US Federal Government Shutdown

[Lemur]

Re the shutdown, the most important thing to understand is that this is less an inter-party conflict than an intra-party conflict. Anything you read that doesn't make that distinction is, by definition, moronic.

Pretty good explanation here.

Or as a popular article yesterday put it:

Those who keep talking as if there are two sides to this, when there are not, are as much a part of the vandalism as Ted Cruz. Obama has played punctiliously by the constitutional rules – two elections, one court case – while the GOP has decided that the rules are for dummies and suckers, and throws over the board game as soon as it looks as if it is going to lose by the rules as they have always applied.