Tales from the shutdown apocalypse: White House edition
Via Charles Cooke. Can America endure?
Washington Post ✔ @washingtonpost
Because of the shutdown, only 15 people will care for the White House and the Obama family -- down from 90
http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2013/10/02/tales-from-the-shutdown-apocalypse-white-house-edition/
The President's Shutdown
Where leadership is needed, Obama stays on the sidelines—except when he's attacking Republicans.
By Fred BarnesPresident Obama is sitting out one of the most important policy struggles since he entered the White House. With the government shutdown, it has reached the crisis stage. His statement about the shutdown on Tuesday from the White House Rose Garden was more a case of kibitzing than leading. He still refuses to take charge. He won't negotiate with Republicans, though the fate of ObamaCare, funding of the government and the future of the economic recovery are at stake. He insists on staying on the sidelines—well, almost.
Mr. Obama has rejected conciliation and compromise with Republicans. Instead, he attacks them in sharp, partisan language in speech after speech. His approach—dealing with a deadlock by not dealing with it—is unprecedented. He has gone where no president has gone before.
Can anyone imagine an American president—from Lyndon Johnson to Ronald Reagan, from Harry Truman to Bill Clinton—doing this? Of course not. They didn't see presidential leadership as optional. For them and nearly every other president, it was mandatory. It was part of the job, the biggest part.
LBJ kept in touch daily with Everett Dirksen, the Republican leader in the Senate, and never missed an opportunity to engage him in reaching agreement on civil rights, taxes, school construction and other contentious issues. Mr. Obama didn't meet one-on-one with Mitch McConnell, the Senate GOP leader, until 18 months into his presidency and doesn't call on him now to collaborate.
Presidents have two roles. In the current impasse, Mr. Obama emphasizes his partisan role as leader of the Democratic Party. It's a legitimate role. But as president, he's the only national leader elected by the entire nation. He alone represents all the people. And this second, nonpartisan role takes precedence in times of trouble, division or dangerous stalemate. A president is expected to take command. Mr. Obama hasn't done that.
The extent to which he has abdicated this role shows up in his speeches. On the eve of the shutdown, he warned that a government closure "will have a very real economic impact on real people, right away." Defunding or delaying his health-care program—the goal of Republicans—would have even worse consequences, he suggested. "Tens of thousands of Americans die every single year because they don't have access to affordable health care," Mr. Obama said.
In an appearance in the White House pressroom, he said that "military personnel—including those risking their lives overseas for us right now—will not get paid on time" should Republicans force a shutdown. At an appearance in Largo, Md., the president accused Republicans of "threatening steps that would actually badly hurt our economy . . . Even if you believe that ObamaCare somehow was going to hurt the economy, it won't hurt the economy as bad as a government shutdown."
Yet as he was predicting widespread suffering, Mr. Obama steadfastly refused to negotiate with Republicans. He told House Speaker John Boehner in a phone call that he wouldn't be talking to him anymore. With the shutdown hours away, he called Mr. Boehner again. He still didn't negotiate and said he wouldn't on the debt limit either.
Mr. Obama has made Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid his surrogate in the conflict with Republicans. Mr. Reid has also declined to negotiate. In fact, Politico reported that when the president considered meeting with Mr. Boehner and Mr. McConnell, along with the two Democratic congressional leaders, Mr. Reid said he wouldn't attend and urged Mr. Obama to abandon the idea. The president did just that.
By anointing Mr. Reid, President Obama put power in the hands of the person with potentially the most to gain from a shutdown. Mr. Reid's position as Senate leader is imperiled in next year's midterm election. Republicans are expected to gain seats. They need a net of six pickups to take control and oust Mr. Reid. His strategy is to persuade voters that the shutdown was caused by tea-party crazies in the GOP, and that turning over the Senate to them would be foolhardy. If Mr. Reid's claim resonates with voters, it might keep Republicans from gaining control of the Senate.
Mr. Obama insists that he is ready to discuss tweaks in ObamaCare "through the normal democratic processes." But, he said last week, "that will not happen under the threat of a showdown."
It probably won't happen in less frantic situations either. The president in the past has proved to be a difficult negotiating partner. In his first term, he blew up a "grand bargain" on taxes and spending with Mr. Boehner by demanding even higher taxes at the last minute. Without what Mr. McConnell calls a "forcing mechanism," no major agreement on domestic issues has been reached.
The three deals that Mr. Obama has signed off on—all negotiated by Vice President Joe Biden—were forced. The president agreed in 2010 to extend the Bush tax cuts for two years as they were about to expire. In 2012, he made the Bush cuts permanent except for the wealthiest taxpayers. In 2011, he agreed to spending cuts in exchange for an increase in the debt limit as it was close to being breached.
The president's tactic of attacking Republicans during a crisis while spurning negotiations bodes for a season of discord and animosity in the final three-and-one-quarter years of the Obama presidency. That he has alienated Republicans doesn't seem to trouble Mr. Obama.
"He's been a terrible president, just awful," Mr. McConnell told me. The McConnell agenda consists of stopping the president from raising taxes and boosting spending. And the focus on ObamaCare will continue. "The ObamaCare fight is not over," Mr. McConnell says. "This is the gift that keeps on giving."
Mr. Boehner has vowed to stay away from efforts to come to terms with the president on deficit reduction. Mr. Obama says he is willing to curb spending by reforming entitlements, but Republicans no longer believe him. They've given up on the possibility of a grand bargain.
Today the buzz in media circles in Washington is that the shutdown is a defining moment for Mr. Boehner. It may well be. But it's also a critical test of Mr. Obama's leadership. And by declining to lead, so far, he has failed that test.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303464504579109202670045532.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
Big Brother is speaking
President Obama is taking a page out of George Orwell’s “1984″. Just like Big Brother in Orwell’s famous novel 1984, Obama uses words to mean the opposite.War is peace. On Sept. 27, he told us, “Iran’s Supreme Leader has issued a fatwa against the development of nuclear weapons. President Rouhani has indicated that Iran will never develop nuclear weapons.” No reasonable person could believe that.
On domestic matters, Obama repeatedly takes to the podium to give a fictional account of “our constitutional system”. On Tuesday, as the government prepared to close down nonessential services, Obama said he did not have to negotiate with the Republican majority in the House of Representatives to get a temporary spending bill through Congress and onto his desk for signing. “I shouldn’t have to offer anything,” he said.
That’s not how it works, Mr. President. The House holds the power of the purse. All bills for raising revenue must originate there (Art 1, Sect 7). The founders gave the House that exclusive power, because its members are elected every two years and presumably are closest to the people. The Constitution’s chief architect, James Madison, explained in Federalist 58 that withholding funding is the “most effectual way” to resolve any grievance the public might have.
Fast-forward. Since 1980, there have been 11 shutdowns when the president and the House were controlled by different parties. Eight of these shutdowns occurred under President Ronald Reagan. Each time, Reagan had to go head-to-head with Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill, a Democrat, who attached conditions to every stopgap spending measure. Each time, Reagan came to the negotiating table to end the shutdown.
Reagan and O’Neill disagreed bitterly over numerous ideological issues, including building midrange missile systems, expanding welfare and funding the Nicaraguan contras. But they compromised. Obama refuses to and argues in Orwellian fashion that it is out of the ordinary and wrong for the House to attach conditions to its stopgap bill.
On Monday, when House Speaker John Boehner proposed a conference to bring the parties together, both Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid refused.
Worse, they called the House Republicans “anarchists” and “extremists.” These insults from a president who, four days earlier, pledged “mutual respect” in his ongoing talks with Iran’s president, the world’s leading exporter of terror.
The difference between Reagan and Obama is this: Reagan knew who the enemy was. He told the Russian president, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” But he dealt reasonably with fellow American Tip O’Neil. Sadly, Obama cowtows to the world’s villains, including Vladimir Putin and Rouhani, but refuses to sit down with Boehner.
Already Obama is spinning another Orwellian tale about the coming need to hike the debt ceiling. He claims that attaching conditions to raising the debt ceiling “has not been done in the past,” and “is not how our constitutional system is designed to work”. Untrue. In fact, that is so blatantly false that The Washington Post slapped the president with four Pinocchios for his debt-ceiling tale. But say it often enough, and maybe the public will believe it.
