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Forum Post: GOP to America: We Have Shutdown | UPDATES:

Posted 10 years ago on Sept. 30, 2013, 10:19 a.m. EST by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

GOP SHUTDOWN UPDATES:


Senator Bernie Sanders: "Blackmail":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_DSPSFXKxs&feature=youtu.be

The Ransom Note:

AUDIO: http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/gop-america-we-have-your-economy-and-were-n

GOP to America: We Have Your Economy and We're Not Afraid To Kill It By karoli

[When enemies have nothing to lose, they destroy! The GOP demonstrates their love for America ~ REMEMBER THIS MIDTERM 2014]

And so it begins. Republicans will probably not shut down the government, because they're focused on playing chicken (again!) with the debt ceiling, and it appears they are somewhat more unified in their resolve on this. They have issued a set of demands they expect President Obama and Democrats to satisfy in order to prevent the global economy from melting down on October 17th, and they know exactly what they're doing, it seems.

MaddowBlog: I mention this, of course, because the North Carolina Republicans' reasoned, sensible approach to extortion politics has apparently disappeared over the last two months.

Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), who dubbed Cruz's threat to shut down the government over Obamacare the "dumbest idea" he'd ever heard, said Congress shouldn't give Obama a debt ceiling increase without attaching strings, and the president "is going to pay some price for it, which is a benefit for the American people."

"I hope [an Obamacare] delay is either part of the next [continuing resolution] or I hope it's part of the debt ceiling," Burr said.

There are a couple of important angles to this. First, if anyone was inclined to give Burr points for being an adult in July, now is the time to kick yourself. What he's describing is a dangerous extortion scheme in which radicalized lawmakers threaten to hurt the country on purpose unless Americans start losing health care benefits.The fact that Burr didn't want to threaten a government shutdown was nice, but the fact that he does want to threaten the full faith and credit of the United States is madness -- the severity of a sovereign debt crisis is vastly more serious than a shutdown.

Shutting down government: Bad. Melting down the global economy: No big deal, because it's the only way to get Obamacare repealed, billionaires' tax rates dropped, and the Keystone XL pipeline built.

It isn't just Burr, either.

Huffington Post:

Asked bluntly if using the limit for leverage risked blowing up the economy, Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Texas) paused for a second and then offered a drawn-out "Yes" that suggested the answer was obvious.

"That's why we're paid the big bucks -- to figure these problems out," Farenthold added.

Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Mo.) argued that although the House GOP conference wants to use the debt limit as leverage, there will not be a default simply because the consequences are so severe. "I think we'll reach an agreement on that. Everybody realizes we can't default on our debt, so we'll be fine," Luetkemeyer told several reporters.

But reminded of the costs of the last showdown, he shrugged and allowed that the outcome was not entirely predictable. "Every situation is different," Luetkemeyer said. "We're going to see what happens this time."

Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) admitted that a default would be harmful, but he argued that even if the debt limit were not raised in time, a default would be President Barack Obama's fault.

"There is a scenario where the president could be irresponsible and force a default," Brooks told reporters. He said the U.S. government, with about $2.5 trillion in annual revenue, could easily pay the $250 billion a year required to satisfy its debt-holders.

"We've got ten times as much money as is necessary to make our payment obligations to our creditors," Brooks said.

These idiots have apparently forgotten the 2,000 point drop in the Dow Jones Industrials in 2011 when it appeared default was imminent, and the downgrade to our credit rating that cost us low, preferred interest rates on some of our bonds.

Oh, and it will all be Obama's fault so they're totally all right with that. Because they really think sane people will look at what they're doing and blame the President?

I can hardly wait for Chuck Todd to show up and start complaining that the White House isn't compromising enough. Oh, wait. Andrea Mitchell did that earlier today with her Republican pal Kay Bailey Hutchison:

http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/gop-america-we-have-your-economy-and-were-n


GOP SHUTDOWN UPDATES:

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111 Comments


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[-] 3 points by nazihunter (215) 10 years ago

As I watch Faux TV, I see how good the pugs are at spin, (lies). They wanna change the law to help the little people and make congress subject to the same healthcare. HAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[-] 0 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

The Health Insurance Marketplace is Open!

[See what the Cons are so afraid you'll like.]

Enroll now in a plan that covers essential benefits, pre-existing conditions, and more.

Plus, see if you qualify for lower costs.

https://www.healthcare.gov/

[-] 1 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

VIDEO: Kimmel Asks Obamacare or The ACA?

Comedian Jimmy Kimmel recently noticed that Americans have very intense opinions on the healthcare insurance issue - even though many of those same Americans actually have no idea that they're the same plan. So his staff asked people which plan they preferred - and the results are amazing.

http://www.randirhodes.com/articles/headlines-393046/video-kimmel-asks-obamacare-or-the-11705532/

[-] -3 points by IrishRevolt (5) 10 years ago

Main Stream America has absolutely concept about what is going on with anything: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/12/mark-dice-repeal-bill-of-rights-petition-prank-video_n_3585634.html

[-] 0 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

Sweet, this reminds me of this real asshat from Tampa who used to troll here, and make asinine false equivalencies like random foolishness and ACA/OC major news ignorance, totally missing the point that the so-called Liberal Media (MSM) are really whores to the 1% and misinform people of the issues of the day. He was soooooo f-ing stupid he would have totally fallen for this. I called him the bus stop Boxer. Funny.

[-] 2 points by MattLHolck (16833) from San Diego, CA 10 years ago

at this point, i would say the real issue is the republicans toppling the the peoples government so only corporations will rule

while affluent health corps are handed the peoples money

[-] 1 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

Breakdown: Here’s The Economic Cost Of Shutting Down The Government

By Annie-Rose Strasser | September 30, 2013 at 7:23 pm

If Congress doesn’t reach a deal by midnight tonight, the government shuts down.

A shutdown isn’t just bad politically, it can also be damaging to the United States’ economy, taking the paychecks of federal employees out of the mix, and disrupting tourism across the country.

Here’s a look at some of the latest numbers on how a shutdown might affect our economy:

1.) A shutdown that lasted between three and four week could cost the economy about $55 billion, by the estimate of Moody’s Analytics economist Brian Kessler.

2.) Washington, DC, would lose $200 million a day on lost wages and lost spending by those who get furloughed. That estimate doesn’t include tourism, and the huge losses DC will feel from the museums and national mall being closed.

3.) The shutdown would “reduce federal spending” by about $8 billion, which could reduce GDP growth by .8 percent annualized, according to a report released Monday by Goldman Sachs.

4.) Moody’s Analytics’ Mark Zandi pegs the amount lost in economic growth in the fourth quarter at as much as 1.4 percent.

5.) One billion dollars a week from the pay of the roughly 800,000 federal employees will be lost from the U.S. economy.

These numbers, of course, don’t count a lot of things: The loans that the Small Business Administration will stop making, the permits that the Environmental Protection Agency won’t issue, the contracts that will be put on hold, and the nutrition assistance for infants and mothers that won’t go out. Or, of course, a tanking stock market that could ruin consumer confidence.

As ThinkProgress’s Alan Pyke previously noted, “Most of the costs of a shutdown are hard to tabulate because they involve damage to consumer, investor, and business confidence coming out of a shutdown, and lost time spent preparing for the worst in the weeks before a shutdown.” But Republicans are already feeling the political costs of forcing a shutdown: Their business allies, who recognize the potential damage a shutdown could do, have broken ranks and urged Republicans to call off the shutdown.

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2013/09/30/2706091/cost-of-shutdown/

[-] 1 points by MattLHolck (16833) from San Diego, CA 10 years ago

A shutdown that lasted between three and four week could cost the economy about $55 billion, by the estimate of Moody’s Analytics economist Brian Kessler.

cost who 55 billion ? the US has 1/2 a billion people

I still ain't bot a job so must reports ion t5he economy don't mean much

where does that money go?

where did it come from?

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[-] 0 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

Where did the Wall Street bail out go and where did it come from?

1% and 99%!!

[-] 1 points by MattLHolck (16833) from San Diego, CA 10 years ago

the government job puts money back into the hands of the people

where it is collected up by property and resource owners

shutting down that money source will stifle the flow of the money

[-] 0 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

48 Ways a Government Shutdown Will Screw You Over

Who is affected when the government doesn't show up for work? Poor people, people with immune systems…basically everyone.

