Did the White Stripes Help Prevent a Government Shutdown?


House Republicans, Senate Democrats, and the White House reached a budget agreement on Friday night, just 90 minutes before a deadline that would have shut down the government. Obama's concessions to the GOP's policy agenda helped prevent a shutdown that would have furloughed millions of government workers, sure. But was it also, in fact, the White Stripes that inspired Republicans not to fight harder than they were already fighting? Probably not, no, but things got so desperate on the floor that Representative Donna Edwards, a Maryland Democrat, was "straight-up poetry-slamming," according to the Huffington Post. As caught on tape, mere hours before a deal was reached, Edwards read the lyrics to the White Stripes song "Effect and Cause," in an attempt to convince Republican legislators to avoid a shutdown. She was successful.

[via Yglesias/Think Progress]