Showing posts with label Economy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Economy. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

PICTURES FROM OBAMERICA: Walmart shelves ransacked thanks to EBT glitch and Y2K, but mostly EBT glitch

Isn't it amazing how able-bodied many of the folks using EBT cards appear to be? Healthy, young, able to, eh, work for a living?

KSLA reports on several Walmart stores that were ransacked after electronic welfare cards were "uncapped".

Shelves in Walmart stores in Springhill and Mansfield, LA were reportedly cleared Saturday night, when the stores allowed purchases on EBT cards even though they were not showing limits.

The chaos that followed ultimately required intervention from local police, and left behind numerous carts filled to overflowing, apparently abandoned when the glitch-spurred shopping frenzy ended...


...Lynd explained the cards weren't showing limits and they called corporate Walmart, whose spokesman said to let the people use the cards anyway. From 7 to 9 p.m., people were loading up their carts, but when the cards began showing limits again around 9, one woman was detained because she rang up a bill of $700.00 and only had .49 on her card. She was held by police until corporate Walmart said they wouldn't press charges if she left the food.

Lynd says at 9 p.m., when the cards came back online and it was announced over the loud speaker, people just left their carts full of food in the aisles and left.

As of June 2013, more than 47.7 million Americans were on food stamps. That figure is 1.1 million more than June of 2012 and about 2.5 million more than June of 2011.

How can it be said that America is in a recovery when more people are living in poverty, more are on food stamps, and more are on dependent on government than ever before?

Tragic: that's what I call the fraud, the waste, the abuse -- and, worst of all, the human toll of dependency -- related to these failed federal programs.


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

Monday, October 14, 2013

THE MIGHTY MICHAEL RAMIREZ: The Gravity of Our Situation

No one else is in Ramirez' league.


Visit Investors Business Daily for the best editorial page in America.


Sunday, October 13, 2013

OH, MY: New York Times and Chicago Tribune Roast Obamacare

Or, as I prefer to call it, ObamaCouldn'tCareLess. Both articles are must-reads (as well as the comments, which are hysterical - accusing, for instance, the Times of acting at the behest of Fox News or Rush Limbaugh).

[Link]: “These are not glitches,” said an insurance executive who has participated in many conference calls on the federal exchange. Like many people interviewed for this article, the executive spoke on the condition of anonymity, saying he did not wish to alienate the federal officials with whom he works. “The extent of the problems is pretty enormous. At the end of our calls, people say, ‘It’s awful, just awful.' ” ...

...Administration officials dug in their heels, repeatedly insisting that the project was on track despite evidence to the contrary...

Dr. Donald M. Berwick, the administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in 2010 and 2011, said the time and budgetary pressures were a constant worry. “The staff was heroic and dedicated, but we did not have enough money, and we all knew that,” he said in an interview on Friday.

Not enough money? Apparently, borrowing 40 cents of every dollar it spends isn't enough for this government. There's never enough money to get a doddering, incompetent, bloated, obese, monopoly of a federal government to work as efficiently as the free market.

[Link]: Adam Weldzius, a nurse practitioner, considers himself better informed than most when it comes to the inner workings of health insurance. But even he wasn't prepared for the pocketbook hit he'll face next year under President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.

If the 33-year-old single father wants the same level of coverage next year as what he has now with the same insurer and the same network of doctors and hospitals, his monthly premium of $233 will more than double. If he wants to keep his monthly payments in check, the Carpentersville resident is looking at an annual deductible for himself and his 7-year-old daughter of $12,700, a more than threefold increase from $3,500 today.

Gee, who could have predicted that a 2,200-page bill that no one read before voting on would have resulted in an unworkable disaster?


Hat tip: Hugh Hewitt.

Friday, October 11, 2013

Why is the government shut down? Here's why.

I don't know much about this Steve Stockman fellow, but I like the cut of his jib.



Last night, Mark Levin counseled our feckless, disappearing act of a Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell: "Try to get your Republicans under control and try to get yourself under control. Because you're panicking."

