This and That...

[Warph]

Florida Obumacare Navigator: Rollout Is "Dead as a Doornail"

(In other words, it went exactly as planned)

By: James Taylor | October 02, 2013
http://mediatrackers.org/florida/2013/10/02/florida-obamacare-navigator-rollout-dead-doornail

An Obamacare Florida navigator called Monday's planned insurance exchange rollout "dead as a doornail" after widespread problems prevented Floridians from accessing the Obamacare insurance exchanges.

Despite federal officials having three years after passage of the Affordable Care Act to plan for the launching of healthcare insurance exchanges, the federal website crashed on its first day of operation, preventing Floridians from accessing the health insurance exchange system.

"It's dead as a doornail. It's not working," John Foley, a paid Obamacare navigator, told the South Florida Sun Sentinel.

Foley is an attorney with the government-funded Legal Aid Society of Palm Beach County.

Foley's assessment was particularly troubling for Obamacare supporters given Foley's role in implementing Obamacare and the Legal Aid Society's ongoing cooperation with the Obama administration.

"It's a mess. It's terribly disappointing," Foley added. "They [federal officials] have been pushing it for so long, and people have been excited to see it, but apparently it's not coming."

The Sun Sentinel noted that despite the entire system being shut down and Floridians having no access to the taxpayer-funded system, Obama administration officials said the rollout was "off to a good start." They did not provide any examples of what a "bad start" might have looked like.

Other Florida Obamacare navigators were similarly unable to guide people through the Obamacare insurance exchanges. Lynne Thorp, project manager for Obamacare navigators in three southwest Florida counties, began attempting to access the system at 5:30 a.m. Monday but could not connect to the system.

One of the many concerns Floridians expressed regarding Obamacare was giving the federal government, the IRS, and others access to their most personal medical information. The federal Obamacare website reinforced those fears when the website's security system failed to properly assign user IDs and passwords to people attempting to sign up for healthcare insurance.

"The Health and Human Services Department did not begin testing the chief pieces of this IT system until August," noted the Wall Street Journal. "The testing found that states couldn't consistently link to the federal portal (a problem that persists in some states), and that the hub couldn't reliably verify if a person is eligible for a subsidy, or accurately calculate how much the applicant is eligible to receive."

[Warph]

Zero Enroll For Obumacare In Louisiana.  Computer Overload!?!

]

Via National Review:
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/360210/zero-enroll-new-la-plan-obamacares-first-day-andrew-johnson#!

Louisiana's top health-insurance provider said that not a single person enrolled in a new health-care plan offered through the Affordable Care Act on its first day.

An executive with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana told the Times-Picayune that the agency was unable to sell the plan because customers were unable to access the HealthCare.gov website due to its website's sluggishness.

"It was not as intense as we had anticipated," the company's vice president of communication said of the company's sales.

He urged supporters and critics, however, to "take a deep breath and relax" and assured them that the website would eventually allow consumers to enroll in a plan."

[Warph]

•Not a joke: Obamacare's national hotline number is 1-800-F***-YOU | Young Cons
http://youngcons.com/not-a-joke-obamacares-national-hotline-number-is-1-800-f-you/

•Obamacare's National Hotline? 1-800-F*ck-You | therightplanet.com
http://www.therightplanet.com/2013/10/obamacares-national-hotline-1-800-fck-you/

Via Hot Air:

http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2013/10/02/obamacares-national-hotline-1-800-f-you/

Obumacare National Hotline:

1-800-F***-You...

Not exactly, but it's pretty close.

Here's video of Kathleen Sebelius giving out the number, 1-800-318-2596:

1-800-3(F) 8(U) 2(C) 5(K) 9(Y) 6(O).

Note: The number 1 isn't assigned a letter.

[Warph]

October 2013

Disgusting! This vile turd POS President needs to go!

How many more insults is this nation going to swallow in the name of political correctness?  Obviously history teaches us one thing only.... that appeasement never works!  And yet majority of American politicians seem to glide through life on appeasement and favoritism reciprocity.

He was illegally elected POTUS, [prove to me he's legal] but has turned now into the TOP PIECE OF SH!T'US.  But somehow HE clearly thinks of himself as an EMPEROR of the US!

