memeorandum: Meet Butch Matthews, A Republican Who Came To Love Obamacare After Realizing It Will Save Him $13,000 (Sy Mukherjee/ThinkProgress)

10:50 PM ET, October 2, 2013

Top Items:

Boehner to GOP: Grand Bargain in the Works — House Republicans tell me Speaker John Boehner wants to craft a “grand bargain” on fiscal issues as part of the debt-limit deliberations, and during a series of meetings on Wednesday, he urged colleagues to stick with him. — The revelation came quietly.

Discussion: Balloon Juice

Politico:

Is grand bargain the only way out? — Many pragmatic House Republicans have come to a simple conclusion: Navigating their way out of this fiscal mess won't be easy. — They think their best chance to fund the government, raise the debt ceiling and extract any concession from President Barack Obama is to strike a big budget deal.

Discussion: Hot Air and Hullabaloo

David M. Drucker / Washington Examiner:

GOP stands firm against funding bill, will link to debt ceiling fight — OBAMACARE DEBT CEILING PENNAVE BUDGETS AND DEFICITS GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN — House Republicans are unlikely to blink in the standoff over Obamacare that precipitated a government shutdown, fearing that acceding …

Discussion: Taegan Goddard's … and msnbc.com

Sheldon Alberts / The Hill:

No sign of government shutdown ending after White House meeting — President Obama and congressional leaders met for the first time Wednesday in a bid to find common ground on ending the government shutdown, a standstill both parties acknowledge could last weeks.

Discussion: Politico and Pat Dollard

Justin Sink / The Hill:
Bank CEOs huddle with Obama

Discussion: Politico and Washington Monthly

Martin Wolf / Financial Times:
America flirts with self-destruction

Discussion: Salon, Politico, Crooks and Liars and Wall Street Journal

Washington Free Beacon:

Reid: ‘Why Would We Want To’ Help One Kid With Cancer? — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) asked why Senate Democrats would want to fund the National Institutes of Health to “help one child who has cancer” Wednesday when asked that question by CNN reporter Dana Bash.

Discussion: NewsBusters, Washington Times, BuzzFeed, Mediaite, The Federalist, Hot Air, ThinkProgress, The Lonely Conservative, Weekly Standard, National Review and Weasel Zippers

Pete Kasperowicz / The Hill:
House passes bills to fund DC, parks and medical research

Discussion: Patterico's Pontifications

Alexander Bolton / The Hill:
Reid offers to talk tax reform if GOP ends shutdown (Video)

Discussion: Washington Examiner, Politico, Hot Air, CNN and WND

Manu Raju / Politico:
Ted Cruz blasted by angry GOP colleagues

Discussion: The Raw Story

Telegraph:
US government shutdown: Barack Obama looks like a bitter, petty and partisan president

Discussion: ThinkProgress, CANNONFIRE, Wall Street Journal, Questions and Observations, Washington Post, VodkaPundit and Post Politics

Zachary A. Goldfarb / Washington Post:
Focus shifts to looming debt-ceiling deadline as shutdown talks at White House go nowhere

Discussion: Mediaite, The Fix, Voices and New York Times

Sy Mukherjee / ThinkProgress:

Meet Butch Matthews, A Republican Who Came To Love Obamacare After Realizing It Will Save Him $13,000 — 61-year-old Butch Matthews, left, with his wife Debbie — Butch Matthews is a 61-year-old former small business owner from Little Rock, Arkansas who used to wake up every morning at 4 …

Discussion: Arizona Republic, The Plum Line and Booman Tribune

Michael Hiltzik / Los Angeles Times:

The truth is, Americans love Obamacare — Among the many delusions guiding the Republican campaign against the Affordable Care Act, surely the most consistent is the idea that the public detests the law and is clamoring for repeal. — Here's the truth: The American public loves Obamacare …

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, Business Insider, Shakesville and Guardian

Andrew Johnson / National Review:
Zero Enroll in New LA Plan on Obamacare's First Day

Discussion: Weasel Zippers

Paul Waldman / American Prospect:
What Happens to Conservatism When the Obamacare War Is Over?