In truth, the House has the constitutional authority to delay any debt-ceiling hike or attach conditions to it. A president able to borrow freely, the framers understood, would have too much power. “An elective despotism is not what we fought for,” wrote Madison in Federalist 62.
Yet Obama adamantly remains the non-negotiator. “I will not negotiate over Congress’s responsibility to pay the bills that have already been racked up,” said Obama last week. That’s another whopper. Raising the ceiling allows the Treasury to borrow more and continue spending at an unsustainable rate. It’s not about paying past bills.
What we are witnessing is the destruction of political discourse. When the president speaks, it is mind-numbing, manipulative rhetoric.
http://www.humanevents.com/2013/10/02/big-brother-is-speaking/
1,350,000 'Essential' Federal Government Employees Continue to Work
The federal government is shutdown. That means only federal government employees that are deemed "essential" are going in to work.We're led to believe it's a bare bones operation (Michelle Obama won't be tweeting, the National Park Service website is down, etc.). But in reality it appears the number of folks working is higher than half the federal employees. Or, in raw numbers, about 1,350,000 "essential" federal government employees are still working. And that does not include the 589,000 postal employees, who are working, too.
That's 63 percent of the federal work force.
Here's how one gets to those numbers. According to the federal government's Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are about 2,150,000 non-postal federal employees. (Postal workers make up about 589,000, bringing that totaly to 2,739,000 federal workers.)
Multiple press reports list the number of furloughed federal employees at 800,000. “The federal government's forced shutdown of vast swaths of its operations will send more than 800,000 federal workers home without pay, close national parks and cripple some programs, while leaving essential services up and running,” the Wall Street Journal reports, for instance.
ABC, likewise, reports, “According to government estimates, 800,000 of the more than 2 million federal workers could be furloughed during the shutdown, and the offices that employ them have released contingency plans noting how many employees would be forced to stay home and how many would be ‘excepted.’”
Which would mean that since only "essential" federal employees are
working and since 800,000 federal employees aren't working due to the
shutdown, there are about 1,350,000 "essential" federal workers.
When asked for comment, one senior Republican Senate aide said, "I'm sure the assistant to the deputy assistant to the undersecretary for secretaries feels pretty good about himself for being deemed essential this week, but all it really does is fuel the cynicism most ordinary Americans feel about Washington."
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/1350000-essential-federal-government-employees-continue-work_759071.html
When asked for comment, one senior Republican Senate aide said, "I'm sure the assistant to the deputy assistant to the undersecretary for secretaries feels pretty good about himself for being deemed essential this week, but all it really does is fuel the cynicism most ordinary Americans feel about Washington."
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/1350000-essential-federal-government-employees-continue-work_759071.html
The refusal of Democrats to negotiate is what makes this one stand out.
By Charles C W CookeAmerica, we are told, is in the grim midst of an unrivaled constitutional crisis that is being perpetrated in anger by “racist,” “bomb-throwing” “anarchists” whose “endgame” and ultimate fantasy is the shutting down of government — not, of course, because the co-equal branches of the American polity cannot come to a budget agreement, but because a vocal “extreme” minority, that has magically managed to transmute itself into a majority of the House and 46 percent of the Senate, does not believe in having a government at all.
E. J. Dionne, the Washington Post’s resident worrywart, yesterday assured his concerned readers that Washington has shut down because “right-wing extremists” who do not accept the president’s “legitimacy” have taken an axe to America’s “normal, well-functioning, constitutional system,” and swung it, too, against “anyone who accepts majority rule and constitutional constraints.” Among his ideological bedfellows, this is a popular complaint.
Still, popular or not, the abject folly of making “majority rule” arguments in a system of equally ranked branches should be self-evident. This truly is painfully simple: Republicans are the majority in the House, and the House’s assent is necessary to a legal budget. Indeed, if any of the players in the budgetary game is superior, it is the House. Not only is it wholly wrong to pretend that the House is expected to acquiesce to the fiscal and legislative demands of the president simply because he won the last election, but it is dangerous — just one more step on the road to the imperial polity that the American system of separated powers was contrived to prevent.
If one were being charitable, one might inquire as to whether Dionne and his acolytes are confused about where in the world they are. Certainly, in Britain’s parliament the contents of the winning party’s manifesto are protected from the dissent of the upper chamber. But in America’s system of separated powers, no such rule or convention obtains. Mandates are afforded to each branch, and each may do as it wishes — preferably without being maligned as “arsonists” or accused of ushering in an unprecedented breakdown in order.
As one might expect, it is not just the structural questions that Dionne and his cohorts get so spectacularly askew, but also the congressional history — and, thus, the crucial context of what happened yesterday. I acknowledge that pretending the emergence of a spending gap is indicative of the end times is an enormously profitable tactic for politicians to deploy. But there is no reason for an esteemed journalist to so supinely parrot the lie. Reviewing Dylan Matthews’s comprehensive list of the other 17 federal shutdowns in the last 40 years, one realizes rather quickly that it is not the appearance of a government shutdown that is remarkable, but the long absence of one. That shadowy figure on the horizon? Not so much death as the old friend that we had forgotten we knew.
The opportunity for convenient pretense has apparently proven too tempting for some. Salon’s Joan Walsh, one of the least lettered among our political columnists, made the queasily predictable argument on Tuesday that the shutdown was really to do with race. “That this crisis hit under our first black president, over ‘Obamacare,’ Walsh screeched, “isn’t an accident.” Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George H. W. Bush, all of whom presided over fractious shutdowns, might find this insinuation rather perplexing. In the last 40 years, only President George W. Bush was spared such a conflict.
The frequency with which America has previously reached this point betrays another inconvenient truth: the willingness to shut down the federal Leviathan is by no means limited to the advocates of small government. As my colleague Andrew Stiles notes today, during the supposedly bipartisan wonder years of Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill — which are typically rolled out by revisionists to demonstrate what can happen if we all just “work together” — the government shut down no fewer than eight times, mostly at O’Neill’s insistence. Likewise, during Bill Clinton’s eight years in office, which are fondly remembered as a time of solid economic growth and bipartisan achievement, the government was sent home twice — on both occasions after Clinton rejected the budget.
Overall, the statistics might surprise: Of the 17 shutdowns in America’s history, Democrats controlled the House during 15 and had charge of both chambers during eight. Five shutdowns happened under unified government! This makes sense. Government shutdowns are caused by legitimate and welcome disagreement between equal branches. They are certainly more likely to happen in divided government, but it is not a prerequisite.
What stands out here is not the shutdown itself, but the president and Harry Reid’s public refusal even to engage with Republicans. As Matthews documents, most budget gaps are resolved by the participants’ compromising. The quaint notion that there is no obligation to come to a negotiated agreement because one branch of government “won” would be almost certainly regarded as somewhat odd not only by the architects of America’s constitutional order but by the major players in the previous few decades. Eleven shutdowns ended with a deal, five were resolved with an agreement temporarily to fund the government while debate continued, and one ended with Congress overriding a presidential veto. Stand firm if you want, Mr. President, but the history is against you here.
Obama and his apologists appear to be laboring under the misapprehension that the House’s insistence on extracting concessions is inappropriate because its demands are somehow “unrelated” to the budget process. Given that nothing in the Constitution or the Federalist Papers hints at this, the claim is peculiar on its face. Nevertheless, let’s pretend for the sake of argument that it’s true. The question then must be, “Does Obamacare really have ‘nothing to do with the budget’(as President Obama managed to claim with a straight face in a speech last week)?”
Hardly. Obamacare is an allegedly “deficit-reducing” measure that was passed via the budget-reconciliation process, was rewritten by the Supreme Court as a tax, and will increase the federal budget by up to 10 percent. The initial House plan here, remember, was not to repeal, but to defund the law — a clear-cut budgetary project if anything is. If defunding things as part of fiscal negotiations is beyond the pale, then the president might explain why the ninth shutdown, for example, ended with the Democratic House’s managing to defund a defense program that included both medium-range and intercontinental missiles, and why it was appropriate for Congress to shut down the government over the funding of abortion as it did five times. Funnily enough, tempting as it must have been, during none of these disputes did the participants run around shouting “It’s the Law!”
