Dawn of a Revolution in Health Care from the Editorial Board of the New York Times
"The United States is embarking on a truly historic journey toward near-universal health care coverage this week. Starting Tuesday, the federal government will make it possible for millions of uninsured Americans who can’t get health insurance, or can’t afford it, to obtain coverage with the aid of government subsidies. It is a striking example of what government can do to help people in trouble."
GOP Wants Obama To Negotiate With Himself (Stan Collender) from Capital Gains and Games
"One of the biggest differences between the current shutdown situation and the ones that occurred in 1995 and 1996 is that Bill Clinton could negotiate with Newt Gingrich knowing that the deal they agreed to would be accepted by their respective political parties. That's absolutely not the case today. House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) clearly does not speak for the House GOP caucus. Indeed, Boehner has been slapped down by his caucus so often and so hard in recent days that it's more likely almost anything he would agree to will be rejected out of hand than it will be taken seriously. There's no one after Boehner."
As I have noted here before, one party with no leader is actually not a party anymore. It's at least two parties. You listen to the countless stories like this one and what's the common denominator? Boehner and the GOP leadership in the House (increasingly) are viewed by the grassroots of their own party as the "enemy." The Democrats have received remarkably little attention in what is shaping up as a major knife fight between mainline conservatives and the hard right -- and, as of now anyway, you'd have to give the "edge" to the hard right. By almost any measure, Ted Cruz's profile has been enhanced among the grassroots while, here again by most measures, Boehner's has seen his decline even further.
No Following this Leader (David Ignatius) from the Washington Post
"Boehner’s collapse as speaker has been sad to watch. Unable to control his own caucus, negotiate effectively with the president or pass legislation, he flounders in office — a likable man who is utterly ineffective. He is the prisoner of the extreme wing of his party, and of his supposed lieutenants, such as Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who spend their time pandering to the extremists rather than helping Boehner lead."
House Republicans Really Believe Democrats Will Cave On Obamacare To Avoid A Government Shutdown from the Huffington Post
"The GOP rank-and-file still believe that the Senate might accept and the White House might sign a one-year delay of Obamacare in exchange for two months of sequester-level spending to briefly stave off a government shutdown."
Ted Cruz Republicans Listen Only to Themselves (Ezra Klein) from Bloomberg News Service
"Washington Republicans, in other words, aren’t listening to the public and they’re not listening to their own leaders. So who are they listening to? One another, mostly...."
Here Comes the Shutdown: Three Reasons It Will Hurt the GOP (David Frum) from the Daily Beast
"Uh oh! A House plan to delay Obamacare has put the government on the brink of a shutdown—for real this time. David Frum on why the infighting is sure to backfire on the Republicans. ... the party is charging forward anyway. Why? The short answer is a breakdown in the party's ability to govern itself. It can't think strategically. Even when pressed to do something overwhelmingly likely to end in disaster, as this shutdown looks likely to do for Republicans, the party has no way to stop itself."
Will a Government Shutdown Chill Congressional Republicans Out? No (Molly Ball) from the Atlantic
"Optimistic commentators think closure could keep the country from breaching the debt ceiling. But there's no reason a few stubborn House members can't provoke both."
The House GOP’s ‘Touch-the-Stove’ Moment from Politico
"For the House GOP leadership, this has become known as the “touch-the-stove moment.” After nearly three years of narrowly avoiding government shutdowns, debt defaults and other fiscal follies, House Republicans appear poised to finally grasp the hot stove-top and allow federal government operations to begin shutting down early Tuesday morning."
5 Ways the 'Defund ObamaCare' Crusade Hurts Republicans (Matt K. Lewis) from The Week
"If anything good happens down the road, they will argue this laid the groundwork for that by "starting the conversation" with the American public about how bad ObamaCare is. I'm not buying it. Here are five reasons why conservatives are worse off for having fought this battle."
House Republican Hostage Takers Are Unfit to Govern (Jon Favreau) from the Daily Beast
"They’re threatening an economic shutdown that will cause financial hardship and even ruin for millions of Americans. So let’s call these House Republicans what they are, says Jon Favreau."
Absurdistan, D.C.: How Republicans are Threatening to Turn Washington into a Failed State from Foreign Policy Magazine
"As if the public was going to take more seriously a stage setting that looked like the warped mirrors in a sideshow fun house."
Republicans Aren’t Hostage-Takers, They’re Political Terrorists (Michael Tomasky) from the Daily Beast
"Today’s Republicans will never release the hostage—instead they’re intent on taking down Obama, and they don’t care if they go down with him, says Michael Tomasky as we head toward a shutdown."
FOUNDING FATHERS MNUGGET!!
Thomas Jefferson’s Quran: How Islam Shaped the Founders (R.B. Bernstein) from the Daily Beast
"What role did Islam have in shaping the Founders' views on religion? A new book argues that to understand the debate over church and state, we need to look to their views on Muslims, writes R.B. Bernstein."
WORLD WAR II NUGGET!!
Granddaughter of ‘Schindler’s List’ balcony sniper Amon Goeth publishes memoir from the Agence France-Presse
"Teege is the child of a Nigerian student and the German daughter of Amon Goeth, the commandant of the Plaszow concentration camp outside Krakow in today’s Poland who featured in Steven Spielberg’s 1993 Holocaust drama “Schindler’s List”."
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