Food banks warn they will not be able to meet demand if food stamp cuts take effect

  On the heels of the thirty-two-day government shutdown, a proposed administrative rule change to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps) once again threatens food access for people who rely on the program for basic needs — this time for an estimated 755,000 people.

  For households that qualify for SNAP, February, the shortest month of the year, was a long one. During the government shutdown, 40 million Americans who participate in the program experienced as many as 60 days between the issuance of their February and March SNAP benefits. The shortages in household budgets meant that food banks across the country were inundated.

Sally Steenland: Women Senators prove collaboration is better than conflict

  Women came to the rescue in Washington last week. A group of female senators crossed party lines and forged a plan to end the government shutdown and raise the debt ceiling. These women spoke the word "compromise" not as an epithet, but as a means of governing. They rolled up their sleeves and found common-ground solutions in order to put Americans back to work and save the global economy.

  In so doing, the 16 Democratic and 4 Republican women in the Senate blasted a hole in the stereotype of women as decorative accessories who chat and men as action heroes who get things done. As Time magazine put it: "Women Are the Only Adults Left in Washington."

Eric Alterman: Heads, the Tea Party wins; tails, the Tea Party wins

  Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum recently suggested that Americans would be less apt to hold Republicans responsible for the government shutdown than they did in 1995 because of the help Republicans could expect to receive from Fox News. She was wrong about this; indeed, she and Fox News host Brit Hume were typically wrong about almost everything. For instance, MacCallum said that:

        Fox News Channel was just beginning. People are very—it’s a different world in terms of what people understand about what’s going on. In those days, it was much easier to pin the problems in this on the Republicans … I’m not sure that they’re going to punish the Republicans to the extent that they did last time around.

Cameron Smith: The ride that shifted a shutdown perspective

  As the federal government begins to emerge from a partial shutdown, satisfaction with America’s political leadership is at a historic low. According to a recent Gallup Poll, 81 percent of Americans are dissatisfied with the way the nation is being governed. With anger, frustration and discord boiling over in Washington, many Americans are pessimistic about the future of our nation.

  Frankly, I was feeling a little cynical myself.

Michael Josephson: How are we going to get out of this mess?

  I am finding myself out of patience. I have listened to mostly sincere (to the point of self-righteous) politicians and partisan pundits excoriate the people they disagree with. They evade uncomfortable questions and explain why they are taking positions that may be based on principle but have become little more than tactical maneuvering. The focus is on who should get the blame rather than on how to fix the problem.

  I watch and listen with hard-to-suppress disgust and hard-to-avoid frustration and fear that I am witnessing the devolution of democracy. I truly worry that the men and women who govern our country are creating new norms that will permanently damage what was once the indisputably greatest democracy in the world.

Sam Fulwood III: Hard-Right Americans fear the future

  I have a self-identified progressive friend who takes a perverse and masochistic interest in watching Fox News and frequently listening to Rush Limbaugh. He is quick to tell anyone that he doesn’t believe a syllable of what he hears from the right-wing media.

  "You have to know what the enemy is thinking," he says, when asked why he tortures himself. "How else can I understand what they’re doing and how they’re telling people to act if I don’t snoop on their media?"

  My friend has it twisted. It’s not the right-wing media that’s leading conservative voters astray; it’s quite the opposite. For proof, take a look at the efforts of Democracy Corps, a Democratic-leaning public opinion and strategic consulting firm that is "mapping the Republican brain" in an effort to understand why our national politics is mired in seemingly intractable gridlock.

Michael Linden and Harry Stein: The Senate continuing resolution is already a compromise

  The Senate-passed measure to keep the government operating represents an enormous compromise by progressives to avoid a damaging government shutdown. The Democrat-controlled Senate agreed to temporary funding levels that are far closer to the Republican-controlled House budget plan than they are to the Senate’s own budget for fiscal year 2014. Moreover, this concession is only the latest of many such compromises over the past several years.

Scott Lilly: House Republicans still haven’t learned lessons from their 1995 government shutdown

  House Republicans have been contemplating their next move in the fiscal showdown this week as they huddle during their annual retreat in Williamsburg, Virginia. There is a real sense of Armageddon in the air. President Obama took them on directly with respect to the central issue on their agenda, preserving low tax rates for high income individuals, and won—not by a little but by a lot.