US Government shuts down

[Ab]

Whoa baby.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/gop-...al-concessions

So the Republicans have had the US Government shut down in order to try and force a repeal of Obama's healthcare law. Holy fucking nutball crazy, batman.

[Nothing]

Now is the ideal time for a terrorist attack.

[Ab]

• 800,000 federal employees have to go home. There’s no money to pay them, and coming to work on a volunteer basis gets into some tricky legal areas. While in the past they have successfully lobbied for back pay, there’s no guarantee of it with a divided congress.
  
• Air-traffic controllers will remain on duty. ATCs are government employees, but they are members of the 2-million odd employees that are marked as “essential”. They likely will not receive paychecks, however, until the shutdown ends.
• Airport delays. While the FAA’s security screeners are essential employees, many of the people who work to support them logistically are not.
• Visa applications and fees will continue to be processed, and foreign embassies and consulates remain open. So if you’re waiting on a visa application, don’t worry, it’s still in the works - though again, it’ll almost certainly be a slower process. Homeland Security and green card operations are included here, though DHS’ e-verify program - the thing that checks on the immigration status of job applicants - will no longer operate.
• NASA will furlough most of its employees. Essential mission control operations and employees will continue, but the vast majority of NASA employees are going home - and I do mean home, because NASA’s on-site housing for employees is being shut down.
• The military stops receiving paychecks. While the million and a half members of the US Armed Services stay on duty, they won’t get paid until after the shutdown.
• The postal service continues as normal.
• The federal court system stops. According to The Guardian, the federal courts would operate as normal for about 10 days before they have to start sending people home.
• The NIH screeches to a halt. That includes accepting new patients for clinical research, as well as answering medical questions on their hotline.
• The CDC will stop its seasonal flu program. According to the Washington Post, it will also have “a significantly reduced capacity to respond to outbreak investigations.”
• HUD will no longer be able to provide local housing authorities with vouchers. So if you live in government-subsidized housing, your status is very much up in the air.
• Parks and museums will close. Yosemite, Alcatraz, Yellowstone, the Smithsonian, the Library of Congress, the Statue of Liberty, and about 400 other locations will close - though interestingly, the Southern Rim of the Grand Canyon will remain open, because the state of Arizona is picking up the bill.
• The EPA will shut down. The only thing that stays open at the EPA during a government shutdown is its operations around Superfund sites.
• OSHA will shut down.
• Social Security will be partially defunded. Social Security, as an entitlement, will remain open enough to keep the checks going out, but will lose enough staff that they won’t be able to schedule new hearings.
• VA Benefits will be cut. VA hospitals remain open, but that’s about it - and if the shutdown lasts longer than a few weeks, the Department of Veterans Affairs has said that it might not have enough money to pay disability claims and pensions.

[Ab]

Originally Posted by Nothing

Now is the ideal time for a terrorist attack.

Why bother? The USA is doing fine all by itself.

[Nothing]

Some men just want to watch the world burn. Leave it to them to throw fuel on the fire.

[Ab]

Halting the paycheques of soldiers and cancelling payments and medical treatment of veterans. Hmm, how has alienating the armed forces traditionally worked out for empires?

[Nothing]

Can't say, not a student of history. But the rhetoric of the question you pose doesn't sound promising for the empire. On the other hand, presumably they got away with something similar in 1996.

[p01s0n]

[Cyberbob]

Originally Posted by Ab

Halting the paycheques of soldiers and cancelling payments and medical treatment of veterans. Hmm, how has alienating the armed forces traditionally worked out for empires?

A pissed off deployed armed force coming home to make an unprecedented armed march on Rom^H^H^HWashington? I'd pay to see that.

[leadinjector]

i just dont understand how the republicans are even a party anymore.

[Ab]

“I can sympathize with House Republicans because once my mom wouldn’t let me get candy at the store, and then I burned down the whole city.”
— Cyanide and Happiness’ Rob DenBleyker

[fidgit]

So I originally thought this complete fuck up was a result of hitting the 'debt ceiling', like what almost happened a few months back. But actually, that's still to come - and given that both parties seem willing to dig in a drive their country straight into disaster I can see it going all the way this time and a massive default on their foreign-owned debt.

