A quick thank-you to Speaker Pelosi

I appreciate so much that Nancy Pelosi stayed strong and never wavered during the Trump shutdown.

I say that as a person who, as the shutdown got longer and longer, felt my own resolve weakening. The empathetic me did not want to see civil servants and contractors suffer, and I found myself thinking, "Gosh, this thing has got to end. People are suffering."

But I also knew that giving in would lead Trump to use the shutdown every time he didn't get his way. Not giving in was the wise response.

You don't give in to extortion. You don't negotiate with a terrorist.