—By Tim Murphy | Mon Sep. 30, 2013 1:36 PM PDT
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/09/who-gets-screwed-shutdown-poor-people-old-people-basically-everyone

[-] 0 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

Rebels Without a Clue

By PAUL KRUGMAN | Published: September 29, 2013

This may be the way the world ends — not with a bang but with a temper tantrum. [ Like the 2010 Voter tantrum! ]

O.K., a temporary government shutdown — which became almost inevitable after Sunday’s House vote to provide government funding only on unacceptable conditions — wouldn’t be the end of the world. But a U.S. government default, which will happen unless Congress raises the debt ceiling soon, might cause financial catastrophe. Unfortunately, many Republicans either don’t understand this or don’t care.

Let’s talk first about the economics.

After the government shutdowns of 1995 and 1996 many observers concluded that such events, while clearly bad, aren’t catastrophes: essential services continue, and the result is a major nuisance but no lasting harm. That’s still partly true, but it’s important to note that the Clinton-era shutdowns took place against the background of a booming economy. Today we have a weak economy, with falling government spending one main cause of that weakness. A shutdown would amount to a further economic hit, which could become a big deal if the shutdown went on for a long time.

Still, a government shutdown looks benign compared with the possibility that Congress might refuse to raise the debt ceiling.

First of all, hitting the ceiling would force a huge, immediate spending cut, almost surely pushing America back into recession. Beyond that, failure to raise the ceiling would mean missed payments on existing U.S. government debt. And that might have terrifying consequences.

Why? Financial markets have long treated U.S. bonds as the ultimate safe asset; the assumption that America will always honor its debts is the bedrock on which the world financial system rests. In particular, Treasury bills — short-term U.S. bonds — are what investors demand when they want absolutely solid collateral against loans. Treasury bills are so essential for this role that in times of severe stress they sometimes pay slightly negative interest rates — that is, they’re treated as being better than cash.

Now suppose it became clear that U.S. bonds weren’t safe, that America couldn’t be counted on to honor its debts after all. Suddenly, the whole system would be disrupted. Maybe, if we were lucky, financial institutions would quickly cobble together alternative arrangements. But it looks quite possible that default would create a huge financial crisis, dwarfing the crisis set off by the failure of Lehman Brothers five years ago.

No sane political system would run this kind of risk. But we don’t have a sane political system; we have a system in which a substantial number of Republicans believe that they can force President Obama to cancel health reform by threatening a government shutdown, a debt default, or both, and in which Republican leaders who know better are afraid to level with the party’s delusional wing. For they are delusional, about both the economics and the politics.

On the economics: Republican radicals generally reject the scientific consensus on climate change; many of them reject the theory of evolution, too. So why expect them to believe expert warnings about the dangers of default? Sure enough, they don’t: the G.O.P. caucus contains a significant number of “default deniers,” who simply dismiss warnings about the dangers of failing to honor our debts.

Meanwhile, on the politics, reasonable people know that Mr. Obama can’t and won’t let himself be blackmailed in this way, and not just because health reform is his key policy legacy. After all, once he starts making concessions to people who threaten to blow up the world economy unless they get what they want, he might as well tear up the Constitution. But Republican radicals — and even some leaders — still insist that Mr. Obama will cave in to their demands.

So how does this end? The votes to fund the government and raise the debt ceiling are there, and always have been: every Democrat in the House would vote for the necessary measures, and so would enough Republicans. The problem is that G.O.P. leaders, fearing the wrath of the radicals, haven’t been willing to allow such votes. What would change their minds?

Ironically, considering who got us into our economic mess, the most plausible answer is that Wall Street will come to the rescue — that the big money will tell Republican leaders that they have to put an end to the nonsense.

But what if even the plutocrats lack the power to rein in the radicals? In that case, Mr. Obama will either let default happen or find some way of defying the blackmailers, trading a financial crisis for a constitutional crisis.

This all sounds crazy, because it is. But the craziness, ultimately, resides not in the situation but in the minds of our politicians and the people who vote for them. Default is not in our stars, but in ourselves.

[-] 0 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

Also at this point, good time to kick petulant 2010 NON-Voter's asses!!

[-] 1 points by MattLHolck (16833) from San Diego, CA 10 years ago

all presidents are from harvard

when did we vote for that

[-] 0 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

Q&A: Everything You Should Know About Government Shutdowns

September 24, 2013

http://crfb.org/sites/default/files/09232013_everything_you_should_know_about_government_shutdowns.pdf

[-] -1 points by shutdown (1) 10 years ago

Dubya was a Yalie

[-] -1 points by shutdown (1) 10 years ago

Matt, it's Oblamer that wants to hand the "affluent health corps" our money! For once, the GOP are being the good guys. Obamme says he won't negotiate and the GOP are on their, what, 4th shot at this? If the employer mandate, as well as out of pocket caps are not ready til next year, why should the INDIVIDUAL mandate proceed on schedule?

[-] 1 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

That's sooo stupid and obviously wrong you can't even believe it, or maybe you've grown accustomed to the taste of bull shit.

ACA passed both houses and the SCOTUS and a national election. Despite GOP dirty tricks and Voter Suppression. It's been LAW for three years.

Cons have obstructed and sabotaged everything our duly elected Dem first black POTUS has done, and conducted 40+ failed attempts to repeal ACA wasting the taxpayers' money and obstructing and sabotaging America's government.

Who needs Al Qaeda when we have the Worst America-Hating Terrorists right here in the 1%-Owned RepubliCon Cult?! Screw the Muslim Taliban, we have the Teabag-Hillbilly-John Birch Society-Koch Bros Taliban right here in the Homeland!! I don't think you traitorous terrorists deserve to be executed or imprisoned, just waterboarded. Continuous waterboarding.

[Removed]

[-] -2 points by herkids (-5) 10 years ago

Willy, you are too f'n funny!

[-] 1 points by MattLHolck (16833) from San Diego, CA 10 years ago

I ain't got no money nor healtrhcare

[-] 1 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

Republicans Aren’t Hostage Takers, They’re Political Terrorists

by Michael Tomasky Sep 30, 2013 5:45 AM EDT

Today’s Republicans will never release the hostage—instead they’re intent on taking down Obama, and they don’t care if they go down with him, says Michael Tomasky as we head toward a shutdown.

Back in the late 1970s, Richard Pryor had a routine where he gave a rundown on the various factions he’d encountered inside prison. There were the black Muslims, he said. They were fairly rough customers. Then there were the Double Muslims. The Double Muslims, he said, “can’t wait to get to Allah, and they wanna take a bunch of muthafukkas with them.”

Pryor obviously wasn’t talking about today’s Republicans, but he was describing them better than they’ve been described anywhere. They know they’re going to bear the brunt of the blame if the government shuts down—at least some of them do, the ones who have the ability to think beyond the boundaries of their districts. And the thing is, they don’t care. As long as they can drag Obama and the Democrats down with them, dropping in the polls is fine by them. And that’s why we’re in this situation. We have here people who are participating in the democratic process, and who respect certain of its rules and practices because they know they must to attain legitimacy in the eyes of the public and the media, but who at the end of the day—and the end of the day means now—operate and act with the mentality of Pryor’s Double Muslims; which is to say, the mentality of terrorists.

It’s naive to call them anything else. What they’re doing here is not hostage taking, the most commonly used metaphor in the media. It’s political terrorism. When hostage takers see that their demands are met, they release the hostage. But what makes anyone think today’s Republicans will ever release the hostage? No—if the Democrats agree to negotiate, the demands will never stop. Every pivot point on the legislative calendar will be an opportunity to make demands without precedent in our system.

And they won’t care how much they sink in the polls, as long as Obama sinks too. And he will. Not as much as they will. In a recent CNBC poll, 59 percent of those surveyed said they opposed defunding Obamacare if such a move was attached to a government shutdown. Sub in delaying, as defunding is evidently off the table now; I don’t know what that number would be, but probably not very different. So they’re going to take a hit nationally. Of course, the majority of them are probably going to see their personal numbers go up within their own districts if there’s a shutdown, because they stood up to the Kenyan, and in their districts, that’s all that matters. But nationally, the GOP brand is going to take a big hit in the event of a shutdown.

And they don’t care. As long as they can drag Obama down with them, they’ll take the hit. This is exactly the mentality of the suicide bomber. I will die, but I’m taking some infidels with me. And to them and to their base, Obama is the biggest infidel of all and Obamacare the greatest impiety. Whatever they can do to traduce him is worth doing.

It's a battle that's been raging for years: John Boehner vs. President Obama in the fiscal face-off.

There’s no surer way to get away with criminality than to accuse your political opponents of exactly the criminality that you are committing. [ Recrimination, GOP MO 101 ]

It doesn’t stop there. The complete psychological profile of this GOP also must reference the totalitarian mind. Here I refer to the common totalitarian tactic of accusing the enemy of doing exactly what the totalitarian himself is doing. Every totalitarian dictator from Stalin on down has employed this tactic regularly. There’s no surer way to get away with criminality than to accuse your political opponents of exactly the criminality that you are committing, to get the people looking the other way.

