Ted Cruz blasted by angry GOP colleagues  —  Ted Cruz faced a barrage of hostile questions Wednesday from angry GOP senators, who lashed the Texas tea party freshman for helping prompt a government shutdown crisis without a strategy to end it.  —  At a closed-door lunch meeting …

Poll: Americans not happy about shutdown; more blame GOP  —  PLAY CBS NEWS VIDEO  —  On day three of the partial government shutdown, a new CBS News poll reveals that a large majority of Americans disapprove of the shutdown and more are blaming Republicans than President Obama and the Democrats for it.

Live mic catches Senators McConnell and Paul talking strategy  —  WASHINGTON, D.C. - WPSD Local 6 got an inside glimpse Wednesday night to how much the government shutdown is about the messaging for congressional lawmakers.  —  After finishing an interview with CNN, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul ran …

Millions of Poor Are Left Uncovered by Health Law  —  A sweeping national effort to extend health coverage to millions of Americans will leave out two-thirds of the poor blacks and single mothers and more than half of the low-wage workers who do not have insurance, the very kinds of people …

California exchange overstated its Web traffic for Obamacare launch  —  Peter Lee, executive director of Covered California, discusses the launch of the state's insurance exchange Tuesday in Los Angeles.  (Reed Saxon/AP / October 2, 2013)  —  California's health insurance exchange vastly overstated …

George Will: For GOP in 2016, some medicine  —  “If Reince Priebus from Kenosha, Wisconsin, is the Republican ‘establishment,’ God help us,” says the chairman of the Republican National Committee, Reince Priebus.  His physical presence is almost as unprepossessing as James Madison's was, and his demeanor is self-deprecating.

'You're exposed': Scantily-clad models prowl the streets of Denver selling Obamacare [pics]  —  Nothing like nearly-naked people to remind you that pretty soon the government will force you to have health insurance — whether you like it or not.  —  From the Denver Post: … Move over, SlutWalk.

Denny Hastert Disses the ‘Hastert Rule’: It ‘Never Really Existed’  —  The former Republican speaker's ‘rule,’ that you can't bring legislation to the House floor without a majority of GOP votes, is cited as the reason Boehner can't end the shutdown.  But Hastert tells Eleanor Clift it's a ‘non-entity’ …

Montana lieutenant governor announces Senate bid  —  Montana Lieutenant Gov. John Walsh (D) will run for the Senate, he announced Thursday morning, giving Democrats a viable recruit in the GOP-leaning state.  —  Walsh, a former adjudant general in the Montana National Guard who served in Iraq …

Extremists, Not “Nihilists”  —  The rapidly spreading progressive CW about what House Republicans are doing is that they are “nihilists” who have blundered into an impasse and have no clue how to get out.  Jonathan Chait vividly compares them to characters in the Cohn Brothers' tragi-comedy Fargo:

Power says she's regretted calling Hillary a monster ‘every day since’  —  U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power says she's regretted calling Hillary Clinton a “monster” during the 2008 presidential campaign “pretty much every day since.”  —  “It was beyond searing,” Power said Thursday on NBC's The Today Show.