Please call your representative and tell them to stand firm. The House is in the position of power. The longer the non-essential bureaucrats in Washington (don't you love that term?) remain furloughed, the more their shrill cries will pressure Obama for relief.

Remember, the administrative state is the Democrat Party and the Democrat Party is the administrative state. The furlough hurts Democrats where it counts.

Stand strong, Republicans.


Screw the Debt Ceiling: How About the Debt Collapse?

Free Enterprise offers an infographic depicting the dire situation in which we find ourselves.

5 Alarming Facts about Entitlement Spending
by

Screw the damn debt ceiling. A collapse is coming. We need some sane leaders in Washington, which excludes all Democrats and RINOs.

Good intentions, Marxism, and other collectivist Utopian fantasies always succumb to mathematics. That's not my opinion, that's an immutable fact.


GROUNDS FOR IMPEACHMENT: IRS Gave White House Confidential Taxpayer Info; Punishable by Five Years in Prison

Guest post by Investors Business Daily


Scandal: The IRS official in charge of tax-exempt organizations when the unit targeted Tea Party groups now runs the IRS office responsible for enforcing ObamaCare and may have illegally shared confidential tax data.

It's bad enough that no one at the Internal Revenue Service has been meaningfully punished for the targeting of conservative groups before the 2012 election. Now we learn that, for some, the unconstitutional and illegal action was a good career move.
Sarah Hall Ingram, who served as commissioner of the Tax Exempt and Government Entities Division from 2009 to 2012, was so good at her job of suppressing the political speech of administration opponents by using the tax code as a bludgeon that she was rewarded during her tenure with four bonuses totaling $103,390.

Her salary went from $172,500 to $177,000 during that period, and she would also be rewarded with the post of director of the IRS' Affordable Care Act division.

That the person who rode roughshod over Tea Party groups was put in charge of riding roughshod over our health care was entirely fitting. The Tea Party was a grass-roots response to the power grab and assault on the Constitution that ObamaCare represents. It had to be punished for its electoral success in 2010 and Obama-Care had to be saved at all costs.

As the IRS scandal was unfolding, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., prophetically warned that "the IRS part of administering ObamaCare, particularly in the wake of this IRS scandal with regard to suppressing the views of Americans who were critical of the IRS, raises further suspicions about their involvement in the administration of ObamaCare."

Thursday, October 10, 2013

Denninger Going Galt; First of Many?

Starting at midnight, Karl Denninger's Market Ticker site will go dark for the next three days. His is a peaceful protest of Washington's insane spending and borrowing policies that will result in certain collapse. Not possible collapse. Certain.

I've got about 8 hours here before this site goes dark for the next 72 hours.

Why is it going dark?

Because I'm done paying for the outrageous scam known as "Washington DC."

That's why.

I'm a producer. I'm a net payer of taxes. I have written many very large checks to the IRS. I have done so willingly.

I am no longer willing.

I am not willing because our Congress, in concert with our Administration, has together put this nation on a path to ruin and continues to ignore basic arithmetic which states quite-clearly that this entire game is going to come to a catastrophic end of it is not stopped, and it has already ruined far too many ordinary Americans.

These scams and frauds are on display daily from the banksters, including HFT abuse (as Nanex has documented tirelessly), foreclosure fraud (robosigning, destruction of land title systems, seizing the wrong house and more), SSDI fraud, food stamp fraud and the entire medical industry including the latest outrage in Maine with Pharma suing to enforce laws that were passed legalizing direct violations of The Sherman Act. And that's just a short list; talk to the Truckers headed to DC for the next three days and you'll find they've got a whole host of complaints as well.

In addition our monetary policies over the last five years caused the doubling of basic commodities -- like food -- in places such as Egypt, which were directly responsible for the political turmoil and deaths of innocent people over there.

