Shutdown: The government is shut and the sky hasn’t fallen, just as the sequester didn’t invite Armageddon. It’s time to realize just how much of government can be permanently furloughed.
‘In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem,” Ronald Reagan said after taking the oath of office.
He pointed out that “we have piled deficit upon deficit, mortgaging our future and our children’s future for the temporary convenience of the present.”
Sound familiar? And that was in 1981, when the deficit was under $80 billion, not $1 trillion as today; and the national debt was less than $1 trillion, not $17 trillion.
Government — more of it than ever — remains the problem today, more than it ever has.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-10-02 00:50:462013-10-02 00:50:46The Government Is Closed, But America Is Still Open
The White House and the Department of the Interior rejected a request from Rep. Steven Palazzo’s office to have World War II veterans visit the World War II memorial in Washington, the Mississippi Republican told The Daily Caller Tuesday.
Palazzo helped the veterans commit an act of civil disobedience against the Park Service Tuesday, when the heroes stormed through barricades around the closed memorial. (Related: WWII vets storm closed memorial as GOP congressman reportedly distracts cops)
The veterans were visiting the memorial as part of Honor Flight, a non-profit that provides veterans free transport to the nation’s capital to visit the memorials to the wars they fought in…
In a statement, Palazzo noted that he is introducing legislation to ensure that all Honor Flights are granted access this week. “This is an open-air memorial that the public has 24/7 access to under normal circumstances — even when Park Service personnel aren’t present,” Palazzo said in the statement. “It actually requires more effort and expense to shut out these veterans from their Memorial than it would to simply let them through. My office has been in touch with NPS officials and the Administration to try to resolve this issue.”
____________________________________________________________________________________________________ World War II Veterans Storm Memorial: Pols Help
by Mackenzie Weinger and Jose Delreal – Politico
(Politico) An Honor Flight of almost 100 WWII veterans on the Mississippi Gulf Coast flight didn’t let the barricades set up due to the government shutdown stop them from entering the memorial, according to reports and Tweets from the area. Shortly after, a group of Iowa vets wearing matching yellow shirts also entered the memorial and more visitors poured in….
“We’ll be here every day we’re shut down, until it’s done,” said Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) who was out doing her “usual morning walk” when she received an email from another member of Congress about the veterans. “I ran over here to do what I could,” Bachmann said…
Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert (R) also tweeted a photo of him with a veteran at the memorial, writing, “Proud to stand with #WW2 veterans today in Washington, DC,” and Michigan Rep. Bill Huizenga (R) told his followers, “Amazing grace sounds even more beautiful on bagpipes when I am helping WWII vets tour the monument they risked their lives for. #freedom.” Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Steve King (R-Iowa) were also on hand.
________________________________________________________________________________________ Veterans Break Past World War II Memorial Barricade
By Laura Koran and Ashley Killough — CNN
Busloads of World War II veterans, many in wheelchairs, broke past a barricade Tuesday morning to cross into the World War II Memorial, as onlookers applauded and a man playing the bagpipes led the way.
Moments earlier, a few Republican members of Congress had removed a section of the black gates that surrounded the site, allowing a line of veterans to roll past security officers, who willingly stood aside…
Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, called the moment heart-warming, if infuriating that intervention was necessary in the first place. “We don’t have guards around them at any other time,” King said of the monuments in a conference call with reporters Tuesday afternoon.
He referred to the gating off of the memorial as “a completely spiteful act,” by President Obama, comparing it to the White House canceling school tours in the aftermath of the automatic budget cuts of the sequester. “Perhaps the most bitter, spiteful act ever committed by a commander in chief”…
Carol Johnson, the spokeswoman for the National Mall and Parks, said the memorial hosts Honor Flight visitors every day. “We want to make sure that they have a good time and are enjoying the memorial, but legally, the National Mall and the memorial are closed,” she said. Asked if she was off the clock and volunteering her time, Johnson replied: “Apparently so.”
When elderly veterans pushed their way through police barricades Tuesday to get to the World War II memorial on the Mall, they not only became an instant online sensation, but also a symbolic protest against the government shutdown.
It wasn’t just in D.C.
National Park Service sites became a focus of the shutdown debate across the country, as the Grand Canyon and Yosemite national parks closed, and families had to cancel or alter long-planned vacations.
“In Nevada today — it is 7 in the morning out there — they are closing Great Basin National Park,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said as he opened his chamber for business Tuesday morning. “Lake Mead Recreational Park will be closed. Red Rock Recreation Area — over a million people come there every year. The visitor center will be closed.”
