pacino wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:

SK790 wrote:b. This whole maximum damage thing is complete and utter BS and I'm #$!&@ sick of hearing about it. Closing down memorials and whatnot is not inflicting maximum damage and I bet if you told that to any of the ~2MM people who are currently not getting paid, they'd laugh at you. Or how about the dozen of people who can't start their government funded cancer treatment while the shutdown is going on? Can we please stop talking about the national parks and monuments like they're some key issue in this? They're not. This whole thing is the most disgusting and disingenuous grandstanding I've seen from members of Congress in sometime. Millions of peoples ACTUAL LIVES are being hurt by this and all these people can talk about is how there are some memorials and national parks shut down. Like that doesn't pale in comparison to making a living or starting treatment for cancer.

But the Administration's stance goes far beyond the national parks stuff, even though their approach there is emblematic of their overall strategy.

The House GOP has passed a bill requiring federal employees deemed essential are paid on time (White House has said it would veto if the Senate were to pass it), and that employees who are not working will be paid when government reopens (stalled in Senate). And to make sure cancer treatments occur (stalled in Senate; White House veto threat). And to let DC spend its own tax revenue (stalled in Senate; White House veto threat), which led to Mayor Gray crashing Harry Reid's press conference today and yelling at him. Etc.

Obama said yesterday he isn't interested in bills like these because they would help relieve political pressure on Republicans, and they do, but this thing isn't getting fixed until they sit down and come up with some type of compromise. He prefers things are as bad as possible in the hopes that it causes the overall shutdown to end sooner and/or Republicans to suffer politically for these bad things happening. I don't think he's right that it'll make things end quicker, but he's spot on with the GOP taking it on the chin in polls.

the compromise HAPPENED already.

cshort wrote:Didn't the Republicans get welfare reform in 1996?

TenuredVulture wrote:

cshort wrote:Didn't the Republicans get welfare reform in 1996?

But it cost them a bunch of seats and Clinton romped in the 96 election. Welfare reform I don't think was part of the budget negotiations, though I do know they Republicans did get a lot of what they wanted in the welfare reform bill.

congresslady wrote:The games are over, Speaker Boehner and the American people are ready to call your bluff. Let's vote on a clean CR.

The poll also found that more than 6 in 10 Americans said lifting the debt ceiling meant that the federal government was increasing the amount of money it could borrow to pay for future expenditures, which is false, while nearly 3 in 10 understood that it meant it must be lifted to pay off debts it has already accumulated, the reality.

pacino wrote:fwiw, i'm giving people medical coverage like its candy, getting them hooked to that sweet, sweet doctor's visit. all the opponents were correct!!!!

Zeeda Andrews -- a co-organizer of the effort who made October 8 appearances on Fox News and Glenn Beck's The Blaze to promote the event -- apparently thinks that President Obama and Osama bin Laden are somehow the same person; that Obama is a secret Muslim; that the Boston bombings were a "false flag"; that the CIA murdered Buzzfeed journalist Michael Hastings; and that the Department of Homeland Security is stockpiling ammunition in order to slaughter Americans.

On her Facebook page, Andrews identifies as a fan of two 9-11 conspiracy theory movies, a documentary that postulates that the government may be secretly injecting aluminum into the atmosphere to block the sun's rays, and a film based on the lectures of British conspiracy theorist David Icke, who believes a secret race of lizard people run the world. (Radio host Peter Santilli, who has appeared in press reports as a spokesperson for the event, is also a 9-11 conspiracy theorist. Santilli made news earlier this year when he suggested Hillary Clinton should be "shot in the vagina" for treason.)

The "Truckers Ride for the Constitution" series of planned rallies received widespread attention earlier this week when Earl Conlon, a man purporting to speak for the event, told US News & World Report that the truckers planned to circle the Beltway and arrest members of Congress for their supposed "treason." (After the organizers of the event distanced themselves from Conlon, he later walked back his suggestion that the truckers were going to "arrest" anyone.) According to the group, 3,000 truckers will participate in the Washington, D.C. rally between October 11 and 13.

Andrews was hosted on Fox News' On the Record with Greta Van Susteren last night and provided with a platform to plug the event, which she explained is "peaceful" and will not seek to engage in any unlawful behavior. According to Andrews, the goal of the event is to remove Obama from office, because he "is a threat to our national security. He is a threat to our way of life. He is a threat to our future generations." (The event has also been publicized on Fox Nation, Drudge Report, and websites like WND.)

dajafi wrote:Interesting/depressing snapshot of public opinion on the shutdown and debt ceiling here.

The poll also found that more than 6 in 10 Americans said lifting the debt ceiling meant that the federal government was increasing the amount of money it could borrow to pay for future expenditures, which is false, while nearly 3 in 10 understood that it meant it must be lifted to pay off debts it has already accumulated, the reality.

