There are many many stories about the shutdown, but these are the best I've found.......
1/ Our shrewdest observer of politics, Frank Rich, with commentary on the shutdown.....
Every week, New York Magazine writer-at-large Frank Rich talks with contributor Eric Benson about the biggest stories in politics and culture. This week: The GOP shuts down the government over Obamacare, Senator Ted Cruz tries to become House Speaker, and NBC and CNN both scrap their Hillary projects.
The federal government shut down yesterday after House Republicans refused to pass any budget that didn't defund Obamacare. The president's signature domestic initiative passed by the skin of its teeth in 2010 and survived both a Supreme Court challenge and a national election in 2012. Are you surprised the GOP is staking so much on a fight it has already lost three times?
Not at all. Let’s be clear what this is about: the refusal of a defeated political party to accept the legitimacy of the democratic process when it didn’t get its way. The focus on Obamacare as a means to delegitimize a twice-elected president is just the latest pretext after previous pretexts failed, from the president’s supposedly fake birth certificate to the “Fast and Furious” scandal to Benghazi and all the other would-be impeachable offenses investigated by the House’s Inspector Clouseau, Representative Darrell Issa of California. Think of the Obamacare-driven shutdown as parallel to the Monica Lewinsky–driven impeachment of Bill Clinton: a handy — though ultimately backfiring — vehicle for an attempted right-wing coup against a Democratic president. If the GOP’s real aim was to get government out of Americans’ medical care, it would be resuming its campaign to “reform” (e.g., gradually defund) Medicare, for starters. But you don’t hear anything about that anymore now that the party realizes that its base loves Medicare — so much so that tea-partiers carried signs saying “Keep Government Out of My Medicare!” in ignorance of the fact that it is a program of the government they loathe. So Obamacare is the chosen weapon instead. Unfortunately for the Republicans, it is going to detonate in their own caucus.
Not at all. Let’s be clear what this is about: the refusal of a defeated political party to accept the legitimacy of the democratic process when it didn’t get its way. The focus on Obamacare as a means to delegitimize a twice-elected president is just the latest pretext after previous pretexts failed, from the president’s supposedly fake birth certificate to the “Fast and Furious” scandal to Benghazi and all the other would-be impeachable offenses investigated by the House’s Inspector Clouseau, Representative Darrell Issa of California. Think of the Obamacare-driven shutdown as parallel to the Monica Lewinsky–driven impeachment of Bill Clinton: a handy — though ultimately backfiring — vehicle for an attempted right-wing coup against a Democratic president. If the GOP’s real aim was to get government out of Americans’ medical care, it would be resuming its campaign to “reform” (e.g., gradually defund) Medicare, for starters. But you don’t hear anything about that anymore now that the party realizes that its base loves Medicare — so much so that tea-partiers carried signs saying “Keep Government Out of My Medicare!” in ignorance of the fact that it is a program of the government they loathe. So Obamacare is the chosen weapon instead. Unfortunately for the Republicans, it is going to detonate in their own caucus.
2/ Rachel Maddow is to TV what Frank Rich is to print media - undoubtedly the smartest political reporter on the air, and her analysis of why the House Republicans have shut down the Federal government is uncanny - she shows with clips from 2010 that this was their plan all along....and it's all about power, and contempt for government itself.
America elected them, knew what they were getting and now it's here......sixteen very good minutes.....
Rachel Maddow traces the Republican enthusiasm for shutting down the federal government since before they seized the majority in the House in the 2010 election. Senator Charles Schumer joins for further discussion.
3/ "Honest Trailers" is a website that re-imagines trailers for movies....this one is for "The Matrix" and it's sequels......an amusing 4 minutes for you movie buffs....
4/ Most interesting essay on the high profile whistleblowers like Snowden and Manning, and how even though they have been vilified by the establishment they have the moral high ground, because evil becomes institutionalised......
THE STONE September 15, 2013, 5:00 pm 1058 Comments
The Banality of Systemic Evil
By PETER LUDLOW
In recent months there has been a visible struggle in the media to come to grips with the leaking, whistle-blowing and hacktivism that has vexed the United States military and the private and government intelligence communities. This response has run the gamut. It has involved attempts to condemn, support, demonize, psychoanalyze and in some cases canonize figures like Aaron Swartz, Jeremy Hammond, Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden.