The United States is a constitutional republic, the public institutions in which are decidedly more Charles Montesquieu than Walter Bagehot. All systems are a trade-off, and America’s settlement privileges discord, delay, and separation over efficiency and a strong executive. This is to say that, by design, harsh conflict in the United States yields a standoff rather than a shootout. One can credibly debate the merits of such an arrangement, and certainly one can try to navigate the system as boldly as is politically possible. But crying that the end of the world is nigh strikes me as being hysterical, partisan, and even mendacious — especially when we are discussing a system whose creation story and most recent fracases are available for all to see.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/360142/government-shutdowns-history-charles-c-w-cooke
When Tip Did It
Tip O’Neill presided over two-thirds of the government shutdowns since 1976.
The government shut down on October 1 for the 18th time since 1976, after the House and Senate could not agree on a resolution to fund it. Democrats have accused Republicans of negotiating with “a bomb strapped to their chest” and putting “a gun to everybody’s head,” as if it were an anomalous development in the modern political era for Congress to seek to extract policy concessions from the White House by withholding spending authorization. The resulting shutdown, Democrats now suggest, is as unprecedented as it is deplorable. Or, in the words of one esteemed liberal, it is “the end result of a 50-year GOP push to make govt = welfare and welfare = black people.”Historically speaking, it is rather remarkable that Washington hasn’t experienced a government shutdown in nearly two decades. The shutdowns of the mid 1990s have been the subject of much debate. Beyond that, however, the chattering class appears to suffer from a short memory, as it often does.
At this point in Ronald Reagan’s second term, for example, the government had already shut down six times, for a total of twelve days, as a result of failed budget negotiations between the White House, a Republican Senate, and House Democrats under the leadership of Speaker Tip O’Neill (D., Mass.) — precisely the opposite of the political dynamic that exists today. Former O’Neill staffer and MSNBC pundit Chris Matthews has written an entire book extolling that era as a time “when politics worked.” (You can probably guess how he feels about the current situation.)
O’Neill presided over a total of seven government shutdowns under Reagan, and five during the Jimmy Carter administration, meaning that he played a role in precisely two-thirds of all the government shutdowns since the modern budgeting process has been in place. Representative Raul Labrador (R., Idaho) pointed this out to Matthews on Meet the Press on Sunday, noting that O’Neill was never called a terrorist for shutting the government down over budget negotiations. Matthews didn’t care for the reminder and even questioned the source of Labrador’s claim; it was the Washington Post.
Interestingly, nearly all of the shutdowns that took place during the Carter administration, when Democrats also controlled the Senate under Senate majority leader Robert Byrd (D., W.Va.), were the result of disagreements over abortion policy, and lasted more than ten days on average. In several instances between 1977 and 1979, the Democratic House resisted the Democratic Senate’s efforts to expand the number of cases for which federal funds, via Medicaid, could be used to pay for abortion. The government partially shut down three times for a total of 28 days between September and December 1977 as lawmakers negotiated a compromise on the issue, although it would be revisited several times during subsequent shutdowns.
The shutdowns of the Reagan-O’Neill era, on the other hand, were more budget-focused, and the disputes they involved were over a wider range of policies. They also took less time to resolve. The first such shutdown occurred in November 1981, less than a year into Reagan’s first term. Reagan had demanded at least $4 billion in domestic-spending cuts, and when Congress did not oblige, he vetoed a spending package, triggering a government shutdown. Technically, the shutdown lasted only a few hours, until Congress approved a three-week spending resolution to give lawmakers time to negotiate a long-term deal.
The government briefly shut down twice the following year, the first time because the House simply failed to pass an agreed-on spending bill before funding expired. According to the New York Times, party leaders missed the deadline in order to attend “major social events,” which included a barbeque at the White House and a high-dollar Democratic fundraiser. Reagan ultimately accepted a funding agreement even though it called for higher levels of spending than he would have liked.
Months later, the government shut down for several days in part over the House’s refusal to fund an intercontinental-missile program that Reagan supported. The House also wanted more than $5 billion in funding for public-works projects, which Reagan had threatened to veto. In the end, the public-works funding was scrapped, but so was funding for the missile program.
Another shutdown occurred in November 1983 after House Democrats requested an additional $1 billion in funding for education and reduced spending on defense and foreign aid. Less than a year later, the government shut down after the House, as well as the Senate, sought to tie a number of extraneous measures, opposed by Reagan, to a resolution funding the government. That standoff resulted in a three-day continuing resolution to buy time for further negotiation, but the government shut down again when lawmakers failed to reach an agreement.
The final shutdown of O’Neill’s political career was in October 1986. House Democrats had picked fights with Reagan on a number of issues, including labor, energy, and welfare policy. The differences between the two sides weren’t resolved in time to prevent a shutdown, which lasted about a day, and ended when Democrats relinquished many of their demands.
Of course, the current scenario is unique given the controversy surrounding Obamacare — legislation of historical scope that was passed in partisan fashion and remains unpopular, notwithstanding the reelection of its namesake. Perhaps if the situation were reversed, House Democrats would never be so irresponsible as to allow the government to shut down. History suggests otherwise.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/360135/when-tip-did-it-andrew-stiles
Kristol Schools CNN Liberals Piers Morgan and Marc Lamont Hill on Government Shutdown
Editor of The Weekly Standard Bill Kristol fiercely went after Piers Morgan and Marc Lamont Hill over the government shutdown Tuesday on CNN.
Kristol derided Morgan for the CNN host’s grilling of Rep. James Lankford (R., Okla.) over Congressional pay during the shutdown and yet completely ignoring the subject of compensation with White House Press Secretary Jay Carney earlier in the show.
The discussion then became tumultuous as Lamont Hill objected to Kristol pointing out the principal reason for the government shutdown is that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) will not accept a vote on either a one year delay of Obamacare or removing the special Congressional subsidies in the new Obamacare exchanges:
MARC LAMONT HILL: But 800,000 people aren’t be paid.
BILL KRISTOL: Rght, they aren’t, that’s
right. Because there’s a government shutdown. Why is there a government
shutdown? Because the Democratic Senate and President Obama will not
accept two propositions, that the individual mandate should be delayed
for a year even though the exchanges have opened in total chaos today,
and the second one, that Congressmen should abide by the same rules as
everyone else who goes into the exchanges. Those are such unreasonable
demands that the President of the United States can’t even negotiate
with the speaker about it? Jay Carney can’t make an argument against why
those are good pieces of legislation?
LAMONT HILL: That sounds great, you begin with a nonstarter and then you say the person won’t negotiate.
KRISTOL: Why is it a nonstarter? Because
it’s a law, like Piers said. Didn’t the president suspend the employer
mandate, didn’t the president change other parts of the law? Shouldn’t
Congress have the right to say something?
LAMONT HILL: The president has been open to negotiating this law for the last year.
KRISTOL: Is that right? The House
Republicans passed — the House Republicans passed — the House
Republicans suspended the individual mandate. They got 22 Democratic
votes in the House. Senator Reid hasn’t taken it up. President Obama
said he would veto it. He’s not open to discussing anything, instead he
said he opened the exchanges today and they worked just great.
LAMONT HILL: He simply won’t do it with a gun to his head.
KRISTOL: No he would not, I’m sorry that’s not true.
LAMONT HILL: To make the statement the
exchanges have been a mess, first of all you’re overstating the little
calamity at the exchanges. And second, this is a major piece of
legislation, perhaps the most significant piece of legislation in 50
years, it’s not uncommon there might be a slightly longer –
KRISTOL: When was it passed, I forgot?
Three years ago and President Obama is at the top of this administration
and they had this chaos that they had today? Doesn’t that tell you
something?
http://freebeacon.com/kristol-schools-cnn-liberals-piers-morgan-marc-lamont-hill-on-government-shutdown/
Obama Administration Decided to Block Access to Memorials
The Obama Administration has decided to block access to public memorials on the National Mall as a result of the government shutdown. Like its decision to end White House tours when the sequester cuts took effect, there is no rational reason for this. The Park Police, nominally in charge of monitoring these spaces, isn't even effected by the shutdown. Shutting off access to these sites is gratuitous and petulant.On Monday, the first day of the government shutdown, a number of WWII veterans showed up at a memorial to their service to find that access had been blocked. The memorial is in a public space and is open 24/7, with almost no oversight from Park Police personnel. (Who, by the way, are exempt from the government shutdown.) The White House was, according to reports, informed of the veterans' visit and chose to block access.
