Obama lashes Republicans as government reopens

Source: AP-Excite

By DAVID ESPO

WASHINGTON (AP) - In withering day-after criticism, President Barack Obama declared Thursday that the 16-day partial government shutdown was a Republican-provoked spectacle that "encouraged our enemies" around the world.

Elsewhere in Washington, and around the country, federal employees simply streamed back to their jobs. National parks reopened. The popular panda cam at the National Zoo came back online.

But there was no letup in the political fight.

Fresh from a defeat, tea party groups and their allies renewed fundraising efforts with a promise of future assaults on Obama's health care overhaul - and a threat of more election primaries against Republican incumbents who don't stand with them.

FULL story at link.


Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20131017/DA9G7DOG1.html

---

National Park Service employees remove barricades from the grounds of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2013. Barriers went down at National Park Service sites and thousands of furloughed federal workers began returning to work throughout the country Thursday after 16 days off the job because of the partial government shutdown.(AP Photo/Susan Walsh)