And so of course John Boehner said over the weekend that the Senate, if it fails to accept the House’s terms, “will be deliberately bringing the nation to the brink of a government shutdown for the sake of raising taxes on seniors’ pacemakers and children’s hearing aids.” And of course whip Kevin McCarthy said, “We will not shut the government down.” And of course Sen. Rand Paul said: “We are the party that’s willing to compromise. They are the party that says, no way, we’re not touching Obamacare.”

You don’t even need to have read Orwell to know these are quasi-totalitarian statements that depend on obfuscation, rely on the gullibility of the listening public. The obfuscators all know very well that most Americans won’t stop to realize that their position is a scandal to begin with. They’re trying to undo a law that was duly passed and then upheld by the Supreme Court, as if that were normal in American politics, as if it should be considered an acceptable tactic on its face. And they know that ... some Americans (I don’t think most, in this case) will stupidly and dismissively assign equal blame to both sides. [ Ahem... samers, unicorns... ]

That’s what we’re dealing with. These people are not small-d democrats. The giveaway is how excessively they claim the language of democracy, how fully they wrap themselves in the flag, the Founders, the Gadsden motto, and the fife and drum. If you know you’re a democrat, you don’t have to go around trying to prove it. Whereas if you know deep down you’re not, that’s exactly when you start invoking the Founders all the time. It’s the same reason child molesters join the priesthood or the Boy Scouts. It’s cover. (Or, in the case of the priesthood, it used to be.)

Boehner can change this dynamic. He can accept a “clean” continuing resolution on Monday and let it pass with mostly Democratic votes. That’s the only way to avert a shutdown. The Democrats won’t budge, and they shouldn’t. You don’t renegotiate existing laws while one party has dynamite strapped to its chest. But there’s nothing in Boehner’s past to suggest that he’ll do the reasonable thing. He caves to the extremists all the time. He did it this weekend, and he’ll probably do it again on Monday night. And the government will be shut down. And the GOP will take most of the blame, but for now at least, they won’t care. Double Muslims never do.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/09/30/republicans-aren-t-hostage-takers-they-re-political-terrorists.html

[-] 0 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

The Reign Of Morons Is Here

By Charles P. Pierce | Oct. 1, 2013 at 9:10AM

Only the truly naive can be truly surprised.

Only the truly child-like can have expected anything else.

In the year of our Lord 2010, the voters of the United States elected the worst Congress in the history of the Republic [ YES, NOT SHOWING UP, POUTING, CASTS A VOTE!!! ]. There have been Congresses more dilatory. There have been Congresses more irresponsible, though not many of them. There have been lazier Congresses, more vicious Congresses, and Congresses less capable of seeing forests for trees. But there has never been in a single Congress -- or, more precisely, in a single House of the Congress -- a more lethal combination of political ambition, political stupidity, and political vainglory than exists in this one, which has arranged to shut down the federal government because it disapproves of a law passed by a previous Congress, signed by the president, and upheld by the Supreme Court, a law that does nothing more than extend the possibility of health insurance to the millions of Americans who do not presently have it, a law based on a proposal from a conservative think-tank and taken out on the test track in Massachusetts by a Republican governor who also happens to have been the party's 2012 nominee for president of the United States. That is why the government of the United States is, in large measure, closed this morning.

We have elected the people sitting on hold, waiting for their moment on an evening drive-time radio talk show.

We have elected an ungovernable collection of snake-handlers, Bible-bangers, ignorami, bagmen and outright frauds, a collection so ungovernable that it insists the nation be ungovernable, too. We have elected people to govern us who do not believe in government.

We have elected a national legislature in which Louie Gohmert and Michele Bachmann have more power than does the Speaker of the House of Representatives, who has been made a piteous spectacle in the eyes of the country and doesn't seem to mind that at all. We have elected a national legislature in which the true power resides in a cabal of vandals, a nihilistic brigade that believes that its opposition to a bill directing millions of new customers to the nation's insurance companies is the equivalent of standing up to the Nazis in 1938, to the bravery of the passengers on Flight 93 on September 11, 2001, and to Mel Gibson's account of the Scottish Wars of Independence in the 13th Century. We have elected a national legislature that looks into the mirror and sees itself already cast in marble.

We did this. We looked at our great legacy of self-government and we handed ourselves over to the reign of morons.

This is what they came to Washington to do -- to break the government of the United States. It doesn't matter any more whether they're doing it out of pure crackpot ideology, or at the behest of the various sugar daddies that back their campaigns, or at the instigation of their party's mouthbreathing base. It may be any one of those reasons. It may be all of them. The government of the United States, in the first three words of its founding charter, belongs to all of us, and these people have broken it deliberately. The true hell of it, though, is that you could see this coming down through the years, all the way from Ronald Reagan's First Inaugural Address in which government "was" the problem, through Bill Clinton's ameliorative nonsense about the era of big government being "over," through the attempts to make a charlatan like Newt Gingrich into a scholar and an ambitious hack like Paul Ryan into a budget genius, and through all the endless attempts to find "common ground" and a "Third Way." Ultimately, as we all wrapped ourselves in good intentions, a prion disease was eating away at the country's higher functions. One of the ways you can acquire a prion disease is to eat right out of its skull the brains of an infected monkey. We are now seeing the country reeling and jabbering from the effects of the prion disease, but it was during the time of Reagan that the country ate the monkey brains.

What is there to be done? The first and most important thing is to recognize how we came to this pass. Both sides did not do this. Both sides are not to blame. There is no compromise to be had here that will leave the current structure of the government intact. There can be no reward for this behavior. I am less sanguine than are many people that this whole thing will redound to the credit of the Democratic party. For that to happen, the country would have to make a nuanced judgment over who is to blame that, I believe, will be discouraged by the courtier press of the Beltway and that, in any case, the country has not shown itself capable of making. For that to happen, the Democratic party would have to be demonstrably ruthless enough to risk its own political standing to make the point, which the Democratic party never has shown itself capable of doing. With the vandals tucked away in safe, gerrymandered districts, and their control over state governments probably unshaken by events in Washington, there will be no great wave election that sweeps them out of power. I do not see profound political consequences for enough of them to change the character of a Congress gone delusional. The only real consequences will be felt by the millions of people affected by what this Congress has forced upon the nation, which was the whole point all along.

Among other things, the Library Of Congress is closed as a result of what the vandals have done. Padlock study and intellect. Wander aimlessly down the mall among the shuttered monuments to self-government. Find yourself a food truck that serves monkey brains. Eat your fucking fill.

Read more: Government Shutdown - The Reign Of Morons Is Here - Esquire Follow us: @Esquiremag on Twitter | Esquire on Facebook Visit us at Esquire.com | http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/Shutdown_Blues

[-] 0 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

1995 GOP Shutdown Revisited: Health Care Now, Health Care Then: In Case You Forgot, Was Over...? Healthcare.

by Michael Tomasky Sep 23, 2013 2:07 PM EDT

It's interesting to recall that a big reason for the last government shutdown, the one of 1995-96, was...Republican opposition to health care. The following is from Bill Clinton's radio address of December 9, 1995:

Nowhere is this choice clearer than in our different approaches to Medicaid. For three decades the Medicaid program has meant that if your child was disabled in an accident or your husband got Alzheimer's or your parent needed nursing home care, you would get the help you need. The Republican budget would cut Medicaid by $163 billion. It would repeal the guarantee of health care for poor children, people with disabilities, pregnant women, and older Americans.

Now, this repeal was not an afterthought or an unintended consequence. The Congressional Republican majority is actually insisting on it. What would this mean? Well, in 2002 alone, the year the budget's supposed to be balanced, the Republican budget could deny quality health coverage to nearly eight million people, deny meaningful health care to over a million people with disabilities, even to 150,000 veterans, and to tens of thousands of people with AIDS, many of whom are able to keep working or who can get the help they need without their families being forced into poverty because of the assistance they get from Medicaid.

So they've pretty much always felt this way about health care for people of modest means. They just hate it. And they've proven themselves willing before to shut the government down over it (although there were other issues in '95 as well). What's different about this time is that they, or some of them, are trying to undo a new law that the Supreme Court upheld.

