Shut 'em Down!

Zaunstar gives his two cents on the shutdown.





And Willy Wonka wishes people knew how democracies work.





It's pretty darn sad when one of the leading parties of our country thinks that it's acceptable to shut down government because they didn't get their own way (when they had multiple ways for it to be vetoed, by the way -- passed congress, president signed, court upheld, and the leader re-elected by the people.) What's almost worse than all that is that this shutdown is hurting Americans, and they don't care. Our leaders do not care about us. And in my eyes, that makes them 100% unfit to be our leaders. The people, the good of the people, the wishes of the people, and the freedoms of the people should be their primary concerns. Always. And those things have not been their primary concern for a long time, and the people don't care.

Can't change anything when the leaders don't care about the people and the people don't care that the leaders don't care. Nobody cares.

And yet if you were warned and continued to play with fireworks in such a careless manner to lose an arm you'll think twice about ever handling explosives in such a foolhardy manner again. Ideally you'd learn before the BOOM but it seems some people only learn the hard way.

Something has got to give. Are we going to continue down this path of brinksmanship, dereliction of duty and partisan politics forever? Is this the new normal? What will bring it to a close? Certainly the last Presidential election didn't close the book on Obamacare as much as Speaker Boehner wanted it to. Nor did the Supreme Court ruling.

The problem is that this kind of behavior has been tolerated for decades and nobody who needs to be warned about the danger of a default should ever be in elected office.

A truly interesting article about the forces behind the shutdown.

A Federal Budget Crisis Months in the Planning - The New York Times (Yes we know its a socialist rag so the right wingers here can ignore it.)


Some people don't even learn the hard way.

I have a friend who almost killed himself because he liked to play with loaded guns. Shot himself in the sternum. In MY living room (I never ever spoke to him again.). Not 4 years later he was playing with loaded guns again....

The real reason we are in this mess....

The Republicans taught Obama a lesson. Its the same lesson that the Iranians taught Ronald Regan. Namely that if you negotiate with hostage takers, the next time they want something they will just round up more hostages. And there WILL be a next time.

And no mater what the radical right thinks Obama isn't stupid. He did learn.

But the Republicans just KNOW Obama will cave in. After all they have rolled him so often in the last 5 years. They learned something too.

So the Senate Democrats shut down the government because the House would not fund Obamacare, even though the House funded the entire government, and you call the Republicans hostage takers? We could do this all day. The solution is to accept the House budget resolution which is the entire federal government being funded. The Senate also agrees on that. The only disagreement is the Obamacare funding and that can be brought up in regular order.

It is the right of the House to not fund anything they do not want to and in fact the Republicans have a majority in the House precisely because of how Obamacare was rammed through.

The government would be up and running tomorrow if the radical Senate Democrats would do what everyone agrees to and fund the government, but they will not because of their desire to force feed Obamacare to every non-Union American not in the Congress.

House = Fund Government
Senate = Fund Government + Obamacare

seems they agree to fund the government, but for the lunatics in the Senate holding everything up.

ACA "rammed through"? You invalidated every single point you made with this one line.

The original bill was introduced in October 2009 and the final bill wasn't passed until June 2010. 9 months worth of adjustments and passing back and forth before it was signed into law. Even by the standards of our worthless legislative branch, 9 months is hardly "rammed through"

Yeah that was very amusing. I could laugh at the GOP all day, especially since the budget isn't required to fund Obamacare, it falls under mandatory spending.

you're not even on the same page as your politicians.

did you even listen to them? they were talking about how terrible the Democrats sound saying that they won't negotiate. And are talking about their compromise to try to delay the mandate after the Democrats shut down the government over not funding Obamacare; and of course to keep stressing the word compromise. You cannot compromise with radicals like the Democrats that control the Senate and the White House though. They are willing to shut down the entire government if they do not get 100% of what they want and it is impossible to compromise with lunatics like these liberals that control Washington.

lol. The gov't being open and the budget being passed is not required to fund Obamacare, its fully funded, and its in effect, and it will contine to be regardless of the GOP temper tantrum.

Everyone hears what they want. What I heard was "I think that if we keeep saying we wanted to defunded it, but now (after shutting the government down because we didnt want compromise) if we say we want to compromise we got a chance at winning". Its just a game to them.

It's not part of the budget, where do you pull this crap out of?

It was a worthy try tho, right?

WAITAFRICKINGMINUET.

Obamacare was "ramed through"???

He could have rammed through a single payer plan back then. The Demos had the house and the senate but he chose to "negotiate" with the Repubs.

See my post above about negotiating with hostage takers.

They'll have all 3 back soon enough.

Yes, thanks to the radical right who seems out to DESTROY the Republican party if they cannot remold it, and our nation, into its image.

Keep dreaming. The American people will never let President Obama have free run like that again. And anyway if he was actually a good sensible leader he wouldn't need control of every branch to accomplish something. But he is a radical and if he does not get everything he wants he cannot compromise and would sooner shut everything down then work with others.

Did you just accuse Obama of shutting down the government? Do you have ANY understanding of how our government works?

the only radical party is the Democrats. They march in lockstep on every single issue, a solid voting block in all matters. Not once does a Democrat in the Senate buck his party. That's radical. You have Senators like Joe Manchin, a supposed moderate from West Virginia toeing the party line and voting 100% with Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont, who is a self avowed Socialist. That's radical. There are no individuals in the Democratic party. There is no debate in the Democratic party. There are no "other ideas" in the Democratic party. They do whatever they are told extreme left. That's radical.

The Senate does what he wants. They are not an independent branch like they should be. He also made it clear he would veto. So yes he did.

lol, very amusing, keep it up.

There is no appreciable difference between how often Republican's vote along party lines and when Democrats do with the exception of the senate where Democrats have the majority and the tie-breaker. (makes it mostly irrelevant.)

Senate Democrats - 94.9%

House Democrats - 93.2%

Senate Republicans - 87.7%

House Republicans - 94.2%

Any more tinfoil?

Sharing partisan ideals is one thing, but no, the Senate has actually taken a more liberal stance on virtually everything in this term, often ignoring Obama's recommendations even within the same mindset. The Senate is not an arm of the Executive.

I dont even know why your bothering to respond to him rly. Post ***, play the victim card, get laughed at. Thats Amandarius' membership.

Go sleep it off Vic.

OK buddy

Care to respond to the fact that you made an erroneous statement about voting along party lines? Or are you ok with being the tinfoil hat guy?

Nah i'm fine, keep trying tho.

OK if you are just posting to troll me stop. You as usual contribute nothing to the actual discussion.