US.gov - including NASA et al - quits internet. Is the UN running it now? The US government has disappeared from the internet after a hard core of Republican party lawmakers forced the superpower's state agencies to shut down over a budget dispute. The House of Representatives refused to agree a budget that would keep cash flowing to public departments, meaning that the entire government was forced …
"Due to a lapse in maturity, the US federal government has shut down"
"'Due to severe brain damage on the part of a few key in-duh-viduals, the US federal government has shut down"
It's interesting to see how a Brit journo like El Reg reports this...all nicely sanitized and level-headed. In reality, what we really have is a handful of brain-dead, petulant, racist, crybaby twats who think they're more impordant [sic] than the rest of the country, engaging in a raw power grab that they are ill-equipped to handle. This is all about not letting "the black guy" look like he's doing anything positive. It's pretty clear that once anybody understands what "obamacare" is really all about, they really, really want it. And that would really destroy the Tea-bagger narrative, now wouldn't it.
"It's pretty clear that once anybody understands what "obamacare" is really all about, they really, really want it. And that would really destroy the Tea-bagger narrative, now wouldn't it."
Apparently YOU really understand what obamacare is all about, so YOU want it. Does anybody else? Must be those freaking "tea-baggers", right.
As far as I see it, its is mandatory insure to be taken out by the taxpayer for a service that already exists in quite a few places. It's not something that will help the bottom rungs to get "free healthcare", which is a concept that exists only in the addled minds of people who think things like healthcare can be "free" (don't be surprised by no service or a deathtrap when you actually need it, as is the use in quite a few places in Yurop). It is also a promise to not pay healhcare workers for the work they do (that is the part called "price controls").
But apart from that.... anyone talking about the runaway military spending and the cancerous government growth that could be curtailed in order to continue working? NOPE! NO WAY, NO SIR! THAT'S AN ACQUIRED BENEFIT, THIS IS! GIMME AN ADDITIONAL F-35 SQUADRON ON THE TAB, PLEASE. AND ANOTHER 10'000 FEDERAL WORKERS DOING NOTHING BUT HEAT THEIR SEATS IN D.C.
We all know that in GovMedia speak, “spending cut” means reducing the rate of increase in spending, while “shutdown” means reducing the workforce by 40%. From David Henderson we learn that “defund” apparently means “change a few implementation requirements without reducing funding by a penny.” Specifically, the Congresspeople who supposedly want to “defund” Obamacare proposed only to scrap the individual mandate and remove the subsidy for Congresspeople and their staffers.
Remember the old Soviet-era joke, “We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us?” This is the state of US political discourse about economic issues. The Republicans pretend to oppose Obamacare, and the Democrats pretend to oppose them. The purported differences are trivial, the “debate” political theater. Only government officials and the Official Media are amused.
As well as the patsies, apparently.
"for a service that already exists in quite a few places"
Unfortunately, no. Before ACA, US insurers are allowed to refuse to insure people. If you already have a known condition or family history, you can't get insurance. And vast majority of people were insured through employer, so made reduntant = no insurance. Both leading to a situation where many thousands of people go bankrupt from any illness even if it's not so serious.
Truth is, ACA was based on design by a Republican think-thank, and is even less 'socialist' than the version Romney introduced for Massachusetts. Republicans being against 'Obamacare' is more about them being against Obama than about them being against the ACA. Original poster was right, and can be backed up with polling data. %age of Americans opposing "Obamacare" is about even. But when asked about individual provisions of the act without reference to "Obamacare", huge majority support the provisions.
I completely agree on the military though. The US could solve ALL it's budget problems by shaving 10% off it's military budget and it would STILL be spending more on its military than every other country on the planet combined. But then the poor military-industrial complex would only make $billions$ instead of $fantasticillions$, poor guys
To those out of touch with US politics:
The purpose of this action is not really to destroy Obamacare - the republicans know full well they have lost this fight and will never force the democrats to repeal it.
