I read an article called "GOP's Ben Carson: "Obamacare is the worst thing in our nation since slavery" from AMERICAblog, written Monday October 21, 2013. It was a very witty and comical opinion blog post written by John Aravosis about Fox News' Ben Carson. Carson is a right sided religious man who recently stated at a Voters Conference that he believes Obamacare is the worst thing to happen to our nation since slavery. Aravosis agreed to disagree, writing "Now, we could spend this entire article just listing the other events in American history that perhaps were even more outrageous than attempting to provide cheap and effective healthcare to millions of Americans: 
The Civil War comes to mind.
As does Japanese internment.
And World War I.
And the Great Depression.
And World War II, which included the discovery of the Holocaust.
That whole Cold War thing was a bit of a buzzkill.
As was segregation and Vietnam.
And I don’t know about Ben Carson and the GOP – let’s face it, this is a party that can’t even decide on the relative evil of slavery – but 9/11 wasn’t exactly a happy-dance either." 
I really enjoyed this post because while the author is being funny, he's being super critical and mean at the same time. The article goes on to explain what an idiot Ben Carson is. He has compared gay marriage to bestiality and pedophilia, and also made a complete joke about the civil rights of women. 
Aravosis then starts to write about the Republicans in general being failures. Mainly for being the reason for the government shutdown, which could send us Americans into another depression. With the new debt ceiling offer that the House Republicans made last night, it is clear that we are pretty much screwed. "Russ Douthat in the NYT calls the current GOP strategy a “murder-suicide” pact.  The end-game of House Republicans seems to be an overwhelming desire to kill both the hostages and themselves".
Aravosis cleverly ends the article by explaining that along with everything else the republicans have messed up, they will most likely ruin the Christmas shopping season which is hugely important for the national economy; and then says "Merry Christmas!" 
The author, John Aravosis, is very credible. In fact, he's the founder of AMERIAblog. His intended audience is democrats, as he is an American Democratic political consultant, writer, gay activist, and blogger. I thoroughly enjoyed this blog post, and will be reading AMERICAblog more often!

I read an article called "The House GOP has nothing to show for its government shutdown" from The Washington Post written October 7, 2013. Rather than an 'opinion' article, I would call it more of a brutal criticism. I did enjoy reading it though, because the author was bashing on the House Republicans for shutting down the government; writing that within a week, the House GOP has managed to ruin quite a few different components of our lives. I found the article pretty entertaining and comical. Although the authors write the article to relate to most citizens, I don't think a republican would enjoy reading it too much, so the intended audience is mainly for democrats, or those who disagree with what the House Republicans have been doing. 

The author's claim is that within just a week, the House has "Damage[d] the livelihood  of millions of Americans. . . Waste[d] millions of taxpayer dollars. . . Interfere[d] with key government operations. . . Rattle[d] the markets, slow[ed] an economy in recovery, [and] interrupt[ed] potentially lifesaving research at the National Institutes of Health". They've done about all but what they've tried hardest to do, which is defund/delay Obamacare. In fact, they've taken the heat off of the few glitches that have occurred with Obamacare by being the hit for negative news attention. It's pretty hilarious, really. But sad, very sad. 

The last sentence of this article really got me thinking: "But throwing a lifeline is pointless until the victim realizes he may be drowning. It’s not clear the Republicans have reached that point. The danger is they will take the country down with them." Its a scary thought with a powerful message behind it. We can only hope that The Republican House will get their shit together soon, before we really feel the effects.