Boehner Says He 'Has Something Up His Sleeve'

Politico reports that John Boehner has been confiding to people that he "has something up his sleeve" to solve the impasse over the shutdown and the debt ceiling, but it's not at all clear what that might be. In fact, the rest of the story is about how "many House Republicans" are starting to worry that no such solution exists and that the party has boxed itself into a losing fight. Bloomberg similarly reports, in a story headlined "Frustrated Republicans Pressure Boehner," that more than a dozen House Republicans have joined with Democrats to meet together and with the House speaker to figure something out.

“There’s a group of us ... that are just spit-balling some ideas” to “help leadership bring an end to this,” says Republican Michael Grimm of New York. Meanwhile, John McCain blasted the whole premise of the shutdown from the Senate floor yesterday, reports Mediaite. “Somehow, to think that we are going to repeal ObamaCare, which would have required 67 Republican votes, of course, was a false premise, and I think did the American people a great disservice by convincing them that somehow we could,” he said. Reacting to news that the shutdown was crimping military benefits, he said, “Shouldn’t we be embarrassed about this? Shouldn’t we be ashamed?” (More John McCain stories.)