I say yes, you say no, OR People are Strange
Comments
-
-
-
-
-
Notself - you had me to the end on that story. Good analogy.
-
So, do they really buy the Kabuki theatre the GOP is feeding them (i.e. piecemeal bills to fund this agency over that agency) or do they just pretend?
The audience
Traditionally, a constant interplay between the actors and the spectators took place in the Kabuki theatre. The actors frequently interrupted the play to address the crowd, and the latter responded with appropriate praise or clapped their hands according to a prescribed formula. They also could call out the names of their favourite actors in the course of the performance. Cruz! Boehner!
-
How ironic.........
Here is how the Washington Post summed it up:
The top story all day was that Republicans had shut down the federal government because President Obama wouldn't defund or delay the Affordable Care Act. The other major story was that the government's servers were crashing because so many people were trying to see if they could get insurance through Obamacare.
So on the one hand, Washington was shut down because Republicans don't want Obamacare. On the other hand, Obamacare was nearly shut down because so many Americans wanted Obamacare. -
And we are facing yet another crisis, as we all know here - one that can crash the entire world. Here is a good thought piece from the Atlantic feed:
If Congress Won't Raise the Debt Ceiling, Obama Will Be Forced to Break the Law
Wouldn't it be better to save the nation from default by invoking the Fourteenth Amendment, than to stand by and do nothing?Garrett EppsOct 2 2013, 7:42 PM ETBack in 2011, I found myself writing (and writing and writing and writing and writing) about Section Four of the Fourteenth Amendment. Afterwards, it seemed like a bizarre interlude: The brief crisis about the debt ceiling surely would not repeat itself in our lifetimes. After all, President Obama was handily reelected, the Democrats held onto the Senate, and the Republicans must surely have learned their lesson.Or not so much.
Regardless of how the current shutdown crisis ends, it seems there will be a second debt-ceiling crisis two weeks from now. And the questions are flying again: Is the debt-ceiling statute unconstitutional? Can Obama “invoke” Section Four of the Fourteenth Amendment and assert authority to breach the debt ceiling to pay “the public debt of the United States, authorized by law”? Or can one party, decisively defeated in a nationwide election and controlling only the lower house of the legislature, threaten the full faith and credit of the United states — and the health of the world economy — in pursuit of its short-term partisan advantage?
The world has heard enough from me on this subject, but three nuanced analyses are worth looking at. The first, by Henry J. Aaron of the Brookings Institution, notes that the debt-ceiling crisis threatens not just the president's constitutional duty to make payments on the public debt but also the accompanying requirement that he spend money lawfully appropriated by Congress, either as part of a yearly budget or as part of statutes authorizing “entitlement” payments like Medicare or veterans' benefits.
Failing to do any of these things would be a default on the president's duty to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” The president may not be able to obey all three sources of law; if so, Aaron argues, he should make the payments and ignore the debt ceiling. “The debt ceiling is the fiscal equivalent of the human appendix — a law with no discoverable purpose,” he writes. “If Congress leaves the debt ceiling at a level inconsistent with duly enacted spending and tax laws, the president has no choice but to ignore it.”
Aaron's argument echoes the elegant analysis last fall by law professors Neil Buchanan of George Washington University and Michael Dorf of Cornell. These two prominent scholars concluded that paying appropriated monies and interest on the debt represents the “least unconstitutional” option open to a president when Congress refuses to approve a debt-ceiling increase.
In the same vein is a 2011 essay by Peter Shane of the Ohio State University — one of the most careful students of presidential authority writing today. “The legal path is not clearly marked either way,” he writes. But Shane notes that both paying the debt and the appropriated monies, and impounding the monies and defaulting on the debt, involve a president violating some legal command.
All the commands can't be right.
A default on the debt poses an existential threat to both the nation and the world economy. Experts I trust worry that it could precipitate a new 1929-style global depression. It would be in the economic sphere the rough equivalent of a sudden attack on the United States. No one would question that a commander-in-chief could respond to such an attack — even if Congress refused to act in the face of the threat. In that situation, the members of Congress, not the president, would be in violation of their oaths.
If a president sits by and allows the world economy to collapse, that president might be held to have violated his oath. If a president refuses to sit by, the same charge can be made. In either case, the question could only be resolved by impeachment proceedings. After that, we will know who has the power, for good or ill.