In broad terms, commentators in the mainstream and corporate media have tended to assume that all of these actors needed to be brought to justice, while independent players on the Internet and elsewhere have been much more supportive. Tellingly, a recent Time magazine cover story has pointed out a marked generational difference in how people view these matters: 70 percent of those age 18 to 34 sampled in a poll said they believed that Snowden “did a good thing” in leaking the news of the National Security Agency’s surveillance program.
So has the younger generation lost its moral compass?
No. In my view, just the opposite.
Clockwise, from top left: The Guardian, Chicago Police Department, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images, Noah Berger/Reuters, Patrick Semansky/Associated PressClockwise, from top left, Edward Snowden, Jeremy Hammond, Aaron Swartz and Chelsea Manning, formerly known as Pfc. Bradley Manning.
Clearly, there is a moral principle at work in the actions of the leakers, whistle-blowers and hacktivists and those who support them. I would also argue that that moral principle has been clearly articulated, and it may just save us from a dystopian future.
In “Eichmann in Jerusalem,” one of the most poignant and important works of 20th-century philosophy, Hannah Arendt made an observation about what she called “the banality of evil.” One interpretation of this holds that it was not an observation about what a regular guy Adolf Eichmann seemed to be, but rather a statement about what happens when people play their “proper” roles within a system, following prescribed conduct with respect to that system, while remaining blind to the moral consequences of what the system was doing — or at least compartmentalizing and ignoring those consequences.
A good illustration of this phenomenon appears in “Moral Mazes,” a book by the sociologist Robert Jackall that explored the ethics of decision making within several corporate bureaucracies. In it, Jackall made several observations that dovetailed with those of Arendt. The mid-level managers that he spoke with were not “evil” people in their everyday lives, but in the context of their jobs, they had a separate moral code altogether, what Jackall calls the “fundamental rules of corporate life”:
(1) You never go around your boss. (2) You tell your boss what he wants to hear, even when your boss claims that he wants dissenting views. (3) If your boss wants something dropped, you drop it. (4) You are sensitive to your boss’s wishes so that you anticipate what he wants; you don’t force him, in other words, to act as a boss. (5) Your job is not to report something that your boss does not want reported, but rather to cover it up. You do your job and you keep your mouth shut.
Jackall went through case after case in which managers violated this code and were drummed out of a business (for example, for reporting wrongdoing in the cleanup at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant).
5/ On last weeks Saturday Night Live President Obama tried to explain the Affordable Care Act, but didn't have much luck with his examples.....he is joined by Jesse Pinkman at the end of the six minute segment, one of the stars of "Breaking Bad".
My opinion - this is quite good in parts, but some bits fall a bit flat although Jay Pharoah does a pretty good Obama.......
"Saturday Night Live" opened its 39th season with Barack Obama (Jay Pharoah) doing his best to explain the embattled Affordable Care Act.
To support his argument, Obama introduced a series of testimonials from "regular" Americans, including an appearance by "Jesse from New Mexico," the first of three cameos by "Breaking Bad's" Aaron Paul. Ted Cruz (Taran Killam) also stopped by, but not to help or make any kind of sense, of course.
6/ Brian McFadden explains Obamacare in one cartoon........
7/ "Human" from the Killers - excellent video shot in beautiful desert [Utah?] with mountain lions, eagles. This song has one of the best chorus lines ever - "are we human, or are we dancers"...not sure what it means but they sure sing it nicely......4 minutes.....
8/ This is a speech given at a graduation ceremony at Western Australian University by Tim Minchin, who is a comedian on Australian TV.....it's an amusing speech, but also full of Minchin's life lessons which are totally relevant to students about to graduate - it's about 17 minutes, but it's really, really good........
Tim Minchin is a hilarious performer. He also gives dark but brilliant and slightly crass speeches to college graduates apparently. At 7:22, he says my favorite thing ever about science. At 9:50, he expresses my entire life philosophy. And at 10:50, you'll think he's saying something utterly depressing until he turns it all around on you in a pretty profound and hilarious way. Just sayin'.
