Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
The Obama Administration’s effort to punish ordinary Americans until they agree to unlimited debt, continues.
Catholic priests aren’t even allowed to volunteer to serve the troops. Why not? What’s it hurt? Does this affect other religions, too?
Families of soldiers in combat aren’t getting death benefits to attend funerals. When did the military become “non-essential?”
The feds closed everymemorial, monument, boat launch, permitted operator,scenic overlooks and evenparts of the ocean to ordinary Americans; except open border Liberals who get to hold their rally on The Mall. Why am I not surprised?
Joe Doakes
The founders’ vision of theirs country was “a free association of equals”.
Obama’s is “unruly children who need to be brought into line”.
Brownshirts.
Why not? The same tactic often works for school distrticts, “educators”, and school boards when a referendum, or other money making scheme, is not supported by the uninformed and ungrateful taxpayers …
I’m reading more stories about outrage being expressed by people that have run into Obama’s Barrycades. Clearly his goal is to get people to notice *something* that negatively effects their lives, but unfortunately for him, people are seeing right through to the manufactured nature of these inconveniences..
New poll out today shows Barry is clinging to a 37% approval rating. I think the GOP has time to let the Barrycades work on that number a bit longer.
This is off-topic, but I’m betting Mitch will forgive me:
“MILLER: Smoking gun exposed- D.C. police covers up giving Feinstein illegal ‘assault weapons’”
Go get ’em son.
http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/9/miller-how-a-senator-got-her-guns-for-a-dc-show-an/
That would explain why she wasn’t arrested, despite her lack of a permit to possess them. OK, time to put both of ’em in the graybar hotel for a while. it’ll do them good.
And I’m so glad to have a petulant child in the White House. So **** glad.
Great article. Thanks. The first picture looks like an out-take from The Walking Dead. She always had an affinity for guns, if I recall right …
Linbaugh ran a tape of Blitzer on the day Bush’s approval rating dropped to the same level. I forget the total, but Wolfie’s repetitions of the “good news” was in the double digits during the course of his show.
Took my mountain bike on the Minnesota River Valley trail, starting at the Cedar Avenue bridge and riding east until the trail ascended to its connection to the pedestrian/bike path along the 494 bridge. After the steepish ascent, I noticed a sign attached to the gate (which is always closed, by the way. There is a narrow passage around it for foot traffic). The sign read: “US Fish and Wildlife Service. CLOSED. Due to a lapse in appropriations, all US Fish and Wildlife service lands, including National Wildlife Refuges [which is where I had been riding] are closed and all programs and activities are cancelled.” True enough, the large Wildlife Refuge Center was inaccessible to traffic: the gates to the parking lot were closed. I assume an employee posted the sign. That’s our tax money working. Prohibiting an independent citizen from using land for recreational purposes that requires no special services 99% of the time. I’d already ignored the ban by biking there. No similar sign guarded the other entry. So I posted it on my Facebook page with some snarky language. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10103721880718140&set=a.10100340154948690.3042894.13930752&type=1&theater
Golf Doc, does the QR code on the sign go to a website that is shut down?
Joe wrote:
Linbaugh ran a tape of Blitzer on the day Bush’s approval rating dropped to the same level. I forget the total, but Wolfie’s repetitions of the “good news” was in the double digits during the course of his show.
Our unbiased media at work.
These days I hear on the MSM that Obammy’s numbers are down, but it’s always coupled with a story about how congress’s approval rating rating is way lower than the president’s approval rating.
That’s a stupid comparison to make. Most people approve of their congressman, that’s why they get re-elected, decade after decade. What they disapprove of is congress as an institution, that is, other peoples’ congressmen. They don’t get to vote on other peoples’ congressman, though, only their own. A little thought will reveal that the way the system works — with each congressman representing only his or her own district, fighting for a slice of a limited federal pie — will tend to make congress as an institution less popular than any particular congressman is to his or her constituents.
The president is different. He is one person whose goals and means of accomplishing those goals are very different from a congressman’s. A president who drops below 50% approval is in trouble. His ability to influence legislators outside of his party suffers. A president whose approval drops below 40% starts to lose the confidence of his own party. He’ll be gone in three years, but all those senators and congressmen hope to hold onto their jobs until they drop dead. Their short and long term goals begin to diverge from a low-approval rating president.
