It’s like some sort of bad news reel rewind, isn’t it? I mean… it never ends. The Republicans are getting ready to shut down the government again. I know this, because I have it directly from the lips of the GOP Speaker of the House, John Boehner. Okay, Mr. Speaker. Which one of these whacko birds is going to shut us down this time? Ted Cruz? Rand Paul? Mike Lee?

“We’re headed for another shutdown.”

Those words from Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) today confirm what Democrats have been planning behind closed doors for weeks: they are getting ready to shut down the federal government.

I knew it! He’s one of the worst of the Republicans. That Harry Reid has always been… wait. What was that?

According to The Washington Post, Democrats’ plans for a shutdown begin with a “filibuster summer”:

“Charles E. Schumer says Senate Democrats aren’t afraid to be obstructionists, detailing a strategy of blocking appropriations bills and other Republican agenda items until they get what they want.”

I’ve been dealing with Chuck Schumer for a long time here in New York. I had no idea he was a Republican! But this is still all so confusing to those of us in the hoi polloi. Where are these rumors coming from?

“The White House-backed plan to get Republicans to support more spending for domestic programs … was developed in a series of closed-door meetings held over the course of several weeks. … To maintain their leverage, Democrats have decided to block all spending bills starting with the defense appropriations measure headed to the floor next week.”

Let’s get serious for a moment. Is there anyone reading this who thinks that MSNBC and most of CNN won’t find a way to say that the GOP is “shutting down the government” if this happens? I just wanted to put a stake in the ground in advance here, because I can assure you that it’s going to play out exactly that way. The only question is how they plan on spinning it this time.

But given how it played out in the immediate aftermath of the midterms, the media won’t have any trouble with it. If both chambers set up a critical funding bill such as defense appropriations and Harry Reid manages to demand some huge spending increases on pain of it not going through, the news networks will report it as the Republicans refusing to consider reasonable modifications. And then, when the spending isn’t authorized, the GOP will have once again shut the government down.

Anyone want to take some bets on this?