Topic: Merged: Shutdown Theater

[Libertas]

[Pandora]

...  one of the more appalling casualties of the government shutdown has been funding for the National Institutes for Health, which has had to start turning away the roughly 200 patients, including children with cancer, who come to it each week for treatment in clinical trials. This is obviously a PR problem for the Republican Party. So as part of its strategy of pushing bills that would selectively fund discrete, visible, and popular pieces of the government, such as the District of Columbia and the National Park Service, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has also proposed restoring the NIH budget.

This is not sitting well with the Democrats. Per The Wall Street Journal today:

    "I would like to guarantee that the people who are suffering, not getting treatment at the NIH could be answered tomorrow," Mr. Cantor said in a statement. "For the Democrats to say we're going to play a political game and we're not going to help those kids — we're really tired of playing games."

    Democrats rejected the approach.

    "It's time for Republicans to stop throwing one crazy idea after another at the wall, in hopes that something will stick," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) said when the Senate opened on Wednesday. "Nothing is stuck. There's been a sensible plan to reopen the government right in front of House Republicans all along."

Meanwhile, Cantor tweeted out the president's official veto threat:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/10/the-gop-wants-to-restore-nih-funding-should-obama-allow-it/280203/

I'm really pissed off at the slant here, as though the author of this piece had no idea that this was the plan -- to fund everything but Obamacare.

So, it's the Republicans holding America hostage, or is it those POS Reid and Obongo.

eta:  Okay, let what he says at 1:31 hit you right between the eyes ...

Harry Reid: 'Why Would We Want To' Help One Kid With Cancer?

[Pablo de Fleurs]

@iowahawkblog
Amalgamated Barricades up 8.56
#stockreport

[oldcoastie6468]

Gov’t shutdown spreads to beaches of Normandy
By Associated Press October 2, 2013 | 9:02am
Modal Trigger
Gov’t shutdown spreads to beaches of Normandy
The D-Day invasion is remembered at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial which has been closed because of the government shutdown./quote]


http://nypost.com/2013/10/02/govt-shutdown-spreads-to-beaches-of-normandy/

(The AP has cracked down on copying and pasting things from their articles.)

[LadyVirginia]

putting aside that this is Lincoln who I know some are not fans of it is a monument owned by us:

[Pandora]

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/10/02/shutdown-white-house-ordering-privately-run-privately-funded-parks-to-close/

UPDATE 10/2/13 @ 7:27 pm Central: I just heard from Mr. Meyer. He emails:

    It’s official.  They are shutting all of us down ASAP.  Marching orders straight from the White House.

Update: Mr. Meyer emails to add that not only is his business being forced to take losses for the closures, but in some cases the government is making him and the other park management companies buy the barricades that will be used to shut the parks. He says:

    We are like prisoners of war who have to pay for our prison.

Original Story:

Warren Meyer {http://www.coyoteblog.com/} of Phoenix, AZ, is owner and president of Recreation Resource Management, Inc. RRM employs about 400-500 camp workers and managers across about a dozen states. It is one of a handful of companies that have been managing national parks and campgrounds as tenants for years, through previous government shutdowns including the last one in 1995-1996. Those previous shutdowns never closed any of the parks managed in this way, but the current shutdown threatens closure.

The campgrounds are self-sufficient and receive no federal funding. No government employees staff or manage the parks. The management companies pay the National Park Service out of the funds they generate from operating the thousands of campgrounds. So the reason for the shutdown is puzzling to Meyer.

Today, he sent a letter to both of his senators, John McCain and Jeff Flake, asking for help to keep his parks open.

“My company, based in North Phoenix, operates nearly over 100 US Forest Service campgrounds and day use areas under concession contract. Yesterday, as in all past government shutdowns, the Department of Agriculture and US Forest Service confirmed we would stay open during the government shutdown. This makes total sense, since our operations are self-sufficient (we are fully funded by user fees at the gate), we get no federal funds, we employ no government workers on these sites, and we actually pay rent into the Treasury.”

Notice that last part. The parks not only do not cost the taxpayers any money, they pay funds into the Treasury out of the fees park users pay. Shutting them down will cost the taxpayers money.

How much? Meyer told the Tatler that his parks generate hundreds of thousands of dollars per week. Multiply that across his competitors and the Treasury could lose a few million dollars, in what is essentially free money to the government, over the course of the shutdown.

Which, as Meyer points out, is unnecessary, as these management companies are not revenue losers, but revenue generators for the Treasury.

He writes

    However, today, we have been told by senior member of the US Forest Service and Department of Agriculture that people “above the department”, which I presume means the White House, plan to order the Forest Service to needlessly and illegally close all private operations. I can only assume their intention is to artificially increase the cost of the shutdown as some sort of political ploy.