9/ The Republican obstructionism of Obamacare and the cuts to the food stamp program is actually hurting middle and low income people in Republican "red" states.......but will these people notice the Republican politicians they keep electing are screwing them every chance they get?
Nope....they are distracted by God, Guns, Gays and Limbaugh and they ain't too smart to begin with......
Rick Santorum is right. Not far right, crazy right, piously right or, on most issues, never right. He is all of those things. But under the rubric that even a blind pig can find an acorn every now and then, the moral scourge of the Republican Party is on to something — a greater truth.
Earlier this summer, Santorum said Republicans look like the party of plutocrats, stiffing working people and the poor. The 2012 convention, he noted, was a parade of one-percenters, masters of the universe and company owners.
“But not a single — not a single — factory worker went out there,” he said. “Not a single janitor, waitress or person who worked in that company! We didn’t care about them.”
They still don’t care, and the darkening events of what looks to be an autumn of catastrophic failure by a Congress stuffed with extremists will prove Santorum’s point ever more.
Late Thursday, despite pleas from Catholic bishops and evangelicals, the Republican-dominated House passed a bill that would deprive 3.8 million people of assistance to buy food next year. By coincidence, this is almost the exact amount of people who have managed to remain just above the poverty line because of that very aid, the Census Bureau reported a few days ago.
A Republican majority that refuses to govern on other issues found the votes to shove nearly 4 million people back into poverty, joining 46.5 million at a desperation line that has failed to improve since the dawn of the Great Recession. It’s a heartless bill, aimed to hurt. Republicans don’t see it that way, of course. They think too many of their fellow citizens are cheats and loafers, dining out on lobster.
Certainly there are frauds among the one in seven Americans getting help from the program formerly known as food stamps. But who are the others, the easy-to-ignore millions who will feel real pain with these cuts? As it turns out, most of them live in Red State, Real People America. Among the 254 counties where food stamp use doubled during the economic collapse, Mitt Romney won 213 of them, Bloomberg News reported. Half of Owsley County, Ky., is receiving federal food aid. Half.
Certainly there are frauds among the one in seven Americans getting help from the program formerly known as food stamps. But who are the others, the easy-to-ignore millions who will feel real pain with these cuts? As it turns out, most of them live in Red State, Real People America. Among the 254 counties where food stamp use doubled during the economic collapse, Mitt Romney won 213 of them, Bloomberg News reported. Half of Owsley County, Ky., is receiving federal food aid. Half.
10/ This is interesting - this article gives the real reasons why Republicans are so frightened of Obamacare succeeding, and why the big money from the right wing billionaires is trying to derail the ACAct......
Why the Health Care Law Scares the G.O.P.
By EDUARDO PORTER
Published: October 1, 2013
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This spring, the Missouri Chamber of Commerce urged the state Legislature to accept the federal government’s plan to expand Medicaid for the poor and disabled.
The business lobbying group had not suddenly gone rogue. Here is how Daniel P. Mehan, its president, summarized his feelings about President Obama’s health care law: “We don’t like it.”
But the Chamber was cognizant of the plea of its members directly affected by the issue: dozens of Missouri hospitals stood to lose $4.2 billion over six years in federal support for uncompensated care if the state refused to increase the income ceiling for Medicaid eligibility.
Pragmatism suggested accepting the expansion. Washington would pay the extra cost entirely for three years and pick up 90 percent of the bill thereafter.
And it would expand health coverage in the state’s poor, predominantly white rural counties, which voted consistently to put Republican lawmakers into office.
Missouri’s Republican-controlled Legislature — heavy with Tea Party stalwarts — rejected Medicaid’s expansion in the state anyway.
After their vote, a frustrated editorial in the faithfully conservative Missourian asked of the state’s elected Republicans: “Who Do They Represent?”
Today, the same forces that blocked the expansion of Medicaid in Missouri are going all out in Washington in a bid to undo all of the Affordable Care Act. Bowing to the vehemence of its Tea Party faction, the House G.O.P. forced a government shutdown when Senate Democrats refused to delay or defund the president’s health overhaul.
House Republicans are threatening even further damage if they don’t get their way, possibly unleashing financial chaos if they manage to force the United States into its first default ever on the government’s debt.