Today Ryan stepped forward to claim that Ronald Reagan "worked with" Tip O'Neill (Speaker of the House at the time) to get a "deal" that cut our long-term deficits and debt. Oh really? Reagan, if you remember, cut a "deal" for $3 in spending cuts for every dollar in tax increases in 1982. What he actually got was all the tax increases immediately and none of the spending cuts -- and the punishment leveled on Congress for lying through their teeth was zero. Further, deferring Social Security's problems for 25 years did not fix them, and those changes were only made when the system was literally under the gun and facing immediate (within 12 months!) insolvency.

That was the problem then -- Congress.

That's still the problem.

Ryan and Boehner have no intention of actually balancing the budget -- ever. The so-called "Ryan Budget" calls out a fantasy world in which 5% GDP growth continues forever, with no recessions, which has never happened in the history of the United States. It also presumes that at the same time of such "economic prosperity" debt service costs will not explode higher, but they will if that growth was to happen because interest rates will go up and as such the cost of debt service ramping will decimate the "declining deficit" projections...

...The only solution is to accept what we have done. To stand before the American people and confess, ask forgiveness and promise to sin no more. To accept the economic hardship that will come including the fact that the very wealthy will take proportionately more of the hit than the working man and poor, but everyone is going to get hit because we have all been living beyond our means.

If we must provide three hots and a cot to people who are truly destitute then do that directly -- no more SNAP cards, no more Section 8, a literal soup line and a cot in a building with a place to take a dump and a shower we can provide to all who actually need it.

It's time to quit screwing around, not because we want to, but because our time with this game has expired, and we are headed straight for a fiscal and economic cliff from which we will not recover if we do not stop now.

Don't believe him? How about David Malpass, a former deputy assistant Treasury secretary?

At its core, the shutdown is part of a much bigger battle to restrain the federal government. It is spending $3.6 trillion per year without a budget, and its expenditures are expected to increase rapidly in the years ahead.

Meanwhile, the government has piled up $17 trillion in debt and $60 trillion more in unfunded spending promises. The Federal Reserve will borrow $1.1 trillion in 2013 alone to buy bonds—and it reserves the right to borrow unlimited amounts for future bond purchases without congressional or presidential permission.

These are crisis-level problems. Whether the government is open or closed, they are surely grounds for immediate talks between the president and Congress on ways to pare ineffective federal programs, restrain spending and reduce borrowing.

Ducking governance decisions year after year will leave the U.S. too weak to face global challenges. Big government has meant slow growth, painfully high youth and minority unemployment and falling median incomes—except in the Washington, D.C., area, which recent census data show is growing ever richer.

We need to be shouting this from the rooftops day in and day out. The system is headed for collapse. Not in 50 years, 20 years or even 10.

Find Your Representative, call them, and tell them to HOLD THEIR GROUND

The system is headed for collapse and every warning light on our nation's dashboard is blinking red.

Use the box at right.

Use it tonight, tomorrow and the next day.

Use it like the country depends on it. Because it does.

NEVER LET A CRISIS GO TO WASTE: I Can Assure You That Obama Wants the U.S. to Default [Updated]

Updated 10/10/2013 20:19: Obama is intransigent. He will not negotiate on spending, on the debt ceiling, on Obamacare, on anything.


"You never want a serious crisis go to waste." --White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, February 9, 2009
I've heard no commentator ask the following question: What if President Obama wants a default?

This is, after all, a man whose starting negotiating position is that he "will not negotiate" with Congress on spending to raise the debt ceiling. This is a position unprecedented in American history since only Congress is granted the "power of the purse".

This is a man willing to use the instrumentalities of government to punish innocent Americans.

This is a man willing to torture World War II veterans, many of whom are terminally ill and trying to see their memorial for the first and last time.

This is a man spreading panic and fear about the debt ceiling, an utterly irresponsible, reprehensible and unprecedented step by a president.

Here are the facts:

There is virtually no chance of a default, unless Obama orders a default

In fact, Dean Clancy has done an exceptional job dissecting Obama's fear-mongering over the debt ceiling.

There is virtually no chance of a default, unless Obama orders a default.

