House G.O.P. Discusses Short-Term Fix on Debt Limit  —  WASHINGTON — House Republicans, looking for a way out of a budget standoff they began, will offer to President Obama at a White House meeting Thursday a plan to increase the debt limit through Nov. 22, in exchange for a promise to negotiate …

NBC/WSJ poll: Shutdown debate damages GOP  —  The Republican Party has been badly damaged in the ongoing government shutdown and debt limit standoff, with a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finding that a majority of Americans blame the GOP for the shutdown, and with the party's popularity declining to its lowest level.

Obama Should Just Give in to the Republicans  —  President Obama should give in.  Yes, this mess is all the Republicans' fault.  Yes, it's outrageous that they can hold the government hostage in order to reargue a law that's been voted on, signed, enacted, and upheld by the Supreme Court.

The House GOP's Little Rule Change That Guaranteed A Shutdown  —  Late on the night of Sept. 30, with the federal government just hours away from shutting down, House Republicans quietly made a small change to the House rules that blocked a potential avenue for ending the shutdown.

Blackfeet Elder Says Rick Reilly Misquoted Him; Wants ‘Redskins’ Banned  —  There are a few things I'm passionate about in life, and one is to share the true history of how our people have overcome the trauma of 150 years of attempts to erase the Blackfeet people.

Cory Booker's father, 76, dies  —  Newark Mayor Cory Booker's father died Thursday morning after battling to recover from a recent stroke.  His death comes just days before the New Jersey Democrat faces voters in the state's Oct. 16 special Senate election.

Scarborough: A NYT Editor Told Me Krugman's Column Is ‘Their Biggest Nightmare’ (VIDEO)  —  MSNBC host Joe Scarborough said Thursday that a public editor at the New York Times considers liberal columnist Paul Krugman's work to be an ongoing “nightmare.”  —  During a segment on “Morning Joe …

John McCain regrets ‘wacko birds’ comment, worries about GOP infighting  —  SENATE REPUBLICAN PARTY TEA PARTY PENNAVE JOHN MCCAIN SEQUESTER  —  Sen. John McCain said Thursday that he's worried about the Republican Party's future and the infighting that is dividing it, calling efforts …

PolitiFact to launch PunditFact, checking pundits and media figures  —  PolitiFact, the Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking website of the Tampa Bay Times, will soon launch PunditFact, a site dedicated to checking claims by pundits, columnists, bloggers and the hosts and guests of talk shows.

What the Virginia governor's race tells us about the 2014 midterms  —  Against trend, Democrat Terry McAuliffe is set to win.  After running a ‘strong conservative’, Republicans should take a hint  —  I'm hesitant to read too much into elections that don't occur during the midterms or presidential election years.

EXCLUSIVE: Just 51,000 people completed Obamacare applications during the website's first week, out of tens of millions of Americans in 36 states  — Obamacare's main signup engine attracted just 6,200 new customers on its launch day and 51,000 after the first week

Obama Just Made a Terrible Mistake on Egypt  —  In a certain sense, the Obama administration's decision to withhold much of the $1.3 billion in annual aid given to Egypt isn't surprising.  U.S. law mandates cutting off aid to countries in which a coup has taken place, and the Egyptian military's ouster …