Meanwhile, over at Business Insider, Josh Barro reminds us of the cold truth of the matter, which is that it's not exactly as if Republicans have ideas about health care that they want to implement:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/09/23/health-care-now-health-care-then.html

Read more: http://www.randirhodes.com/articles/homework-364336/randis-homework-tue-oct-1-2013-11700327/#ixzz2gWczz49T

[-] 1 points by MattLHolck (16833) from San Diego, CA 10 years ago

public health care just does not follow their exploited social Darwinian rational

[-] 0 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

Everything you need to know about life under Obamacare

By Ezra Klein and Sarah Kliff, Published: September 30 at 12:14 pm

What is Obamacare?

“Obamacare” is what we’ve all apparently decided to call the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, a set of health reforms passed by the Congress and signed into law by President Obama in March 2010.

The law itself touches on everything from how hospitals are reimbursed for care to whether chain restaurants post calorie counts on their menus. But, generally, by "Obamacare" most people mean the provisions of the law that relate to the efforts to insure about 30 million Americans through subsidized private insurance or government-provided Medicaid.

CONTINUED: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/30/%3Fp%3D63297/

[-] 1 points by MattLHolck (16833) from San Diego, CA 10 years ago

140 characters please

[-] 0 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

GOP's SHUTDOWN Legacy ~ Confederacy of Traitors!

GOP’s shutdown debacle resembles our first … in 1879!

A conservative minority refused to fund the government unless the president gave them their agenda. Sound familiar?

By Heather Cox Richardson | Monday, Sep 30, 2013 02:04 PM PST

Today’s shutdown crisis has an eerily familiar predecessor. It echoes America’s first battle over a government shutdown, which came not in the 20th century, but rather, shortly after the Civil War. In 1879, ex-Confederates in Congress, desperate to turn the direction of the nation, refused to fund the government unless the Republican president promised to abandon his party and do things their way. Republicans then saw the situation for what it was. “If this is not revolution,” House Minority Leader James Garfield concluded, “which if persisted in will destroy the government, [then] I am wholly wrong in my conception of both the word and the thing.”

Garfield knew exactly what revolution meant. He had fought to protect his government from revolutionaries at the Battle of Shiloh, where more than 13,000 Union soldiers fell, and at Chickamauga, which took another 16,000. Only 14 years later, the very same men who had made war against the government on the battlefield were making war against it from their congressional seats.

On its face, the crisis was over the presence of the handful of troops still stationed in the South, there to try to enforce the equality that Union soldiers had died to guarantee. Southern Democrats hated federal protection of black voting, but Democrats’ minority in the government made them powerless to stop it until a bad recession prompted voters to give their party control of Congress for the first time since the Civil War. Ignoring the economic crisis, a cabal of Southern ex-Confederates in the Democratic Party immediately set out to reverse the course the country had taken since they had seceded 18 years before. Determined to override the new nationalism and make states’ rights the law of the land, they forced a weak Democratic speaker of the House to attach riders to a routine appropriations bill, making it a crime to enforce black voting.

Southern Democrats were not shy about what they were doing. Democratic congressmen extolled the virtues of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and celebrated the former Confederates who had been elected to make up their new majority. Just like Davis, they claimed, all they asked was to be left alone to run their states as they wished. One ex-Confederate told the New York Times that leaving Congress in 1861 had been a great blunder. Southerners were far more likely to win their goals by controlling Congress. Southern Democrats urged their constituents to “present a solid front to the enemy.” [Same as it ever was]

CONTINUED: http://www.salon.com/2013/09/30/gop%E2%80%99s_shutdown_debacle_resembles_our_first_in_1879/

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[-] 0 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

Many can't see the forest for the trees.

Meaning: many see this as a legitimate debate, INSTEAD of just another (tree) in a 5 year long succession (forest) of terrorist attacks!!

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[-] 1 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

QUICK! Kill them before they multiply!

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[-] 1 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

Wait, a pig and a shrew might have delicious offspring.

NO.

Not worth the satanic risk.

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[-] 0 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

When pawns get too close you have to take them out, but ignore the player(s) at your peril.

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[-] 0 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

E-Cigarettes are effective

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[-] 1 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

OK, but you don't become an addicted smoker in 8-10-79(?) days, so don't expect to end it in ...79 days. E-Cigs can make the gap when real ones don't. Gap!

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[-] 1 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

You may say that, but cold turkey is crazy and you've been spewing some crazy shit since you quit.

I was thinking, I got banned for WAY less crazier shit, five fucking times.

And so I was thinking crazy is the cloak of silence.

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[-] 1 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

Just since you quit.

RE: "I haven't killed anyone..." You don't have to be guilty to be punished.

It's been years for me and I still have nico-urges.

Gradual dependence, gradual indepence.

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[-] 1 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

Boehner Advises Americans to Delay Getting Cancer for a Year

Posted by Andy Borowitz

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In a special Sunday radio address, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) delivered a health tip to the American people, advising them to delay getting cancer for a year.

“We’re involved in a high-stakes fight over our freedom from centralized government control of our lives,” said Mr. Boehner, speaking on behalf of his House colleagues. “You can do your part by delaying getting cancer.”

He added that heart disease, emphysema, and diabetes were among a laundry list of conditions that would be “patriotic to avoid for a year.”

“If you delay getting any of these things for the next twelve months, together we will win this fight,” he said.

In closing, he reassured the American people that in the event of a government shutdown, members of Congress’ health benefits would remain intact: “We want to be in tip-top shape to continue to do the excellent job we’re doing for you.”

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2013/09/boehner-advises-americans-to-delay-getting-cancer-for-a-year.html?utm_source=tny&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=borowitz&mbid=nl_Borowitz%20%28175%29

[-] 2 points by MattLHolck (16833) from San Diego, CA 10 years ago

take a loan

buy a day

we will own your children

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[-] -2 points by shutdown (1) 10 years ago

Could it be because the Democratic Hogs in DC are feeding out of the same corporate trough?

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[-] -2 points by herkids (-5) 10 years ago

Zen, the sad part is I think you really believe that nonsense. it'tts a GAME. There IS NO IDEALOGICAL difference bt the parties. They split the social issues so they can make us think they care. THEY have one, and ONLY ONE interest.......SELF. Enrich the club of appartichs in DC. The Duma, the RULING CLASS

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[-] 0 points by herkids (-5) 10 years ago

Guess all I can do is join the fuck parade, asshole,. Believe what you want, you stupid, fucking useful idiot

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[-] 0 points by herkids (-5) 10 years ago

You really, really don't get it, do you? I'll admit I'm confused on the abortion issue since the gays need babies to adopt(but I guess since the right got the Christians, the abortion thing had to go that way?) and the gun thing since most gun crimes are black on black, but guess they worked it out that would be the best way to keep the country at 50/50 against each other.

WAKE THE FUCK UP

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[-] 0 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

We Are Witnessing the Emergence of a Political Process That Allows Right-Wing Billionaires the Power to Turn off Govt. Like a Switch

The fiscal crisis in Washington is not simply a threat to economic and government stability, as serious as that is. It is a premeditated scheme.

By Robert Parry | October 9, 2013 |

That is what we’re watching now, what might be called the Koch Brothers’ “Samson Option,” pulling down the temple to destroy their enemies even if doing so is also destructive to them and their fortunes.

Charles and David Koch and other right-wing billionaires and near-billionaires are blind with anger after wasting millions of dollars on Mitt Romney, Karl Rove and the Republican Party in a failed attempt to defeat Barack Obama, the Democrats and health-care reform. These were the guys who smirked knowingly when Romney sneered at “the 47 percent” of Americans who receive some government help; they got snappish when Obama called them “fat cats”; they demanded the honorific title of “job creators.”

Then, they had to sit in their plush party rooms waiting to celebrate Romney’s victory only to be frustrated by a coalition of voters led by African-Americans, Hispanics, Asian-Americans and young urban whites who are comfortable in a more diverse country.

Despite all the money and electoral tricks, the Koch Brothers and friends failed to block the reelection of the first African-American president; they watched the Democrats defy the odds and retain the Senate; and they barely managed to hold onto a slender Republican House “majority” through aggressive gerrymandering and other anti-democratic anomalies that overcame the GOP’s loss in the popular vote of about 1½ million ballots.

To make matters worse, these rich white guys had to listen to endless commentary about the coming demographic changes and the need for Republicans to improve their image with racial and ethnic minorities. Through a blinding rage, the Right’s billionaires plotted revenge.