...Mr. Obama is misleading the public by suggesting the question is whether to pay our bills. Of course we will pay our bills. No one is saying we shouldn't. The question is whether to raise the debt ceiling without also putting in place reforms to make future borrowing less necessary. Mr. Obama's resistance to such reforms makes him, not fiscal conservatives, the one holding the absurd position...
...As the chart above shows, if we hit the debt ceiling, we will still have more than enough tax revenue coming in to pay the most economically and politically sensitive obligations...

...In talking about "not paying our bills," Mr. Obama is hinting -- without openly saying -- that the US Government might fail to pay its creditors. This is highly irresponsible. He knows very well that, in the event we hit the debt ceiling, the US will continue to be able to pay all holders of US bonds (principal as well as interest). Even so deep-dyed a left-winger as Mr. Obama would never dare to miss a payment to bondholders. If he did, Uncle Sam's credit rating would almost certainly take an immediate hit, driving up interest rates and rattling world markets. In failing to make all this clear, the President allows those who are less knowledgeable to mistakenly assume that a debt default is a realistic possibility. It's not.

True, Dean, under normal circumstances, a default is not a realistic possibility.

But these are not, by any stretch, normal circumstances.

The Cloward-Piven Strategy of Manufactured Crisis

Author James Simpson has probably done the most comprehensive work in documenting "The Cloward-Piven Strategy of Manufactured Crisis". His seminal article, written before Obama's 2008 election, predicted what the community organizer had in mind for America. The strategy, first articulated by two Columbia professors -- who taught there during Obama's years as a student -- describes crushing capitalism by overwhelming it through massive expansion of the welfare state.

The "Cloward-Piven Strategy" seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse...

...Cloward and Piven were inspired by radical organizer [and Hillary Clinton mentor] Saul Alinsky...

...Their strategy to create political, financial, and social chaos that would result in revolution blended Alinsky concepts with their more aggressive efforts at bringing about a change in U.S. government. To achieve their revolutionary change, Cloward and Piven sought to use a cadre of aggressive organizers assisted by friendly news media to force a re-distribution of the nation's wealth...

Are Obama's refusal to negotiate, his threats of economic collapse, and his incessant agitating all intended to set the stage for a default?

As a lever to achieve his oft-stated goal of "fundamental transformation"?

I leave that answer as an exercise for the reader.


"We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded." --Senator Barack Obama, July 2, 2008


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

Wednesday, October 09, 2013

The Impassionate, Indifferent, Apolitical, Stone-hearted Black Swan

Guest post by Lee Cary


The Black Swan is Arithmetic. She is coming and she is already here. In Detroit, you see her in the debris of a once great American city.

The Perfect Storm is the confluence of events that will wreak economic havoc on America. It need not have anything to do with the current debt ceiling controversy. Most don't see it coming. For them, it will bring shock and awe.

Nassim Nicholas Teleb is credited with developing the metaphor -- based on the sudden discovery that all swans are not white -- of the black swan, to refer to widely unexpected events that come as a surprise to most, and change everything.

Below are several of the Perfect Storm fronts, samples of how an increasingly desperate regime is likely to respond as the storm builds, and a brief glimpse into the coming storm damage to America.

The Converging Fronts of the Perfect Storm

Quantitative Easing (QE) will continue. This artificial economic stimulation may go on through the 2014 elections, particularly if Vice Chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, Janet Yellen, succeeds Ben Bernanke. In a November 2011 speech, Yellen described the difficulties of disconnecting QE from an economy experiencing a recovery "that has been less vigorous than desired or expected." Her solution: "I believe it is crucial for emerging market economies, particularly in Asia, to take further steps to boost domestic demand, providing support for their own growth and that of the global economy." Translation: The solution to America's economic problem is a change in the Asians' consumption habits.

