This week is turning CSPAN-2 into must-see TV.

In honor of today's binge-watching culture, we had a 21-hour Ted Cruz marathon on the Senate floor the other day, with a side of Green Eggs and Ham. And Thursday afternoon, in honor of the proliferation of debate shows, Cruz battled Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker in a rare Republican-on-Republican sparring match.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and many Republicans -- including Corker -- wanted to vote Thursday night on a short-term spending plan, so the House could get it sooner. But Cruz had already told everyone to tune in on Friday to see which Republicans side with him in the defund-Obamacare filibuster (which actually would block a bill to defund Obamacare, for the sake of thwarting Reid).

Apparently lunchtime beats primetime for CSPAN viewers.

Corker accused Cruz of doing all this for show and Cruz shot back that Corker and his allies are too weak-kneed to kill the law. You can watch the faceoff here.

It sets up more debating fun today ahead of an expected series of votes at 12:30 p.m. The drama is not in the outcome: We expect a big margin in favor of ending debate on the House "continuing resolution" -- including Georgia's Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss -- with Cruz and the right wing voting "no." Then Reid will swap in a "clean" continuing resolution that funds Obamacare, with 50-something all-Democratic votes.

This does not please House Republicans, who are scrambling to figure out what to do in response, with four days to go until a shutdown.

The divide between Georgia's more conservative House GOP and its senators escalated Thursday as U.S. Reps. Paul Broun, Jack Kingston and Lynn Westmoreland took a public swipe at Chambliss and Isakson by signing onto a letter to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

The 21 House Republicans on the letter aligned themselves with Cruz, writing "any cloture vote that gives Senator Reid a green light to reinstate Obamacare into this CR is the same as a vote for Obamacare itself."

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Our obituary for Evelyn Lowery, wife of Joseph, by Michelle E. Shaw and Ernie Suggs is worth reading in full. A taste:

Joseph Lowery was leading a march of nearly 2,000 in support of Tommy Lee Hines, a mentally disabled black man who was accused of raping a white woman and convicted in October 1978 by an all-white jury. Sensing the threat of danger, Lowery had his wife ride behind the marchers in the couple’s pale green 1977 Buick.

“The Klan had threatened violence,” Evelyn Lowery said in a 1985 interview with The Atlanta Journal Constitution. “I usually walk beside my husband, but he said I better not this time. So I drove the car.”

The car and the marchers were met by a mob of Klansmen. Several shots were fired. She barely escaped; two shots hit the Buick.

One bullet left a hole in the window frame on the driver’s side. The other shattered the windshield and lodged in the dashboard.

“I could hear them yelling ‘Kill ‘em all!’ ” she said. “It lasted probably about 10 minutes, but it seemed like an eternity.”

The Buick still sits in the Lowerys’ Atlanta garage as a reminder.

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Ed Lindsey's Buckhead House district is becoming a hotbed of competition. 

Bob Gibeling, a former Republican and now openly gay Democrat, is jumping in the race. He joins Republicans Angelic Moore, John McCloskey and Loretta Lepore. Lindsey is running for an open House seat. 

The Georgia Voice gives us some context on the significance of Gibeling's run.

While three out lesbians have been elected to the state legislature — Karla Drenner (D-Avondale Estates), Simone Bell (D-Atlanta) and Keisha Waites (D-Atlanta), an openly gay man has never been elected to serve under the Gold Dome.

Former state Rep. Rashad Taylor came out while in office amidst a scandal but lost last year in a re-election bid to Democrat Pat Gardner. Last year two other gay men sought a seat in the Georgia legislature — Tim Riley and Tim Swiney — but both were unsuccessful.

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The Obama administration has come up with $300 million to aid bankrupt Detroit. It isn't a bailout, because it will be a brisk day in Hades before Congress approves one. More from the New York Times:

So with the chances that Congress would pass any legislation for Detroit “somewhere between zero and zero,” as an administration official put it, Mr. Obama has fallen back on what he can do through executive actions, with available money and tax credits, or through partnerships with local businesses and foundations.

The effort is similar to the way he has worked around Congress to create advanced manufacturing centers nationwide with federal and local support, provide broadband in every classroom, speed up infrastructure projects and try to reduce gun violence.

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Fox News host Bill O'Reilly has a new book out about Jesus, in which he posits that Christ was an anti-tax crusader.

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The AJC's Politifact Georgia today takes a look at the following statement from U.S. Rep. Tom Graves, a Republican from Ranger: "Warren Buffett says stop Obamacare now and start over."