Plotting Obama’s Downfall

CONTINUED: http://www.alternet.org/we-are-witnessing-birth-political-process-allows-right-wing-billionaires-power-turn-govt-switch

[-] 0 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

Congressional Aides Withholding Sex Until Budget Compromise Is Reached News in Brief • Politics • government • politicians • ISSUE 49•41 • Oct 8, 2013

WASHINGTON—As the shutdown of the federal government enters its second week, with legislators on both sides of the aisle having so far failed to bring a resolution to the negotiating table, sources confirmed Tuesday that Washington’s congressional aides have opted to withhold sex from their employers until a budget compromise is reached. “We were all hoping it would never come to this, but unless lawmakers agree to put aside their differences and get the government moving again, then any and all clandestine sexual intercourse with us is simply off the table,” said Allison Pereira, 26, personal aide to Rep. Tom Massie (R-KY) and just one of hundreds of Capitol Hill staffers who reportedly have resolved to deny the nation’s elected officials sexual favors of any kind until they hammer out an evenhanded federal budget agreement that resolves the Obamacare stalemate and ends the shutdown. “With hundreds of thousands of government employees out of work and the congressional process held hostage to partisan gridlock, we have no chance but to leverage our most powerful bargaining chip. So until they figure out a budget deal, sex is off. And that includes oral sex and hand jobs, by the way.” In the absence of gratification from their subordinates, sources confirmed that the sex boycott has forced all 535 U.S. senators and House representatives to avail themselves of D.C.’s various escort services and brothels, at an estimated cost to the American taxpayer of $6.2 million.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/congressional-aides-withholding-sex-until-budget-c,34151/?ref=auto

[-] 0 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

A Senator Gets Mad About The Shutdown And Starts Naming Names. About Time.

Since the media seems to think this whole thing is a bipartisan mess, I thought I'd get a second opinion. Take it away, Senator. (At 4:00, she nails it.) And the name she names? It's a party. Not a person.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTxWMkW8s_c

[-] 0 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

A Tyranny by the Minority, Part 2: The Reign of the Cracker Babies:

You remember when there was supposed to be an epidemic of "crack babies"? They were babies whose mothers had smoked crack (or done coke) during pregnancy and would give birth to drug addicted bundles of joy. They were going to grow up to be sociopaths who would wreak havoc on the nation. Yeah, not so much.

However, what we are seeing now is the plague of the cracker babies. These are primarily white people who grew up insulated in communities that had fucked-up beliefs about God, guns, and America, who became resentful of people different than them who might have gotten help from the government, who watched Fox "news" since it started and listened to conservative talk radio before that, who have been pandered to and exploited by opportunists and snake oil salesmen who made them think that their stunted intellectual development is an asset. We are now in the grip of their electoral choices, which even includes some of their own (lookin' at you, Louis Gohmert, you god among cracker babies).

Let's just put it this way: When its new season premiered back in August, more people watched Duck Dynasty, a TV show about crazed, conservative, religious fundamentalists who happen to have gotten rich making a decent duck call, than watched the series finale of Breaking Bad. More people will watch the antics bearded backwoods tree carvers who barely speak anything we might acknowledge as "English" than will ever watch Mad Men, Homeland, or any of those shows that get TV critics all hard and wet.

Is this intellectual elitism? You fucking well bet it is. By pretending that the beliefs of yahoos, crackers, and cousin-fuckers are worthy of consideration in the public sphere, we have degraded the nation to the point that, well, fuck, they have successfully taken over one chamber of Congress by essentially threatening the leadership of the GOP with a banjo-accompanied ass raping while they giggle out their last couple of teeth.

These seeds were sowed back when Ronald Reagan cravenly allowed Jerry Falwell and other charlatans to have a seat at the table of power instead of treating them and their followers as pariahs whose goal was to upend the entire relationship between church and state. As on so many things, Reagan should be dug up and have his bones dressed in rags and paraded about so people can throw tomatoes and eggs at him.

We are a nation held hostage by idiots elected by idiots. While you can say, smugly, "Oh, but that's been true all throughout history," there's a hilarious fuckin' twist this time. These Tea Party fucknuts have no master. It's less Frankenstein's monster being let loose than it is nuclear bombs awaking Godzilla.

See, the teabaggers owe little to nothing to Wall Street or to big business. Oh, no. The pathetic truth about America is that the capitalists, not our pussy media, are the final check and balance to our political system: if they are displeased, they normally can fund the shit out of candidates to oppose those who have not done their bidding. But the anarchists we have now in the House don't give a happy monkey fuck about the backing of banking whores and portfolio pimps. You wanted deregulation, motherfuckers? Here ya go. If we default on the debt, the days of even milquetoast laws like Dodd-Frank will seem like salad days.

But you wanna know how awful the cracker babies are? Two quick examples from their ilk in Congress: Rep. Randy Neugebauer of Texas barked at a park ranger because she was doing her goddamn job, saying she should be "ashamed" for blocking access to the World War II memorial, closed because of Neugebauer. And Rep. Renee Ellmers of North Carolina was asked if she would give up her salary during the shutdown, where millions of government workers are furloughed without pay or working without pay. She said, "I need my paycheck. That's the bottom line."

Somewhere, "God Bless America" is being played by a jug band.

// posted by Rude One @ 2:43 PMShareThis 10/03/2013 A Tyranny by the Minority, Part 1: We Are Living Through an Attempted Coup: The Rude Pundit has been thinking for the last day or so about the extensive use of surveillance by the Obama administration, but not for the usual reasons.

First, kudos to the House GOP. See, the left was fracturing a bit when it came to things like the collection of metadata and more by the NSA. That story continues, and the divisions still exist between those who don't think the government should be tracking everyone online, on phones, all the time, and those who see it as a necessary evil in a time where our enemies exist in the shadows. However, the House GOP's complete and utter disregard for the well-being of the nation and their callous placement of ideology over common sense, compassion...well, pretty much over everything has unified the left once again behind the Democrats and President Obama. So a big thumbs up on strategy, you stupid motherfuckers.

The other thing the Rude Pundit has been thinking is how the NSA surveillance has an analogous purpose to the tactics of the GOP. See, a great deal (or all, depending on who you ask) of the NSA's universal anal probe has been perfectly legal. However, just because something is legal doesn't mean it's right. To take this further, just because it's legal does not, by any definition, mean it's not evil. You can bend laws right to the point of snapping, but as long as it doesn't crack, you're fine, man.

What the GOP has done, first through the ludicrous overuse of the filibuster and now through the shutdown and the threat of breaking the debt ceiling if they do not get a law overturned, is to use perfectly legal means to achieve their goals. It is, however, a contortion of the Constitution and the rules of Congress that'd make a circus performer say, "How the fuck did you get your head all the way up your own ass?" The ultimate goal of the effort is to undo the will of the people of the United States by forcing the President to accept the GOP agenda.

So let's just call this what it is: it's an attempted coup.

The Tea Party, having cowed the leadership of the Republican Party, are attempting to stage a creeping coup by using the Constitution against the nation. It's so breathtakingly ballsy it's almost admirable. Fuck, it's even something the GOP laid out in a plan, the Williamsburg Accord. We just didn't pay attention. The nation is currently being wrecked by a tyranny of the minority, and, unfortunately, it's up to the cowards leading the Republican Party to stop it.

And that, dear liberals, dear Americans, is why it's not just economic anxiety that hangs over us like a guillotine blade. It's existential nausea that we may finally reap the seeds of our doom that we planted a generation ago.

More on that tomorrow.

// posted by Rude One @ 12:45 PMShareThis 10/02/2013 Photos That Make the Rude Pundit Want to Turn Dogs and Fire Hoses on House Republicans:

You know, you can have your World War II vets, egged on by the very asses who shut the government down, storming the barricades with walkers and canes so they can have a gathering at their memorial in DC.

For the Rude Pundit's money, Martin Luther King's statue being blocked off, gated, imprisoned, is the more poignant image, especially with African Americans being put in the position of setting up the metal bars.

What could be more symbolic? White Republicans are blocking a black leader from doing good for the poor in the nation.

What could be more ironic? Even in death, King must be jailed.

We are sailing this stinking ship of state very quickly into uncharted waters. A nation that cannot pay homage to its iconography is a nation that is doomed.

(Note: The Rude Pundit is traveling. More extensive rudeness tomorrow.)

// posted by Rude One @ 2:18 PMShareThis 10/01/2013 In Brief: Shutdown Polls That Prove We're Really Not That Insane: Dear World,

Rude Pundit here. We know that right now we here in the USA look pretty fucked-up. And, mostly, we are. Not Greece fucked-up, but still. However, when it comes to the government shutdown over defunding the Affordable Care Act, we really aren't as crazy as you think. Check this out:

According to a Quinnipiac University poll (those of you who don't care what polls say - looking at you, Syria - can move along), 72% of Americans think this is a terrible thing to do. That includes 74% of independents, 90% of Democrats, and even 44% of Republicans. Only 49% of Republicans support their own members of Congress on this.

