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More at MailChimp.com. Hi, this is GabFest Extra, day 10 of the 2013 government shutdown. It is Thursday, October 10th. John, David, and Emily, they have their own show. It's a longer show. It's only somewhat shutdowne. I happen to be Mike Pesca. You might know me from the Hang Up and Listen podcast, which is sports themed. Therefore, I'm going to dub this episode for today and today only, The Shutdown Corner. And joining me on the shutdown, in his corner of the shutdown corner is Slate's political reporter and blogger Dave Weigel.

Hello, Dave.

Hey, good to talk to you.

Did you notice in that press conference, which we'll talk about where John Boehner announced that he'd like to deal every Republican male wore a dark blue suit?

They always dress like that, though.

This is actually a problem I've encountered in covering this, and a lot of people have encountered that I think I'm writing about it today is that the great majority of Republicans really look alike. I mean, it's not even it's not even some kind of John Stewart joke. They really look like the same person. And it's tough to identify who the key players are and everyone has a different number of how many are holdouts because they look, you know, we're kind of familiar with the leaders now, but no one can tell apart Kevin Yoder and Tom Graves.

That's why every day I just bless. God bless Virginia Fox.

Here, there's a lot of movement today, as I mentioned on the government standout. Here are some bullet points. Speaker John Boehner and the House Republicans are offering a six-week increase in the nation's debt ceiling

in exchange for negotiations with Democrats in the White House on longer-term budget issue.

The proposal does not include ending the government shutdown. It should be noted.

What does the White House say? They say they're, quote, happy that there's movement towards avoiding a government default, but that President

Obama would, of course, enjoy a longer extension of the nation's debt limit. President Obama and the

GOP leaders are scheduled to meet at the White House, where the proposal will probably be.

Topic A. The New York Times wrote about the normally GOP friendly business community,

how frustrated they are with the Tea Party caucus so frustrated that they're threatening to fund

primary challenges to some of the leaders of the shutdown movement. And China, the largest single

holder of U.S. government securities is openly expressing concern about the prospect

of an American default. China holds more than $1.2 trillion in U.S. debt. I should note that some

experienced U.S. traders like Bill Gross, who heads Pimco, was just happy that bonds were a little

bit cheaper. And he estimated, I think it was on Bloomberg television, he said there's probably a 250,000 to one type of bet that there would be a technical default on a treasury bill.

So maybe China and Pimpco don't see eye to eye.

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