U.S. Politics - shut down, fed up, chime in

[TerraPrime]

More politics, please.

[bbstark]

"KKK Rally At Gettysburg Canceled Because Of Government Shutdown"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/01/kkk-rally-canceled_n_4024192.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular

possibly the only good thing to come from the shut down so far ?

on a more serious note, I could honestly say without a hint of doubt I'm behind THIS piece of legislation:

Rep. Rick Nolan (D-Minn.) introduced a bill Tuesday that would block members of Congress from being paid during a government shutdown.

The "No Government – No Pay Act" would stop members from being paid their salaries for as long as a shutdown continues.

"The inability of this Congress to collaborate, compromise, and get things done has led me to introduce legislation to prohibit Members from being paid when failure to do their job results in a government shutdown," Nolan said in a Tuesday statement. "It’s time for Congress to start living in the real world – where you either do your job, or you don’t get paid."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/02/rick-nolan-congressional-pay_n_4029595.html?ncid=txtlnkushpmg00000037

[Wise Fool]

So how is WIC and SNAP going to be affected by the shutdown? Are people not going to be able to use their cards or receive their WIC checks? I work at a supermarket and we get a lot of business from low income and struggling people who clearly need these things in order to, you know, avoid starvation and death, and I admit I'm pretty concerned.

I get more concerned when I hear people like Rush or O'Reilly or Hannity yuk it up, saying how it either doesn't affect them and sounds pretty good, or how the country needs a little pain, or of course that Obamacare is so evil and insidious that any and all steps taken against it are justified. This is major media in the US, and a lot of people get their political opinions straight from it, and is this what people actually really think?

This is why I hate politics. It's a big game (game of thrones, har) to people who aren't impacted by it in any meaningful way, but the smallfolk always suffer from it.

[DreamSongs]

SNAP is administered by states and should continue. WIC will be affected.

[Shryke]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/house-gop-fails-to-pass-partial-government-funding-bills

House Republicans on Tuesday evening failed to muster the two-thirds majority needed to pass a series of three partial government finding bills.

The three bills -- to fund veterans benefits, national parks and the District of Columbia -- were designed to increase pressure on Senate Democrats to resolve the government shutdown by making them take politically uncomfortable votes against funding popular government services.

The failure of the three bills -- a key portion of the House GOP's government shutdown strategy that emerged earlier in the day Tuesday -- adds additional uncertainty to a way out of the current impasse.

The failure of the three measures is an ironic twist in Congress's struggle with funding the government. The votes were designed as a trap for Democrats. House Republicans decided in a closed-door meeting on Tuesday afternoon that they would try to fund the government through piecemeal continuing resolutions.

After the vote, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) told TPM that House GOP leadership knew the bills were going to fail.

"We were told that that's what they were going to do," Cantor said. "To employ some sort of scorched-earth strategy."

A House Democratic aide told TPM that their side believes Republicans took the unusual procedural route because otherwise Democrats would have had a chance to put a clean spending bill on the floor, which they believe would pass. House leadership has refused to put a clean bill on the floor.

House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) told TPM that the House would bring the legislation up Wednesday under regular order, which would only require a majority vote.

It's likely to pass then, but it isn't going anywhere. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (R-NV) has already rejected a piecemeal approach to funding the government, and the White House has threatened to veto any piecemeal legislation.

Interesting stuff here, but the bolded is the most telling imo.

They can't let the House get a chance to actually vote on straight up funding the government because there's enough sane-ish Republicans that they and the Democrats can stop this stupidity.

[Shryke]

SNAP is administered by states and should continue. WIC will be affected.

SNAP is paid for via federal grants so it'll be affected.

Quite severely given most state government's tendency to fuck the poor.

[bbstark]

people like Rush or O'Reilly or Hannity yuk it up, saying how it either doesn't affect them and sounds pretty good, or how the country needs a little pain, or of course that Obamacare is so evil and insidious that any and all steps taken against it are justified.

800,000 federal workers are currently furloughed, without pay, while guess who's continuing getting their sallary? that's right Congress.

This actually affects the program and schedules of scientists at NASA as well as any Aerospace company team with new government contracts. Given a shutdown of less than 2 weeks, chances are it won't affect anyone in Aerospace industry, though longer than that, they'd actually have to do layoffs (not directly related, but more of a domino affect regarding hiring and funds)

Chances are still, it won't affect anyone as much as the country's poorest, people on food stamps, so I see no way for anyone to argue that this 'pain the country needs' affects everyone equally.

If this doesn't send you into fits of rage, well then..

ETA: also, its just plain embarassing!

[thecryptile]

Not to worry folks, the NSA will still be monitoring us all.

[Shryke]

Spin Fox, Spin!!!

FoxNews.com altered Associated Press reports it republished Wednesday to replace references to a government shutdown with the word "slimdown."