Having lived in DC for 18 years, I can tell you, the WWII Memorial is simply an architectural structure in an open public space. There is no official "access" to it. There are no guards. It's a building in a park. Yet, the Obama Administration tried to block veterans from viewing the public memorial, even after hearing about the planned visit.
Fortunately, the "greatest generation" was having nothing of this and easily overcame the government barricades. (Do we yet again have to rely on this generation to show the promise of America?)
On Wednesday, the veterans' group is planning to visit the Lincoln Memorial, which the Obama Administration has also vowed to close to visitors. I have regularly visited this memorial at 1 or 2 in the morning. At those hours, it is a peaceful and reflective place. It is an open space. There is no access that needs to be blocked. It is only by a conscious decision, and a great deal of work, that access would be blocked.
This is nothing more than a petulant response by the Obama Administration to the government shutdown. Over the next week, more than 500 WWII veterans are expected in DC to visit the memorial dedicated to their sacrifice. If the Park Police again try to erect barricades to this public space, it will be another sign that the Obama Administration has made an affirmative decision to separate itself from the American public.
Obama chose this pass. He ought to be made to own it.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/10/02/Obama-Administration-Decided-to-Block-Access-to-Memorials
Dems Block Bills to Reopen National Parks, VA
On Tuesday, the House GOP proposed legislation to restore funding for the National Park Service, the Veterans Administration and DC local government, but a united block of Democrats, with the White House's blessing, blocked the funding. The GOP was trying to reopen important parts of the government while it sought a more comprehensive deal with the White House. House Democrats, however, opted to keep these agencies closed.Nothing in the measures to reopen national parks or the VA had to do with ObamaCare. House Republicans were simply offering legislation to extend spending authority that had already been agreed to by Democrats. The national parks could reopen, while Washington debated larger fiscal issues. Most of the VA remains open, but the new funding measure would have enabled some administrative functions to restart.
The White House, however, issued a veto threat over the selective funding approach. This was odd, since the White House had quickly endorsed a narrow piece of legislation to maintain funding for the military, in the wake of a shutdown, on Monday.
All the funding measures passed the House with strong majorities on Tuesday. The rules for expedited consideration, however, required a two-thirds majority. As a block, Democrats voted to keep these agencies closed, causing the measures to fail.
Despite the media narrative, it is Democrats who are taking the hard-line position in the shutdown fight. They have drawn all the wrong lessons from the shutdowns in 1995/1996 and believe they don't have to compromise on any issue. National Parks could have reopened on Wednesday, but for Democrat opposition.
“The president can’t continue to complain about the impact of the government shutdown on veterans, visitors at National Parks, and D.C. while vetoing bills to help them,” Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said in a statement. “The White House position is unsustainably hypocritical.”
Harry Reid has proudly stated that he won't talk with Speaker Boehner about the impasse. Senate Democrats have refused to authorize a conference committee with the House to negotiate a solution to the funding crisis. And, the White House vows to veto "clean" bills that reopen selected parts of government.
The Democrats seem intent on waging a partisan fight of the highest order. The underlying issues are less important than forcing a Republican surrender on the broader battle.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/10/02/Dems-Block-Bills-to-Reopen-National-Parks-V
Shutdown Theater
NPS Orders Closure of Park that Receives No Federal Funding
The Claude Moore Colonial Farm announced on Wednesday that NPS has ordered it to suspend operations until Congress agrees to a deal to fund the federal government.
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.
“In previous budget dramas, the Farm has always been exempted since the NPS provides no staff or resources to operate the Farm,” Eberly explained in an emailed statement.
“In all the years I have worked with the National Park Service … I have never worked with a more arrogant, arbitrary and vindictive group representing the NPS,” Eberly said.
The farm is an historical reenactment site, which “authentically portrays the life of an 18th Century American family building a life on the nearer edges of civilized society,” according to its website.
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.
According to Eberly’s statement, farm staff have been in contact with Reps. Frank Wolf (R., Va.) and Jim Moran (D., Va.) in an attempt to reverse NPS’ decision. Neither congressman returned a request for comment.
News of the farm closure comes as controversy rages over the closure of the World War II memorial on the National Mall.
WWII veterans in Washington as part of the Honor Flight Network stormed the memorial on Tuesday, defying NPS, which insisted that the memorial was legally closed.
More Honor Flight veterans showed up on Wendesday, flanked by members of Congress from both parties. Republican members blamed Democrats for the memorial’s closure, and vice versa.
Some speculated that the decision to close the memorial was part of a concerted effort by the administration to play up the consequences of the shutdown in an effort to convince congressional Republicans to agree to a funding bill without preconditions.
That tactic is known as the Washington Monument Strategy, in reference to efforts by Nixon administration officials to inflate the consequences of budget cuts at the time.
Government Spending on Shark Bait, Motherhood Books Survives Shutdown
Essential spending on pool maintenance, uniforms
Most “nonessential” programs and services have been suspended since the House and Senate failed to agree on continuing resolution to fund the government on Monday. The government officially shut down at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday, when the fiscal year ended.
The Antideficiency Act orders government agencies to cease operations in the event of a shutdown, except in certain emergency situations or when law authorizes continued activity, according to the Congressional Research Service.
However, spending that is “authorized by law” carries a broad category of exemptions. One such exemption is contract authority, and many contracts have been issued during the shutdown.
For example, the Department of Commerce posted an award for $21,600 worth of shark bait for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on Oct. 1.
Nine thousand pounds of “spiny dogfish” was ordered in preparation for a Large Coastal Shark Survey in the spring 2014.
On Oct. 2, the Army placed an $11,835 order for books in the “What to Expect” series by Heidi Murkoff, to be used at Fort Bragg, N.C.
Five hundred copies each of “What to Expect When You’re Expecting,” “What to Expect the First Year,” and “What to Expect the Second Year” were purchased.
The Department of Labor spent $26,451 on uniforms for a youth job center in Missouri on the first day of the shut down. The “coffee bean” colored uniform polo shirts, and Dickies tan pants are for the St. Louis Job Corps Center, which gives academic training to disadvantaged youth aged 16 to 24.
Swimming pool maintenance at the United States Air Force Academy was authorized during the shutdown, at a cost of $108,000.
The Air Force also spent $41,193.48 for DirectTV on Oct. 1 for the March Air Reserve Base in California.
http://freebeacon.com/government-spending-on-shark-bait-motherhood-books-survives-shutdown/
The Detroit Non-Bailout And The Power Of A Shut-Down Government
$320M Goes to No-Motown As 900,000 Federal Employees Are Too Expensive to Pay
Let’s say you do what you are told, show up at your place of appointed duty and then lather rinse and repeat for a good 10 to 25 years. If you are a Federal Employeee deemed “non-essential*” that gets you furloughed because the US Senate hasn’t bothered passing a legitimate budget in four years and the House of Representatives no longer has the patience or good will to give them a clean continuing resolution that funds ObamaCare.Now let’s say you spend an entire city’s budget on union pensions that are based on untennable guaruntees and are underfunded by a steadily deteriorating tax base. If you are Detroit, and voted 82% for Barack Obama, that means you get $320M worth of what the New York Times insists !IS NOT! a bailout.
Yep, the bankrupt government, hard against the tyranny of its debt ceiling just found $320M underneath the seat cushions for Detroit, MI. The NYT shares the sickening details below.
Two months after Detroit became the largest city ever to file for bankruptcy, top Obama administration officials will be there on Friday to propose nearly $300 million in combined federal and private aid toward a Motown comeback….This is gobsmackingly vile. At least Princess Lea had the decency to say “Help me, Obi Wan.”
Detroit told President Obama, “Bring home the bacon.”
