The President is Strong,Strong,Strong

++So says Harry Reid after the hour and a half meeting between the congressional leaders and President Obama. Harry Reid said he had never been so proud of the President. John Boehner said that the President refused to negotiate. 

++What Boehner meant was that President Obama told him Obamacare has already left the station and it's not going to be de-railed. 

++The President said he would not negotiate over the debt ceiling and asked Boehner to bring a clean bill to the House floor where reporters note it now has enough votes to pass.

++Meanwhile House Republicans are trying to pin the blame for the shutdown on the Democrats by passing bills piecemeal to take away the most public faces of the shutdown. For instance, the National Institute of Health has a program for cancer patients when all alternatives have failed. News that they had to turn away 200 patients today stimulated the GOP to pass a short-term bill allowing it to open. The RNC said it would pay the national parks to keep the WWII monument open because of the bad publicity of the Heroes Tour of WWII vets showing up in Washington to find the memorial closed. 

++Calgary Cruz said the shutdown has made the United States vulnerable to terrorist attacks. I suppose it wasn't an ironic statement given the terrorism of the House.

++Rand Paul couldn't resist ,saying that President Obama ordered more guards on the WWII memorial than he did at Benghazi.

++Darryl Issa said he would convene an investigation into why public memorials have been closed because of the shutdown. Remember it was only about a month ago that both the Lincoln and Washington memorials were defaced with graffiti. You can imagine the outrage if these monuments were left open.

++Norm Ornstein writes in the Washington Post that the Democrats can play harder ball. Accept the NIH bill amended to include an increase in funding and add the research grants which the House neglected and send it back to the House. If need be, the Senate could amend one of the House bills by adding a clean CR on it for a vote.  In short, the Democrats have to make sure the onus is on the Republicans.