As interest rates rise from near zero and USD (U.S. dollar) devaluation continues, inflation will increase, as will the cost of servicing the federal debt. Imagine all your credit cards are maxed out, and you struggle to just make the minimum interest payments. Then, you get a notice from the banks stating that their interest rates are going up three percent. Or, five. Maybe seven.  You look at your household budget for what can be cut. Seeing all the cuts are painful, you photocopy money. You go to jail - unless you're the Fed.

Tuesday, October 08, 2013

OBAMACARE DISASTER: North Carolina Seniors Will See Health Care Premium Hikes Up to... 530 percent

What else would you call it if you found out your health care premium just got jacked from $228 a month to $1,208 except a "disaster"?

Across North Carolina, thousands of people have been shocked in recent weeks to find out their health insurance plans will be canceled at the end of the year – and premiums for comparable coverage could increase sharply.

One of them is George Schwab of Charlotte, who pays $228 a month for his family’s $10,000 deductible plan from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina... In a Sept. 23 letter, Blue Cross notified him that his current plan doesn’t meet benefit requirements outlined in the Affordable Care Act and suggested a comparable plan for $1,208 a month – $980 more than he now pays.

...“The President told the American people numerous times that… ‘If you like your coverage, you can keep it,’” Schwab said. “How can we keep it if it has been eliminated? How can we keep it if the premium has been increased 430 percent in one year?”

...[Chris] Blount[, a Blue Cross agent,] agreed with Schwab that the president shouldn’t have made promises he couldn’t keep... “That’s one thing that really bothers me about all of this,” Blount said. “He didn’t just say it once. He said it a lot.”

...Blue Cross spokesman Lew Borman said Friday that large premium increases will affect about one-third of the approximately 400,000 North Carolina customers who buy Blue Cross insurance in the individual market. Some of their policies were canceled because they didn’t meet the new federal standards, he said.

...Michael Hood, 46, who lives near Winston-Salem, is another of the Blue Cross customers who is suffering sticker shock after receiving a recent renewal letter... He and his wife, who is expecting their third child, now pay $324 per month for a plan with a $10,000 family deductible. The comparable plan suggested by Blue Cross for next year would cost $895.27 per month with an $11,000 family deductible. Their annual payment would rise from $14,000 to $24,000.

...“The president told us Obamacare would make health insurance affordable and reduce costs. It is now impossible for our family to afford private health insurance.”

Charles C. W. Cooke summarizes the litany of lies the President and his sycophants told Americans to jam Obamacare through Congress.

• “If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. If you like your health-care plan, you will be able to keep your health-care plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter what.”

Lies. All lies.

• “For people with insurance, the only impact of the health-care law is that their insurance is stronger, better, and more secure than it was before. Full stop. That’s it. They don’t have to worry about anything else.”

Lies. All lies.

• "If you already have health insurance, the only thing that will change for you under this plan is the amount of money you will spend on premiums. That will be less.”

Lies. All lies.

• "I want to be very clear: I will not sign on to any health plan that adds to our deficits over the next decade."

Lies. All lies.

• "Health care reform will cut the cost of a typical family's premium by up to $2,500 a year."

Lies. All lies.

As Scott Johnson astutely observes, "If only we had a free press, Obamacare would be a bloody, unrelenting scandal, like Abu Ghraib, or Watergate. As it is, it is only business as usual for liberals and liberalism.."


Saturday, October 05, 2013

"If Government can be so petty and spiteful, imagine what they’ll do with your health care. STOP OBAMACARE!"

Guest post by iOwnTheWorld


Hey, GOP: here is your meme, your talking point, your weapon against Obama and the Big Government Democrats. It comes from our esteemed contributor, Mr. Pinko, who says:
If Government can be so petty and spiteful, imagine what they’ll do with your health care. STOP OBAMACARE!
As an example, consider this story:

S.D. officials object to feds barring visitors from highway viewing areas near Mount Rushmore


The National Park Service placed cones along highway viewing areas outside Mount Rushmore this week, barring visitors from pulling over and taking pictures of the famed monument.


The National Park Service closed the monument in response to a government shutdown, but South Dakota officials say the National Park Service went too far when it coned off the highway viewing areas.

