The Shutdown: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell plans to take a vote today at noon to see whether he can end the government shutdown. As of last night, there didn’t seem to be an agreement that would allow that to happen.

On the Senate floor yesterday McConnell blamed the Democrats while Chuck Schumer blamed the Republicans and the President for the government shutdown. Blah, blah, blah. No one outside of Washington cares who’s to blame.

Some negotiations were underway. About 20 senators from both parties met throughout the weekend trying to reach an agreement that would pass their party leaders. The plan they’ve been discussing would keep the government open through early February if Senate leaders promise to deal with immigration reform in the weeks ahead.

The pivotal issue is a resolution to protect the so-called Dreamers, the young immigrants brought illegally to the US as children.  Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine said, “We want to see a commitment to take up immigration, with a belief that we’ll get to a good result for Dreamers.”

President Trump, who has not made a public appearance during the shutdown, appears to be pretty sore about the whole thing, judging by his Twitter tirades. He had to miss golf and a big fundraising party at Mar-a-Lago to celebrate his first year in office. The White House released a picture of the President “hard at work.” He’s on the phone sitting at his empty desk.

Cotton-Headed: At first, Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton said he didn’t recall what President Trump said in the infamous “shithole” meeting at the White House. Then Cotton claimed he didn’t hear President Trump use that word. Yesterday on NBC  he said Trump did not use the word, which would make liars out of Senators Lindsey Graham and Dick Durbin, who both confirmed Trump said it. Cotton capped it off saying, “I never denied there wasn’t strong language in the room,” which is a long distance from not remembering.

Clearing the Mud: Searchers over the weekend found the body of 28-year-old Faviola Calderon, who was missing since a monster mudslide hit Montecito, Calif., nearly two weeks ago. At least 21 people died in the mudslides, including Calderon’s son, niece, and sister-in-law.

Two people are still missing.

The mud also cut off the 101 Freeway through Montecito and Santa Barbara. It was re-opened yesterday.

Bowl Bound: You can’t write off Tom Brady. Trailing the Jacksonville Jaguars by 10 points in the second half, and minus his prime receiver Rob Gronkowski, the New England Patriots quarterback drove his team to a 24-20 win in the final minutes.

They won the AFC championship for a slot in the Super Bowl. Brady has already won it four times.

Brady played with an injury to his throwing hand that didn’t seem to hinder him. Gronkowski missed the second half with a concussion, but Brady turned to receiver Danny Amendola, who pulled off some miracles.

In Philadelphia, the Minnesota Vikings opened the scoring with a touchdown on their first drive, then the Eagles responded with 38 unanswered points into the 4^th quarter. Eagles 38, Vikings 7.

Super Bowl LII — that’s 52 — is in two weeks in Minneapolis where the Vikings will have to watch the game on their home turf.

The Obit Page: John Coleman, who was the first weatherman on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” has died at age 83 in Las Vegas. Coleman went on to be a founder of The Weather Channel and finished out his career as a local weatherman in San Diego, where he retired in 2014. Despite being in a science-based business focused on weather, he thought manmade climate change was a hoax.

Roboshop: In Seattle today, Amazon opens its first supermarket that has no checkout counters. No one to ask whether you want paper or plastic.

It’s a little Big Brotherish. You have to download the Amazon Go smartphone app. Then the store’s system uses an array of ceiling-mounted cameras and sensors to identify each customer and track what they put in their cart. Purchases are billed to customers’ credit cards when they go through the exit gates.

Nothing could possibly go wrong, go wrong, go wrong, go wrong …..

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