I almost choked from laughter yesterday when he said in a presser in front of the PEOPLE'S HOUSE that 'HE will NOT ALLOW ANYONE to sully a good name of the US'.  He's the one to talk?  The hypocrisy has now turned into a straight up lying to our faces, making up stories, inverting facts, spinning stories not based in reality.

It is like we've already jumped into the alternate universe, and every day is the opposite day... opposite to reason, opposite to intelligent thought, opposite to honesty and dignity.

I AM SO PROUD that these Old Birds [said with all my love and adoration] showed this pretender, amateur and usurper who the BOSS in this country is.  The President is NOT the boss.  WE ARE!  We, the people, elect the President and he works for US, not himself.  

Time for the turd to be flushed, and start rebuilding this nation.

May 1945

September 2013

[Warph]

Seymour Hersh: Bin Laden Raid "One Big Lie"

       

Pulitzer-prize wining journalist slams "pathetic" US media
for failing to challenge White House

http://www.infowars.com/seymour-hersh-bin-laden-death-one-big-lie/

by Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
September 27, 2013

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh says that the raid which killed Osama Bin Laden in 2011 is "one big lie" and that "not one word" of the Obama administration's narrative on what happened is true.

In a wide-ranging interview published today by the Guardian, Hersh savages the US media for failing to challenge the White House on a whole host of issues, from NSA spying, to drone attacks, to aggression against Syria.

On the subject of the Navy Seal raid that supposedly resulted in the death of the Al-Qaeda terror leader, Hersh remarked, "Nothing's been done about that story, it's one big lie, not one word of it is true."

Hersh added that the Obama administration habitually lies but they continue to do so because the press allows them to get away with it.

"It's pathetic, they are more than obsequious, they are afraid to pick on this guy [Obama]," Hersh told the Guardian.

The raid that supposedly led to Bin Laden's death has been shrouded in mystery for over two years. Speculation that the Obama administration may have embellished or outright lied about the true account of what happened has persisted, mainly because the White House has refused to publicly release images of Bin Laden's body.

Although the White House said the corpse was immediately "buried at sea" in line with Islamic tradition, it quickly emerged that this was not standard practice.

Numerous analysts have claimed that Bin Laden had in fact been dead for years and that the raid on his alleged compound in Pakistan was little more than a stunt.

Other questions also persist, such as why the narrative and timeline of the raid has changed multiple times, why the White House initially claimed that "situation room" photos showed Obama watching the raid live when in fact there was a blackout on the live feed, and why neighbors in the immediate area surrounding the compound said with absolute certainty that they had never seen Bin Laden and that they knew of no evidence whatsoever to suggest he lived there.

During the rest of the Guardian interview, which is well worth reading in its entirety, Hersh lambastes the corporate press and particularly the New York Times, which he says spends "so much more time carrying water for Obama than I ever thought they would."

Hersh's solution is to shut down news networks like NBC and ABC and fire 90% of mainstream editors, replacing them with real journalists who are outsiders and not afraid to speak truth to power.

"The republic's in trouble, we lie about everything, lying has become the staple," concluded Hersh.

[Warph]

10 FactsThat Prove The Bin Laden Fable Is a Contrived Hoax

http://www.infowars.com/10-facts-that-prove-the-bin-laden-fable-is-a-contrived-hoax

/         

by Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
May 9, 2011


Merely a week after President Obama announced the death of Osama Bin Laden, there is literally a deluge of evidence that clearly indicates the whole episode has been manufactured for political gain and to return Americans to a state of post-9/11 intellectual castration so that they can be easily manipulated in the run up to the 2012 election.

Here are ten facts that prove the Bin Laden fable is a contrived hoax:

1) Before last Sunday's raid, every intelligence analyst, geopolitical commentator or head of state worth their salt was on record as stating that Osama Bin Laden was already dead, and that he probably died many years ago, from veteran CIA officer Robert Baer, to former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, to former FBI head of counterterrorism Dale Watson. In addition, back in 2002 Alex Jones was told directly by two separate high level sources that Bin Laden was already dead and that his death would be announced at the most politically opportune moment. Top US government insider Dr. Steve R. Pieczenik, a man who held numerous different influential positions under five different Presidents, serving as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State under the Nixon, Ford and Carter, told the Alex Jones Show last week that Bin Laden died of marfan syndrome shortly after he was visited by CIA physicians at the American Hospital in Dubai in July 2001.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/inside-sources-bin-ladens-corpse-has-been-on-ice-for-nearly-a-decade.html