It staggers the mind that Detroit is being rewarded for being one of the most poorly governed cities in America for the past 40 years. Is there any limit in how stupid you have to get before liberals who sing the praises of Charles Darwin refuse you a bailout? Apparantly not. Bell, CA could use a helping hand as well.
This just goes to show the extent to which a government shut-down is a maliciously targeted political dog-and-pony show. Michelle Malkin gives us a history of the histrionics. We’ve had seventeen of them since 1976, and they never have caused the government to stop handing out the bread and circuses. President Obama’s administration exists, afterall, to bring home the bacon to those who voted him to the throne. This is made abundantly clear when Detroit, MI gets $320M while the Federal workforce gets the furlough letter.
*-The White House Chef is essential. Barack Obama is too baronially arrogant to make his own flipping sandwiches.
http://www.redstate.com/2013/10/01/the-detroit-non-bailout-and-the-power-of-a-shut-down-government/
Seedco: Obamacare's Fraud-Stained Navigators
By Michelle MalkinWelcome to ObamaWreck! Americans nationwide spent Tuesday struggling with the much-hyped "Affordable Care Act" health insurance exchanges. Server meltdowns, error messages and security glitches plagued the federal and state government websites as open enrollment began. But when taxpayers discover exactly who will be navigating them through the bureaucratic maze, they may be glad they didn't get through.
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius controls a $54 million slush fund to hire thousands of "navigators," "in-person assisters" and counselors, who are now propagandizing and recruiting Obamacare recipients into the government-run exchanges. As I warned in May, the Nanny State navigator corps is a serious threat to Americans' privacy. Background checks and training requirements are minimal to nonexistent. A history of fraud is no barrier to entry.
Case in point: the seedy nonprofit Seedco. This community-organizing group snagged lucrative multimillion-dollar navigator contracts in Georgia, Maryland, Tennessee and New York. The New York Post reports this week that the outfit "is partnering with dozens of agencies, such as the Gay Men's Health Crisis, Food Bank for New York City and the Chinese American Planning Council, in each of (the Big Apple's) five boroughs." They'll have access to potential enrollees' income levels, birthdates, addresses, eligibility for government assistance, Social Security numbers and intensely personal medical information.
Given the enormous responsibility to handle sensitive data in a careful, neutral manner, combined with the overwhelming pressure to boost Obamacare enrollments, you'd think the feds would only choose navigators with the most impeccable records. Yet, less than a year ago, Seedco agreed to settle a civil fraud lawsuit "for faking at least 1,400 of 6,500 job placements under a $22.2 million federally funded contract with the city."
Seedco's corrupt behavior went far beyond defrauding taxpayers through abuse of New York City programs, federal Labor Department funding and federal stimulus dollars. Seedco (which stands for "Structured Employment Economic Development Corporation") tried to destroy and defame whistleblowing official Bill Harper, who discovered and reported the rampant falsification of data.
First, Seedco denied the charges; next, they trashed Harper's reputation in the pages of The New York Times. Only after the U.S. Attorney's office in Manhattan brought suit did the organization acknowledge systemic, repeated wrongdoing. Seedco forked over a $1.7 million settlement in December 2012. Mere months later, they were racking up federal Obamacare navigator work.
The feds and Seedco assure us that new management is in place. They rearranged some deck chairs, created a new "compliance program" and hired an independent reviewer. But an ethos of by-any-means-necessary book-cooking and a culture of intimidating whistleblowers don't disappear overnight. Seedco shredded documents for three years to phony up their job placement statistics; city government overseers knew about it. The Nonprofit Quarterly noted that Seedco's fraud was "kind of breathtaking" in its "creativity and illegal audacity," including:
--"Taking credit for a job candidate's prior employment as job placements;
--Reporting job placements when the job candidates remained unemployed;
--Falsifying dates of job placements;
--Using other Seedco programs to collect information on clients in order to falsely report job placements; and
--Reporting job placements for people who were not Seedco clients and had not been placed in their jobs by Seedco."
The feds detailed how Seedco managers would instruct clerical workers to troll Monster.com and Careerbuilder.com for resumes and then "report the employment of individuals sourced from those downloaded resumes as job placements." Other employees exploited their relationships with businesses to "gather information from the businesses' current employees. Seedco then used that information to falsely report that employment as a job placement obtained for the candidate by Seedco, although the individuals had no prior relationship with Seedco and had not been recruited into the job by Seedco."
This entire government-nonprofit alliance rests on dragooning as many people as possible into government programs, including food stamps, CHIP (the federal Children's Health Insurance Program) and now Obamacare. One of Seedco's officials actually said the fraud case "made us a stronger organization." Yes, they actually sold their deliberate number-fudging as an asset instead of a liability. And four states swallowed the pitch whole. The spirit of fraud-stained ACORN and its Nanny State progeny lives.
So, buyers, beware: Obamacare security "glitches" are not just a bug. They're a feature.
http://townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/2013/10/02/seedco-obamacares-fraudstained-navigators-n1714618/page/full
Glenn Beck Irate Over Leaked Boehner Office Emails: ‘Defund the GOP’
Glenn Beck was incensed Wednesday over reports of leaked emails that indicated House Speaker John Boehner coordinated with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to exempt Congress from Obamacare.
“This is John Boehner. This is
your speaker of the House … this is exactly what we’ve been saying they
are doing,” Beck said with disgust on radio. “They are making special
deals behind closed doors. They are one part and parcel with the
Democratic Party. They are in bed with them and they are lying to you.”
Beck urged his audience to call the Republican Party and say they won’t contribute “another cent” to the party at large.
“Individual politicians, you bet,” he
added. “But here’s how you do it. You go find people like (Texas
Congressman) Louie Gohmert. There’s no reason why we have somebody like
(Texas Sen.) John Cornyn. No reason why we have him in Texas. None…This
next election needs to be the last election for these kind of people.
They all need to be kicked out.”
Beck said he wants to make it “very,
very clear” that he is not a Republican, and went so far as to urge his
audience to use the Twitter hashtag #DefundtheGOP.
“Tea Party, they have said that you are
just a GOP shill. They also say that you are nothing but anarchists. I
tell you now, I am neither of those,” Beck declared. “I am for hope and
change. I am for transparency. I am for somebody saying what they
actually mean. I’m saying I am for somebody going to Washington and
fighting against this system in their own party, and across the aisle
and linking arms with anyone on any side that wants the same.”
“I guarantee John Boehner would step down today - today
– if the big donors would actually come to the plate and say, I’ve
given my last dime to the Republican Party,” he added. “Until John
Boehner steps down, steps down … not as speaker of the House. Steps down, resigns. Until that happens, you don’t get a dime from me.”
He proceeded to urge “everybody who has ever given any money” to do the same.
“Otherwise, I can tell you your
future,” Beck said. “If you don’t come off of this road now, you are
going to have a GOP that is just like the Democrats. And you will
continue to get the choices … (but) that choice will then be Chris
Christie or Hilary Clinton. Which one you want? … I don’t want either of
them.”
Beck said the time to create that
“real choice” is right now, and once again urged his audience to contact
the GOP and their elected officials.
“You are a steward of your
money,” he said. “You are supposed to do the right thing. Do you really
believe giving your money to the GOP and to John Cornyn and to John
Boehner, to have them decide who is going to protect the Republic’s
freedom, do you really think (that’s best)? I ask you to pray on it …
not a dime from me #defundtheGOP.”
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/10/02/glenn-beck-irate-over-leaked-boehner-office-emails-defund-the-gop/
Obamacare Fines to be Seized From Bank Accounts?
Man who attempted to sign up claims he was threatened with drivers license being revoked, federal tax lien on home
A man who attempted to sign up for Obamacare online was
told that a fine of over $4,000 dollars a year for refusing to take out
mandatory health insurance could be taken directly from his bank
account, and that his drivers license would be suspended and a federal
tax lien placed against his home, according to an entry on the
HealthCare.gov Facebook page.
If true, the implementation of Obamacare is going to be a whole lot more draconian than Americans have been led to believe.
Will Sheehan claims that when he tried to sign up for
Obamacare and then register to opt out, he received an ominous warning.
