There is a difference between negotiation and extortion.
Negotiation involves two sides debating their respective points in an effort to come to a reasonable agreement wherein each gets something and gives something.
Extortion is trying “to get (something, such as money) from a person by the use of force or threats.”
The current government shutdown is not about negotiation. It is about extortion. Republicans have chosen to use the budget process to change a law they don’t like by use of a threat they have now carried out, and will continue to carry out in the hope that the damage done will become so bad the President will cave in.
Their extortion cannot possibly have a good end unless they grow up overnight into the adults they are supposed to be. The reason is simple. They are asking for something they cannot get. Any honest person knows President Obama cannot and will not undo the healthcare law.
Given this impossible situation Republicans have created, you have to wonder what their motivation is. Here is what I believe. This is not about their hatred of Obamacare. No, it’s about their hatred of President Obama, a hatred so out of control that they are willing to sacrifice the nation’s well being to make their point.
Since we are talking about healthcare, I would say that is about as sick as you can get. Would that there was a grown-up doctor in the House.
linnposts.com 
The first title may have been a Freudian slip, but I have corrected it!
Written in true Montini style!!!!
As usual, you got it right!!!
t is good to know based on the comments of both BLOGS re this mess that we all see through the Republican fog. From Virginia in Virginia to Nigel across the Atlantic it is obvious that the insanity of what is going on is unmistakably clear. Would that the Republicans would shoot themselves in the foot without injuring the rest of us, but, alas, that is not what is happening. Yet, I say, “Hold firm, Mr. President. Hold firm.”