Day 12 of ULTAMITE ANARCHY 4EVA

The effects of the government shutdown are starting to pinch. The courts are running out of money to pay their judges, and this means that civil lawsuits are going to start not being a thing. "Right to a speedy trial" is about to become "right to a speedy trial so long as one part of one party isn't engaged in their anal spelunking hobby at the moment."

And the national parks shutdown is starting to hurt. This may not be obvious to non-Westerners, but tourism is a big chunk of the economy out here. As much as we crack jokes about Easterners coming out here and playing tourist, it's kinda necessary to prop up the local economy. And the biggest thing they come see? National parks. As a result, some states (Utah, South Dakota) have begun funding the operations of national parks within their borders out of their own budgets. This is only a stopgap fix at best, though - the states simply don't have the money to do this in the long term if they can't collect revenues for it on their own. But it has helped restore the otherwise flatlining economies of southern Utah and the Black Hills.

As far as the politics of it all... the shutdown is really starting to hurt the GOP. The party has turned its back on Ted Cruz and is rallying behind Paul Ryan, their Vice Presidential nominee in 2012, to save them from their own miscalculation. Ryan's trying to turn the conversation away from Obamacare, where they're soundly losing, to spending and taxes, where they have a mild advantage in the polls against the Democrats (even though their ideas regarding that are pretty dumb, just look at the sequester they dreamed up and then disavowed when it sucked). But, all the same, he's hoping the bait-and-switch might just let them get out of this.

I like what the unnamed aide said at the end. The best way this ends for them is surrender. And if they're very lucky, it'll be a conditional surrender.