If I were president, I think, I'd rather be impeached for acting than for standing by. Obama admires Abraham Lincoln. On July 4, 1861, Lincoln defended his refusal to obey a writ of habeas corpus during the secession crisis: “Are all the laws, but one, to go unexecuted, and the government itself go to pieces, lest that one be violated?”
---------------------------------------------------end
OK, if the Insanity Caucus wants to make President Obama the next Franklin D. Roosevelt, have at it. Barack Obama will be known as the second American president who saved the world.
-
The Teahadists can't get their stories straight. On the one hand they say this shut down is exactly what they wanted, but in the next breath, they blame the president and decry the effects of the cuts. One minute they are calling it a "slim down" and saying it's no big deal, and then they turn around and say how awful it is that the democrats shut down the WWII memorial.
My favorite part of their nonsense is when they say "this is bad for the Democrats..."
Give me a freakin break. This whole mess is the fault of the TPGOP and John Boehner, and the American public knows it, and the polls reflect that.
They followed Ted Cruz and set fire to the place and now they are trying to spin themselves silly to find a way out.
Good night ladies - I really enjoyed all of your posts here today! -
Donna - worse than just blaming Democrats for shutting down the WWII memorial, they want to fire the head of the National Park Service for actually shutting the memorial down after the government was officially shut down. What is up is down, what is white is black.....
And boy, do those GOPers hate the National Park Service - so doesn't surprise me they would have this crazy reaction to that government agency. First of all, they're all a bunch of crazy liberals to them. Never met a Parkie that wasn't a liberal myself.
Also, one of the lowest paid federal agencies. The NPS comments to the Keystone Pipeline EIS were all negative - payback time from the GOP. -
If the U.S. defaults and sets the world economies into a tailspin, it won't only be fed-up Americans who will rise up and shout out "Enough already". It will also be the rest of the world -- with daggers drawn.
-
The cannibalism begins:
Ted Cruz blasted by angry GOP colleagues
Ted Cruz faced a barrage of hostile questions Wednesday from angry GOP senators, who lashed the Texas tea party freshman for helping prompt a government shutdown crisis without a strategy to end it.
At a closed-door lunch meeting in the Senate’s Mansfield Room, Republican after Republican pressed Cruz to explain how he would propose to end the bitter budget impasse with Democrats, according to senators who attended the meeting. A defensive Cruz had no clear plan to force an end to the shutdown — or explain how he would defund Obamacare, as he has demanded all along, sources said.
Things got particularly heated when Cruz was asked point-blank if he would renounce attacks waged on GOP senators by the Senate Conservatives Fund, an outside group that has aligned itself closely with the Texas senator.Cruz’s response: “I will not,” according to an attendee.
-
I haven't been on for a few days. Dad is home, doing okay, and I've been busy with him and a brief I was writing.
Also being furious at the Republicans.
Maybe finally people will realize that the Republicans are not in favor of a democratic (small d) government. They do not believe that elections count, that laws passed in a constitutional manner should be followed. For all their talks about "freedom", they don't believe in freedom. They don't believe in women's freedom to choose, even choose birth control; they don't believe in freedom of religion - unless you're Christian; they don't believe in protecting the rights of minorities, or first amendment rights, or fourth amendment rights. The only absolute right is the second amendment.
I haven't been on for a few days, but I think the passage printed by RL is correct. These people are commiting treason as well as terrorism.
Some of this does come from Obama being willing to let them get away with it earlier. But still, the fact that he gave in to terrorist demands earlier does not exculpate the terrorists.
-
-
-
-
Interesting thing...
I accessed healthcare.gov and was directed to my state's insurance exchange. Now when I try Texas, I stay on the healthcare.gov site since Texas refuses to operate their own. So, other than Texas, there are 33 other states that either don't recognize the ACA as LAW or haven't completed their website. So you have 34 states' worth of people trying to access the federal exchange and oh, my gosh, a lot of them are Republican-run.
So when that many uninsured people accessed the website, there were delays. Delays caused by Republican-run states. But of course that's Obamacare's fault.Seriously, things would be much easier (and cheaper and more efficient) if people just admitted that their reason for hating the President is because he's black. Just admit it. Own up. Be a brave little soldier.
