As federal agencies prepared for the government to go dark on Wednesday, both parties ramped up their blame game blitz and are already using it as midterm messaging fodder.

The big picture: But with Republicans holding the keys to the White House and Congress, they're using government websites — channels typically not used for partisan debates — to air their grievances.

Driving the news: Visitors to the Department of Housing and Urban Development's page were met with a pop-up Tuesday that read, "The Radical Left are going to shut down the government and inflict massive pain on the American people unless they get their $1.5 trillion wish list of demands." • On Wednesday, post-shutdown, it read: "The Radical Left in Congress shut down the government."

The White House website, as of Wedn

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