The entire debacle is a result of the start of internal power struggles within the republican party in advance of the 2016 presidential elections (similar to the UKIP/Tory situation in the UK) - the tea party "very right wingers" are trying to draw the non-tea party "marginally less right wingers" (but still so right wing that even UKIP probably couldn't hit them with a rock from where they stand) into either capitulating their position within the GOP to the tea party or being seen to collaborate with the democrats - they then use this as a campaign weapon to get more tea party candidates on the ticket for the elections. Obviously the non-tea partiers in the republican party don't want this to happen - not because they disagree with the priciples of the tea party but because their more pragmatic approach to realpolitik suspects that a fully tea party approach will make the republicans as a whole unelectable for the presidency.
Anyone who regards this as a 'racists bigots against the black president' has a primary school level understanding of politics and needs to shut the hell up before they embarrass themselves.
"The entire debacle is a result of the start of internal power struggles within the republican party in advance of the 2016 presidential elections (similar to the UKIP/Tory situation in the UK) - the tea party "very right wingers" are trying to draw the non-tea party "marginally less right wingers" (but still so right wing that even UKIP probably couldn't hit them with a rock from where they stand) into either capitulating their position within the GOP to the tea party or being seen to collaborate with the democrats - they then use this as a campaign weapon to get more tea party candidates on the ticket for the elections. Obviously the non-tea partiers in the republican party don't want this to happen - not because they disagree with the priciples of the tea party but because their more pragmatic approach to realpolitik suspects that a fully tea party approach will make the republicans as a whole unelectable for the presidency."
I saw a comment that 10% of the Republican party (IE The Tea Party) made a deal impossible.
The Tea Party are to the Republican party what the Militant tendency were to the UK Labour Party in the 80s and 90s. BTW while they got support within the party they made it unelectable for decades due to the perception of them as "barking mad."
So either the Republicans purge themselves of this group or they stay in opposition.
Personally either works for me.
But neither option changes the fact the US political system is FUBAR
It's clear you don't get why corporate personhood is actually a good thing.
Laws apply to people. They don't apply to dogs and trees and things that aren't people.
Because corporations are legal people, they can sell you things, they can't commit crimes, and have to pay up if they hurt you. You can't sue a nonperson.
""what we really have is a handful of brain-dead, petulant, racist, crybaby twats who think they're more impordant [sic] than the rest of the country, engaging in a raw power grab that they are ill-equipped to handle. This is all about not letting "the black guy" look like he's doing anything positive. It's pretty clear that once anybody understands what "obamacare" is really all about, they really, really want it. And that would really destroy the Tea-bagger narrative, now wouldn't it.
This is no time to bottle up your feelings. Tell us how you really feel :) .
BTW is it only me who associates any reference to Tea Parties and Tea Bags with that skinny southern dude in Prison Break? They guy whose gender preference can best be described as "Warm-and-concave."
You mean the NSA is shut down too? In that case, I might just have to support this whole government shutdown thing. As it is, I'm not convinced more than half the people will even notice and since those folks will have the day off I'm not sure all of them will mind until the bills start coming due.
Maybe it WILL save money after all. Kinda like the ticket takers that salaries are more than the tickets sold (French Metro??). In that case, letting everyone go for free saved money by not having ticket takers (it could be a silly rumor).
In some regards, be careful for what you ask for, you may get it.
Observation: It costs just as much to have a web site displaying "Closed" as it does to have one open for business. All politics.
Obama also branded the Republican rump “extremists” before telling world+dog that his Affordable Care Act would continue as planned regardless of the freeze in government funding.
If such an action were the result of Johnny Foreigner shenanigans, they would be labelled terrorists and military strike action would be planned against them. It is the American way, is it not
Bunch of children. The healthcare act has survived every legal challenge the system provides for. Instead of moving forward and dealing with reality, the Republicans have chosen to disenfranchise every US Citizen by taking away the cornerstone on which the country is founded.