-
Totally agree E! How dare he!
-
Blue - thanks for the John Kennedy quotation. I have printed it and posted it on my cubicle wall. Something to look at for the last month I'm here....
-
The only thing that disgusts me more than the evil of this temper tantrum by the Republican House is the stupidity of it all. They have shut down the government and harmed American citizens and our economy gleefully ... supposedly because they are so opposed to the ACA. But they knew all along that it would not stop the implementation of the ACA. So what the h*ll did they expect to accomplish? Are they getting some kind of sick kick out of beating up on American citizens because they lost both the election and lost again on ACA in the legislative process?
And then this from one of the idiots from my home state ... which proves that they really don't even have a clue what they want. They are only mindlessly kicking and screaming just because the debt ceiling limit gave them an opening to do so. We need to get these freaks out of Congress. They are too immature to do the job.
-
The TPGOP is screaming that President Obama is unwilling to negotiate, but whom is he supposed to negotiate with? John Boehner clearly is not the leader, as he is cravenly capitulating to the demands of a few Teahadists, despite a majority of his own caucus wanting to vote on a clean CR. He will not even bring it to a vote, because a small group is threatening his future as Speaker. He is not the "leader" of anybody! Any deal he might strike would be worthless, because he cannot even control how his side of the aisle votes.
I loved this little nugget, which demonstrates so clearly how screewed we are in this mess: Pressed on what House Republicans want to get out the national government shutdown, Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-IN) said yesterday: "We're not going to be disrespected. We have to get something out of this. And I don't know what that even is."
-
looks like we cross-posted, Marilyn! Great minds and all that
-
They are getting strokes from their base and making the United States look like a home for fools.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/02/opinion/ghitis-world-america-shutdown/index.html?hpt=hp_t4
America's enemies must be laughing. But most of the world is just baffled, mystified at the sight of the world's most powerful country tangled in a crippling web of its own making.
The government shutdown is weakening the United States before its allies and its foes. It is eroding American standing and prestige while reducing American power and influence. The democracy that once inspired the world now leaves observers perplexed.
This, to put it mildly, is not a time when Americans can say they feel pride in their government.
It is a time when America's partners worry about how much they can rely on the commitments from a nation that claims to be a bastion of democracy and freedom, not to mention efficiency and competence.
For politicians in Washington, and for the American people, angry and frustrated with the increasingly partisan and dysfunctional government, the shutdown that started on Tuesday looks like a battle over domestic politics. For the rest of the world, the closure of U.S. government institutions says America is growing small, small-minded and unreliable.
A small band of extreme right-wing politicians couldn't win the debate, or the vote, or the legal argument over health care, so they decided to close down the government instead. A system that allows that to happen is dangerously flawed and in urgent need of repairs.
The self-destructive tactic is undermining American strategic interests while the country's rivals make strides on the global stage. While Russia's Vladimir Putin unabashedly strengthens his position, while China expands its global influence, while America faces enormous challenges, the president of the United States and countless top officials are expending energy on a futile exercise.
In recent days -- while Syria burned, Iran maneuvered and Europe wondered if the United States will send the global economy back into recession -- U.S. government officials were busy making plans for a shutdown: deciding what offices will be open, what employees would write on their e-mail autoreplies during the shutdown.
In the final hours before the deadline, the United Nations General Assembly was in session and Obama was meeting with world leaders. But his mind was presumably on the blackmail and on the impending shutdown. Americans were also distracted, irritated.
In a world filled with crises, the ego-massaging spectacle from Washington managed to steal the spotlight. Bravo.
American strategic considerations now take a back seat. U.S. efforts to counter China's influence by strengthening ties with Asian countries have to wait. The long-planned visit to Asia by the president was cut in half to attend to this unnecessary crisis.
An aide to Supreme Allied Commander in Europe Gen. Philip Breedlove said the general would cut his travel because of the shutdown. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel correctly noted the shutdown would raise doubts among key allies and would damage American credibility.
It is impossible to fully calculate the ways in which this hurts America's standing. U.S. officials cooperate on important projects in every field with international organizations. Their partners are learning they cannot rely on them.