Yeah, yeah, these are a lot of numbers. Such things matter, though. Because, see, one thing that Republicans in the House of Representatives keep claiming is that they're doing the will of the people in trying to get rid of the Affordable Care Act. If that's true, if the polls matter, then either the GOP needs to back the fuck off or they are a bunch of cowards and liars.

If you know anything about this country, you know it's the latter.

In fact, when it comes to defunding Obamacare (that's the cutesy name Republicans gave the law), only 34% support that.

See? We're not a stupid country when it comes to this. We're a lazy-ass bunch of fuckers because too many people thought that a candidate who scrawls manifestos in his or her own shit is worthy of being in Congress and too many others didn't vote or run for office.

Yeah, sorry, China, we can't just line the anarchists up against a wall and shoot them. We gotta suffer through this, although it's seeming more and more that people are sick of this shit.

Let's hope the message is received by the bizarre combination of zealots, opportunists, and backwards ass country fucks who are controlling the situation before the debt ceiling nightmare that'll plunge all of us into darkness (perhaps, just perhaps). By the way, 64% already oppose that hostage situation.

All is not lost. Until, of course, it's lost.

Kisses, The Rude Pundit

[-] 0 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

A Federal Budget Crisis Months in the Planning

[This was another damn post election loss GOP Caucus Room sabotage plot!]

WASHINGTON — Shortly after President Obama started his second term, a loose-knit coalition of conservative activists led by [ Ronnie Fucking Raygun's ] former Attorney General Edwin Meese III gathered in the capital to plot strategy. Their push to repeal Mr. Obama’s health care law was going nowhere, and they desperately needed a new plan.

Out of that session, held one morning in a location the members insist on keeping secret, came a little-noticed “blueprint to defunding Obamacare,” signed by Mr. Meese and leaders of more than three dozen conservative groups.

It articulated a take-no-prisoners legislative strategy [ beyond hostage taking ] that had long percolated in conservative circles: that Republicans could derail the health care overhaul if conservative lawmakers were willing to push fellow Republicans — including their cautious leaders — into cutting off financing for the entire federal government.

“We felt very strongly at the start of this year that the House needed to use the power of the purse,” said one coalition member, Michael A. Needham, who runs Heritage Action for America, the political arm of the Heritage Foundation. “At least at Heritage Action, we felt very strongly from the start that this was a fight that we were going to pick.”

Last week the country witnessed the fallout from that strategy: a standoff that has shuttered much of the federal bureaucracy and unsettled the nation.

To many Americans, the shutdown came out of nowhere. But interviews with a wide array of conservatives show that the confrontation that precipitated the crisis was the outgrowth of a long-running effort to undo the law, the Affordable Care Act, since its passage in 2010 — waged by a galaxy of conservative groups with more money, organized tactics and interconnections than is commonly known.

With polls showing Americans deeply divided over the law, conservatives believe that the public is behind them. Although the law’s opponents say that shutting down the government was not their objective, the activists anticipated that a shutdown could occur — and worked with members of the Tea Party caucus in Congress who were excited about drawing a red line against a law they despise.

A defunding “tool kit” ( http://www.teapartypatriots.org/2013/09/get-your-defunding-obamacare-toolkit/ ) created in early September included talking points for the question, “What happens when you shut down the government and you are blamed for it?” The suggested answer was the one House Republicans give today: “We are simply calling to fund the entire government except for the Affordable Care Act/Obamacare.”

The current budget brinkmanship is just the latest development in a well-financed, broad-based assault on the health law, Mr. Obama’s signature legislative initiative. Groups like Tea Party Patriots, Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks are all immersed in the fight, as is Club for Growth, a business-backed nonprofit organization. Some, like Generation Opportunity and Young Americans for Liberty, both aimed at young adults, are upstarts. Heritage Action is new, too, founded in 2010 to advance the policy prescriptions of its sister group, the Heritage Foundation.

The billionaire Koch brothers, Charles and David, have been deeply involved with financing the overall effort. A group linked to the Kochs, Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, disbursed more than $200 million last year to nonprofit organizations involved in the fight. Included was $5 million to Generation Opportunity, which created a buzz last month with an Internet advertisement showing a menacing Uncle Sam figure popping up between a woman’s legs during a gynecological exam.

The groups have also sought to pressure vulnerable Republican members of Congress with scorecards keeping track of their health care votes; have burned faux “Obamacare cards” on college campuses; and have distributed scripts for phone calls to Congressional offices, sample letters to editors and Twitter and Facebook offerings for followers to present as their own.

One sample Twitter offering — “Obamacare is a train wreck” — is a common refrain for Speaker John A. Boehner.

As the defunding movement picked up steam among outside advocates, Republicans who sounded tepid became targets. The Senate Conservatives Fund, a political action committee dedicated to “electing true conservatives,” ran radio advertisements against three Republican incumbents.

Heritage Action ran critical Internet advertisements in the districts of 100 Republican lawmakers who had failed to sign a letter by a North Carolina freshman, Representative Mark Meadows, urging Mr. Boehner to take up the defunding cause.

“They’ve been hugely influential,” said David Wasserman, who tracks House races for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. “When else in our history has a freshman member of Congress from North Carolina been able to round up a gang of 80 that’s essentially ground the government to a halt?”

On Capitol Hill, the advocates found willing partners in Tea Party conservatives, who have repeatedly threatened to shut down the government if they do not get their way on spending issues. This time they said they were so alarmed by the health law that they were willing to risk a shutdown over it. (“This is exactly what the public wants,” Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, founder of the House Tea Party Caucus, said on the eve of the shutdown.)

CONTINUED: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/us/a-federal-budget-crisis-months-in-the-planning.html?_r=0

[-] 0 points by nazihunter (215) 10 years ago

Oh, how the children of the corn love Satan's britches. Yes, it is the South. The very testament of extremely unintelligent design.

[-] 0 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago
[-] 3 points by nazihunter (215) 10 years ago

The billionaire Koch brothers, Charles and David, have been deeply involved with financing the overall effort. A group linked to the Kochs, Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, disbursed more than $200 million last year to nonprofit organizations involved in the fight. Included was $5 million to Generation Opportunity, which created a buzz last month with an Internet advertisement showing a menacing Uncle Sam figure popping up between a woman’s legs during a gynecological exam.---If this doesn't want us to remove repugs once and for all, what will?

[-] 0 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

I said that during Iran-Contra!!!!

[-] 0 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

Boehner: Obama Stubbornly Refusing to End Crisis I Created

Posted by Andy Borowitz | October 3, 2013

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) said that he was disappointed after meeting with President Obama at the White House on Wednesday afternoon, telling reporters, “The President is stubbornly refusing to end the crisis I created.”

“Government is about teamwork,” Mr. Boehner continued. “I’ve done my part by putting together an entirely optional crisis that has shut down the government and will throw thousands out of work. Now it’s up to the President to do his part by ending it.”

Mr. Boehner said that he was “flabbergasted” that the President was looking to him to bring the current government shutdown to an end: “So after doing all of the hard work to push the country to the brink, I’m supposed to pull it back, too? How about you pitching in a little, Mr. President?”

The House Speaker said that he hoped he did not have to manufacture another entirely avoidable crisis over the debt ceiling in order to stir the President to action. “Quite frankly, orchestrating these unnecessary stalemates takes a lot of energy and I could really use a rest,” he said.

But Mr. Boehner seemed pessimistic that the President “got the message.”

“Because of my actions, thousands of federal workers have already been furloughed,” he said. “How many more people do I have to throw out on the street before the President wakes up?”

[-] 0 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

Must-see morning clip: Jon Stewart has had it with the GOP

The "Daily Show" host curses at Fox News' Todd Starnes, who thinks Democrats are overreacting to the shutdown VIDEO

By Prachi Gupta | Wednesday, Oct 2, 2013 05:57 AM PST

Like most of America, Jon Stewart is angry with the GOP.

One day into a government shutdown triggered by House Republicans, 800,000 workers have been furloughed and many government programs, like the Women Children and Infant’s nutritional supplement program, are suspended. “It’s like taking candy from a baby,” said Stewart on “The Daily Show.” “Except instead of candy, it’s food.”

Meanwhile, conservative political pundits like Fox News’ Todd Starnes are laughing at anyone who’s upset by the shutdown. “If you believe the Democrats, it’s time to buy the potted meat and Tang and get in your survival bunker,” he said on “Hannity,” with a hearty chuckle.

Stewart responded to the segment with open disdain, saying simply, “Fuck you.”

