Obama and Boehner had a phonecall. They didn't come to any agreement, but Boehner's stepped back from his "you must negotiate, and then once you negotiate, we won't give an inch" to "hey man, everything's on the table, just please come to it."
For once, Obama isn't, and he's right to not. He's got all the cards. America will (rightly) blame the Republicans for the shutdown and a debt default, if that happens too. The public already blames them for the shutdown and by all accounts this stunt is already going to cost the Republicans the House. The Obama has the Democrats united behind him, and even red-state squishes are laughing at the GOP. Boehner is regularly upstaged by the loudest Tea Party hack of the moment, has a pile of moderate Republicans undercutting his arguments, and has his own confidantes saying he's bluffing in national media.
So of course Boehner's buckling. It sounds like he's not even insisting on an Obamacare delay anymore, he just wants out of this with some way to pretend he saved face. Keep waiting, Obama - his demands will keep declining the longer you wait, the Republican Party will continue its civil war at your feet and soon enough the GOP will be broken by its own hand.
The media is on the Democratic side, and despite cries about the "liberal media" from the right, this isn't often the case. The facts at hand favor the Democrats - this was a Republican shutdown advanced for Republican partisan reasons, and the national media has to report the facts.
In between news pieces about how bad the Republicans fucked the country, Democrats will be airing ads tying Republicans in all House and Senate races to Ted Cruz. This will force Republicans to either denounce Cruz and lose the support of the Tea Party (unlikely, because they'd be primaried out of a job next time around) or embrace Cruz and lose the general election when independents vote for the guy who doesn't embrace the idiot that caused the shutdown.
This shit is so bad that even Utah is turning against the Republicans. Utah is in a decades-long struggle with Nebraska, Texas and South Dakota for the title "Most Republican State In America." Their Senator, Mike Lee, was a co-architect of the shutdown strategy with Ted Cruz, so this is pretty big news. If this is bringing down the GOP in Utah, it might even bring the GOP down here.
Speaking of Republicans in Nebraska, apparently Lee Terry, the dipshit that insisted on keeping his paycheck during the shutdown because he has a "nice house," got embarrassed by all the negative press coverage and then apologized for the remark the day after and forewent his paycheck until government employees also get paid. Craven greed and flipflops are nothing new for the GOP, but this gets worse - Terry's campaign manager then emailed the blog that broke the story to demand they print a retraction. There was no retraction to print, as the blog was and is factually correct, and furthermore this reveals the sheer arrogance of Terry and his team. I really really hope that this bastard gets chucked out on his ass in his next election, but I'm not holding my breath. But... if Utah's throwing out the GOP, maybe we can too.
Anyway, that's it. We're in the middle of our national dark night, but there's some light on the horizon.
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