The United States used to have one of the most respected forms of government on the planet. Washington was never morally crystalline and pure, but enough respect for the principles of democracy made people in other nations yearn to build a similar system, one in which people with differing opinions debated their positions, voted, and accepted the outcome. Who would want to copy the American system now?
The last time the government shut down, in 1995, I was in Bosnia. Back then, as we awaited the arrival of NATO forces, we heard of the shutdown. It seemed inconceivable such a thing could happen during a time of crisis. But at least President Clinton and the Republicans led by House Speaker Newt Gingrich were willing to compromise. And they weren't fighting over an issue that had already been triply settled in Congress, in the courts and at the ballot box.
And back then the economy was strong, more resilient, better able to withstand the showdown.
Today's dogmatic politicians, protected by like-minded zealots in their districts, are looking at their job in the narrowest possible way. They may want to hurt Obama; they may want to blackmail the president into doing away with his health care program. What they are doing is weakening America and its alliances. They are hurting those people in other lands who are trying to make the case that democracy is the best system.
From travel agents in Tokyo to newspaper columnists in Britain, people are trying to explain the inexplicable. Tourists from overseas have been blocked from visiting the Statue of Liberty. International meetings have been canceled, research delayed.
'So much for the world's great superpower,' she tweeted, 'It's closed.'
Frida GhitisThe British columnist Martin Wolf tried to break down for his readers how one side would close down the government to stop the health insurance that other countries take for granted. But he concluded that it all "seems mad." A journalist in India wrote about her driver and translator laughing at the United States. "So much for the world's great superpower," she tweeted, "It's closed."
American looks weak, flailing.
Set aside for a moment the impact of the shutdown on 800,000 federal workers and their families. Forget just for now the anguish of the people accepted for clinical trials on cancer drugs at the National Institutes of Health. Forget the businesses that rely on income from providing services to government workers, or from tourists visiting national parks. Forget the parents who have no place to take their children with the closure of Head Start-funded programs. Put to the side for a moment the ripples of damage caused within the United States by this exercise in political extremism.
Think instead about the impact this has on America's international standing and global interests. The people who caused this travesty are diminishing their country. Perhaps the knowledge that America's enemies are enjoying the spectacle will give them pause; probably not.
-
How about a lollipop or a candy bar Marlin. Will that work for you? Flavor of your choice. Ack ... the stupid burns.
-
It's scary to me how little so many American's understand how the government actually functions. Most of the tea-party representatives apparently just one day thought they would do better in government then in whatever they were doing beforehand. They apparently never have read the constitution (other than the 2nd amendment, of course). They do not understand that if the President and Senate give in to the tactics currently being exhibited by the TP-GOP in the house (and Cruz) that it will forever change the way our country functions. We will no longer be a Democracy.
I read articles and comments on some right-wing sites, and occasionally listen to Fox News. It boggles the mind. While they are saying they want to "take our country back" - what they are actually attempting to do is throw it down the toilet.
And "They won't be disrespected"??????? They have brought disrespect upon our Country, our President, our elections, our way of government. They think it is respectable to throw our entire method of governance out the window because they didn't get what they wanted?? They are as despicable a group of people as I have ever seen. I for one have zero respect for them and their antics.
-
I see two major problems which have caused this (to put it kindly and gently) "impasse".
The first is the so-called Hastert Rule, that requires all Repub House members to vote en masse rather than as individuals representing their districts. I believe the Founding Fathers would be rolling over in the graves to even imagine this. It seems totally un-constitutional.
The second is the lack of a truly bi-partisan, fully functioning Federal Elections Commission whose primary responsibility is to set federal election boundaries. If this were so, then the TPers who are leading this anti-government crusade would HAVE TO worry about being re-elected. As it stands now, their districts are so gerrymandered as to virtually ensure their re-election. Last night I saw an outline of the 6th District in Louisiana. It was in the shape of a horseshoe!
-
Blue, that Disney World link you posted is inspiring! From Blue's link:
Instead of being cruel to their part-time workers by cutting their hours, the Florida theme park has been inspired by Obamacare to offer them full-time employment so that they can get full health care coverage. -
I see two major problems which have caused this (to put it kindly and gently) "impasse".