“I know that for you, potted meat and Tang is shorthand for shit you wouldn’t possibly imagine eating unless there was a catastrophe,” he said. “For the people actually affected by the government shutdown, it’s the shit they eat that they can no longer afford.”

http://www.salon.com/2013/10/02/must_see_morning_clip_jon_stewart_has_had_it_with_the_gop/

[-] 0 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

50 years of GOP race-baiting: The real story of the shutdown

A House minority from white districts want to destroy the first black president, and the GOP majority abets them

By Joan Walsh | Tuesday, Oct 1, 2013 03:10 PM PST

On the day the Affordable Care Act takes effect, the U.S. government is shut down, and it may be permanently broken. You’ll read lots of explanations for the dysfunction, but the simple truth is this: It’s the culmination of 50 years of evolving yet consistent Republican strategy to depict government as the enemy, an oppressor that works primarily as the protector of and provider for African-Americans, to the detriment of everyone else. The fact that everything came apart under our first African-American president wasn’t an accident, it was probably inevitable.

People talk about the role of race in Richard Nixon’s “Southern Strategy”: how Pat Buchanan and Kevin Phillips helped him lure the old Dixiecrats into the Republican Party permanently. Far less well known was the GOP’s “Northern Strategy,” which targeted so-called white ethnics – many of them from the Catholic “Sidewalks of New York” like my working-class family, in the words of Kevin Phillips. Without a Northern Strategy designed to inflame white-ethnic fears of racial and economic change, Phillips’ imaginary but still influential notion of a “permanent Republican majority” would have been unimaginable.

“The principal force which broke up the Democratic (New Deal) coalition is the Negro socioeconomic revolution and liberal Democratic ideological inability to cope with it,” Phillips wrote. “Democratic ‘Great Society’ programs aligned that party with many Negro demands, but the party was unable to defuse the racial tension sundering the nation.” Phillips was not trying to defuse that tension, far from it – he was trying to lure those white ethnics to the GOP (although he later broke with the party he helped create.) But his Northern Strategy truly came to fruition in 1980, with the election of Ronald Reagan. Where Nixon swept the South, Reagan was able to take much of the North and West, too.

CONTINUED: http://www.salon.com/2013/10/01/the_real_story_of_the_shutdown_50_years_of_gop_race_baiting/

[-] 1 points by MattLHolck (16833) from San Diego, CA 10 years ago

everything didn't come apart when we bombed iraq over ac convenient excuse

everything didn't come apart when we gave Iraq the gas to sadamm to use on the curds

[-] 0 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

Everything You Need To Know About The GOP Government Shutdown

By Annie-Rose Strasser, on October 1, 2013 at 9:03 am

The government shut down at midnight on Tuesday after Republicans refused to give up their effort to repeal or delay Obamacare. That means nearly 800,000 people woke up this morning without a job to go to. The rest of the country woke up, too, wondering what happened overnight and how we wound up with a government in shutdown.

Here’s a rundown of what you need to know:
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2013/10/01/2706621/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-government-shutdown/

[-] 0 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

Government Shuts Down in Budget Impasse

By JONATHAN WEISMAN and JEREMY W. PETERS Published: September 30, 2013

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/01/us/politics/congress-shutdown-debate.html?_r=0

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[-] 1 points by MattLHolck (16833) from San Diego, CA 10 years ago

a good programmer would have titled the page as opposed to using a default key to the page

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[-] 1 points by MattLHolck (16833) from San Diego, CA 10 years ago

here is the link title of this thread

http://occupywallst.org/forum/gop-to-america-we-have-your-economy-and-were-not-a

this is in the language we think and connect in at least in english

web links are only useful if a cognitive link can find them

[-] 0 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

Programmers: build the ball, make it bounce like it should ~ we will win the games!

thanx

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[-] 1 points by MattLHolck (16833) from San Diego, CA 10 years ago

indeed

[-] 0 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

That should help?

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[-] 0 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

Get trendy

[-] 0 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

Pres. Obama Addresses the RepubliCon Shutdown [Blackmail]:

http://www.c-span.org/Events/Pres-Obama-Remarks-on-Health-Care-Beneficiaries/10737441795-2/

AND

Senator Bernie Sanders addresses the GOP "Blackmail":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_DSPSFXKxs&feature=youtu.be

[-] 0 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

Government Government, Yeah we're gonna shut you down!

https://soundcloud.com/rockymountainmike/shut-down

[-] 0 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

Jon Stewart's Rockin' Shutdown Eve

If President Obama can make a deal with the most intransigent mullahs in the world but not with House Republicans, maybe he is not the problem. (07:20)

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-september-30-2013/jon-stewart-s-rockin--shutdown-eve

[-] 0 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

Bill Maher New Rules - California is leading by example [ Let's follow! ]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7jGky6IyV4&feature=youtu.be

[-] 0 points by shoozTroll (17632) 10 years ago

It's all in a name.

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/poll_pits_obamacare_v_the_affordable_care_act

Where would they be, if they hadn't coined the term Obamacare?

[-] 1 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

And before this it was "Hillary Care."

Norman Goldman claims that we should shed the labels to avoid the ignorant, misinformed, smeared, stigmas.

I disagree; but whatever works until we neutralize the Hillbilly, Teabag, 1% -Taliban, I'm for it.

[-] -2 points by IrishRevolt (5) 10 years ago

"to avoid the ignorant, misinformed, smeared, stigmas."

Smearing the effectiveness of a mandate? Like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FknJLMc84bo

[-] 0 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

When you look at only one side, they seem to be the aggressors. When you look from that side, you see they are returning fire.

[-] -1 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

The GOP Shutdown for IDIOTS!!

Viewer’s guide: meet the shutdown power players

Benjy Sarlin, @benjysarlin

http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/09/30/viewers-guide-meet-the-shutdown-power-players/

[-] 0 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

Here Are Three Debt-Ceiling Lies You’ll Hear From the GOP This Week

by Michael Tomasky Oct 7, 2013 5:45 AM EDT

So, a default really wouldn’t be that bad? That’s what Republicans are going to start saying this week as the debt-ceiling debate ramps up. Michael Tomasky debunks the talking points in advance.

WE HAVE GOP TALKING POINT PARROTS HERE!

Attention will turn more sharply this week in the direction of the debt ceiling and the question of a possible default. We’re just 10 days away from D-Day, and since default is a much bigger deal than a shutdown, we’re going to have a week of cable debates about who’ll be to blame if the country defaults. It is with that in mind that offer you three arguments you’re sure to hear Republicans make. They’re all foolish or false or both, so clip this list and tape it to your refrigerator. The roof is finally starting to fall in on these serial liars, and I want you to be part of the growing army of Americans that knows a lie when it hears one.

1.) A default wouldn’t really be that bad. [ sounds familiar ]

We haven’t heard this very much yet, but I expect it will start getting a stern workout this week. It was a heavy talking point back in 2011.

I remember reading, back in the summer, how Republicans had decided that they weren’t going to fight too much over a possible government shutdown, as they knew it would make them unpopular, and they were going to save their powder for a debt-limit battle. Of course, that was then. They obviously changed strategies and decided to fight on both, because when it comes to fighting with Obama they’re just lab monkeys with cocaine, and because Ted Cruz made them. But I remember thinking, How in God’s green acres did they settle on that strategy? I was aghast.

While a shutdown is terrible, it’s not in the same solar system of disaster as a default. But the substance meant nothing at all to them. What mattered was that a shutdown is comparatively easy for the public to grasp, while the debt-limit topic is confusing. So the idea that they might be jeopardizing the national and world economies didn’t mean a thing to them during their summer strategy sessions. The debt fight provided the better opportunity for them to confuse the public and disguise their game of Russian roulette over settled law (Obamacare), and it polled better.

The Republicans’ insouciant stance on the substance of the thing goes back to 2011. The journalist Robert Draper reported an amusing-horrifying episode in his book on the 2010 class, Do Not Ask What Good We Do. The party leadership brought in Republican economists to tell them how awful a default would be. The government would be able to pay only about half its bills, federal prisons would be shut down, interest rates would shoot through the roof. They were largely unmoved, Draper wrote.

The same thing is happening now. They just don’t believe the doomsayers. It’s liberal propaganda, just like all that “hooey” that gets talked about the polar ice cap melting. So you’re going to start hearing this idiocy again. Be forearmed.

People who’ve persuaded themselves that default won’t have serious ramifications are people capable of doing, and certainly of saying, anything.

2.) Obama is a big hypocrite because he voted against a debt-limit increase while Bush was president.

Yes, he did cast such a vote, but no, he’s not a hypocrite, not even a small one. The reason is simple. Democrats made no threats when they cast their votes. They knew they were going to lose and had no real intention of winning.

