Tag Archives: Government shutdown

This Sort Of Thing Drives Me Nuts

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Senior citizens (77 and 80 years old) are forced from their houseboats on Lake Mead due to the government shutdown, the Amber Alert website is not working, private businesses are being shut down, and Camp David and the golf course at Camp David remain open. (sources ktnv.com, therightscoop, fox business news, and fox news).

UPDATE: The Amber Alert website is now working again.

Regardless of who you choose to blame for the shutdown, the way the Obama Administration is dealing with a 17 percent (yes, only 17 percent of the government is shut down) cut in government is not the way the government should treat Americans.

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Americans Need To Be Concerned About Protecting Their Rights As Citizens

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There have been a number of very disturbing stories coming out about the impact of the government shutdown on private citizens who are in no way involved in this dispute. Private organizations renting government land have been closed by the government, private businesses in national parks have been shut down, and now, private citizens are being evicted from their homes because of the shutdown.

Today The Examiner posted a story about 60 families kicked out of their private homes on Lake Mead.

The article reports:

Some 60 families have been kicked out of their privately-owned homes on Lake Mead by National Parks Service personnel as a result of the partial government shutdown, Newsmax reported Sunday.

“They are all vacation homes and everybody who lives in them are considered visitors,” said Lake Mead Recreational Area spokeswoman Christie Vanover.

“If anybody needs to gather their personal belongings, we’re not going to deny them access. They can go do that. They just can’t spend the nights there or have barbecues during the day,” she added. They need to get in and get out.”

This is disturbing.

The article further reports:

On Friday, we reported that a Park Ranger admitted being ordered to make life as inconvenient as possible in order to punish Americans during the shutdown.

“We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can,” an angry Park Ranger told the Washington Times. “It’s disgusting.”

Across the country, Park Rangers have been doing exactly that, closing down parks, roads, and even scenic bypasses on a whim.

Obama, meanwhile, fomented violence against Republicans Saturday when he called them kidnappers who “demand ransom” and “hold our democracy or our economy hostage.”

This is not acceptable. We need too find out who gave these orders and remove them from power. This is the government fighting the people of America. This is not the way America works.

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More Ridiculousness

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Hold on to your hat–the government is attempting to shut down God. The Daily Caller reported yesterday that the Priests who are in government service or are under contract to the military have been threatened with arrest if they celebrate Mass on Sunday.

The article reports:

“With the government shutdown, many [government service] and contract priests who minister to Catholics on military bases worldwide are not permitted to work – not even to volunteer,” wrote John Schlageter, the general counsel for the Archdiocese for the Military Services USA, in an op-ed this week. “During the shutdown, it is illegal for them to minister on base and they risk being arrested if they attempt to do so.”

According to its website, the Archdiocese for the Military Services “provides the Catholic Church’s full range of pastoral ministries and spiritual services to those in the United States Armed Forces.”

The article points out that this ruling on the part of the Obama Administration is not in accordance with the First Amendment rights of the American military. This is not something the government of a free country should do.

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This Is Ridiculous

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Breitbart.com is reporting today that the federal government has closed the ocean due to the government shutdown. Yes, you read that right.

The article reports:

Just before the weekend, the National Park Service informed charter boat captains in Florida that the Florida Bay was “closed” due to the shutdown. Until government funding is restored, the fishing boats are prohibited from taking anglers into 1,100 square-miles of open ocean. Fishing is also prohibited at Biscayne National Park during the shutdown.

The Park Service will also have rangers on duty to police the ban. ..The government will probably use more personnel and spend more resources to attempt to close the ocean, than it would in its normal course of business.

…Apparently, according to an anonymous Park Service ranger, “We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can. It’s disgusting.”

Please remember that the President is the one who determines where money is spent during the shutdown.

 

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Absurdity In Government

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The Washington Free Beacon posted a story today about the shutdown of the Claude Moore Colonial Farm. The shutdown is supposedly the result of the stalemate over the budget.

The article reports:

According to Anna Eberly, managing director of the farm, NPS sent law enforcement agents to the park on Tuesday evening to remove staff and volunteers from the property.

“You do have to wonder about the wisdom of an organization that would use staff they don’t have the money to pay to evict visitors from a park site that operates without costing them any money,” she said.