Discussion: Washington Monthly

Rebecca Catalanello / New Orleans Times-Picayune:
Obamacare website glitches leave Blue Cross of Louisiana without new enrollees after first day

Discussion: Pat Dollard, Wonkblog, Hot Air, National Review, Washington Post and Twitchy

Patrick Poole / The PJ Tatler:

EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: McDonald's Employee Admits Being Paid $15 to Protest WW2 Veterans (UPDATED) — Yesterday I reported from the National World War Two Memorial on several members of Congress crashing the barricades set up by the National Park Service that were keeping out several hundred Honor Flight veterans …

Discussion: Power Line and The Gateway Pundit

Paul Bedard / Washington Examiner:
Shutdown overreach: More guards at WWII memorial than Benghazi; Park Service closes park it doesn't run

Discussion: Power Line, Twitchy, Weasel Zippers, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, ThinkProgress, The PJ Tatler, Michelle Malkin, BuzzFeed, Weekly Standard, The Right Scoop and The Lonely Conservative

Jillian Rogers / GOP.com:
RNC Will Pay To Keep WWII Memorial Open

Discussion: TheBlaze.com, Washington Times, National Review and The PJ Tatler

Fox News:
New wave of WWII veterans move barricades to access DC memorial

Discussion: Shot in the Dark, Viking Pundit and Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion

Lachlan Markay / Washington Free Beacon:
Shutdown Theater — The National Park Service has ordered …

Discussion: Washington Post, Rush Limbaugh, Hot Air, The Week, Hit & Run, The Right Scoop, Weasel Zippers, Twitchy, TheBlaze.com and The Gateway Pundit

Ezra Klein / Wonkblog:

Grover Norquist on Ted Cruz: ‘He pushed House Republicans into traffic and wandered away’ — Grover Norquist is the president of Americans for Tax Reform and the creator of the anti-tax pledge that nearly every Republican in Congress has signed. We spoke on Tuesday about the government shutdown and its consequences for his agenda.

Discussion: Trail Blazers Blog, Talking Points Memo and The Raw Story

Jonathan Chait / New York Magazine:

Why the Shutdown Is Leading to Debt Default; or, What Happens When You Take Hostages Without a Plan — The federal government shutdown, while important, is a dry run for the potentially cataclysmic debt-ceiling standoff. What does it portend? Evidence can be found for both alarm and complacency …

Discussion: Taegan Goddard's … and Balloon Juice

Robert Costa / National Review:
Holding Firm — The same question keeps popping up …

John Harwood / CNBC:

Obama to Wall Street: This time be worried — Obama to Wall Street: You should be concerned this time — In an exclusive interview with CNBC's John Harwood, President Obama says Wall Street should be concerned about the ongoing impasse between him and House Republicans over funding the government and the debt limit.

Discussion: NPR, Outside the Beltway, Daily Kos, Taegan Goddard's …, The Huffington Post and The PJ Tatler

Matthew Yglesias / Slate:

Juan Linz's Bad News for America — The Yale political scientist died this week. His life's work tells us that American democracy is doomed. — Juan Linz, the distinguished Yale political scientist, died on Tuesday morning in New Haven, Conn., at the age of 86.

Discussion: The Mahablog and Lawyers, Guns & Money

Dylan Matthews / Wonkblog:
The shutdown is the Constitution's fault

Discussion: Washington Monthly, National Review and protein wisdom

Jason Noble / Des Moines Register:

BREAKING: Iowa Sen. Kent Sorenson resigns after report finds he received money from Bachmann campaign — By Jason Noble and Jennifer Jacobs — Kent Sorenson, the Iowa state senator embattled over accusations that he inappropriately received pay from at least one presidential campaign …

Discussion: Politico and Talking Points Memo

Jay Z / Vanity Fair:

Exclusive: Mia Farrow and Eight of Her Children Speak Out on Their Lives, Frank Sinatra, and the Scandals They've Endured — See a slide show of Mia's children and quotes from Orth's piece. — Twenty years after Vanity Fair special correspondent Maureen Orth reported on the sexual-abuse …

Discussion: FishbowlDC, Mediaite, ABC News, DCist, The Daily Caller, Gawker, Guardian and Althouse

Thomas Frank / Salon:

Reaching for the pillars: The conservative plan is sabotage — Direct assaults on government fail because people want a secure retirement and education. So the right fights dirty — Conservative crusaders have often taken up the question of what to do about government.

Brendan Sasso / The Hill:

Cruz warns shutdown could lead to terrorist attacks — Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) warned on Wednesday that the government shutdown could leave the United States vulnerable to terrorist attacks. — “If, God forbid, we see an attack on the United States because the intelligence community …

Discussion: Alan Colmes' Liberaland

Charles P. Pierce / Esquire:

THIS IS WHAT THEY WANT — Let's just spitball a bit here. Right now, even if their campaign of public vandalism ended at this very moment, the Republicans would still have three-quarters of a loaf because the status quo ante would be a federal budget at (or beneath) the spending levels mandated by The Sequester.

Discussion: New York Times, susiemadrak.com and ThinkProgress