2) The official narrative of how the raid unfolded completely collapsed within days of its announcement. First there had been a 40 minute shootout, then there was no shootout and just one man was armed, first Bin Laden was armed then he was not, first Bin Laden used his wife as a human shield and then he did not. First the compound was described as a "$1 million dollar mansion" then it turned out to be a rubbish-strewn dilapidated compound that was worth less than a quarter of that. Almost every single aspect of the official narrative has changed since Obama first described the raid last Sunday as the White House struggles to keep its story straight.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/pentagon-white-house-can%E2%80%99t-get-their-bin-laden-fairy-tale-straight.html


3) The alleged body of Bin Laden was hastily dumped in the sea to prevent any proper procedure of identification. The White House claimed this was in accordance with normal Islamic burial rituals, however numerous Muslim scholars all over the globe disputed this claim, pointing out that Muslims can only be buried at sea if they die at sea. While the White House claimed that Bin Laden's death on May 1st was proven by DNA and facial recognition evidence, such proof was never released for public scrutiny and the Obama administration refused to release photos of Bin Laden's dead body, suggesting a cover-up.


4) Despite the fact that the White House released "situation room" photos which purported to show Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and the rest of Obama's security staff watching the raid which killed Bin Laden live, it was later admitted by CIA director Leon Panetta that Obama could not have seen the raid because the live feed was cut off before the Navy SEALS entered the compound. The photos were described by many as having "historical significance," forming a "captivating" record of Obama's greatest success and being the "defining moment" of his Presidency. One image showed Hillary Clinton with her hand over her mouth as if witnessing an anxious or crucial moment in the raid. Media reports at the time claimed that the photos represented the moment when "The leader of the free world saw the terror chief shot in the left eye." However, the photos were staged as a PR stunt for public consumption, nobody in the photos ever saw Bin Laden killed live, nor did they see the Navy SEALS even enter the compound.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/al-qaeda/8493391/Osama-bin-Laden-dead-Blackout-during-raid-on-bin-Laden-compound.html

Obuma not really in picture... he was 'photo-shopped' in... he was playing cards with Reggie Love that night.  But if the RAID had been real, you could bet Obuma would have wanted a front-row seat to see the real action.

5) As even mainstream journalists began to cast suspicion on the official narrative behind the raid, the media reported that Al-Qaeda itself had confirmed every detail of Obama's address the the nation. However, the conduit for such a claim was in fact an organization called SITE, which is a notorious Pentagon propaganda front run by the daughter of an Israeli spy that has been caught on numerous occasions releasing fake cartoonish "Al-Qaeda" videos at the most politically expedient times for both the Bush and Obama administrations. The SITE organization is nothing more than a contractor for the U.S. government, receiving some $500,000 a year annually from Uncle Sam, and yet the corporate media instantly swallowed and regurgitated the claim that "Al-Qaeda" had confirmed the official story after SITE directed them to an anonymous posting on an Islamic website.


6) Almost every single neighbor that lived near the alleged Bin Laden compound in Abbottabad that was interviewed by news reporters said with absolute certainty that they had never seen Bin Laden and that they knew of no evidence whatsoever to suggest he lived there. Since the town is a staging ground for the Pakistani military, which has a training facility situated virtually a stone's throw away from the alleged Bin Laden compound, residents were required to show ID when they moved into the area. Pakistani troops and anti-terror police in the town refused to confirm that Bin Laden had lived in the house. Barack Obama himself admitted to 60 Minutes that the White House was only 55/45 sure that Osama lived there before the raid and this uncertainty prompted concerns that the US Navy SEALS sent in could have targeted a "prince from Dubai" or some other individual that was not Bin Laden.


