This program is made possible by the members and donors to the show for details that

is at the membership tab at BestOfLeft.com.

Now welcome to the award-winning BestOfLeft podcast with clips today from Slate Magazine,

the majority report, the David Pakman Show, Citizen Radio, the Jimmy Doris Show,

and the Rachel Maddo Show with a bonus video clip for our Apple iOS and Android app users from the Young Turks.

So the federal government almost shut down last week, and we're a Republican just using

Planned Parenthood as a bargaining chip to get Democrats to accept deeper budget cuts.

Or is there something else going on here, and Hannah, can you explain the situation

and tell us a little bit more about the wrangling that went on on Thursday and Friday?

Yes, I fear we're going to be a little bit of group think on this issue,

because there's really only one way to see it.

In fact, yes, the Republicans were using funding on Planned Parenthood to hold up the budget deal.

Within this, I'm going to describe there are a couple of heroes in this situation, Republicans who said,

look, wait, we really care about the budget, that's what we ran on this year,

and that has to be our priority, so we can't hold this up because of Planned Parenthood.

It's not necessarily surprising, it's not the first time that Republicans have tried to slip in

some sort of anti-abortion provision into a budget showdown.

The reason that it got so much attention this year was twofold.

One is because they made such a big priority of tax cuts that it's sort of surprising

that you would just kind of slip in the same culture where issues which you know

are going to derail and take the focus off actual budget cutting.

So number one, that's a little bit surprising and annoying.

...