Not sure how exactly you can write this post without using the word “Republicans” but so it goes…
Congress loves drama. Gets them airtime.
It’s a general poli-sci observation, not a partisan observation, Emery. The same dynamic worked against GW Bush 2007-2008. The democrat congress’s approval rating was abysmal, 30% or less on average, Bush’s approval rating was in the mid-thirties, and congress pushed him all over the place.
Emery, I wrote it without mentioning Republicans because the focus of the post is President Obama’s administration acting badly toward their own constituents to punish voters until they pressure Republicans to hand over more money. This isn’t even speculation, there are widespread reports of employees being instructed to make the shut-down as inconvenient as possible for ordinary citizens. The tactics are extortionate and the perpetrators are Democrats.
For example, apart from the visitor center, Mount Rushmore requires no maintenance, no supervision and has no attendants and no barricades in normal time. So what legitimate business justification is there to put up cones on the nearby highway to block off the scenic overlook so people couldn’t look at it? “You Can’t Look At Our Mountain Until You Pay” is not a proper function of government.
The decision to act petulantly and spitefully was a choice made by President Obama’s administration. The employees could have simply gone home and let tourists pull off to the scenic overlook. But no, the employees went out of their way to inconvenience citizens. Same for closing the St. Croix to weddings, closing Florida Bay to fishermen, closing bike trails and hiking trails and taking the faucets off drinking fountains in national parks.
Reminds me of Clinton’s people breaking the “W” keys off all the keyboards in the White House. Mean, petty, spiteful, malicious, assholes. Democrats.
Republicans had nothing to do with how President Obama’s administration chose to act. That’s why they’re not mentioned in the column.
As usal the libs aren’t thinking through their arguments. The Jack Lew USA Today column and Joe Nocera’s NYT editorial both sound the same note: default or prioritizing payments is so horrible it can’t be contemplated, and the GOP is so EXTREME and NUTS they can’t be trusted not to allow that to happen.
So isn’t it sensible, then, for Obama to back down and delay the individual mandate for a year? The consequences won’t destroy the economy — exemptions have been handed out right and left to people and groups with connections. It is not like it has wide support; the Dems lost their majority in 2010 largely because of voter pushback over Obamacare. If what Nocera and Lew believ is true, the only option that makes sense is to give in. The GOP can’t be trusted to save the nation from default or starving the widders and orphans. The only thing a reasonable person can do is hope that Obama backs down.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/08/opinion/nocera-why-the-debt-ceiling-matters.html?ref=joenocera
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/10/03/jack-lew-debt-limit-government-shutdown-obama-column/2918587/
“We’re not going to be disrespected! We have to get something out of this[shutdown]. And I don’t know what that even is”
Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-Ind.):
I would suggest a new career path
@golfdoc50: Do you ever bike at Lebanon Hills or Murphy-Hannrehan Park? A bit more challenging than the River Valley Trail but well worth the visit. The Louisville Swamp Trail south of Shakopee is a nice ride as well.
What, exactly, do you find so objectionable about that statement, Emery? You got it from HuffPo, I believe. Where did HuffPo get it? What was the context? How is different in tone or diction then statements Obama has made?
I don’t read HuffPo. Although I do read WaPo, WSJ and the NYT.
I’m curious where you picked up the quote, Emery. The original source was the Washington Examiner, and from the context the examiner gave the quote, it was clear that by ‘getting something out of this”, Stutzman meant from raising the debt ceiling, and by “I don’t know what that even is”, he meant what his caucus would get in return for raising it. Do you know what they will get? I don’t. Spoken a little roughly, perhaps, but I’ve heard the president use bellicose language when discussing the Republican majority in the house.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/gop-stands-firm-against-funding-bill-will-link-to-debt-ceiling-fight/article/2536750
I’m going to say the same thing I say every time this joke “news” comes up.
1) The U.S. will not default on its debt.
2) There will be no “trillion-dollar coin”.
Political drama brings eyeballs to journalism and politicians. Therefore, there will always be political drama. But the people with real power will not allow either of the two items listed above.
Now get back to work.
Actually according to a pesky little thing called the constitution we can’t default folks. Article 14 Section 4 states: The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.
Not paid doesn’t mean not valid, POD.
I thought you were a lawyer.