7) The videos released by the White House this past weekend which purport to show Osama Bin Laden making Al-Qaeda tapes in October-November 2010 are almost identical to footage first released by Pentagon front group SITE nearly four years ago. Remember, a May 2010 Washington Post story reported how the CIA had admitted to making fake Bin Laden videos. Despite the White House's insistence that the footage of Bin Laden is recent, he looks younger and healthier than tapes released almost a decade ago, having apparently dyed his beard black. A separate video that purports to show Bin Laden in his compound flicking through satellite TV channels depicts a much older looking man with a gray beard. Analysts have pointed out that the man has different shaped ears to real Osama pictures from back in 2001. A doctor has also pointed out the fact that the man in the tapes released Saturday has no problem moving his left arm, whereas video from 2001 clearly illustrates how Bin Laden was unable to move his left upper extremity because of a permanent injury probably related to damage to the peripheral nerves. Why the cameraman would film the back of Bin Laden's head as he watches television is also dubious. Residents in the town of Abbottabad claim the man in the "television" video is not Osama, with one individual claiming that the man labeled by the White House as being Bin Laden is actually his neighbor, a man named Akhbar Han.


8: Despite the fact that numerous neo-cons came out on the days after the alleged raid to erroneously assert that torturing terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay led to the discovery of Bin Laden, Osama himself, the supposed world's most wanted terrorist and a treasure trove of terror information, despite the fact that he was unarmed, was not taken in for questioning, he was instantly shot in the head according to the official narrative.


9) The US government has been caught on several occasions within the past decade staging military operations for the purposes of generating contrived, pro-war sentiment amongst the American public. Both the "rescue" of Jessica Lynch and the death of Pat Tillman were complete fables, scripted and staged at complete odds with the truth and unleashed on Americans as part of a psychological warfare offensive to elicit support for the war on terror, almost identical to what we're seeing now with the Bin Laden sideshow. Given the fact that the US government has been caught red-handed scripting tales of pure fiction in order to justify the war on terror, notably in the cases of Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman, why on earth should we believe them now?


10) Despite the fact that Obama announced last Sunday on live television that the world was now "safer" because Bin Laden was dead, his administration, with the aid of the fearmongering mass media, instantly seized upon the situation to terrify Americans into being afraid of imminent "reprisal" terror attacks inside the United States, later claiming that Bin Laden had formulated an "aspirational rather than operational" plan to derail US trains that travel over 500mph, although no trains in the US can actually travel at such speeds. This led "terror experts" to salivate over how TSA agents were now needed in shopping malls to stick their hands down Americans' pants, while New York Senator Chuckie Schumer called for the no fly list to be expanded to trains and subways. Obama hurried to ground zero for a photo op as he desperately tried to use the Bin Laden hoax to whip up phony patriotism as a means of boosting his flagging poll numbers. Others, like Democrat Bill Richardson, exploited the situation to try and push through policies that had no connection to Bin Laden or terrorism at all, like cap and trade. The haste with which the whole Bin Laden fable was exploited for political points scoring and as a psychological ploy to return Americans to a post-9/11 state of intellectual castration was painfully transparent, clearly suggesting that the entire farce was planned well in advance to achieve precisely those goals in the run up to 2012.

[Warph]

Seymour Hersh on Obama, NSA and the 'pathetic' American media

Seymour Hersh exposed the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam war, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. Photograph: Wally McNamee/Corbis

Pulitzer Prize winner explains how to fix journalism, saying press should 'fire 90% of editors and promote ones you can't control'

http://www.theguardian.com/media/media-blog/2013/sep/27/seymour-hersh-obama-nsa-american-media

Seymour Hersh has got some extreme ideas on how to fix journalism – close down the news bureaus of NBC and ABC, sack 90% of editors in publishing and get back to the fundamental job of journalists which, he says, is to be an outsider.

It doesn't take much to fire up Hersh, the investigative journalist who has been the nemesis of US presidents since the 1960s and who was once described by the Republican party as "the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist".

He is angry about the timidity of journalists in America, their failure to challenge the White House and be an unpopular messenger of truth.

Don't even get him started on the New York Times which, he says, spends "so much more time carrying water for Obama than I ever thought they would" – or the death of Osama bin Laden. "Nothing's been done about that story, it's one big lie, not one word of it is true," he says of the dramatic US Navy Seals raid in 2011 [see footnote].

Hersh is writing a book about national security and has devoted a chapter to the bin Laden killing. He says a recent report put out by an "independent" Pakistani commission about life in the Abottabad compound in which Bin Laden was holed up would not stand up to scrutiny. "The Pakistanis put out a report, don't get me going on it. Let's put it this way, it was done with considerable American input. It's a bullshit report," he says hinting of revelations to come in his book.

