Shutdown averted

The Courier-Journal addresses the House Republicans who tried to use Homeland Security as a hostage against President Obama's executive orders:

The holdouts were House Republicans who persisted in voting against the Homeland Security measure, despite a growing backlash among their own people. That included a Wall Street Journal editorial this week that called them “cliff marchers,” determined to march over the cliff to failure.

Among the marchers was Kentucky’s U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, of Northern Kentucky, who gave a floor speech demanding his colleagues hold President Obama accountable for his “unconscionable and illegal acts.”

As a final act of defiance, he insisted on a full reading of the bill to fund Homeland Security but capitulated and withdrew his request after a clerk spent about 20 minutes reading the document to an increasingly restive audience, according to a report on National Public Radio.