The first is the so-called Hastert Rule, that requires all Repub House members to vote en masse rather than as individuals representing their districts. I believe the Founding Fathers would be rolling over in the graves to even imagine this. It seems totally un-constitutional.
The second is the lack of a truly bi-partisan, fully functioning Federal Elections Commission whose primary responsibility is to set federal election boundaries. If this were so, then the TPers who are leading this anti-government crusade would HAVE TO worry about being re-elected. As it stands now, their districts are so gerrymandered as to virtually ensure their re-election. Last night I saw an outline of the 6th District in Louisiana. It was in the shape of a horseshoe!
-
Daily Kos
October 3, 2013
Republicans to investigate why their shutdown caused memorials to be shut down
House Republicans continue to be outraged about the fact that, when they shut the government down, even the parts that they liked got shut down. Specifically, various memorials in the nation's capital, led of course by the World War II Memorial. Naturally, being outraged Republicans, they're prepared to spend more time and energy investigating why the memorials are closed than attempting to reopen the whole government and the monuments right along with it.
Senior House Natural Resources Committee Republicans sent their own letter Wednesday to National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis to ask him to “take steps as necessary to keep and not destroy documents related to the decision this week to restrict public access” to open-air memorials and monuments in the Washington area, including those honoring veterans of multiple wars, Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King.
Documents related to the decision? Wouldn't those be the series of House votes that shut down the f'ing government? Which I'm pretty sure senior House Natural Resources Committee Republicans have access to and are aware of.
Rep. Tammy Duckworth has thoughts on this matter:
“These same veterans that they’re pretending to help today at the WWII memorial, you know, they’re going to have access to their disability pensions is going to be limited after Oct. 15. There’s going to be cuts in prosthetic research for veterans. The National Cemetery Administration is not going to be able to lay our heroes to rest at the same rate that they were,” Duckworth said. “And Michele Bachmann who was there today at the World War II Memorial actually said, ‘The shutdown is exactly what we wanted. We got what we wanted.’ A good day for the tea party is when government is having a bad day.”
And kids are already being kicked out of Head Start and denied cancer treatment; and nutrition assistance for Women, Infants, and Children is being lost; and domestic violence shelters and local food banks are endangered, so it's been a very good fucking week for the tea party. Sarah Palin showed off a little of the glee they must all be feeling, dubbing the president "Barrycades" because, again, it's so, so outrageous that when the government closed, the memorials it operates were also closed, in some cases with barricades.
It's really hard to decide which is more appalling and mouth-gapingly brazen: That Republicans are more concerned that a few memorials are closed off so that you can only look at them from outside and not go into them than that hundreds of thousands of people are going without paychecks and programs for the most vulnerable are being cut, or that Republicans forced the shutdown and are now trying to gain political mileage off of their outrage that things got shut down.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/10/03/1243699/-Republicans-to-investigate-why-their-shutdown-caused-memorials-to-be-shut-down
------------------------------end
Now they are too stupid to know what "shutdown" actually means. In the old days, people this delusional would have been locked up and medicated as a danger to themselves and society. Instead they are elected to office by hate-filled people who are being played like fiddles by the likes of the Kochs. How does it feel to have been had, baggers? -
Are they really that dumb? Or do they just think their followers are?
If I was the Prez I would declare their staff, cars, drivers, airline flights, cafeteria and all their other perks nonessential (which they are) and shut all that down first thing. That's all they really care about ... themselves.
And now those brilliant
minds have decided that the way to stop people from getting even more angry about their foolishness is to piecemeal fund this and that. What part of debt ceiling limit do they not comprehend? You (Congress) have already spent above the current debt ceiling limit. You are refusing to raise that limit to pay the bills you have already incurred. So what makes you think you can authorize more spending of any kind until you take care of that problem?
Categories
- All Categories
- 679 Advocacy and Fund-Raising
- 289 Advocacy
- 68 I've Donated to Breastcancer.org in honor of....