The Obama administration lies systematically, he claims, yet none of the leviathans of American media, the TV networks or big print titles, challenge him.

"It's pathetic, they are more than obsequious, they are afraid to pick on this guy [Obama]," he declares in an interview with the Guardian.

"It used to be when you were in a situation when something very dramatic happened, the president and the minions around the president had control of the narrative, you would pretty much know they would do the best they could to tell the story straight. Now that doesn't happen any more. Now they take advantage of something like that and they work out how to re-elect the president.

He isn't even sure if the recent revelations about the depth and breadth of surveillance by the National Security Agency will have a lasting effect.


Snowden changed the debate on surveillance

He is certain that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden "changed the whole nature of the debate" about surveillance. Hersh says he and other journalists had written about surveillance, but Snowden was significant because he provided documentary evidence – although he is sceptical about whether the revelations will change the US government's policy.

"Duncan Campbell [the British investigative journalist who broke the Zircon cover-up story], James Bamford [US journalist] and Julian Assange and me and the New Yorker, we've all written the notion there's constant surveillance, but he [Snowden] produced a document and that changed the whole nature of the debate, it's real now," Hersh says.

"Editors love documents. Chicken-shit editors who wouldn't touch stories like that, they love documents, so he changed the whole ball game," he adds, before qualifying his remarks.

"But I don't know if it's going to mean anything in the long [run] because the polls I see in America – the president can still say to voters 'al-Qaida, al-Qaida' and the public will vote two to one for this kind of surveillance, which is so idiotic," he says.

Holding court to a packed audience at City University in London's summer school on investigative journalism, 76-year-old Hersh is on full throttle, a whirlwind of amazing stories of how journalism used to be; how he exposed the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, how he got the Abu Ghraib pictures of American soldiers brutalising Iraqi prisoners, and what he thinks of Edward Snowden.


Hope of redemption

Despite his concern about the timidity of journalism he believes the trade still offers hope of redemption.

"I have this sort of heuristic view that journalism, we possibly offer hope because the world is clearly run by total nincompoops more than ever ... Not that journalism is always wonderful, it's not, but at least we offer some way out, some integrity."

His story of how he uncovered the My Lai atrocity is one of old-fashioned shoe-leather journalism and doggedness. Back in 1969, he got a tip about a 26-year-old platoon leader, William Calley, who had been charged by the army with alleged mass murder.

Instead of picking up the phone to a press officer, he got into his car and started looking for him in the army camp of Fort Benning in Georgia, where he heard he had been detained. From door to door he searched the vast compound, sometimes blagging his way, marching up to the reception, slamming his fist on the table and shouting: "Sergeant, I want Calley out now."

Eventually his efforts paid off with his first story appearing in the St Louis Post-Despatch, which was then syndicated across America and eventually earned him the Pulitzer Prize. "I did five stories. I charged $100 for the first, by the end the [London] Times were paying $5,000."

He was hired by the New York Times to follow up the Watergate scandal and ended up hounding Nixon over Cambodia. Almost 30 years later, Hersh made global headlines all over again with his exposure of the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib.


Put in the hours

For students of journalism his message is put the miles and the hours in. He knew about Abu Ghraib five months before he could write about it, having been tipped off by a senior Iraqi army officer who risked his own life by coming out of Baghdad to Damascus to tell him how prisoners had been writing to their families asking them to come and kill them because they had been "despoiled".

"I went five months looking for a document, because without a document, there's nothing there, it doesn't go anywhere."

Hersh returns to US president Barack Obama. He has said before that the confidence of the US press to challenge the US government collapsed post 9/11, but he is adamant that Obama is worse than Bush.

"Do you think Obama's been judged by any rational standards? Has Guantanamo closed? Is a war over? Is anyone paying any attention to Iraq? Is he seriously talking about going into Syria? We are not doing so well in the 80 wars we are in right now, what the hell does he want to go into another one for. What's going on [with journalists]?" he asks.

He says investigative journalism in the US is being killed by the crisis of confidence, lack of resources and a misguided notion of what the job entails.