Imagine a world without the United States. Hopefully the East and West sea-boards can get together. Maybe join Canada?

[Lightspeed]

This hasn't happened since... the last Democratic president. Hrmm.

[fidgit]

Originally Posted by Lightspeed

This hasn't happened since... the last Democratic president. Hrmm.

Of course - because when there is a Democratic President, the Senate (or Congress) will oppose everything he does, if they are majority-Repub. If it was a Republican president and a Democratic Senate and Congress, you still wouldn't get this done because Democrats aren't so keen on holding the country to ransom.

[CCS]

Originally Posted by fidgit

So I originally thought this complete fuck up was a result of hitting the 'debt ceiling', like what almost happened a few months back. But actually, that's still to come - and given that both parties seem willing to dig in a drive their country straight into disaster I can see it going all the way this time and a massive default on their foreign-owned debt.

Imagine a world without the United States. Hopefully the East and West sea-boards can get together. Maybe join Canada?

Shit calm down.

[fidgit]

Originally Posted by CCS

Shit calm down.

I don't actually believe they would let their country dissolve, I'm just having some fun. Enjoying, if you will, a country with a significantly crazier government than our own, yet one that keeps taking the moral high ground with the rest of the world.

[Ab]

Originally Posted by Lightspeed

This hasn't happened since... the last Democratic president. Hrmm.

For bonus lols: compare the state of the US economy in 1996 with the the state of the US economy in 2013.

[CCS]

Originally Posted by fidgit

I don't actually believe they would let their country dissolve, I'm just having some fun. Enjoying, if you will, a country with a significantly crazier government than our own, yet one that keeps taking the moral high ground with the rest of the world.

Calm down.

[StN]

Obviously this was the easiest way to shut down NASA and hide the inbound Nibiru...

[pxpx]

Originally Posted by Ab

For bonus lols: compare the state of the US economy in 1996 with the the state of the US economy in 2013.

I was 15 in 1996. Can you compare it for us?

[blur^]

Is this real life?

Here's an idea, Obama should walk down Pennsylvania Avenue to meet with the Republican leadership who make him wait, Obama sits like a school boy on a bench in front of all the media and sits patiently and finally gets up and walks out just before the Republicans decide to see him. President Bar^H^H^HObama looks like a champ and gets his budget approved.

[fixed_truth]

"What could be more reasonable than losing an election by 5 million votes then demanding the president to govern as they would, or else shut the government down and not pay our bills?"

[[Malks] Pixie]

What I find crazy is the this isn't the first or even second time it's happened. This is the 17th time it's occured since 1976 and 5 of those have been for more than 10 days. I had some interesting conversations with a number of my US friends about it last night, the general consensus being, "...crazy fucking politicos will do what crazy fucking politicos do..."

Some interesting reading about shutdowns and their effects on the stockmarkets : http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2...t-debt-ceiling

Pixie

[blur^]

TIL this happened to the aussie's in the 70s

the GG fired everyone in parliament and they held a snap election to replace everyone, hasnt happened again.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...in-parliament/

[Lightspeed]

Yeah, that's quite interesting. The conventional wisdom is if the Crown got uppity and tried to have a say in our affairs, we would declare independence. But that's not something you can do without a functional government.

[Ab]

Originally Posted by blur^

Is this real life?

Here's an idea, Obama should walk down Pennsylvania Avenue to meet with the Republican leadership who make him wait, Obama sits like a school boy on a bench in front of all the media and sits patiently and finally gets up and walks out just before the Republicans decide to see him. President Bar^H^H^HObama looks like a champ and gets his budget approved.

Bartlet was trying to get a budget passed. Obama isn't actually trying to do anything other than go about the day to day business of running the country.

What the Republicans are doing is trying to force Obama into passing a new law to reverse the Affordable Care Act (aka "Obamacare"), the law that has improved medical coverage for Americans from "hellish and the worst in the western world" to "terrible and still the worst in the western world". Never mind that the ACA passed both Houses, was signed into law by the President, and was affirmed by the Supreme Court. The Republicans want it gone. Because the President a nigra. Whatever he's for, they're against.