The illustration is a satire, but the article is not.

We have a would-be despot in the White House, who respects neither the power of Congress nor the American people. And he is out to punish both.


Visit iOwnTheWorld for more

OOPS: President Obama Asserts That Striking Workers Should be Fired

Guest post by James Simpson

Back in 2007, presidential candidate Obama said:

If American workers are being denied their right to organize and collectively bargain when I'm in the White House, I will put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself and I will walk on that picket line with you as President of the United States of America. Because workers deserve to know that somebody is standing in their shoes.

Yesterday, however, Obama said exactly the opposite. On October 3, 2013, Obama spoke at a “minority owned” business in Rockville, MD, a DC suburb, and blamed Republicans for the shutdown. It was a sympathetic, mostly Hispanic (illegals?) crowd.. In the category of you can’t make this stuff up, Obama said:

If you’re working here, and in the middle of the day you just stopped and said ‘I wanna get something… I’m gonna shut down the plant until I get something,’ you’d get fired!

So is Obama now saying we should fire him?

In his unguarded minutes, or perhaps more to the point, when he doesn't have his handlers, scripts and teleprompters with him, sham "President" Obama reveals what a grossly incompetent idiot he really is.

It it almost embarrassing to point out how vociferously Obama has supported and defended unions. Under this administration unions have gained unprecedented power, to the point of even having the National Labor Relations Board attempting to prevent private companies like Boeing from relocating to right-to-work state, South Carolina.

During the Wisconsin protests, union astroturfers were supported behind the scenes by the Obama administration and publicly by Democrats, in one of the most filthy displays of crude mob behavior in decades - exceeded only by the revolting Occupy protests, where protesters urinated, defecated, masturbated and fornicated in public, while Occupy leaders suppressed news of widespread robberies and rapes within the camps. Obama supported them too, if you recall, quite publicly. So did the unions.

Some years back, Union thug Richard Trumka said after a non-union strike breaker was murdered, "...if you strike a match and you put your finger in it, you’re likely to get burned..." Trumka now brags that he talks to the White House every day and visits twice a week.

The only way such an empty suit as President Obama can maintain power and a good public image is through the massive support he receives in the way of free PR from media. Notice for example, using this same video, MSNBC selected only one quote, and it was when Obama blamed Republicans for the shutdown. They have wisely avoided presenting the rest of this ridiculous speech. The news report is a conspicuous cheerlead for Obama, designed to help him apply pressure on Republicans regarding the shutdown. They should have their FCC licenses revoked for such clear cut bias, which the license forbids in news reporting.

Obama must drive his handlers nuts. Even in a friendly crowd, with friendly reporters, he can't be left alone safely for a minute. David Axelrod must have fits.

And this guy went to Harvard. Is it any wonder we are where we are today?


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

Friday, October 04, 2013

LEAKS REVEAL: Obama Preparing to Destroy the Separation of Powers

Constitutional attorney and radio host Mark Levin has warned us repeatedly what is coming.

The President is preparing to raise the debt ceiling unilaterally -- like a dictator -- usurping the power of the purse granted solely to Congress.

OBAMA: “An economic shutdown, that results from Default, would be dramatically worse.”

LEVIN: You get it? You get it, folks? He’s laying the foundation for exactly what I’m saying.

He is going to break the debt ceiling. He is going to spend more than Congress has authorized. He’s preparing to do it... If he can’t get what he wants, he is going to circumvent the United States Constitution... And I smell this a mile away.

And he’s being encouraged repeatedly by pseudo-intellectuals, by Marxists dressed up as Constitutionalists, by people in his own party, he’s being encouraged to conduct himself as a dictator, and to bypass Congress and to bypass the Constitution, why work with him?

They want a full-blown Constitutional crisis. Please, listen to me, this is what they want! So they can continue to shred it!