It was March 16, 2006, when Obama cast the fateful vote. But the Democrats’ votes, Obama’s included, were purely symbolic. The Republicans controlled the Senate at the time, 55-45. The increase in the debt limit, the fourth in George W. Bush’s tenure, passed, 52-48, with three Republicans voting with all the Democrats.

But the Democrats knew they were going to lose. They were in the minority; duh. They did not choose to filibuster, which they could have done and which would have meant the Republicans needed 60 votes. If they’d done so, that would have been hardball, and in that case, Obama would have been a participant in a real threat against American creditworthiness. Even then it wouldn’t have been the same as what the GOP is doing now, unless those 45 Democrats had demanded, oh, that Bush rescind his tax cuts or his Medicare Part D bill or some other signal legislative achievement.

But the Democrats did no such thing. They cast symbolic votes to force Republicans to vote to increase the debt limit. So Obama’s 2006 vote means nothing and bears no resemblance to what’s going on today.

3.) The Democrats won’t compromise, wah wah wah!

The GOP has already been complaining about the Democrats' unwillingness to compromise.

A huge lie. Here’s a fact I’d bet no more than 2 percent of the American public knows: that “clean” continuing resolution the Senate passed, with Democrats backing it and Republicans opposing it? That CR carried the levels of funding for government agencies demanded by Republicans, not Democrats.

That’s right. The Senate CR funds the government in the coming weeks at a level of $988 billion. The Democrats wanted $1.058 billion. But they passed a bill at Republican levels. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said late last week: “My caucus really didn’t like that. We took a real hit…So that’s one of the largest compromises since I’ve been in Congress.”

Now why did they pass a bill at the GOP’s preferred levels? Because, Reid said late last week, he had assurances from Boehner that the House speaker wouldn’t attach demands to the Senate CR if Reid brought it in at $988 billion. So this whole thing started with a significant Democratic compromise. But once the Republicans decided that they were going to use both the shutdown and the debt ceiling to try to defund and/or delay Obamacare, they couldn’t even vote for a bill that gave them a major fiscal victory. That’s how dug in and crazy they are.

So don’t be fooled. The GOP [ & false flag complainers ] position is dishonest and destructive beyond words. I’d still bet that complete disaster will be averted, but with this bunch, you never quite know. People who’ve persuaded themselves that default won’t have serious ramifications are people capable of doing, and certainly of saying, anything.

[-] -2 points by IrishRevolt (5) 10 years ago

You cannot kill what is already dead. The media circus that surrounds every step of Congress is simply to delay the inevitable and keep the few who are trying to pay attention constantly shifting from one topic to the other, never getting progress on anything due to a lack of focus.

[-] 0 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

GOP ZOMBIES are already dead, they don't stop until you kill their brains!! Their 1%, MSM, Fox Lies, MIC -owning brains.

[-] 0 points by shoozTroll (17632) 10 years ago

http://occupywallst.org/forum/not-broke-just-twisted/

For many millions, it may be barely working, but working it is.

And then there's the many States.

Your broad brush response is not useful on any effective level.

[-] -2 points by IrishRevolt (5) 10 years ago

People would be wise to start thinking for themselves and stop relying on talking heads to tell them what the situation is. A government shutdown is something to not fear, for it will be shutting down eventually regardless. Embrace it and prepare accordingly. These situations dont magically fix themselves.

[-] 1 points by shoozTroll (17632) 10 years ago

Was that cribbed from Beohners note pad?

They kind of said the same thing about the sequester.

Makes one wonder which talking head is informing you.

[-] -2 points by IrishRevolt (5) 10 years ago

Has anything changed since the collapse? The labor participation rate is at a 30 year low, after 5 years of "fixing" the situation. Ironic how the sequester and its 85 billion received months of attention and the monthly bond purchasing program with quantitative easing received almost none. Crumbs compared to loaves in terms of size.

When republics move to empire, they tend to overextend themselves and then deteriorate quickly. We are living that deterioration right now. Plan to make do with less, because less is the only guarantee as things stand right now.

Not that things do not ever happen, but this populace does not appear to understand how to fix it.

[-] 1 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

Please, could you reply in more specious platitudes.

"Has anything changed since the collapse?"

Have RepubliCons taken credit for the collapse they caused and have perpetuated by sabotage????

[-] 0 points by shoozTroll (17632) 10 years ago

"Has anything changed since the collapse? "

You do realize, that that isn't even a valid question?

I've gone over the labor issue many times over, I'm sorry you missed it, but I'm not going reiterate again here.

Oh...and I don't know about Ireland, but here in the US the people and organizations doing most of the damage have actual names.

http://www.alternet.org/economy/5-industries-are-mercilessly-robbing-american-people

There's 5 for you, and many more have been named here.

In fact here's the name of another very egregious violator.

http://www.thevileplutocrat.com/bile/profile/art-pope/

You simply can't paint detail with a brush as wide as the one you are using. Indeed, a brush that wide hides it.

[-] -2 points by IrishRevolt (5) 10 years ago

Prisons, pharmasueticals, banks, etc...all part of the problem.

Do you see this trend reversing anytime soon? Act accordingly.

[-] 0 points by shoozTroll (17632) 10 years ago

Do you always ignore the information presented to you?

You cannot react well if you do.

It becomes an ill informed knee jerk and there's enough of that around here as it is.

[-] -2 points by IrishRevolt (5) 10 years ago

"here in the US the people and organizations doing most of the damage have actual names." Yes, they most certainly do. The ones involved know the names. They have been around a long time. Ingrained in every aspect of society.

Do you see the trend reversing? And if so, how long?

If not, prepare accordingly.

[-] 0 points by shoozTroll (17632) 10 years ago

I've been trying to put the brakes to libe(R)topia for quite some time now.

How about you?

Do you even know what it is?

I mean, my God man, You've been cribbing Beohner!!!

And you don't seem to notice.

[-] -2 points by IrishRevolt (5) 10 years ago

Concerning yourself with a puppet on strings such as John Boehner is only going to delay your thought process in getting past whatever useless information is coming from his mouth. Ignore him and move forward.

What do you do to increase regulation?

[-] 1 points by shoozTroll (17632) 10 years ago

You're the one who cribbed him. So don't even go there.

In fact there's at least some thought to the effect that you, yourself are a puppet of another poster.

The fact that you seem unable to absorb information provided to you, just reinforces that.

So I take it you either don't understand the concept of libe(R)topia, you reject it outright, or you are invested in it's continuation.

My bet's on the later.

[-] -2 points by IrishRevolt (5) 10 years ago

"I've been trying to put the brakes to libe(R)topia for quite some time now."

This statement is something that could possibly encourage or discourage others from joining on, depending on what it entails.

You cannot fight what you are deeming the problem all by yourself, and getting others to sign up requires details. The details that you speak of.

Seems we may both desire the broad brush after all?

My understanding of what I was initially speaking of is fine, the economy is in shambles and the forces that created it and control it are still in place.

[-] 0 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

There are many forces, they are not all the same. Cons like to say that they're all the same, BUT CONS ARE WRONG!!! CONS are to blame!!

[-] 0 points by shoozTroll (17632) 10 years ago

Thanks for proving my bet was the correct one.

The question/s to you now becomes.

To whom are you a puppet? Or perhaps it's a multiple choice question?

Your main thrust seems to be to maintain a circularity to every conversation.

[-] -2 points by IrishRevolt (5) 10 years ago

""I've been trying to put the brakes to libe(R)topia for quite some time now."

What does this entail? As an individual activist?

[-] 0 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

Senator: House Republicans ‘Hate Government,’ ‘Crashing the Economy’ is ‘Success’ for Them

by Josh Feldman | 3:07 pm, September 28th, 2013 Video

Independent senator Angus King appeared on MSNBC’s Up Saturday morning to preview the final few days of the government funding battle in Washington. Steve Kornacki asked what he expects to come out of the House. King wasn’t exactly optimistic about how it would turn out.

King slammed the “Hastert Rule” House Republicans have to never bring a bill to the floor unless a majority of them plan on voting for it, taking that to mean “120 people are holding the United States hostage.” But it wasn’t just that King got to the very heart of what he believed was Republican thinking on stopping Obamacare at all costs.

“There’s a pernicious inner logic to what these characters are doing. They hate government. They don’t want government to work. They don’t believe government can or should work, and so to them, crashing the economy and crashing the government is a kind of weird success, and it’s very hard to reach agreement with people who don’t reach a kind of basic appreciation of the institution. This is dangerous. We’ve never been here before.”

He also took a swipe at the GOP’s demands for raising the debt ceiling, saying they’re asking for everything short of a “statue of Ayn Rand.”

Watch the video below, via MSNBC:

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/senator-house-republicans-hate-government-crashing-the-economy-is-success-for-them/