Sheehan’s full Facebook post reads;
“I actually made it through this morning at 8:00 A.M. I have a preexisting condition (Type 1 Diabetes) and my income base was 45K-55K annually I chose tier 2 “Silver Plan” and my monthly premiums came out to $597.00 with $13,988 yearly deductible!!! There is NO POSSIBLE way that I can afford this so I “opt-out” and chose to continue along with no insurance.I received an email tonight at 5:00 P.M. informing me that my fine would be $4,037 and could be attached to my yearly income tax return. Then you make it to the “REPERCUSSIONS PORTION” for “non-payment” of yearly fine. First, your drivers license will be suspended until paid, and if you go 24 consecutive months with “Non-Payment” and you happen to be a home owner, you will have a federal tax lien placed on your home. You can agree to give your bank information so that they can easy “Automatically withdraw” your “penalties” weekly, bi-weekly or monthly! This by no means is “Free” or even “Affordable.”
Sheehan went on to point out that the site makes you
input all your personal information before giving you an indication of
the costs, meaning a database of the “uninsured” is being built. He
added that he could not afford to pay the premium so would have to break
the law and pay the fine, leaving him with no health care coverage.
The federal government has consistently denied that any
fines pertaining to Obamacare non-compliance could be seized from bank
accounts, despite reports last year that the IRS had hired 16,500 new agents to harass citizens who attempt to evade the new law.
“There’s no criminal sanctions for not paying this, and
there’s no ability to levy a bank account or do seizures,” then-IRS
commissioner Douglas Shulman said in April 2010.
In addition, Americans who refuse to pay for mandatory
health insurance “shall not be subject to any criminal prosecution,”
according to the law itself.
Section 1501(g)(2) of the Affordable Care Act also
states that the IRS cannot “file notice of lien with respect to any
property of a taxpayer by reason of any failure to pay the penalty
imposed by this section.”
Either Sheehan’s claim that he received this notice is a
lie, or the feds have been dishonest with the American people all
along, and the revolt against Obamacare is about to take “don’t tread on
me” to a whole new level.
http://www.infowars.com/obamacare-fines-to-be-seized-from-bank-accounts/
We Don't Need 'Tapering,' We Need Full Termination Of QE3
Although philosopher George Santayana died in 1952, he seemed to understand the Federal Reserve’s current quantitative easing (QE) program. After all, it is Santayana that said, “Fanaticism consists of redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim.”Some time ago, the Fed’s QE program wandered off into the realm of fanaticism. Anyone that steps back and looks at the
data* can see that QE3 has produced results that are the exact opposite of those that the Fed was expecting when they announced the program in September 2012. And yet, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke barrels blithely onward with his bond-buying binge.
Many observers claim that the financial markets are addicted to QE, and that the world would end if it were terminated, or even “tapered.” However, every millisecond, the markets themselves are telling us that the Fed should end QE3.
To understand what the markets are saying, one must first understand what QE3 actually is, both philosophically and at the concrete level.
Philosophically, QE3 represents the latest in a long series of attempts by the Fed to control and manipulate the economy, rather than to serve it. As such, QE3 is the product of both hubris and guilt.
The hubris of QE3 is contained in the assumption that the “experts” on the FOMC are smarter and wiser than the billions of ordinary people that comprise the free markets. (Hey, let’s buy bonds! How about…$85 billion/month!)
The guilt element arises from the fact that, at some level, the people involved must know that it was the Fed that caused our housing boom and bust, our deep recession, and our agonizingly slow economic recovery. After all, just as was the case in the 1930s, the Fed is the only entity that has the power to wreak this particular kind of havoc. In a money economy, money impacts everything.
Guilt about throwing 16 million** people out of work would give almost anyone the panicky feeling that they need to “do something.” Unfortunately, it is exactly this desire to “do something” that has impelled the Fed to do too much of the wrong things over the past 13 years or so.
Now, let’s look at QE3 from a practical/operational point of view.
At the concrete level, QE3 involves nothing more than the Fed trading one type of federal debt (newly created, interest-paying bank reserves) for other types of federal debt. Since September 26, 2012, the Fed has exchanged $920.6 billion in newly created bank reserves for $413.6 billion worth of Treasury securities and $507.0 billion of mortgage-backed securities.
All of the $920.6 billion in newly created bank reserves were “excess reserves.” The banking system did not need or want them, and it made no use of them. We know this with certainty, because, during the past year, the banking system found uses for only about $100 billion worth of the $1,409.4 billion in excess reserves that it had at the beginning of the period. In other words, if the Fed had not bought a single bond in the past year, we would still have more than $1.3 trillion in excess reserves right now, instead of just under $2.3 trillion.
Obviously, QE3 assumes that the economy and the financial markets need and want excess bank reserves more than they need and want Treasury securities and federally guaranteed mortgage-backed securities. However, this is clearly not the case.
Three-month Treasury bills are fully guaranteed by the federal government, just like bank reserves. Although highly liquid, T-bills are less liquid than bank reserves, because bank reserves are dollar liquidity itself. And, 90-day Treasuries bear some interest rate risk, while bank reserves have none (since they are effectively one-day T-bills). So, by all logic, 90-day T-bills should command a higher interest rate (i.e. be viewed as less desirable by the markets) than bank reserves.
And yet, despite all of this, the financial markets are willing to trade bank reserves yielding 0.25% for 90-day T-bills yielding 0.01%. In other words, the markets are saying that they need and want T-bills more than they need and want bank reserves.
This message from the markets is reinforced every time the Treasury holds an auction of new debt. Recently, such auctions have typically been oversubscribed by a factor of 2.5, even at interest rates approaching zero for 90-day T-bills. Again, this is the market saying, “Keep your bank reserves: we want T-bills.”
OK, but there are those that say that it would be impossible for the Fed to unwind QE and normalize its balance sheet right now. “Where would the $2 trillion required to buy the Fed’s excess security holdings come from?” they ask.
This question is best answered with another question, namely, “What part of ‘excess reserves’ do you not understand?” Obviously, the “dollars” required to buy the excess assets on the Fed’s balance sheet are sitting in right there in the banking system in the form of excess reserves.
But wait! Right now, the Fed is holding only longer-maturity securities. Wouldn’t any attempt to sell them drive up longer-term interest rates? And, wouldn’t that depress the value of the Fed’s holdings? And, couldn’t this drive the Fed (which has only $59.4 billion of capital, and is therefore leveraged 68 to 1) into bankruptcy? And, wouldn’t all of this result in the federal government’s net interest costs (counting Fed profits returned to the Treasury) rising by (say) $50 billion/year?
The answers to these four questions are, “perhaps,” “perhaps,” “perhaps (at least technically),” and “perhaps.” However, the Fed need not take any chances in these areas.
Before selling off its excess assets, the Fed should simply trade $2.0 trillion of its Treasury securities (having remaining maturities of 1 to 30 years) at face value to the Treasury for an equal amount of 90-day T-bills. The Fed could then sell the $2.0 trillion worth of 90-day T-bills.
There would obviously be a market for $2.0 trillion worth of 90-day T-bills, because the markets are already holding more than $2.0 trillion in excess bank reserves, which amount to 1-day T-bills. Net federal interest costs might even go down.
But wait! Wouldn’t it be too risky to finance the federal government with debt that must be rolled over every 90 days? No, because we are currently financing the exact same $2 trillion with debt (bank reserves) that must, in essence, be rolled over every millisecond in order to avoid hyperinflation.
Once the Fed had normalized its balance sheet, it would be in a position to rationalize its interest rate policy, first by ending its practice of paying interest on bank reserves, and then by allowing interest rates across the yield curve to be set by the market.
If the Fed were to abandon targeting the Fed Funds interest rate to conduct what it calls “monetary policy,” it would be logical for it to use its Open Market operations to stabilize the dollar price of something real (e.g., gold, or a basket of commodities). Of course, this is what the Fed should have been doing all along.
If the Fed had simply kept the dollar price of gold constant at $400.00/oz from 1990 onward, we could have avoided three recessions and a nasty housing boom/bust cycle. Having caused the financial and economic crisis that struck with full force in late 2008, the Fed has inflicted upon the world one monetary improvisation after another in an effort to ameliorate it.