Republicans’ efforts raise the same perplexing question posed by the Missourian: What drives Tea Party Republicans and their financial backers? What calculation persuades them that repealing the health care law is worth the risk? Indeed, whose interests do they represent?
11/ This is how the Republicans are hurting people in the real world.
"Irene" runs Lake Cares Food pantry, feeding thousands of families here in Lake County and helping the working poor and unemployed middle class people navigate through the bureaucracy to get food and the meagre benefits that they are entitled to. The quote below was part of an email to some of her volunteers.
It is so clear, so blindingly clear that Republican politicians, state and federal, only serve the rich and as far as they are concerned the working poor are just collateral damage.
It's also clear Lake Cares needs your help. You can now donate online......they need your contributions now.
Message from Irene:
I just don't know what is going to happen with this whole mess in Washington. We have 3 things that could potentially hit us hard:
1. Food Stamps being cut - we are already feeling some effects from that with some of our elderly and disabled clients that were only receiving $16/month losing it because they got a tiny bump up in their SS dollars.
2. The Farm Bill subsidizing the farmers. That is how Second Harvest and many food banks in the US receive the USDA food that we can get for free. We have already seen a complete drop of canned items that we are able to select from.
3. The panic many are facing because of the Affordable Healthcare Act. Washington and Florida are just messing this up and people are really worried now.
I am also the Lake County representative for the Mid-Florida Homeless Coalition and we had our monthly meeting today...with the same concerns but one more was added. If there is a government shutdown on Oct 1st it will effect HUD and any support assistance for homeless facilities.
Thank goodness we have such wonderful volunteers like you and all the others that are making such a difference in our community.
Irene
This is a column by Paul Krugman, written after the Republican House put $40 billion in cuts to the food stamp program into the Farm Bill, which explains a lot of the attitudes on the right.....
Hence the war on food stamps, which House Republicans have just voted to cut sharply even while voting to increase farm subsidies.
In a way, you can see why the food stamp program — or, to use its proper name, the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) — has become a target. Conservatives are deeply committed to the view that the size of government has exploded under President Obama but face the awkward fact that public employment is down sharply, while overall spending has been falling fast as a share of G.D.P. SNAP, however, really has grown a lot, with enrollment rising from 26 million Americans in 2007 to almost 48 million now.
Conservatives look at this and see what, to their great disappointment, they can’t find elsewhere in the data: runaway, explosive growth in a government program. The rest of us, however, see a safety-net program doing exactly what it’s supposed to do: help more people in a time of widespread economic distress.
12/ There is something about a beautiful girl with a British accent that makes even the nasty bits of our daily lives discussable.......this is a real ad for a real product - "Poo-Pourri", which will make sure your poops don't smell.
Not often I say something is hysterical, but this 2 minute ad certainly is......if this doesn't grab you in the first five seconds you have zero sense of humour.....
I didn't believe it either, but this is the website.....
13/ Political junkies - excellent story from New York Magazine's Jonathan Chait, with some insights on what's at stake here....
The Debt-Ceiling Showdown Is the Fight of Obama’s Life
By Jonathan Chait
The debt-ceiling showdown has snuck up quietly on Washington and is barely registering in the broader economy. Nobody is quite sure what to make of it. A familiar Washington Kabuki dance? A white-knuckle bond market tightrope walk? A final reactionary howl at the onset of Obamacare? It may be these things, but it’s also something much larger: a Constitutional struggle, a kind of quasi-impeachment, that will test Obama’s mettle and, next to his reelection campaign, poses the most singular threat to his presidency.
The progression of events begins with a dynamic I described in a print piece at the beginning of 2012 – conservatives had come to regard the 2012 race as their last chance to win an election as authentic conservatives against a rising Democratic majority. Since their crushing defeat, they have ignored the task of refurbishing the party’s national appeal for its next national electoral bid, and instead have recommitted themselves to waging increasingly millenarian confrontations from their existing red state power base in Congress.
Most of us expected, at some level, that the election would cool the right’s apocalyptic fervor. Instead, the opposite has occurred. Paul Ryan candidly explained the calculation: "The reason this debt limit fight is different is, we don't have an election around the corner where we feel we are going to win and fix it ourselves. We are stuck with this government another three years." This is a remarkable confession. Republicans need to compel Obama to accept their agenda, not in spite of the fact that the voters rejected it at the polls but precisely for that reason.
