the same time, the government must be opened so that investigations can be continued– without funding, the FBI has been hamstrung.  So accepting his wall might be a necessary sacrifice to make for the funding to further investigate him.  One comfort is that Mueller has probably done enough investigating already to write, in Rudy Giuliani’s word, a “horrific” report.  Even Barr will be so disgusted he will be forced to release the report.