The funniest thing in all this, to me, is that National Park Service Park Rangers (Law Enforcement) have been dispatched to stand guard at trailheads where the Appalachian National Scenic Trail (Appalachian Trail) crosses roads to prevent anyone from getting on the Trail. Normally there are a grand total of three NPS rangers for all ~2,100 miles of the Trail. They had to get extra Rangers from other, easier to close, parks to make this stupid gesture.
Devil take the lot of these cocksuckers. Every one on every side.
What a complete load of bullshyte!
A budget has to do with allocations of money to various subsections of the government. It does not have to do with attaching riders that are nothing but political one-upsmanship. Now, maybe you consider a farm bill that shit-cans the food stamp program a "budget", but here in realiity-land, that is nothing but political bluster whose job is to raise the 1%'ers up by smacking everyone else down...in other words, political one-upsmanship.
In reality the Obamacare is the straw that broke the camel's back and it suits Obama to paint it about Obamacare issue instead of the wider debt issue that is slowly but surely breaking the back of the US economy.
The budget and the nearly 18 trillion in national debt is what this is all about. The US government just can't afford to spend *any* more money. They have run out of options and something has to give.
Whole departments are just going to have to go, and I vote for those bastards at the NSA for a start.
I love how their power/internet bills were all paid up until the 1st of October, and no suddenly since they apparently have no money to pay them, they've been shut off with no notice.
Oh, what's that? They still have the servers up and the internet connections are running? Then why the hell can't we get to the sites? Shouldn't they still be up and running, just not being updated?
And why are the senators and congressmen still drawing pay -- shouldn't they, too, be "shut down?" Shouldn't they have been the first to have their funding cut? I mean, c'mon, make it worth it to them to figure this out.
Congressmen will very quickly balance the budget when a law is passed that requires them to draw their pay only on government *surplus*. If not, they should go unpaid.
Google is showing that almost half of them are millionaires, so not getting paid won't bother them. I would figure the holdouts are in this club so they wouldn't care either.
<quote>I love how their power/internet bills were all paid up until the 1st of October, and no suddenly since they apparently have no money to pay them, they've been shut off with no notice.</quote>
It's more secure to leave a minimalist "We're not here" website up than the full website which could get severely pwned before the muppets on Capital Hill get their act together.
There's also a ton of infrastructure behind a lot of the sites, that will probably be turned off (or at least secured from being available online) for similar reasons.
Unofficial response from a friend that works at NASA (i.e. he works in the IT group, not the press office):
"It is partly that no one is around to monitor but partly because the government is shutdown and thus web presence must shutdown too"
They also said that there is still a security team monitoring the NASA network, but obviously the first line of defence is the firewalls are basically in "deny all" mode, even for traffic that is normally let through
"Then why the hell can't we get to the sites?" For the same reason you are not allowed onto park and trails which cost even less to maintain: to push the budget issue into the foreground.
Nobody really wants to address the national debt and is happy to just turn on the TV and forget all about the $18T debt sol long as all their creature comforts are on tap. The USA has a debt crisis and turning off services is the only way to make Johnny USAian sit up and take notice.
The biggest problem with making a budget is making one that everyone can sign up to and moves the country away from debt. Having lived so long on both national and personal borrowing, most people will not like the idea that they have to make some hard choices.
A balanced budget means a lot of cuts all around as well as making some huge value calls on what should and should not be funded.
I would put universal healthcare well ahead of military spending. I would not do it using the Obamacare model though - I would rather have a system that gives everyone healthcare - not just low income people without insurance. However the might of the US military is a huge part of the American psyche.
But my view is irrelevant - I'm not an American voter.
Googled my own answer 18 times with various permutations of Democrat vs Republican controlled House, Senate ad Prez, since 1976 accordingto Wiki including this one.
