CBC's Washington correspondent explains the shutdown to Canadians (and he nails it)

[JBoy]

From Neil MacDonald (the older, more serious brother of comedian Norm MacDonald, btw). His explanation of gerrymandering as a major cause of the problem is some solid journalism:

The small group of Tea Partiers effectively running the Republican Party at the moment love to piously invoke the will of the American people. "Let's just do what we all know needs to be done and quite frankly what the American people want to see done," proclaimed Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio last week, as he helped push the U.S. government into shutdown.

"People will be very grateful," said Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, smiling her glassy smile at the prospect of forcing Washington into insolvency later this month, when the debt-ceiling deadline hits.

....

Cruz also compared his less extreme Republican colleagues, who don't want to shut down or bankrupt the government, to politicians who tried to appease Hitler and the Nazis. And if in Cruz's imagination his less-ideological fellow Republicans are Neville Chamberlain, you can imagine who plays Hitler.

That sort of shrieking rhetoric is hardly new here. But this whole GOP voice-of-the-people shtick is more than a bit rich, given the Republicans' electoral reality.

Full story: http://www.cbc.ca/news/the-perverse-math-behind-the-republican-budget-showdown-neil-macdonald-1.1873758