POISON PILL PASSES, SHUTDOWN LOOMS Senate Kills... 12 House Republicans Abandon Ship... 'Rebellion' Fails... Boehner Personally Lobbied Potential Dissenters... GOP Congressman Blasts Colleagues: 'Lemmings With Suicide Vests'... BOEHNER SET TO FOLD?... Obama: 'You Don't Get To Extract A Ransom For Doing Your Job'... 2 HOURS TIL SHUTDOWN... 'About Every Other Lawmaker I Talked To Smelled Like Booze'

WASHINGTON -- The House and Senate played ping-pong with funding for the federal government Monday night, hours before cash for much of Uncle Sam's operations was due to run out.

The GOP-led House passed its third measure that would keep government open after midnight, but only if Senate Democrats and the president agree to hamstring Obamacare.

The Senate promptly took up the bill and voted to table it, 54 to 46. The action also stripped out anti-Obamacare provisions that Democrats and President Barack Obama found objectionable.

Before doing so, House Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) declared the House was insane for repeatedly targeting Obamacare in a government funding bill, when there's no chance Democrats would help them gut Obama's signature health care law.

"Albert Einstein said when defining insanity as follows, quote, 'Doing the same thing over and over again and thinking you're going to get a different result,'" Reid said. "Einstein was a genius, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the proof is watching the House Republicans, because they've lost their minds." read more...