14/ We recently spent 6 weeks in France this summer on an extended vacation, and one of the many things that strike you about European countries is how there are minimal obese people - in fact on this trip, with lots of walking and being out and about most days it was so rare to see a really fat person we kept a tally....which ended up at 14 after six weeks. Stand on a street corner in any US town,, and you will see more than that in 10 minutes.....
The key? Portion control in the French diet......
Read on........a very good article on the American way of eating......
Hard Truths About Our Soft Bodies
By FRANK BRUNI
Published: September 16, 2013 654 Comments
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I was steering my cart through Costco the other day, wondering whether to waddle to the aisle where they sell cashews by the quarter-ton or to the one with thousand-piece packs of chicken thighs, when an epiphany pierced the fog of my gluttony.
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Actually, two epiphanies. The first? I needed to have kids, four or five or better yet a baker’s dozen. Only then could I take full advantage of the savings around me.
The second? Costco as much as anything else is why the land of the free and the home of the brave is also the trough of the tub o’ lard, our exceptionalism measurable by not only our G.D.P. but also our B.M.I. That’s body mass index, and our bodies are indeed massive.
I don’t blame Costco per se. I blame what it represents: an American obsession with size, with quantity, that manifests itself as surely in supermarkets and restaurants as it does on our highways. We drive minivans and sport utility vehicles; we rip into veritable feed bags of potato chips and wedge our steroidal Thanksgiving turkeys into refrigerators more capacious than some European cars. This doesn’t redound to our benefit.
And while the notion that we weigh too much because we buy, order and eat too much may be obvious, it’s increasingly obscured. Study after study and report upon report looks at more particular reasons for obesity and excess pounds, focusing on the edges and the aggravators of the problem instead of the flabby core. And the number and variety of these investigations, not to mention the prominent showcase we in the news media give them, create the impression that alchemy, not appetite, is our enemy, and that if we could just fine-tune our daily schedules, rejigger our protein-to-carbohydrate ratios or wallow sufficiently in fiber, all would be well.
It’s as if we’re micro-focusing on less daunting and less damning culprits to distract ourselves from the one that’s most fearsome and difficult to change, which is the sheer volume of food that many Americans are accustomed to consuming.
In The Times alone over the last six weeks, I’ve read stories or blog posts about research that explored the effect of a proper breakfast on weight loss; the implications of gut bacteria on a person’s tendency to be fat or thin; the impact that sleep deprivation can have on dietary cravings; the possible utility of strenuous exercise as an appetite suppressant; and the unhealthy food choices that a favorite sports team’s defeat can cause.
The examination of how and why we overeat is like some full-employment scheme for physicians, nutritionists, scientists and professors, who have looked at the roles of alcohol, of additives, of peer pressure, of bribes. One book that landed on my desk recently posits that pollution is making us fat and traces the parallel rise in air-conditioning and obesity.
Todays video - "Young Frankenstein In Five Minutes", a compilation of scenes from this incredibly funny Mel Brooks movie.
Gene Wilder, Marty Feldman and Madeline Kahn are wonderful......
Todays beer jokes
Tim- 'I think beer must be good. My dad says the more beer he drinks
the prettier my mom gets.'
Melanie - 'Beer makes my dad sleepy and we get to watch what we want
on television when he is asleep, so beer is nice.
Grady - 'My Mom gets funny when she drinks it and takes her top off
at parties.'
Lilly - 'My Dad loves beer. The more he drinks, the better he dances.
One time he danced right into the pool.'
Mary - 'I think beer tastes bitter and I don't like it. Mom likes it,
but she gets tired and leans on guys and they have to help her to the
bedroom for a quick nap. When they come back, she is all perky and
happy, and the guys are all tired out.
Brittney - I don't like beer, but mom says it helps you get the guys
you want, so I'll have to learn to like it.
Jack - 'My Mom drinks beer and she says silly things and picks on my
father. Whenever she drinks beer she yells at Dad and tells him to go
bury his bone down the street again, but that doesn't make any
sense.'