The Fed’s monetary machinations are not working. QE3 has taken on a fanatical quality. It amounts to the Fed redoubling its efforts while forgetting its most fundamental aim.
The Fed’s correct role is to serve, not to rule. Its job is simply to provide the exact amount of base money that the economy wants and needs at any given moment. If it does this, the real value of the dollar will remain constant. The converse is also true. If the Fed maintains a constant real value of the dollar, it will automatically supply the market with exactly the right amount of base money.
Once the Fed stops distorting the markets by trying to control interest rates, targeting the Fed’s Open Market operations against something real would do a “good enough” job of maintaining a constant real value for the dollar. This happens to be the system described in H.R. 1576, Congressman Ted Poe’s monetary reform bill, which would require that the Fed stabilize the COMEX price of gold.
In the process of maintaining a constant real value for the dollar, the Fed’s Open Market operations would automatically induce sufficient nominal GDP (dollar purchasing power) to buy all of the real GDP that the economy wanted to produce. This is because a monetary control system that targets something real will not allow the value of the dollar to rise or fall significantly relative to the goods and services that comprise GDP.
By bidding up the price of 90-day T-bills until they yield only 0.01%, the markets are screaming that QE3 is a mistake. The FOMC should start listening.
QE should be terminated, and then reversed. America desperately needs a “return to normalcy” on monetary policy, followed by Congressional action on monetary reform. After five years of economic pain and stagnation, now would be a good time.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/louiswoodhill/2013/10/02/we-dont-need-tapering-we-need-full-termination-of-qe3/
EPA to hold coal plant hearings nowhere near coal country
The Environmental Protection
Agency has announced
the locations where it will be holding hearings on its pending
regulations on coal-fired power plants — nowhere near coal country.The EPA will hold eleven hearings across the country in the coming months to discuss the agency’s upcoming carbon emissions limits for existing power plants
.However, virtually all of the hearings are happening far from major coal producing regions. The hearings will take place at EPA regional headquarters in major cities outside of top coal-producing states.
Senate Minority Leader
Mitch McConnell accused the Obama administration of “once again showing
its contempt for Kentucky’s coal miners and their families.”The EPA will hold hearings in Atlanta, Georgia; Boston, Massachusetts; Chicago, Illinois; Dallas, Texas; Denver, Colorado; Lenexa, Kansas; New York, New York; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Seattle, Washington; Washington, D.C.
There will be no regional meetings in the top three coal-producing states — Wyoming, West Virginia and Kentucky. Regional meetings will occur in Pennsylvania and Illinois, the next two largest coal producers, but the meetings will be far from the coal mines.
According to Google Maps, the EPA’s Illinois headquarters is more than 300 miles away from the state’s two largest coal mines — which together produced about 12 million short tons of coal in 2011.
The EPA’s Pennsylvania headquarters is more than 330 miles from the largest coal mines, located in the western part of the state. Pennsylvania produced about 55 million short tons of coal in 2012, or 5 percent of the country’s total coal production.
“Instead of the EPA holding a coal hearing in the heart of Coal Country, Kentucky, he has chosen locations such as San Francisco and Washington, D.C.,” McConnell added. “I urge President Obama and the EPA to come to Kentucky, speak directly to those most impacted by the EPA’s regulations and get a first-hand view on how the economy
is being brutalized by the Administration’s War on Coal.”McConnell is seeking re-election as senator in Kentucky next year.
The EPA did not respond to The Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment on the decision not to hold hearing near coal producers.
The agency’s emissions limits for existing power plants have already attracted legal
challenges from state governments. Seventeen states, led by Nebraska,
are poised to challenge the EPA’s emissions caps for existing coal
plants, arguing that the such rules are outside of the agency’s Clean
Air Act authority.“EPA
,
if unchecked, will continue to implement regulations which far exceed
its statutory authority to the detriment of the States, in whom Congress
has vested authority under the Clean Air Act, and whose citizenry and
industries will ultimately pay the price of these costly and ineffective
regulations,” wrote 17 state attorneys general and one top state environmental regulator in a white paper.The coalition of states is also worried about the economic costs of banning coal as a source of fuel in the country.
“The elimination of coal as a fuel for new electric generation would have highly concerning implications for electricity prices and for the economy
and job-creation in general, as well as the competitiveness of American manufacturing,” the states argue.The EPA can act on its own when setting standards for new coal plants, but must work with the states when looking to reduce emissions from existing plants — which is a costly affair.
The Clean Air Act “directs EPA to establish guidelines, which states use to design
their own programs to reduce emissions,” according
to the EPA. “Before proposing guidelines, EPA must consider how power
plants with a variety of different configurations would be able to
reduce carbon pollution in a cost-effective way.”Republicans and coal country Democrats are already pushing hard against regulations that would force states to limit emissions from currently operating power plants.
“The Obama
Administration continues to unilaterally bypass the role of the states,
while stifling job creation by eliminating affordable energy through
new regulations that will only be another blow to our fragile
economy,”said Kentucky Republican Rep. Ed Whitfield.“The most frustrating part is the Administration is doing this with no public debate, and many in the United States Congress and individual states have been expressing deep concern about the impact that this will have on our ability to remain competitive
in the global marketplace.”CBS New York Features Union Boss As Typical Furloughed Worker
Yesterday we told you about how the Associated Press featured Paul Sacker as a furloughed employee for the EPA who is suffering do to the atrocity brought on by the government shutdown. What the AP didn't tell you was Sacker is also the president of the local American Federal Government Employees union in New York and is a partisan activist who appeared on NPR radio and wrote articles for local newspapers slamming congress for not making a deal with President Obama.It turns out Mr. Sacker has a media operation any Kardashian would envy. Not only was he the poster child or government employee furloughs for the AP and NPR, he also gave an interview with New York's CBS affiliate. Again, Mr. Sacker's partisan affiliation with the government employee union was barely disclosed by CBS with a very small graphic at the bottom of the screen for a couple seconds. The reporter on the story, Marcia Kramer, never mentioned the union affiliation in her narration.
Considering the fact that AFGE endorsed President Obama for reelection in 2012 and has been an influential fund-raiser as well as advocate for the Democratic party, it should be clear that Mr. Sacker's direct affiliation as a boss for the government employee union should have been disclosed and identified in an appropriate way, so as to provide proper context to the viewers of the slanted report on the government shutdown.
Further, if CBS did not know or inquire about Mr. Slacker's obvious agenda, they allowed themselves to be used for propaganda purposes. It's clear that the government employee unions are using the media to push a narrative of the sympathetic, beleaguered government employees who are being exploited by the uncaring Republican-led House of Representatives. And it's clear AP, NPR and CBS New York have allowed themselves to be used.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/10/02/AFGE-Union-Boss-Does-More-Media
Lib Talker: GOP 'Suicide Bombers' 'Trying To Blow Your Children Up'
Liberal talk radio host Stephanie Miller took the hateful rhetoric targeted at House Republicans to a new extreme this morning by claiming conservative lawmakers were trying to "blow your children up," when talking to a caller on her nationally syndicated show.
Caller: I don’t appreciate them holding my children hostage. I don’t appreciate them holding myself hostage.
Miller: May I correct you? They are not holding your children hostage; they are trying to blow your children up. There is a difference.
Caller: What's that?
Miller: They are suicide bombers they are no longer hostage takers. They are no longer just regular terrorists they are suicide bombers.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/10/01/Lib-Talker-GOP-Suicide-Bombers-Blowing-Up-Children
NPR Eagerly Excuses Obama's Failure on Inequality
Steve Inskeep of National Public Radio interviewed President Barack Obama on Monday, as a government shutdown loomed. To his credit, Inskeep asked an interesting question about why President Obama has seen economic inequality grow rapidly on his watch. But to his discredit, Inskeep allowed Obama to dodge the question, and arrived prepared with his own ready-made excuse for the president's failure.Inskeep introduced the question after a discussion about Obamacare, noting that inequality is a "decades-old trend," but "a good part of that trend has now taken part...on your watch." The president replied with excuses--including his now-customary attacks on technology--and claimed he had reduced inequality by increasing taxes on the rich (which, at the time, was defended as a fiscal necessity, not redistribution).