"Too much of it seems to me is looking for prizes. It's journalism looking for the Pulitzer Prize," he adds. "It's a packaged journalism, so you pick a target like – I don't mean to diminish because anyone who does it works hard – but are railway crossings safe and stuff like that, that's a serious issue but there are other issues too.

"Like killing people, how does [Obama] get away with the drone programme, why aren't we doing more? How does he justify it? What's the intelligence? Why don't we find out how good or bad this policy is? Why do newspapers constantly cite the two or three groups that monitor drone killings. Why don't we do our own work?

"Our job is to find out ourselves, our job is not just to say – here's a debate' our job is to go beyond the debate and find out who's right and who's wrong about issues. That doesn't happen enough. It costs money, it costs time, it jeopardises, it raises risks. There are some people – the New York Times still has investigative journalists but they do much more of carrying water for the president than I ever thought they would ... it's like you don't dare be an outsider any more."

He says in some ways President George Bush's administration was easier to write about. "The Bush era, I felt it was much easier to be critical than it is [of] Obama. Much more difficult in the Obama era," he said.

Asked what the solution is Hersh warms to his theme that most editors are pusillanimous and should be fired.

"I'll tell you the solution, get rid of 90% of the editors that now exist and start promoting editors that you can't control," he says. I saw it in the New York Times, I see people who get promoted are the ones on the desk who are more amenable to the publisher and what the senior editors want and the trouble makers don't get promoted. Start promoting better people who look you in the eye and say 'I don't care what you say'.

Nor does he understand why the Washington Post held back on the Snowden files until it learned the Guardian was about to publish.

If Hersh was in charge of US Media Inc, his scorched earth policy wouldn't stop with newspapers.

"I would close down the news bureaus of the networks and let's start all over, tabula rasa. The majors, NBCs, ABCs, they won't like this – just do something different, do something that gets people mad at you, that's what we're supposed to be doing," he says.

Hersh is currently on a break from reporting, working on a book which undoubtedly will make for uncomfortable reading for both Bush and Obama.

"The republic's in trouble, we lie about everything, lying has become the staple." And he implores journalists to do something about it.

• This article was amended on 1 October 2013. The original text stated that Hersh sold a story about the My Lai massacre to the New York Times for $5,000 when in fact it was the Times of London. Hersh has pointed out that he was in no way suggesting that Osama bin Laden was not killed in Pakistan, as reported, upon the president's authority: he was saying that it was in the aftermath that the lying began. Finally, the interview took place in the month of July, 2013.

[Warph]

US shutdowns – a short history

This is the first shutdown of the 21st century, but it happened 18 times between 1976 and 1996

This picture of Lewinsky and Clinton was taken on 17 November 1995, during another US shutdown. Photograph: AP

The US government has gone into shutdown after the failure to approve funding for the next financial year. Nonessential services will be closed and 800,000 federal employees will not be allowed to work – but while this is the first shutdown of the 21st century, it is far from unprecedented.

Here is what has happened in the past:

1996 – Clinton v Republicans

There have been 18 shutdowns since 1976 (pdf), but none for 17 years until Monday's midnight deadline to extend Congressional spending authority passed with no agreement. The last occasion was when Bill Clinton and the Republican-controlled House halted services for a total of 21 days. It began in November 1995, a temporary spending bill was enacted, but then the shutdown restarted in mid-December and ran into 1996. The first shutdown resulted in 800,000 workers eventually getting paid for staying home and the second led to 280,000 workers left idle for three weeks. The Republicans took a drubbing in the polls and ended up accepting most of Clinton's conditions, making the president the adjudged winner of the tussle, even if the image of government as a whole suffered. A historic footnote is that the second day of the initial shutdown – 15 November 1995 – was when Monica Lewinsky said she began a sexual relationship with Clinton.

1981-1990 – short shutdowns

Reagan

During Ronald Reagan's two terms he regularly argued with congressional Democrats to the brink of shutdown. The first occasion was in November 1981, nine months after he entered office. With Congress having approved emergency spending to keep the government running, Reagan wielded his first veto, making a stand against "budget-busting policies". Federal workers were streaming out of offices in Washington and across the nation but it lasted only hours as Congress approved a three-week spending extension that was more to the president's liking. The estimated cost of the shutdown was more than $80m. Workers were sent home for half a day twice more during his presidency. George Bush used the tactic once, during the budget wrangling that punctured his "no new taxes" pledge, leading to a partial shutdown over the 1990 Columbus Day weekend.