- Test
- 322 Walks, Runs and Fundraising Events for Breastcancer.org
- 5.6K Community Connections
- 282 Middle Age 40-60(ish) Years Old With Breast Cancer
- 53 Australians and New Zealanders Affected by Breast Cancer
- 208 Black Women or Men With Breast Cancer
- 684 Canadians Affected by Breast Cancer
- 1.5K Caring for Someone with Breast cancer
- 455 Caring for Someone with Stage IV or Mets
- 260 High Risk of Recurrence or Second Breast Cancer
- 22 International, Non-English Speakers With Breast Cancer
- 16 Latinas/Hispanics With Breast Cancer
- 189 LGBTQA+ With Breast Cancer
- 152 May Their Memory Live On
- 85 Member Matchup & Virtual Support Meetups
- 375 Members by Location
- 291 Older Than 60 Years Old With Breast Cancer
- 177 Singles With Breast Cancer
- 869 Young With Breast Cancer
- 50.4K Connecting With Others Who Have a Similar Diagnosis
- 204 Breast Cancer with Another Diagnosis or Comorbidity
- 4K DCIS (Ductal Carcinoma In Situ)
- 79 DCIS plus HER2-positive Microinvasion
- 529 Genetic Testing
- 2.2K HER2+ (Positive) Breast Cancer
- 1.5K IBC (Inflammatory Breast Cancer)
- 3.4K IDC (Invasive Ductal Carcinoma)
- 1.5K ILC (Invasive Lobular Carcinoma)
- 999 Just Diagnosed With a Recurrence or Metastasis
- 652 LCIS (Lobular Carcinoma In Situ)
- 193 Less Common Types of Breast Cancer
- 252 Male Breast Cancer
- 86 Mixed Type Breast Cancer
- 3.1K Not Diagnosed With a Recurrence or Metastases but Concerned
- 189 Palliative Therapy/Hospice Care
- 488 Second or Third Breast Cancer
- 1.2K Stage I Breast Cancer
- 313 Stage II Breast Cancer
- 3.8K Stage III Breast Cancer
- 2.5K Triple-Negative Breast Cancer
- 13.1K Day-to-Day Matters
- 132 All things COVID-19 or coronavirus
- 87 BCO Free-Cycle: Give or Trade Items Related to Breast Cancer
- 5.9K Clinical Trials, Research News, Podcasts, and Study Results
- 86 Coping with Holidays, Special Days and Anniversaries
- 828 Employment, Insurance, and Other Financial Issues
- 101 Family and Family Planning Matters
- Family Issues for Those Who Have Breast Cancer
- 26 Furry friends
- 1.8K Humor and Games
- 1.6K Mental Health: Because Cancer Doesn't Just Affect Your Breasts
- 706 Recipe Swap for Healthy Living
- 704 Recommend Your Resources
- 171 Sex & Relationship Matters
- 9 The Political Corner
- 874 Working on Your Fitness
- 4.5K Moving On & Finding Inspiration After Breast Cancer
- 394 Bonded by Breast Cancer
- 3.1K Life After Breast Cancer
- 806 Prayers and Spiritual Support
- 285 Who or What Inspires You?
- 28.7K Not Diagnosed But Concerned
- 1K Benign Breast Conditions
- 2.3K High Risk for Breast Cancer
- 18K Not Diagnosed But Worried
- 7.4K Waiting for Test Results
- 603 Site News and Announcements
- 560 Comments, Suggestions, Feature Requests
- 39 Mod Announcements, Breastcancer.org News, Blog Entries, Podcasts
- 4 Survey, Interview and Participant Requests: Need your Help!
- 61.9K Tests, Treatments & Side Effects
- 586 Alternative Medicine
- 255 Bone Health and Bone Loss
- 11.4K Breast Reconstruction
- 7.9K Chemotherapy - Before, During, and After
- 2.7K Complementary and Holistic Medicine and Treatment
- 775 Diagnosed and Waiting for Test Results
- 7.8K Hormonal Therapy - Before, During, and After
- 50 Immunotherapy - Before, During, and After
- 7.4K Just Diagnosed
- 1.4K Living Without Reconstruction After a Mastectomy
- 5.2K Lymphedema
- 3.6K Managing Side Effects of Breast Cancer and Its Treatment
- 591 Pain
- 3.9K Radiation Therapy - Before, During, and After
- 8.4K Surgery - Before, During, and After
- 109 Welcome to Breastcancer.org
- 98 Acknowledging and honoring our Community
- 11 Info & Resources for New Patients & Members From the Team