It's useful to simply state the cause of the impasse -- Obama's openness to a deal, versus the GOP's insistent intransigence -- in order to highlight the dementia of a certain breed of "middle-of-the-road" pundits who have badly lost the thread of what's been going on in these debates.
The farther right the Republicans went, the father left Democrats were forced to go to counter the threat, leading to a state of perpetual impasse and culminating in the shutdown of the federal government.
When the leaders of the shared government left for their Christmas break in a state of angry impasse, both sides warned that the shared government, which took office more than two and a half years ago, could collapse early in the new year.
In "Getting Unstuck," business psychologist and researcher Timothy Butler offers strategies for moving beyond a career or personal-life impasse--by recognizing the state of impasse, awakening your imagination, recognizing patterns of meaning in your life, and taking action for change.
The city's schools chancellor, Dennis M. Walcott, informed the state's education commissioner, John B. King Jr., of the impasse in an e-mail on Friday, less than an hour after two deputy chancellors walked out of a meeting at the headquarters of the United Federation of Teachers in Lower Manhattan.
The country faces dual sets of challenges: fiscal and financial imbalances along with an ailing banking sector, and a state of political impasse that prevents responsible political governance.
As a result of the impasse, the state controller, John Chiang, has yet to issue roughly $4.2 billion in checks to school districts, community colleges, local governments and many vendors doing business with the state.
EU diplomats have admitted privately that the Russian intervention has in effect frozen efforts by the UN envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura, as well as complicating plans to create a "contact group" of key states to find a way out of the impasse.
Nevertheless, former governors of the two states have lamented the impasse and called it an embarrassment to the region and the port agency, which in its 79-year history had developed a reputation for efficiency and rising above politics and provincialism.
Many workers are already experiencing furloughs because of the impasse.