Bonus crazy: Obama's in his second term. He doesn't have to worry about popularity, he's not running for office again. He has nothing to lose, so why are the Republicans torching the country to try to get him to reverse his greatest achievement - the one piece of legislation on which he is LEAST likely to ever make a concession?

Because he a nigra.

[Ab]

Originally Posted by Lightspeed

Yeah, that's quite interesting. The conventional wisdom is if the Crown got uppity and tried to have a say in our affairs, we would declare independence. But that's not something you can do without a functional government.

That article is fucking rubbish. Ignore it, the author is obviously retarded.

(edit update: my explanation was gaining more paragraphs by the second and I realised that everything I needed to say was contained within the sentence above)

[StN]

Lets check out how well the next mission to Mars is going at www.nasa.gov...



Doh!

[CCS]

Bonus lols: Kimmel

[CCS]

Originally Posted by Ab

Halting the paycheques of soldiers and cancelling payments and medical treatment of veterans. Hmm, how has alienating the armed forces traditionally worked out for empires?

It's okay, Obama signed a bill to ensure those guys would still get paid.

[Ab]

Originally Posted by CCS

Bonus lols: Kimmel

Jon Stewart

[Cyberbob]

Originally Posted by Ab

Jon Stewart

When did Daily Show get unblocked from AU/NZ?

[CCS]

Quite a whiles ago.

[xor]

I'm picturing a federal employee as the new main character in a sequel to Falling Down.

[Ab]

lol priorities bitch

[creamcheese]

It's been an interesting couple days at work, a couple of the buildings we manage, or at least have equipment in are owned by the federal gummint, so we had to rip all our shit out before they chained the doors shut at 1:00pm yesterday.

Those folks paid by the feds were politely told to fuck off home and don't come back till the lights are back on, and those partly paid are just hoping that the shortfall will be paid by us (who then have to seek re-reimbursement once shit's up and running again)

Madness.

[aR Que]

Originally Posted by Ab

lol priorities bitch

Education don't keep them commies at bay.

[Ab]

Sucks to be science, housing, education, or the environment.

[Ab]

Originally Posted by Ab

Obama's in his second term. He doesn't have to worry about popularity, he's not running for office again. He has nothing to lose, so why are the Republicans torching the country to try to get him to reverse his greatest achievement - the one piece of legislation on which he is LEAST likely to ever make a concession?

My theory:

Citizens United means that politicians can now accept almost unlimited campaign funding from special-interest groups.

That means that individual Republican Congressmen no longer have to depend on financing from the RNC; they can get money straight from PACs and shell corporations set up solely to funnel money to politicians.

That's why Boehner has looked so fucking ineffectual during all of this - he has no bargaining power with the actual Congressmen. If he says "no Party funds for you" then he'll just get a reply of "yeah, so? I've got the anonymous donors of FUCK THE NIGRA CORPORATION LLC paying for my campaign"

And while I was correct that Obama isn't running for re-election, I completely missed the obvious point: all these Republican congressmen ARE, in the mid-terms. No individual politician can afford to look sane and conciliatory in a showdown like this because the crazy people don't like sane and it's the crazy people who donate the most money.

So: this isn't a battle between Republicans and Democrats. It's a battle between each sitting Congressman and any internal challengers that he might be facing for his own seat. Each Republican Congressman is thinking "the crazier I get, the more safe my own job is". There is absolutely no incentive for sanity and lots for insanity.

How's that for the Tragedy of the Commons - a whole lot of people saying "fuck the country, I need to look out for me".

So basically this is all theatre. It has almost nothing to do with Obamacare - they would have fixated on something. Anything.

[chubby]

http://gawker.com/gop-congressman-makes-park-ranger-apologize-for-shutdow-1440577868?utm_source=recirculation&utm_medium=recirculation&utm_campaign=thursd ay

In an astounding confrontation that took place yesterday at the World War II Memorial in DC, a Tea Party congressman from Texas appeared to blame the Park Service for denying veterans access to the facility — and then made a Park Ranger apologize for the shutdown. "How do you look at them and ... deny them access?" Rep. Randy Neugebauer asked the unidentified Ranger in an incredible exchange that was caught on camera by NBC Washington.