    The point of the shutdown is to close non-essential operations that require Federal money and manpower to stay open. So why is the White House closing private operations that require no government money to keep open and actually pay a percentage of their gate revenues back to the Treasury? We are a tenant of the US Forest Service, and a tenant does not have to close his business just because his landlord goes on a vacation.

The US Department of Agriculture is an executive branch agency, and answers to the White House. Another Judicial Watch FOIA may be in order to get to the bottom of this.

Meyer says he has sought clarification from the US Department of Agriculture about the shutdown. Officials are saying that they are shutting down the privately run, revenue-generating parks “to be consistent with the National Park Service.”

That would be the National Park Service which has barricaded the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C., and closed a self-sufficient living history farm in Virginia.

Meyer says that the situation could cost jobs and is leaving him stranded, not knowing what to tell groups that are planning to use the parks his company manages.

So, after the shutdown ends, we'll be treated to an accounting of what it has "cost" the Treasury, right?  Wanna bet the losses incurred here will be in the account, but with no detail?  Nah, me either.

[Libertas]

All they asked for was a piece of ground to rest our honored dead...all Obama has to offer is hate and a middle finger...

The contrast is stark...

[Libertas]

They are provoking me...

[LadyVirginia]

the poor folks paid by the government aren't being affected by this so they may not even notice the shutdown--how many of them are going to a natl park or campground?

this affects middle America who go to parks, visit historic sites

if Americans don't see this as a Boston Tea Party moment then

count on quartering troops next to enforce these dictatorial proclamations

[oldcoastie6468]

He truly hates anything to do with our military forces.

[Pablo de Fleurs]

[LadyVirginia]

Military may be getting paid but their commissaries are closed.  They must shop at regular stores which will cost them money.

[Libertas]

Interesting history...

http://ideas.time.com/2013/10/03/newt-gingrich-founding-fathers-liked-shutdowns/

Democratic Speaker Tip O’Neill had twelve shutdowns during his Speakership.

More anarchy!   

The only way to deal with a bully (or lots of bullies) is to bust them hard in the face and make them bleed.  No deal should be reached until dem's bleed...

 

[Libertas]

http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2013/10/quite-possibly-saddest-photo-ive-ever.html?m=0

And, they hate little kids with cancer too.

What is critical for them to do, besides be as big a pain in the ass as possible to the American people?

If you guessed "Setting up hashtags on Twitter to demonize Republicans" you win a cookie!

http://weaselzippers.us/2013/10/03/schumer-on-government-shutdown-were-working-with-the-white-house-on-a-hashtag/

Sorry, out of cookies, the Fedcoats stole the dough...

Obama...worst of the worst...

  Diogenes' Middle Finger



http://suckersonparade.blogspot.com/2013/09/70-years-of-americas-democrat-statesman.html

Talk about hitting the bottom of the barrel...

 

[LadyVirginia]

The site overlooking the D-Day invasion beaches is one of 24 US military cemeteries overseas that have closed to visitors since Monday. Ten more cemeteries in in France, as well as others in various European countries as well as Mexico, Panama, Tunisia and the Philippines, will remain closed for the duration of the shutdown.

The cemeteries are maintained by the American Battle Monuments Commission, set up after the First World War. Nearly 125,000 US servicemen and women are buried at its cemeteries, and an additional 94,000 are commemorated on tablets of the missing.

-AP

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/us-budget-battle-shuts-war-graves-29628631.html

[Libertas]

[IronDioPriest]

Sorry for the merges guys. The shutdown is obviously a big deal, and insofar as our commentary deals with the regime's vindictive arbitrary closings, I'd like it all to be in one place, unless there's a compelling reason to place it elsewhere.

Thanks for your understanding.

[Pablo de Fleurs]

Rush to Obama:

#GoFundYourself^{#GoFundYourself}.

[ToddF]

The stuttering clusterfail is talking his show on the road, to a world audience.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2013/10/02/US-military-cemeteries-overseas-closed-by-shutdown/UPI-59741380743903/

The question obviously would be, what would SCoaMF have to gain by closing down places like Normandy, or the Manila-American Cemetery (of which I was at a couple of weeks ago...yes I bawled, I dare you not to!).  It's not like the typical Obama voter could find France, and certainly not the Philippines, on a map?  So why bother with that particular episode of Shut Down Theater?

It was postulated by a woman as WZ that he's doing it to shame the US, in the world's eyes.  I have to say, it fits this guy's whole term in office, to use this to further his goal of taking the US down a few pegs.  Never let a crisis to go waste and all.

[ToddF]

The dangers of doing this at work, taking tens of minutes to compose a post, Lady Virginia beat me to it.   Oh well, enough anger to share.