President Donald Trump, in a rambling series of Saturday tweets from the White House, promised to resolve a 22-day government shutdown that's now the longest in U.S. history _ without offering a single detail.
"There's almost nobody in the W.H. but me and I do have a plan on the Shutdown," Trump tweeted on another day of no progress as 800,000 federal workers continued to work without compensation.
"But to understand that plan you would have to understand the fact that I won the election, and I promised safety and security for the American people," he continued. "Part of that promise was a Wall at the Southern Border. Elections have consequences!"
There were consequences in other areas as the closing lurched into its fourth week.
Native Americans were feeling the pinch as disappearing funds hampered their access to health care and other government services.
Some National Park facilities remained closed. The Smithsonian museums and the National Zoo in the nation's capital were shuttered.
And a brown pelican named Bert was stranded in Rhode Island. The wayward bird _ who would typically be relocated to warmer climes _ is stuck in New England because local environmentalists can't get the federal permits to move him across state lines.
Trump _ who did blame Democrats for the shutdown under his watch _ said nothing about a possible emergency declaration to end the impasse without any congressional involvement. He also showed no inclination for a compromise agreement on the wall that has become even bigger in its absence than Trump could have imagined.
Lawmakers from both parties return to Washington in the next week. Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi criticized Trump's continuing rhetoric as a smokescreen to obscure the ongoing investigation by special prosecutor Robert Mueller.
"This is a big diversion, and he's a master of diversion," she told reporters.
Pelosi repeated her position that the Democrats would spend not one penny on Trump's "ineffective, wasteful wall."