1980 – Carter and his attorney general

Carter: Dirck Halstead/Getty When Jimmy Carter asked his attorney general for legal advice, Benjamin Civiletti told the president that government employees could not work for free or with the expectation that they would be paid at some undefined point in the future, despite a "look-the-other-way" system having worked for decades. Civiletti went further, declaring that any agency chief who broke the law would be prosecuted. When five days later funding for the Federal Trade Commission expired amid a congressional disagreement over limiting the agency's powers, the FTC halted operations, cancelling court dates and meetings and sending 1,600 workers packing, apparently the first agency ever closed by a budget dispute. Embarrassed, Congress made a quick fix and the FTC reopened the next day. The estimated cost of the brouhaha was $700,000.

Carter, forever stymied by his own party in Congress, ordered the whole government to be ready to shut down when the budget year ended on 1 October 1980, in case the deadline for appropriations bills was missed. It almost happened. Funding for many agencies did expire, but just for a few hours, and nobody was sent home. Civiletti later clarified that in a government-wide shutdown, the military, air traffic control, prisons and other work that protects human safety or property would continue. So would things such as social security benefits, which Congress has financed indefinitely.

Earlier 1900s – a time before full shutdowns

Henry Ford in the early 1900s. Photograph: Superstock/Getty

Congress routinely failed to pass most of each year's dozen or so appropriations bills on time, with agencies sometimes going a full year without a budget. Usually it would be smoothed over with a short-term money approval, called a continuing resolution. Even when these got delayed due to wrangling, government agencies did not shut down. Agency chiefs might delay workers' pay and put items such as travel and new contracts on hold but they assumed Congress did not want them to turn off the lights and go home. Eventually a spending bill would be passed that retroactively papered over the funding gap.

[Bullwinkle]

Meet Maine 's New Governor --- In case you haven't heard about this guy before, his name will stick in your mind!   The new Maine Governor, Paul LePage is making New Jersey 's Chris Christie look timid. He isn't afraid to say what he thinks. Judging by the comments, every time he opens his mouth, his popularity goes up.

He brought down the house at his inauguration when he shook his fist toward the media box and said, "You're on notice! I've inherited a financially troubled State to run. Observe...cover what we do...but don't whine if I don't waste time responding to your every whim just for your amusement."

During his campaign for Governor, he was talking to commercial fishermen who are struggling because of federal fisheries rules. They complained that 0bama brought his family to Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park for a long Labor Day holiday and found time to meet with union leaders, but wouldn't talk to the fishermen. LePage replied, "I'd tell him to go to hell and get out of my State." The Lame Stream Media crucified LePage, but he jumped 6 points in the pre-election poll.

The Martin Luther King incident was a political sandbag, which brought him national exposure. The 'lame stream' media crucified him, but word on the street is very positive. The NAACP specifically asked LePage to spend MLK Day visiting black inmates at the Maine State Prison. He told them that he would meet with ALL inmates, regardless of race, if he were to visit the prison. The NAACP balked and then put out a news release claiming falsely that he refused to participate in any MLK events. He read it in the paper for the 1st time the next morning while being driven to an event and went ballistic because none of the reporters had called him for comment before running the NAACP release.

He arrived at that event & said in front of a TV camera, "If they want to play the race card on me they can kiss my ass", and he reminded them that he has an adopted black son from Jamaica and that he attended the local MLK Breakfast every year that he was mayor of Waterville. (He started his morning there on MLK Day.)

He then stated that there's a right way and a wrong way to meet with the Governor, and he put all special interests on notice that press releases, media leaks, and all demonstrations would prove to be the wrong way. He said any other group, which acted like the NAACP could expect to be at the bottom of the Governor's priority list!

He then did the following, and judging from local radio talk show callers, his popularity increased even more: The State employees union complained because he waited until 3 P.M. before closing State offices and facilities and sending non-emergency personnel home during the last blizzard. The prior Governor would often close offices for the day with just a forecast before the first flakes. (Each time the State closes for snow, it costs the taxpayers about $1 million in wages for no work in return.)