Instead of challenging the flaws in Obama's answer, Inskeep rescued him: "The economist Tyler Cowen was on our program the other day. He'd written a book about income inequality. And he argued, based on his analysis, that it's really inevitable, it's going to get worse, and the thing for public officials to do is to adapt to it rather than try to change it." The president then launched into a high-minded, meaningless monologue.
Inskeep's interview ought to be fodder for ridicule by fellow mainstream journalists. But most share NPR's left-wing bias and the President's radical politics. If they challenge, they do so from the left: it is acceptable to press Obama on inequality, but not to ask whether inequality ought to trump economic growth. In that way, they not only shield Obama from any serious scrutiny, but also promote his policies and worldview.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/10/01/NPR-Eagerly-Excuses-Obama-s-Failure-on-Inequality
Weaponizing Comedy in the Culture War Against Liberalism
By Evan Sayet
In his Monday interview
with me, Big Hollywood's Christian Toto rightly quoted me as saying my
stand-up act (wholly separate from my more serious works which many of
you have seen) is intended to “preach to the (conservative) choir,” and
that my purpose, in part, is to make my audience “feel comfortable.”I should have elaborated.
I do, in fact, seek to preach to the choir. This is because I recognize that just because someone can sing the songs doesn’t mean he understands the gospel. And it doesn’t mean that, even if they are steeped in the gospel, that, when they step outside the congregation, they take that gospel with them and stand firm (much less evangelize) when confronted by people hostile to their beliefs.
Far too often, the conservative foolishly sees his libertarianism as synonymous with “surrender” and lets his “to each his own” ideology lead him to cede the battles to those who are most willing to promote, proselytize, propagandize and co-opt--starting with our children--the masses.
And I suspect that the Christianity that suffuses the movement (happily so to this Jew) sees too many conservatives believing that “being nice” to others--including those whose ideological purpose is the undermining of all things Christian--is somehow a Christian value. Remember, Jesus did throw over the tables from time to time.
Whether I deliver my message in a serious dissertation, like my book, The KinderGarden of Eden: How The Modern Liberal Thinks or in my more comedic take as I will do Thursday Oct. 3 at the world famous Laugh Factory in Hollywood, I want my audience--“the choir”--to “feel comfortable” knowing what they already know but think it is somehow wrong to act upon: that modern liberalism is an infantile and destructive ideology at war with all things good, right and successful.
I want “the choir” to understand that their libertarian streak and their Christian hearts (no matter their faith) are under assault and that this is, in fact, war. Thank God it’s not--thus far--a shooting war (although violence and the threat of violence has been at the heart of modern liberalism from the day it first began to take over our society, from the terrorists like William Ayers who now just wait for us to die as they brainwash our children into accepting their ways; to the movement attempting to undermine our commerce, a movement that takes its very name from the Nazi occupation of Europe--“Occupy Wall Street."
I want “the choir” to “feel comfortable” with what they already know: that this is a war for the very survival of all that has given us our freedom, prosperity and progress. I want “the choir” to “be comfortable” with the knowledge that fighting this war--not just singing about it when alone amongst ourselves--is good and right and just.
It’s a different kind of war, one in which the weapons of persuasion can still be effective. I want “the choir” to be “comfortable” using those weapons as needed and at every turn.
The “weapon” of persuasion I bring to bear through my stand-up is one that Saul Alinsky includes in his “rules for radicals”: ridicule. I do so because modern liberalism is ridiculous. It is infantile to its core--with one famous Leftist author, Robert Fulghum speaking for them all when he declared in all seriousness, “All I ever need to know I learned in kindergarten”--and like the small child, while he cannot build anything, the Modern Liberal can and will, if left in charge, destroy.
Even though these are serious subjects we’ll be talking about Thursday, I want “the choir” to laugh--laugh with the joy of the sublime stupidity that is modern liberalism--made comfortable in their knowledge that the enemy they face is not merely wrong, he is ridiculous.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Hollywood/2013/10/01/weaponizing-comedy-culture-war-liberalism
Open for Business: Gov't to Erect $98,670 Outhouse
The Federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) recently paid $98,670 for the purchase and installation of an outhouse at the Swede Park Trail Head in Alaska.
The purchase includes a single-vault Romtec 1011 "Aspen Single" prefabricated waterless toilet and its installation at the parking area for the trail head.
KJ Mushovic of the BLM tells CNSNews.com, “Almost half of it (contract expense) is for the cost of the toilet.”
The Oregon based company Romtec lists the "Aspen Single" model on its website for “as low as $9,999”, but the BLM says the price they paid likely includes shipping to Alaska.
“And the cost of all the materials that will have to be taken to the site, Mushovic said. “There will be earthwork that’ll have to be done.”
On September 20th the contract to install the toilet was awarded to Big Street Construction Incorporated of North Pole, Alaska. The BLM tells CNSNews.com the construction company is located about 3 hours from the installation site.
“When we are talking about this trail head -- you turn off this highway (Denali Highway) onto an unpaved area. You drive in maybe a quarter of a mile. I would consider it to be remote.”
The BLM says the Swede Park Trail Head is a popular location and up to 80 vehicles at a time can be parked there. “The BLM has considered this issue carefully and determined that construction of the facility is in the best interest of both the thousands of visitors to the Swede Lake Trail Head and the surrounding area, which has been badly fouled by human waste and sanitation products.”
“They (people) have already traveled a distance to get to this trailhead - in an area where there’s very, very little in the way of services,” Mushovic says, “So you have people camp at that trail head, before taking the trail. As you can imagine, that many people can generate a lot of human waste.”
“BLM crews then have to go out to an area like that and collect waste by hand. It really becomes a sanitation issue.”
The $98,670 contract does not include the pumping out and maintenance of the facility. Those issues are addressed in a separate contract.
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/eric-scheiner/open-business-govt-erect-98670-outhouse#sthash.63SFsZ57.dpuf
Common Core requires 9-year-olds to be expert typists
Implementation of Common Core education
standards has hit another snag as some parents worry that their young
children don’t have the necessary typing skills to complete the online
tests required under the standards.The new national education guidelines — approved by the National Governors Association, President Barack Obama’s Department of Education and most states — require students
across the country to take the same online exam: the Partnership for
Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers test. Kids as young as
nine years old must be able to type a full page on the writing portion
of the exam. Fifth-graders are required to type two pages.That’s quite a challenge for many young children, particularly those from low-income families who haven’t interacted with computers as frequently as their peers.
“I’ve heard professional development leaders say most kids have been on iPads since they were two,” said Katie Patterson, director of Common Core strategy at New Schools
for New Orleans, in a statement to The Hechinger Report. “That’s not a true statement for kids in poverty.”Patterson is particularly concerned about students in New Orleans, 42 percent of whom live in poverty. Their old exams did not require typing skills.
Making arduous typing demands of poor, young children is just one of Common Core’s many problems, an education expert told The Daily Caller.
“Eight-year-olds are not typically good typists, or able to be good typists, and this may make their test score a referendum on their computer skills rather than their academic knowledge,” wrote Joy Pullmann, a research fellow at The Heartland Institute and managing editor of School Reform News, in an email
.
“It seems Common Core has combined its developmentally inappropriate
standards for small children with developmentally inappropriate tests.” (RELATED: Here’s what kids will read under Common Core)While Republican governors, the federal government
and teachers union leaders all support Common Core, conservative
lawmakers and rank-and-file teachers have expressed numerous criticisms
with the standards and the standardized tests that accompany them. Many
fear that Common Core’s methods are unproven, and will pre-empt states’
rights on education policy.Doing away with handwriting is another of Common Core’s sins, said Pullmann.
“Delayed and special-needs children particularly benefit from learning handwriting,” she wrote. “Handwriting also allows small children to produce something beautiful, which is often difficult and frustrating at age seven or eight.”
Tania Nyman, a Baton Rouge parent, said she found it difficult to justify spending time with her son building typing skills instead of focusing on reading or math.
“If my son wants to learn to type of his own volition, I would say, ‘Sure, go ahead honey,’” said Nyman in a statement to The Hechinger Report. “But if it’s only because online tests make it easier
for companies to grade, I would ask, ‘Is it really a practical skill that third-graders need?’”
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