I seriously wonder how members of Congress would fare if asked this same question.

In Azerbaijan, getting election results before an election is apparently one of the many perks of having a smart phone. A mobile app offered by the country’s election authorities was meant to allow users to track the voting process, but, instead, it apparently posted final-results data -- even before the October 9 election day -- that showed incumbent President Ilham Aliyev soaring above all other candidates.

Looks like the supposed technical glitch, which gave Aliyev 72.76 percent of the vote, now has been corrected, but screenshots of the original version are making the rounds online. Meydan TV, an eager government critic, was the first news outlet to break the story, presenting it as blatant evidence of election-rigging.
Some, however, have suggested human error.

The app's purported developer, Vusal Isayev, the manager of digital marketing agency Happy Baku, argued on Facebook that the original application was a test version and contained data from the 2008 election, won by Aliyev, just like the election before it.

Critics find such reasoning far-fetched since the app contained the names of current candidates. Jamil Hasanli, the main opposition candidate, received 7.4 percent of the vote; a piece of data not likely to encourage opposition-sympathizers to give the Central Election Commission the benefit of the doubt.

How this data managed to slip past the attention of both the developers and the CEC remains an open question.

But then, it may not prove to be an incorrect prediction at all. The Aliyev dynasty has ruled the roost in Azerbaijan for a total of about 40 years, and Ilham Aliyev is expected to cruise to a third term without a hitch -- whether on the level or not.

The app's creators say they create “happy projects" and "deliver happiness to our customers." While the Azerbaijani CEC may be less than delighted, looks like President Aliyev already has, in effect, received many happy returns of the day.

pacino wrote:the truckers might be crazy:

Zeeda Andrews -- a co-organizer of the effort who made October 8 appearances on Fox News and Glenn Beck's The Blaze to promote the event -- apparently thinks that President Obama and Osama bin Laden are somehow the same person; that Obama is a secret Muslim; that the Boston bombings were a "false flag"; that the CIA murdered Buzzfeed journalist Michael Hastings; and that the Department of Homeland Security is stockpiling ammunition in order to slaughter Americans.

On her Facebook page, Andrews identifies as a fan of two 9-11 conspiracy theory movies, a documentary that postulates that the government may be secretly injecting aluminum into the atmosphere to block the sun's rays, and a film based on the lectures of British conspiracy theorist David Icke, who believes a secret race of lizard people run the world. (Radio host Peter Santilli, who has appeared in press reports as a spokesperson for the event, is also a 9-11 conspiracy theorist. Santilli made news earlier this year when he suggested Hillary Clinton should be "shot in the vagina" for treason.)

The "Truckers Ride for the Constitution" series of planned rallies received widespread attention earlier this week when Earl Conlon, a man purporting to speak for the event, told US News & World Report that the truckers planned to circle the Beltway and arrest members of Congress for their supposed "treason." (After the organizers of the event distanced themselves from Conlon, he later walked back his suggestion that the truckers were going to "arrest" anyone.) According to the group, 3,000 truckers will participate in the Washington, D.C. rally between October 11 and 13.

Andrews was hosted on Fox News' On the Record with Greta Van Susteren last night and provided with a platform to plug the event, which she explained is "peaceful" and will not seek to engage in any unlawful behavior. According to Andrews, the goal of the event is to remove Obama from office, because he "is a threat to our national security. He is a threat to our way of life. He is a threat to our future generations." (The event has also been publicized on Fox Nation, Drudge Report, and websites like WND.)

Lonegan wrote:"Sometimes you have to stand and fight," he said. "Right now, we have a nation that is $16 trillion in debt, half of which occurred under Barack Obama. We want to raise the debt ceiling so the federal government can print money out of thin air to pay the interest on the debt. We have a government that is out of control. It’s time we draw a line in the sand and stop the spending"

Luzinski's Gut wrote:Hearing that this might go on into December. The Pubs are going to raise the debt ceiling but continue to stall out on the budget/continuing resolution.

Just as Edward J. Snowden was preparing to leave Geneva and a job as a C.I.A. technician in 2009, his supervisor wrote a derogatory report in his personnel file, noting a distinct change in the young man’s behavior and work habits, as well as a troubling suspicion.

The C.I.A. suspected that Mr. Snowden was trying to break into classified computer files to which he was not authorized to have access, and decided to send him home, according to two senior American officials.

But the red flags went unheeded. Mr. Snowden left the C.I.A. to become a contractor for the National Security Agency, and four years later he leaked thousands of classified documents. The supervisor’s cautionary note and the C.I.A.’s suspicions apparently were not forwarded to the N.S.A. or its contractors, and surfaced only after federal investigators began scrutinizing Mr. Snowden’s record once the documents began spilling out, intelligence and law enforcement officials said.