1. From The Onion: Point-Counterpoint: John Boehner: “The Republican Party Cannot Stand By And Let Obamacare Destroy This Country” versus John Boehner: “Help Me”
2. A majority of Congress would vote right now to end the shutdown. But Boehner, as of Wednesday, still refuses to bring a “clean” continuing resolution to vote in the House. (Original Fallows story here.)
3. Fallows: The Idiocy of the Shutdown, in 3 Acts.
4. Rick Perry’s Orwellian rhetoric.
5. “John Boehner has flatly stated that Republicans won’t allow default because: ‘I’m not going to risk the full faith and credit of the federal government.’ And yet, Boehner is asking for a comical list of concessions in exchange for doing what he himself says must happen.” (Source.)
6. “[T]he idea that conservatism can never fail, it can only be failed, extends beyond ideology to its tactical extension, eternal and maximal opposition to Barack Obama and everything he wants to do. Fighting Obama is a strategy that can never fail. If failure happens, it can only be because we didn’t fight him hard enough.” (Story here.)
7. House Republicans have refused to negotiate until there’s a crisis.
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