This is why Obama won’t budge, like Clinton did and Carter did and Reagan did and Ford did and Nixon did. He’s the only one who won’t negotiate. This is why. This is his fundamental transformation. And I’m going to keep hollering this as loudly as I can because more and more people need to see it!

Oh, and it's not just conservative thought-leaders like Levin saying it.

Consider the most terrifying thing I've heard all week: on Fox News Special Report, Amy Stoddard -- the left wing writer for Roll Call -- said the following:

There is a report out that says the President believe he's going to "reorder" the [balance of] power in Washington between the branches with this exercise.

Such an act would be an unprecedented high crime against the Constitution. No less an authority than the left-leaning Professor Laurence Tribe of Harvard describes it as such in no uncertain terms.

Professor Tribe ... rejected the idea, saying it was proposed by ''otherwise very sensible law scholars'' who in this case had concocted ''a prescription for a free-for-all that abandons the rule of law.''

''We have no metric for comparative lawlessness,'' he said.

Mark my words well, Leftists: should your charismatic demagogue attempt such a wanton act of criminality, he will touch off far more than a "Constitutional Crisis". You have been warned.


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

Thursday, October 03, 2013

Storming the Barackades

Guest post by Hans von Spakovsky

Americans are justifiably angry over the political game being played by the Obama administration to barricade the World War II Memorial in Washington. And they should be. Under federal law, there is no justifiable reason for closing the memorial.

On Tuesday, the National Park Service put up barricades around the open-air memorial that is normally accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week, even when Park Service personnel are not there. Police threatened to arrest visiting veterans, who came to Washington as part of Honor Flight, a non-profit that gives veterans free transportation so they can see war memorials.

It is one of the most blatant and shameful political stunts being carried out by the White House, which appears intent on keeping the government shut down to protect Obamacare.

How do we know this is purely political theater? Because under applicable federal law – and the interpretation of that law by both the Justice Department and the Office of Management and Budget — all “law enforcement” operations of the federal government are exempted from being shut down during any funding lapse.

ObamaDoesntCare: 10 percent of all employers may drop health insurance (Taegan Goddard presumably ecstatic!)

As if the crashing websites, massive price hikes, and rampant job losses aren't enough, well, here it comes:

Obamacare prompts firms to rethink health benefits


...About 10 percent of companies who responded are thinking about ending employer-sponsored health benefits ... according to the Buck Consultants’ Compensation Planning Survey.

The seventh annual survey collected data from 329 organizations, including some of the largest companies in the nation. Buck Consultants, a division of Xerox, conducts a range of human resources and compensation surveys.

...The mandate that companies with 50 or more full-time employees provide medical insurance or face fines has been [Ed: illegally] deferred to 2015 by the administration of President Barack Obama.

Roll Call's full-time Obamacare cheerleader Taegan Goddard could not be reached for comment at press time.


WHO WANTS A SHUTDOWN? Here is a hint: his name starts with the letter "O" and ends with "BAMA".

Who really wants a shutdown? It's the guy whose starting negotiating position is that he won't negotiate.

Republicans are voting to keep the government open, some Democrats agree, and Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the gang are trying to stop them while demanding a “clean” CR funding Obamacare.

Well, guess what? All federal government funding originates in the House.

That means the House decides what money is spent and what money isn’t.

If the House doesn’t support Obamacare, there is no Obamacare.

That’s not partisan politics, it’s institutional politics. It’s called the separation of powers, and it is PRECISELY how the Founders intended the country to work. This is what happens when you jam an unpopular law creating a new federal bureaucracy through Congress on a straight party-line vote. It was a stupid thing for Obama, Pelosi and Reid to do, it was an abuse of power for them to do it and the price to be paid is the loss of the Congressional body which is in control of enacting that law through funding.

The House is exercising its constitutional prerogative in deciding what is to be funded and what is not to be funded. It is the Senate and the president who are to blame for shutting down the government. And we’re now seeing that the Senate and the president are shutting down the government in order to continue forcing on the public something the market would kill with gusto were it subject to market forces. That is no position to be in.