FoxNews.com placed the headline "Americans turn to social media to air feelings on slimdown" on one AP story and altered its original lede: "The roiling debate over the U.S. government shutdown is extending to Twitter, Facebook and Instagram as fed-up Americans turn to social media to register their disgust with federal lawmakers for shutting down the government." The website replaced "shutting down the government" in that sentence with "slimming down the government."

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/foxnews-com-alters-ap-reports-to-read-gov-t-slimdown-not-shutdown

[sologdin]

isn't there an executive order that can fix it? like, take the children back to day care?

[TheKitttenGuard]

With all the politics, why do not conference for the budget and pass that with a debt ceiling increase?

[bbstark]

fyi, NSF and NIST websites are down:

http://www.nsf.gov/outage.html

http://www.nist.gov

parts of NIH too: http://www.nih.gov

this is a national disgrace!

[lokisnow]

With all the politics, why do not conference for the budget and pass that with a debt ceiling increase?

Republicans have refused to go to conference on the budget for the past six months. When asked why, they said they didn't want to resolve the Senate and House budgets in conference because they thought a government shutdown was better.

[Zman1863]

So now the house GOP is pushing hard for the piecemeal approach. Canter and a few of the others gave a statement at the WWII memorial. That pushes the ball on the Senate and makes the Dems look bad for not funding the stuff that everyone agrees on.

Harry Reid basically called one of the CNN corespondents a moron for asking why they wouldn't cave to a few of these individual bills. I support the president and the Democrats on this whole shutdown thing, but Reid is insufferable, and also stupid. They ought to call the GOP bluff and immediately pass those small bills and then criticize the House for taking the piecemeal approach. Seems a simple way to diffuse this latest tactic to me.

[awesome possum]

This is what the Republicans were afraid of...

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.

...

Reuters estimates that they got more than 10 million visits.

...

In some quarters, Republicans mocked Obamacare's technical problems, but the jokes were wan: Overwhelming demand for the law is not a boon to the GOP's position.

This is, of course, precisely what Republicans were scared of: That a law they loathe would end up being enthusiastically embraced by millions of Americans -- and thus proving permanent. It's Obamacare's possible success, not its promised failures, that unnerve the GOP.

How long until they give up the ACA fight, or will this be part of the GOP platform for years to come?

[TheKitttenGuard]

Boehner had 6 months to appoint conference members but chose to go along with the lemming caucus to force a government shutdown because they figured it would give them greater leverage to do away with Obamacare. I'm urging Reid and the Democrats in the Senate to stand firm and not negotiate. It's time to let the Tea Party own this shutdown and face the consequences of their suicidal actions.

I understand but does not explain why they can not do it now.

Yes, that is what CREs are for and that kind of closes the circle.

Still be nice to hear it with all the political bs going on

[Mexal]

So now the house GOP is pushing hard for the piecemeal approach. Canter and a few of the others gave a statement at the WWII memorial. That pushes the ball on the Senate and makes the Dems look bad for not funding the stuff that everyone agrees on.

Harry Reid basically called one of the CNN corespondents a moron for asking why they wouldn't cave to a few of these individual bills. I support the president and the Democrats on this whole shutdown thing, but Reid is insufferable, and also stupid. They ought to call the GOP bluff and immediately pass those small bills and then criticize the House for taking the piecemeal approach. Seems a simple way to diffuse this latest tactic to me.

How is passing the bills then calling them out on it diffusing the tactic? Looks to me like it'll help the House Republicans save face with their constituencies after they're the ones who caused this whole mess. Obama and Reid are right to deny these bills. All House Repubs need to do is pass a clean CR. It's not that hard.

[DanteGabriel]

How is passing the bills then calling them out on it diffusing the tactic? Looks to me like it'll help the House Republicans save face with their constituencies after they're the ones who caused this whole mess. Obama and Reid are right to deny these bills. All House Repubs need to do is pass a clean CR. It's not that hard.

All Boehner needs to do is let a clean CR come to the floor for a vote. There's enough not-treasonous Republicans in the House to vote with the Democrats to pass one. He's resisting because he's afraid of offending his Teabagger base and getting primaried out of office. The Republicans have been cultivating the dumb-ass know-nothing constituency for decades, and now it's fucking us all.

[thecryptile]

Well, healthcare.gov is working somewhat better today, the pull-down menu for the security questions actually has security questions now, and I was able to create an account- although when I tried to look at the insurance options, I got this error message:

Access Denied

You don't have permission to access "http://www.healthcare.gov/spawaitingroom/spawaitingroom.html?" on this server.

Reference #18.482f0660.1380739816.50adf8d

[DanteGabriel]

Well, healthcare.gov is working somewhat better today, the pull-down menu for the security questions actually has security questions now, and I was able to create an account- although when I tried to look at the insurance options, I got this error message:

Your exhaustive attempts to find something to whine about with the health exchange roll-out is cute.