Do none of them have ANY shame? Cant anyone just pass a law forbidding the linkage of additional legislation to the budget. Then at least they could keep the disputes on funding issues rather than just a free for all.
The President used to be responsible for the annual Federal budget. It was his primary operational role. If he had time he'd make some speeches, maybe do a little warring, but the budget pretty well occupied his time.
Congress decided they didn't like that and took budgetary control away from the President. Now both sides can extort the country and milk it to further their own ends. They effectively made the office of President a Beeblebrox role with little real power. It completely broke the system of governance and we've been paying for it ever since. More resources have always been spent trying to undermine the 'other side' than on getting things done. No party is innocent in this. They are equally guilty for undermining their own country for greed and self interest.
"They effectively made the office of President a Beeblebrox role with little real power."
When did this happen? Presidents have been doing their damndest to push their power envelope past the last Jerk in Chief and have been doing it since at least Andrew Jackson. Arguably FDR was the best at it being able to push around both other branches of government with the best accomplishment being Presidential term limits.
Before I say this I want to make clear that I'm an independent with a very moderate outlook.
The Republicans are NOT primarily to blame for this mess. If you want to lay the blame in any one place (which I don't think you really should), then it lies squarely with Harry Reid, the moron who refused to even allow the issue to be debated. When a significant portion of Congress wants to vote on an issue and the Senate majority leader won't even talk about it then it's time to throw him out on his ear.
(Also, Obamacare should never have been passed on the basis than none of the Congressional morons who passed it actually read it. If they worked for me I'd fire the lot of them for that move. (Three of them do, sort of, but I can't fire them without the help of several dozens of thousand of my peers, most of whom are so far out on the political extremes that party affiliation means more to them than what the crooks they keep electing are actually doing.) Exactly what it encompasses is irrelevant to the point that THEY DIDN'T READ THE FRACKING THING! Do I think it was a good idea? I'm not sure. I haven't read it either, but unlike them it's not my job to read proposed legislation.
The issue was debated... And passed by both houses! There's a reason why its called the affordable care act and not the affordable care bill. Acts have been passed, the debate is complete, it is law.
As for the shutdown, that again was debated, and the senate voted against passing the bill, thrice.
Just passing something into law does not make it happen. It still needs to be funded and prioritised over other spending.
There are also various acts that give the USA national parks, a military and roads. So which should get the priority?
Funding is the final hurdle for any policy. If they gave Omabacare a one dollar budget it can't function.
Eliminating funding is cowardly politics, a move played by cowards on both sides. The system wasn't designed to work that way. Budget concerns were to be addressed in the bills debate and once signed into law you dealt with the reality. If your side lost, you put on a bold face and made the best of it. You didn't cut off funding or shut down the government because you were too weak to cope with reality.
" Budget concerns were to be addressed in the bills debate and once signed into law you dealt with the reality."
Sounds like a plan.
"You didn't cut off funding or shut down the government because you were too weak to cope with reality."
Should not does not mean will not.
It is very, very rare for any legislator to read the legislation they vote on, even sponsor. The laws have mostly been drafted by private groups for nearly 40 years now. It is really easy to tell if an actual Congressperson came up with a bill all by themselves. It is always really fucking stupid. Like declaring parts of the Moon a National Park and sovereign territory. If it actually sounds like legal policy then a 3rd party private entity wrote it. Every single time.
I can't argue with you about who drafted the bills - I have no knowledge of that area. But I do have some idea of the difference between writing and reading. Even if the congresspersons have not *written* a bill, that does not mean that they can't *read* it before voting on it. Especially if they are sponsoring a bill - but I suppose that they mostly read the "executive summary" prepared by the organisation which actually drafted it and which glides over any problems or ambiguities in the actual wording.
I know elected officials these days are very busy with PR and internecine squabbles, but surely some of them have interns who could read the original document and flag up the bits the original drafters slipped in or over-looked?
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