memeorandum: What the White House fears most about the debt limit fight (Greg Sargent/The Plum Line)

9:50 AM ET, October 4, 2013

Top Items:

Bad blood: Four feuding leaders — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid privately told fellow Democratic senators this week what he really thought of Speaker John Boehner. — “He's a coward,” Reid angrily said, referring to Boehner's private push for federal health care contributions for lawmakers and their staff.

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, NPR and NBCNews

Jonathan Martin / New York Times:

G.O.P. Elders See Liabilities in Shutdown — WASHINGTON — The hard-line stance of Republican House members on the government shutdown is generating increasing anger among senior Republican officials, who say the small bloc of conservatives is undermining the party and helping President Obama …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Taegan Goddard's …, Balloon Juice, Washington Post and First Read

Wall Street Journal:

White House's Hard Line on Shutdown, Debt Ceiling Has Risks Attached — President Barack Obama is sticking to his stance that he won't negotiate with Republicans over the government shutdown or the higher-stakes fight over the federal debt ceiling. — The question, for Republicans …

Discussion: Weekly Standard, Taegan Goddard's …, The Right Scoop and The Daily Caller

Greg Sargent / The Plum Line:

What the White House fears most about the debt limit fight — Right now, the primary fear among senior Obama administration officials is that John Boehner and the GOP leadership don't grasp just how damaging Obama believes it would be to the remainder of his tenure — and the office …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Fix the Debt, PoliticusUSA and Washington Monthly

Brian Beutler / Salon:

Republicans finally confronting reality: They're trapped! — Obama's ironclad resolve not to negotiate over the debt limit appears to finally be sinking in among GOP leaders — After struggling for weeks and weeks in stages one through four, Republicans are finally entering the final stage …

Discussion: The Mahablog, Hullabaloo, NPR and The Reaction

Ezra Klein / Wonkblog:

How the White House sees the shutdown (and debt ceiling!) fight — To the White House, the shutdown/debt ceiling fight is quite simple, and quite radical: Republicans are trying to create a new, deeply undemocratic pathway through which a minority party that lost the last election can enact …

Discussion: Hullabaloo and Washington Monthly

Aamer Madhani / USA Today: Obama hammers Boehner on shutdown, debt ceiling

Jonathan Weisman / New York Times:
Rattled Congress Seeks Way Out of Its Standoff

Discussion: Prairie Weather and CNN

Wall Street Journal:
GOP Begins Search for Broad Deal on Budget

Discussion: The Plum Line and NBCNews

nbcwashington.com:
Obama to Boehner: “Take a Vote. End This Shutdown Right Now”

Discussion: The Gateway Pundit and The PJ Tatler

New York Times:
Boehner Pledges to Avoid Default, Republicans Say

Washington Post:
GOP lawmakers: Boehner tells colleagues he will avoid a default on federal debt

Discussion: NPR, Wonkblog, American Prospect, Post Politics and Daily Kos

Charles Babington / Associated Press:
Politically Safe Lawmakers See No Shutdown Urgency

Discussion: Associated Press, CNN, Politico and Reuters

Washington Post:

Police suspect dental hygienist Miriam Carey was behind the wheel of Capitol chase — She had a toddler with her, confounding everyone who watched the car crash through barriers and lead police through the heart of high-security Washington. — Law enforcement officials said the black Infiniti …

Discussion: Runnin' Scared, theGrio, Gawker, NBCNews, Los Angeles Times, BBC and NewsBusters

Larry Celona / New York Post:

DC attacker a dental hygienist, shot dead after chase — Alex Leary tweeted, “Something happening outside Capitol. Police running around with guns at ready.” — @learyreports via Twitter — @MarcSchloss tweeted: “No joke on Capitol Hill as Cops are running with machine guns as reports of shots being fired at Capitol.”