It’s a political problem for Obama and Reid which will only be solved if the Republicans lose their nerve.

Another thing to remember: the longer the shutdown goes on, the more pressure Democrats will feel.

The federal bureaucracy is the Democrat Party. And the Democrat Party is the federal bureaucracy.

When enough bureaucrats demand that Obama negotiate with a separate but equal branch of government, he'll negotiate. Until then, Republicans can and should stand firm.


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

Wednesday, October 02, 2013

James Madison explains the Government Shutdown to Drones, "Journalists", Marxists, RINOs and other Progressives

But I repeat myself. The Machiavellian, writing at The Virtuous Republic, explains:

This little history lesson is for all the members of the Democratic-Socialist Party and their unpaid propagandists in the media who decry Republicans as terrorists in regards to the current government shutdown.

Simply, this is how our republic is supposed to work. There are checks and balances between branches, there are checks and balances between states, and there are checks and balances between factions as well.

From Federalist No. 58, penned by James Madison (for the lefties out there, he might just be considered the foremost authority on the Constitution):

Admitting, however, that they should all be insufficient to subdue the unjust policy of the smaller States, or their predominant influence in the councils of the Senate, a constitutional and infallible resource still remains with the larger States, by which they will be able at all times to accomplish their just purposes.

The House of Representatives cannot only refuse, but they alone can propose, the supplies requisite for the support of government. They, in a word, hold the purse that powerful instrument by which we behold, in the history of the British Constitution, an infant and humble representation of the people gradually enlarging the sphere of its activity and importance, and finally reducing, as far as it seems to have wished, all the overgrown prerogatives of the other branches of the government.

This power over the purse may, in fact, be regarded as the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people, for obtaining a redress of every grievance, and for carrying into effect every just and salutary measure.

In other words, the Democratic-Socialist faction, also known as the “takers” have imposed an onerous piece of legislation known as Obamacare, upon the creators and workers. Simply put, the House of Representatives is addressing the grievance.

The Senate is not the House of Lords, and Obama does not rule by Divine Right. The only solution to the current shutdown is a redress of our grievances. Nothing else will suffice.


Sorry about that, Machiavellian, but I quoted the whole thing. To make up for it, here's your free Obamacare pink slip.


Apparently the Obama administration operates government websites powered by federal employees using hand-cranks

That's the only way I can offer a plausible explanation for this:


I'm marking this one down as Reason 8,604 that the federal government is simply too damned fat and bloated.


Tuesday, October 01, 2013

OH, THE HUMANITY: Roughly 60 percent of government workers unaffected by "shutdown"

Guest post by Accuracy in Media

WASHINGTON — So much for a complete government shutdown. It is more of a partial government shutdown as an overwhelming majority of government workers head to work this morning.

USA Today reported that 59% of nondefense federal workers will head to their offices to work, which is a far cry from the liberal mainstream media and Democrat’s cry of a complete government shutdown.

41% of workers will report to work then be told they’re on furlough (i.e. sent home early), national parks are closed, passport and visa offices will be delayed along with gun permits. Some bankruptcy court proceedings will be slowed down in addition to mortgage application approvals.

The Democrat-majority Senate rejected several last-ditch efforts by the House GOP to prevent a shutdown by defunding ObamaCare, which is one of the most unpopular laws on the books. But, Harry Reid and Obama said they will not negotiate or compromise when Americans want them to.

But, thankfully, the military will be paid as a last-ditch effort of Republicans to push this effort to Barack Obama, who approved it.

It’s almost business as usual in Washington, D.C.


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

BEAUTIFUL: Kathleen Sebelius Unveils the 2013 Obamacare Commemorative Stamp Collector Set

Via the invaluable People's Cube comes this sneak peek at the 2013 Obamacare Commemorative Stamp Set.


As Twitchy reported earlier today, the Obamacare health insurance exchanges aren't working, websites are crashing, and the entire system is le total cluster---- (as the French might say).

You can see the rest of the stamp collection here.


Hat tip: BadBlue News.