Fergie - My mom never drinks beer when dad is home, but he sometimes
does.
Then she yells at him when it makes him want to smooch. Mom only
drinks beer when dad is away. When it makes her want to smooch, she
will do it with everybody, even the Pizza guy, and he is weird.
Brad - Beer tastes disgusting. My brother told me it makes you think
the girls are pretty. With his girlfriend I would need an awful lot of beer.
Todays jokes for golfers
David Feherty, CBS and Golf Channel announcer finds unique, colorful and uninhibited ways of explaining or describing whatever is on his mind.......probably always on time delay these days.
Feherty Quotes:
"Fortunately, he (Rory) is 22 years old so his right wrist should be the strongest muscle in his body."
"That ball is so far left, Lassie couldn't find it if it was wrapped in bacon."
"I am sorry Nick Faldo couldn't be here this week. He is attending the birth of his next wife."
"They don't do comedy at the Masters. The Masters, for me, is like holding onto a really big collection of gas for a week. It's like having my buttocks surgically clenched at Augusta General Hospital on Wednesday, and surgically unclenched on Monday on the way to Hilton Head."
Jim Furyk's swing - "It looks like an octopus falling out of a tree."
"He's (Luke Donald) a bloody walking ATM. I slid my AmEx between the cheeks of his ass and out popped $500."
Describing VJ's prodigious practice regime - "VJ hits more balls than Elton John's chin."
"That's a great shot with that swing."
"It's OK - the bunker stopped it."
At Augusta 2011 - "It's just a glorious day. The only way to ruin a day like this would be to play golf on it."
"That was a great shot - if they'd put the pin there today."
"Everything moves except his bowels."
"Watching Phil Mickelson play golf is like watching a drunk chasing a balloon near the edge of a cliff."
"That green appears smaller than a Pygmie's nipple".
Forward this to any golfers with a sense of humor..
Feherty Quotes:
"Fortunately, he (Rory) is 22 years old so his right wrist should be the strongest muscle in his body."
"That ball is so far left, Lassie couldn't find it if it was wrapped in bacon."
"I am sorry Nick Faldo couldn't be here this week. He is attending the birth of his next wife."
"They don't do comedy at the Masters. The Masters, for me, is like holding onto a really big collection of gas for a week. It's like having my buttocks surgically clenched at Augusta General Hospital on Wednesday, and surgically unclenched on Monday on the way to Hilton Head."
Jim Furyk's swing - "It looks like an octopus falling out of a tree."
"He's (Luke Donald) a bloody walking ATM. I slid my AmEx between the cheeks of his ass and out popped $500."
Describing VJ's prodigious practice regime - "VJ hits more balls than Elton John's chin."
"That's a great shot with that swing."
"It's OK - the bunker stopped it."
At Augusta 2011 - "It's just a glorious day. The only way to ruin a day like this would be to play golf on it."
"That was a great shot - if they'd put the pin there today."
"Everything moves except his bowels."
"Watching Phil Mickelson play golf is like watching a drunk chasing a balloon near the edge of a cliff."
"That green appears smaller than a Pygmie's nipple".
Forward this to any golfers with a sense of humor..
Todays Minnesota joke
Sven, a doctor in Duluth, Minnesota wanted to get off work and go hunting, so he approached his assistant."Ole, I am goin' huntin' tomorrow and don't vunt to close da clinic. I vunt you to take care of the clinic and take care of all my patients."
"Ja, I can do that fer shore, sir!" answers Ole.
The doctor goes hunting and returns the following day and asks: "So, Ole, how vuss yur day?"
Ole told him that he took care of three patients. "The first vun had da headache so I giff him TYLENOL."
"Bravo, mate, and the second vun?" asks the Dr. Sven."The second vun had stomach burning and I gave him MAALOX, sir," says Ole.
"Bravo, bravo! You're good at this and vut about da third vun?" asks the Doctor.
"Sir, I vus yust sitting here and suddenly, the door opens and a lady enters. Like a flame, she undresses herself, taking off everything including her panties and lies down on the table and shouts: ‘HELP ME - I haven't seen a man in over two years!!’"
"Tunderin' Lard Jeezus, Ole, vut did you do?" asks the doctor."I put drops in her eyes!!"
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