The park withstood prior government shutdowns, noting in a news release that the farm will be closed to the public for the first time in 40 years.

Please note: the government spent money to close down a park that operates without government funding and does not cost them any money.

The article further reports:

Farm staff repeatedly asked the NPS to allow the farm to remain open. “Every appeal our Board of Directors made to the NPS administration was denied,” Eberly said.

She called the decision “utter crap.”

“We have operated the Farm successfully for 32 years after the NPS cut the Farm from its budget in 1980 and are fully staffed and prepared to open today. But there are barricades at the Pavilions and entrance to the Farm,” Eberly explained.

Previous federal funding battles have threatened the farm’s operations. A group of citizens in 1980 formed the Friends of Turkey Run Farm, established a $500,000 endowment for the farm, and negotiated a 30-year no-fee lease.

This park is on federal land, but has no relationship to the federal budget. It is small and petty to shut it down.

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This Article Has No Title–It’s Just A Basic Vent!

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Harry Truman is credited with saying, “It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.” Both the Republicans and the Democrats could learn from that statement.

It is a national scandal that the taxpayers are going to be expected to subsidize the healthcare of Congressional staffers at levels that the taxpayers themselves will not be eligible for. It is also a national scandal that the President, who has the ability to determine where the money goes during a government shutdown, has chosen to shut down the military commissaries and cancel sports events at the military academies. Why doesn’t he simply cut his (and Congress’) expense accounts?

Why have the Democrats refused to meet in conference with the Republicans to resolve the shutdown? This is political theater at its worst.

The government shutdown will end as soon as the President and the Democrats in Congress begin to be blamed for the stalemate. At that point all disagreement on everything will magically disappear.

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The Government Shutdown Won’t Work For The Democrats Unless They Can Make It Hurt

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A website called College Football Talk is reporting today that all sports games at the service academies will be cancelled because of the government shutdown.

The article reports:

In a press release sent out a short time ago, Navy announced that the Department of Defense has suspended all intercollegiate competitions at the nation’s service academies due to the government shutdown.  At the very least, the Air Force-Navy game as well as Army’s game at Boston College are in danger of being canceled.

This is simply petty. The House has passed a number of bills to fund various parts of the government. The Senate has refused to bring these bills to the floor. The Democrats are hoping for a political victory by causing visible pain. If they are successful, we have only ourselves to blame when they do it again.

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The Change In Government Shutdowns

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Government shutdowns have happened before. NPR posted an article today detailing some of the history of government shutdowns.

The article reports:

Drawn-out fights over spending bills are nothing new for Congress. But that’s where the fights used to stay: in Congress. The rest of the country didn’t have to pay much attention to countdown clocks and all this drama.

“In the ’60s and ’70s down until 1980, it was not taken that seriously at all,” says Charles Tiefer, a former legal adviser to the House of Representatives, who now teaches at the University of Baltimore Law School. In the old days, he says, when lawmakers reached a budget stalemate, the federal workforce just went about its business.

“It was thought that Congress would soon get around to passing the spending bill and there was no point in raising a ruckus while waiting,” he says.

That easygoing attitude changed during the last year of President Jimmy Carter‘s administration. That’s when Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti issued a legal opinion saying government work cannot go on until Congress agrees to pay for it.

Benjamin Civiletti was sworn in as the U.S. attorney general on Aug. 16, 1979. In 1980 he issued a legal opinion saying that federal work cannot go on until Congress agrees to pay for it. That changed the way Congress and the country behaved when Congress took some extra time to agree on the budget.

The article reminds us:

A handicap for lawmakers is that the White House makes the call of which employees are deemed essential and keep showing up for work. So even though Obamacare has been the main bone of contention in this year’s fight, President Obama insists the new health insurance exchanges will open on schedule Tuesday, even if much of the rest of the government shuts down.

Conventional wisdom is that a government shutdown will seriously hurt the Republicans in the 2014 mid-term elections. I understand the basis for that idea, but I am not so sure it is valid–particularly if ObamaCare is funded and the rest of the government is not. ObamaCare is not a popular program, and if the debate revolves around ObamaCare, the Republicans win. If the debate revolves around the shutdown, Democrats win. There is also the matter of the fact that the President has stated that he will not negotiate. That really does not look good either.

It is going to be an interesting week.

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