Feds Try to Close the OCEAN Because of Shutdown

By Mike Flynn
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. Of access to an ocean. 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.

Shutdown Simulacrum

Just because it’s a phony crisis doesn’t mean it can’t be made even phonier.

By Mark Steyn
Way back in January, when it emerged that Beyoncé had treated us to the first ever lip-synched national anthem at a presidential inauguration, I suggested in this space that this strange pseudo-performance embodied the decay of America’s political institutions from the real thing into mere simulacrum. But that applies to government “crises,” too — such as the Obamacare “rollout,” the debt “ceiling,” and the federal “shutdown,” to name only the three current railroad tracks to which the virtuous damsel of Big Government has been simultaneously tied by evil mustache-twirling Republicans.

This week’s “shutdown” of government, for example, suffers (at least for those of us curious to see it reduced to Somali levels) from the awkward fact that the overwhelming majority of the government is not shut down at all. Indeed, much of it cannot be shut down. Which is the real problem facing America. “Mandatory spending” (Social Security, Medicare, et al.) is authorized in perpetuity — or, at any rate, until total societal collapse. If you throw in the interest payments on the debt, that means two-thirds of the federal budget is beyond the control of Congress’s so-called federal budget process. That’s why you’re reading government “shutdown” stories about the PandaCam at the Washington Zoo and the First Lady’s ghost-Tweeters being furloughed.

Whata 'Shutdown' Means: $63B Spent, $26B Taxed; $1.6B Borrowed; $1B Paid inSalaries--in Just 2 Days

In general terms, politicians and the press may be referring to what has been happening in Washington, D.C., over the past few days as a government "shutdown" or a "partial government shutdown," but the actual accounting sheets of the U.S. Treasury show that massive amounts of taxed and borrowed money were flowing in and out of the government during the first two days of fiscal 2014.

Obamacare’s Unconstitutional Origins

Tax legislation has to originate in the House; the health-care law didn’t.

By Andrew McCarthy
....Our dispute over Obamacare spending in the 2013 CR, however, has no bearing on the Origination Clause analysis of the 2010 Obamacare law itself. The Affordable Care Act, the Supreme Court has held, was a straightforward tax. No theorizing about spending is necessary. Everyone agrees that tax-raising measures must originate in the House.

Obamacare originated in the Senate.

It was introduced in Congress in 2009 by Senate majority leader Harry Reid, who called it the “Senate health care bill” (a description still touted long afterwards on Reid’s website)

Supreme Court can rescue another freedom in a campaign cash case

By George F Will
Come Tuesday, the court will have another occasion to consider that not all regulations of the indispensable means of disseminating political speech — money — are constitutional just because they are presented as means of preventing corruption or its “appearance.”...

...McCutcheon is not attacking the “base limits” that restrict individuals to giving $2,600 per election to any candidate’s campaign. Congress has divined, without apparent reliance on any empirical evidence, that this is the sum above which corruption or its appearance occurs. The sum is, for incumbent lawmakers, conveniently low: It especially burdens candidates challenging incumbents, who have fundraising and other advantages.

McCutcheon is contesting the $48,600 limit on the aggregate amount individuals can contribute to candidates over a two-year span (and aggregate limits on contributions to party committees and PACs). The illogic of aggregate limits is glaring: He could give $2,600 — which Congress considers innocuous — to 18 candidates without an appearance of corruption, but $2,600 to the 19th would somehow trigger the appearance.

Catholic priests in military face arrest for celebrating Mass

By Todd Starnes
The U.S. military has furloughed as many as 50 Catholic chaplains due to the partial suspension of government services, banning them from celebrating weekend Mass. At least one chaplain was told that if he engaged in any ministry activity, he would be subjected to disciplinary action.

Government Suspends Border Patrol

With an incalculable number of illegal residents already within U.S. borders and many more funneling through our porous borders every day, many have decried the relative ineffectiveness of the U.S. Border Patrol. That lack of immigration law enforcement will be far more pronounced in coming days, according to one high-ranking member of the agency.

According to National Border Patrol Council Vice President Shawn Moran, agents have been instructed to curtail all duties related to keeping Americans safe during the ongoing federal government shutdown.

Audit: Army Paid $16M to Deserters, AWOL Soldiers

By Brett Barrouquerre

Even as the Army faces shrinking budgets, an audit shows it paid out $16 million in paychecks over a 2 ½-year period to soldiers designated as AWOL or as deserters, the second time since 2006 the military has been dinged for the error...

The Defense Department says 466 service members across all branches were listed as absent without leave or as deserters in 2012; the agency did not have a tally specific to the Army. However, the $16 million represents 9,000 individual direct deposit payments, suggesting at least some of the soldiers received several paychecks before the problem was corrected.