Discussion: Weasel Zippers, Hot Air, The Moderate Voice and The Hinterland Gazette

NY Daily News:

U.S. Capitol shooting: Brooklyn neighbor says Connecticut woman shot dead outside Capitol ‘seemed like a nice young lady, stable’ — Relatives of Miriam Carey converged in Bushwick to try to make sense of the events that unfolded in Washington, where the 34-year-old dental hygienist …

Discussion: Althouse, theGrio and The Gateway Pundit

Washington Post:

In shooting near Capitol, government workers rush into danger — THE ORDER went out to Capitol Hill personnel Thursday afternoon in capital letters: SHELTER IN PLACE. It was a terrifying moment for a community already on edge. The scare ended with less carnage than we have come to fear in such moments …

Discussion: The Gateway Pundit, Daily Kos, Right Wing News and The Fix

NBCNews:
Woman in DC chase may have thought Obama was stalking her, sources say

Discussion: NBC Politics and VodkaPundit

ABC News:
Miriam Carey, Capitol Suspect, Suffered Post-Partum Depression

Discussion: NPR

Peter Hermann / Washington Post:
Driver killed after car chase from White House to Capitol

Discussion: The Hill, WJLA-TV, The PJ Tatler, The Democratic Daily, NBCNews, Talking Points Memo, Alan Colmes' Liberaland and Fox News

Michael S. Schmidt / New York Times:
Car Chase, White House to Capitol, Has Fatal End

Discussion: The Lede, Towleroad News #gay, Ridgewood-Glen Rock Patch News and Althouse

ABC News:
Attempt to Ram White House Gate Ends With Female Suspect Dead

Discussion: ABC News, Daily Kos, Washington Post, NBCNews, Gawker, Politico, The Raw Story, The Other McCain, The Lonely Conservative, Scared Monkeys, Connecting.the.Dots, ThinkProgress, Talking Points Memo and The Hill

Adobe Blogs:

Important Customer Security Announcement — Cyber attacks are one of the unfortunate realities of doing business today. Given the profile and widespread use of many of our products, Adobe has attracted increasing attention from cyber attackers. Very recently, Adobe's security team …

Discussion: Nextgov, Guardian, BBC, Mashable, New York Times, The Verge, TechCrunch, The Daily Caller and The Raw Story

Sarah Kliff / Wonkblog:

Meet Chad Henderson, the Obamacare enrollee tons of reporters are calling — Ask and, apparently, you shall receive. — Just moments after writing a blog post Thursday morning, about the lack of information on Obamacare enrollees, Enroll America reached out with contact information for Chad Henderson …

Discussion: Cato Institute, The Huffington Post, Wall Street Journal, Weasel Zippers, Michelle Malkin, Mediaite, ThinkProgress, Hit & Run, Hot Air and NewsBusters

Noah Rothman / Mediaite:
Chad Henderson Signed Up for Obamacare and Every... Single... Media Outlet Is on It!

Discussion: Twitchy, Hot Air, Weasel Zippers and The PJ Tatler

Timothy Egan / Opinionator:

Wrong Side of History — Sarah Palin finally got her death panels — a direct blow from the Republican House. In shutting down the government, leaving 800,000 people without a paycheck and draining the economy of $300 million a day, the Party of Madness also took away last-chance cancer trials …

Discussion: Balloon Juice

Ezra Klein / Wonkblog:

Why we won't mint the coin, why we can't just pay off bonds, and other scary debt-ceiling facts — Mark A. Patterson is senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. He was chief of staff at the Treasury Department from 2009 until May 2013 where he was deeply involved in the 2011 debt-ceiling negotiations.

Maggie Haberman / Politico:

Cory Booker's lackluster campaign — Cory Booker is all but certain to win the New Jersey special election for U.S. Senate. — But as polls show Republican rival Steve Lonegan tightening the race, Booker is getting an uncomfortable reminder that he will have to campaign hard to defend …

Wayne Slater / Dallas Morning News:

Now that she's running, Davis will have to talk about abortion — AUSTIN — Wendy Davis talked a lot Thursday about the issues she wants to emphasize in her race for governor: public education (she's for it) and hyper-partisanship and political cronyism in Austin (she's against it).

Discussion: The Fix, msnbc.com and NBCNews

USA Today:

Jack Lew: U.S. failure to pay bills hurts everyone — If Congress does not raise the debt limit soon, seniors, veterans, kids, among others, are at risk. — CONNECT — It might be hard to believe, but there is a dangerous debate underway in Congress right now over whether the United States …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo