memeorandum: Fitch Puts U.S. On Credit Downgrade Watch (Maggie McGrath/Forbes)

10:50 AM ET, October 16, 2013

Top Items:

It's time to wrap up this comedy of political errors. — The Beltway budget melodrama rolls on to its predictable and dreary end, with both sides now split over increasingly small differences. None of this is worth a partial government shutdown, much less the risk of a debt default, and both sides are looking like losers.

Discussion: ABC News, Bloomberg, Talking Points Memo, ThinkProgress, NPR, Roll Call, Questions and Observations and The Hill

Jonathan Strong / National Review:

Stunned Republicans React to Canceled Vote — Referring to his plan to preemptively send the Senate a House-passed bill, Speaker John Boehner told his conference this morning that he'd “rather throw a grenade than catch a grenade.” But with his right-wing troops abandoning him again it was the speaker left holding the bomb.

Discussion: Washington Examiner, News Desk, Washington Post, The American Conservative, Hot Air, Daily Kos, Taegan Goddard's … and Outside the Beltway

Politico:

House to vote first on Senate plan — The House will vote first on an emerging Senate proposal to open government and lift the debt ceiling, a move that would expedite bipartisan legislation developed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Discussion: ThinkProgress, Wonkblog, Business Insider, The Week, Hot Air, The Hinterland Gazette and Reuters

Mario Trujillo / The Hill:

Ayotte urges Cruz to allow quick vote in Senate on debt deal — Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) on Wednesday urged her GOP colleague Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) to allow a Senate budget deal to hit the floor without delay. — Ayotte said delaying a Senate bill with procedural tactics would have little point.

Discussion: CNN and Politico

Josh Barro / Business Insider:

House Republicans Show Themselves To Be Dangerously Incompetent, Again — House Republican leaders canceled plans to call a vote Tuesday evening on a Republican plan to raise the debt limit and reopen the government. They couldn't round up enough Republican votes to pass it.

Discussion: Firedoglake, Washington Monthly, Washington Examiner, The American Conservative, Talking Points Memo, The Week, The Moderate Voice and Daily Kos

Abby D. Phillip / ABC News:

Senate Leaders ‘Very Close’ to Debt, Shutdown Deal … With less than a day remaining before the debt limit is reached, Congress will need to work feverishly today to pass compromise legislation that would extend the debt ceiling and end the government shutdown.

Discussion: CNN, NBCNews, Hot Air, Mother Jones, Shakesville and ABC News

Politico:

Markets expect a deal — they better get one — NEW YORK — Wall Street has so far mostly shrugged off the latest Washington political crisis, assuming an 11th hour deal will materialize to raise the debt limit and stave off a potentially ruinous default. — But if the final act …

Discussion: Taegan Goddard's …

TIME:

John Boehner's Bad Night Clears a Path for a Deal — House GOP pulls vote on debt bill, leaving Senate to probe a path forward — In another era, for a different leader, it would have been a stunning rebuke. For John Boehner, it was just another embarrassing stumble in a speakership studded with them.

Discussion: Reuters, The American Conservative, The Fix and Business Insider

Tom Cohen / CNN:
Will they make it? Senate rushing deal before debt ceiling deadline

Discussion: KTLA 5

Tal Kopan / Politico: Carl Bernstein: GOP leadership ‘cancerous’

Kelly Ayotte / CNN:
Republican senator wants Cruz to stay out of the way in debt vote

Discussion: Talking Points Memo

Politico:
Senate leaders finalizing deal

Discussion: American Prospect, Washington Wire, Bloomberg, The Huffington Post, Crooks and Liars, Daniel W. Drezner, NBCNews, Outside the Beltway, NPR, The Moderate Voice, Gawker, Hit & Run, The Raw Story, CNN, New York Times, Mediaite and The Hill

The Lead with Jake Tapper:
Rep. Dent predicts Boehner to bring pending Senate deal to House floor

Discussion: Talking Points Memo and Daily Kos

Erick Erickson / Heritage Action for America:
KEY VOTE: “NO” ON HOUSE SPENDING AND DEBT DEAL

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, The Lead with Jake Tapper, FreedomWorks, Politico and PoliticusUSA

Robert Costa / National Review:
Boehner Searches for Votes

Discussion: The New Republic, CNBC, Hot Air, A plain blog about politics, The Dish, The Plum Line, Daily Kos, Defense One, Taegan Goddard's …, American Spectator and Politico

Washington Post:
Senate leaders race to draft debt-limit bill after House effort collapses

Houston Chronicle:

Why we miss Kay Bailey Hutchison — Things surely would look far different with Sen. Hutchison in office in the nation's capital — Does anyone else miss Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison? — We're not sure how much difference one person could make in the toxic, chaotic, hyperpartisan atmosphere in Washington …

Discussion: ABC News, Politico, The Hill and Mediaite

ThinkProgress:
Houston Chronicle Yanks Ted Cruz Endorsement

Discussion: theGrio

Mark Hosenball / Reuters:

Exclusive: Greenwald exits Guardian for new Omidyar media venture — (Reuters) - Glenn Greenwald, who has made headlines around the world with his reporting on U.S. electronic surveillance programs, is leaving the Guardian newspaper to join a new media venture funded by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar …

Discussion: Guardian, The Verge, Poynter, Towleroad News #gay, Taylor Marsh and Mediaite, more at Mediagazer »

Ben Smith / BuzzFeed:

Exclusive: Glenn Greenwald Will Leave Guardian To Create New News Organization — The reporter who broke the NSA story promises “a momentous new venture.” A “very substantial new media outlet” with serious backing, he says. Updated. — Greenwald in Rio de Janeiro in July. — Sergio Moraes / Reuters

Discussion: Washington Post, Gawker, TechPresident, Business Insider, New York Times, Politico, Hit & Run, BBC, The Verge, Talking Points Memo, The Hill, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, naked capitalism, Mediaite and The Raw Story, more at Mediagazer »

Ryan Lizza / News Desk:

Why Congressional Staffers Hate the Vitter Amendment — Tonight, the House of Representatives will likely vote on the so-called Vitter Amendment, a bill that will be attached to a debt-ceiling increase and a continuing resolution to re-open the government. The Vitter Amendment …

Discussion: ThinkProgress, Slate and The Fact Checker

Jonathan Allen / Politico:
Obama vows veto over Vitter measure

Discussion: BizPac Review, PoliticusUSA and ThinkProgress

Ajc Blogs: &lsquo:

Hearsay from Hillary Clinton: On Joe Biden and the Osama bin Laden raid — Former U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton was in town today. A few Secret Squirrels, and some not so secret, agreed to be our sources, given that her speech to the National Association of Convenience Stores was encapsulated by a cone of silence.

Discussion: Politico, Outside the Beltway, Right Turn, Taylor Marsh and Weasel Zippers

James Taranto / Wall Street Journal:

As Good as It Gets? — ObamaCare supporters go through the stages of grief. — In a much-discussed post titled “Five Thoughts on the ObamaCare Disaster,” the Washington Post's Ezra Klein manages to cycle through the first three of Elisabeth Kübler Ross's five stages of grief: — • Denial.

Discussion: Infowars, CNN and The Reaction

Rick Newman / Yahoo Finance:

Washington Bickering Has Killed Nearly 1 Million Jobs — It's just a “partial” government shutdown. Threats of a U.S. government default are overblown. The federal government is too involved in the economy, anyway. — These are some of the excuses used to justify repeated standoffs in Washington over federal spending.

Discussion: Liberaland and democrats.com

Juliet Eilperin / Post Politics:

Analysis: Obamacare glitches scare off many Web site users — The number of visitors to the federal government's HealthCare.gov Web site plummeted 88 percent between Oct. 1 and Oct. 13, according to a new analysis of America's online use, while less than half of 1 percent …

Discussion: Hot Air, Weasel Zippers and Washington Free Beacon

Matt Pace / Compete Pulse:
A Bleak First Week: 99.6% of Healthcare.gov Visitors Did NOT Enroll in Obamacare

Discussion: Kantar, Weasel Zippers, Mediaite, National Review, The Daily Caller and Twitchy

John Schwartz / New York Times:

Judge in Landmark Case Disavows Support for Voter ID — It is the kind of thought that rarely passes the lips of a member of the federal judiciary: I was wrong. — But there was Richard A. Posner, one of the most distinguished judges in the land and a member of the United States Court …

Discussion: BillMoyers.com

Lacey Donohue / Gawker:

Joe Lhota Doesn't Want To Be Lumped In With National Republicans — The majority of Tuesday night's mayoral debate between Bill de Blasio and Joe Lhota was spent covering the usual topics: charter schools, taxes, small businesses, well-paying jobs, the income gap, and stop and frisk policies.

Discussion: The Hinterland Gazette

Carl Campanile / New York Post:

Obama adviser ‘architect’ of showdown: author — President Obama's top adviser Valerie Jarrett was behind a plan to force a showdown with Republicans over ObamaCare as part of a strategy to regain Democratic control of the House next year, claims author Ed Klein.

Discussion: Weasel Zippers and “The Lid”

First Read / firstread.nbcnews.com:

First Thoughts: The end appears near — The end in this shutdown/debt-ceiling fight appears near (and we mean it this time)... Predicting the fallout... Can Boehner continue to lead?... The GOP's lost year... What's dysfunctional isn't Washington — it's the House... And it's Booker vs. Lonegan in New Jersey.