LePage was CEO of the Marden's chain of discount family bargain retail stores before election as governor. He noted that State employees getting off work early could still find lots of retail stores open to shop. So, he put the State employees on notice by announcing: "If Marden's is open, Maine is open!"

He told State employees: "We live in Maine in the winter, for heaven's sake, and should know how to drive in it. Otherwise, apply for a State job in Florida !"   Governor LePage symbolizes what America needs; Refreshing politicians who aren't self-serving and who exhibit common sense.

THE LAW IS THE LAW!

I really love this one.

This is one of the better e-mails I have received in a long time! I hope this makes its way around the USA several times over!!!!! HERE IS WHAT Governor LaPage said,

"THE LAW IS THE LAW So "if" the US government determines that it is against the law for the words "under God" to be on our money, then, so be it.

And "if" that same government decides that the "Ten Commandments" are not to be used in or on a government installation, then, so be it.

I say, "so be it," because I would like to be a law abiding US citizen

I say, "so be it," because I would like to think that smarter people than I are in positions to make good decisions.

I would like to think that those people have the American public's best interests at heart.

BUT, he said, "YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE I'D LIKE?

Since we can't pray to God, can't Trust in God and cannot post His Commandments in Government buildings, I don't believe Government (Federal, State and Local) and its employees should participate in Easter and Christmas celebrations which honor the God that our government is eliminating from many facets of American life.


I'd like my mail delivered on Christmas, Good Friday, Thanksgiving & Easter. After all, it's just another day.


I'd like the" US Supreme Court to be in session on Christmas, Good Friday, Thanksgiving & Easter as well as Sundays." After all, it's just another day.

I'd like the Senate and the House of Representatives to not have to worry about getting home for the "Christmas Break." After all it's just another day.

I'm thinking a lot of my taxpayer dollars could be saved, if all government offices & services would work on Christmas, Good Friday & Easter. It shouldn't cost any overtime since those would be just like any other day of the week to a government that is trying to be "politically correct."


In fact....I think our government should work on Sundays (AFTER ALL, It was initially set aside for worshipping God....) because, AFTER ALL, our government says that it should be Just ANOTHER DAY...."


What do you all think? If this idea gets to enough people, maybe our elected officials will stop giving in to the "minority opinions" and begin, once again, to represent the "majority" of ALL of the American people.

SO BE IT...........Please Dear Lord, Give us the help needed to keep you in our country! 'Amen' and 'Amen' Touché!

If this gets around the country a few times, I believe we all will see a better day! 

[Warph]

Arizona police officer asked not to wear uniform at daughter's school
Published October 03, 2013 / FoxNews.com

A police officer who dropped off his daughter at her Phoenix elementary school was asked by the school's principal not to wear his uniform to the school because other parents were concerned that he was carrying a gun,

(No pop tart guns, no gun key chains, no finger guns, now not even police officers in uniform because they somehow pose some existential threat.  People... this crap is getting sicker and sicker.  It is my understanding that over half the children at this school knew Officer Urkov.  We need to fight back against this type of progressive thinking!)

MyFoxPhoenix.com reported.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/10/03/arizona-police-officer-asked-not-to-wear-uniform-at-daughters-school/

Scott Urkov is a police officer for the Coolidge Police Department.

The department told him not to comment to media inquiries, but immediately after he received the no-uniform request, he posted on Facebook.

"Nothing like your kids school calling and asking if I could not come to pick up my daughter in uniform cause parents were concerned when their kids came home telling them there was a man at school with a gun, " he posted. "Are you freaking kidding me?"

His daughter attends Entz Elementary School, which is in the Mesa Unified School District.

A district spokeswoman told the station that "some parents" voiced concern about seeing a fully armed police officer on the school's campus. The spokeswoman apologized that Urkov perhaps took the discussion the wrong way.

"It was not the intent of the principal to offend him," the spokeswoman said.

"Well I was a little surprised," said parent Blaine Spencer. "I think that it's his right to wear that in public. Even if my kids saw that I think they'd feel more protected to see a man in uniform at their school."

Meanwhile, school officials' initial reaction was to ask the officer not to wear his gun and uniform to school, they are now saying they want to turn this incident into "a teachable moment."

They invited the officer to a special assembly to talk about what police officers do for the community.