Washington - One useful development has come out of this pointless shutdown: It has revealed how little Republican politicians actually care about many of the principles they claim to champion.
Eliminating "waste, fraud and abuse"? You'd never know this mattered, given their insistence that Democrats agree to spend "only" $5 billion on a wall that is a non-solution to a non-problem.
Valuing "freedom" and "property rights"? Hard to square with proposals to invoke eminent domain to build a border wall and use asset forfeiture money to pay for it (an idea endorsed by the chair of the House Freedom Caucus, no less).