With Congress stalemated on how to fund the government for fiscal year 2014, which began Tuesday, government agencies gave nonessential employees a few hours to take care of last-minute business and then sent them home to wait out the legislative gridlock in Washington.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-10-02 00:45:542013-10-02 00:45:54Shutdown Hits Parks Across Nation (+video)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appealed to the world community not to be fooled by the new Iranian president’s conciliatory words, using a U.N. address to decry him as a “wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
Netanyahu, speaking to the U.N. General Assembly session on Tuesday in New York, sought to counter the positive reviews Iranian President Hassan Rouhani got over his debut at the international gathering. As the U.S. reaches out anew to Iran under its new leadership, the Israeli prime minister suggested Hassan Rouhani is no better than his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
“Rouhani didn’t sound like Ahmadinejad, but when it comes to Iran’s nuclear weapons program, the only difference between them is this: Ahmadinejad was the wolf in wolf’s clothing. Rouhani is a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” Netanyahu said. “A wolf who thinks he can pull the wool over the eyes of the international community.”
Netanyahu spoke after meeting in person with President Obama on Monday in Washington.
Netanyahu is wary amid efforts to re-launch diplomatic talks between the U.S. and Iran, and following a historic phone call on Friday between Obama and Rouhani. The Obama-Rouhani phone call was the first between an American and Iranian president since the Iranian revolution of 1979, which sent U.S.-Iranian relations into a deep freeze.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-10-02 00:45:442013-10-02 00:45:44Netanyahu In UN Address Decries Iran’s Rouhani as ‘Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing’
With the new “Obamacare” health insurance exchanges officially open for business, Glenn Beck and his radio co-hosts Pat Gray and Stu Burguiere went to www.healthcare.gov on Tuesday only to find what countless others were greeted with: glitches, errors, and messages asking you to hold.
Before long, they also spoke with a caller whose life is being turned upside down by the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.
“We appreciate your patience,” Gray said in the voice of a telephone operator. “You are Number 477,326 in line. Please continue to wait, as you will be taken in the order in which you arrived. Thank you for your patience.”…
After the break, Beck took a call from Bryan in Florida, who says his costs have already skyrocketed in the wake of the Affordable Care Act.
“Our insurance for the family plan…our current cost is $127 a week through United Healthcare which, you know, we have a really good plan,” Bryan began. “Well, my wife went in early this morning, they went over all the different options. The same plan for my family — nothing in our life has changed, everything is the same — is now $237.10 a week.”
But the jump from $127 a week to $237 a week isn’t even the worst of it, he said. Even if they opt for a plan that’s not as good as what they currently have, they’ll still be paying more than they were before.
Obamacare Quadruples Costs for Some, Rewards Others Who Quit Working
By Hans Bader.
Due to Obamacare, in North Carolina, insurance premiums will “triple for women, and quadruple for men” in the “individual-market” for health insurance. In Tennessee, Obamacare will triple men’s premiums, and double women’s, in the market for individual health insurance. Nationally, Obamacare will increase men’s premiums by 99 percent, and women’s by 62%.
Kathy Kristof of CBS MoneyWatch describes experiencing a 67 percent spike in her premiums, for a worse policy than she had before:
“The promise that you could keep your old policy, if you liked it, has proved illusory. My insurer, Kaiser Permanente, informed me in a glossy booklet that ‘At midnight on December 31, we will discontinue your current plan because it will not meet the requirements of the Affordable Care Act.’
“My premium, the letter added, would go from $209 a month to $348, a 66.5 percent increase that will cost $1,668 annually . . . the things that mattered to me – that I would be able to limit my out-of-pocket costs if I had a catastrophic ailment – got worse under my new Obamacare policy. My policy, which has always paid 100 percent of the cost of annual check-ups, had a $5,000 annual deductible for sick visits and hospital stays. Once I paid that $5,000, the plan would pay 100 percent of any additional cost. That protected me from economic devastation in the event of a catastrophic illness, such as cancer.
“Kaiser’s Obamacare policy has a $4,500 deductible, but then covers only 40 percent of medical costs for office visits, hospital stays and drugs. Out-of-pocket expenses aren’t capped until the policyholder pays $6,350 annually.”
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-10-02 00:45:022013-10-02 00:45:02How Obamacare has Changed One Family’s Situation to ‘It’s Either Eat or Buy Health Insurance’
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will take one of the biggest hits of any federal agency if the government shuts down this week, operating with under 7 percent of its employees, according to guidance issued by the agency.
Among those furloughed would be most workers at the Office of Air and Radiation, which is in charge of writing and implementing most of the EPA’s major air pollution rules. The clock would also stop, for now, on the EPA’s eagerly-awaited proposal on renewable fuel volume standards for 2014.
The EPA said its plan for dealing with a shutdown would classify 1,069 employees, out of 16,205, as essential. These employees would continue to work if Congress fails to secure a budget deal by midnight Monday to avoid disruption to federal funding.
Taking the air and radiation unit off the grid will tighten timelines to meet certain court-imposed deadlines, said one expert.
“People are not going to be able to be working on these rules at home,” said Dina Kruger, an environmental regulation consultant and former climate change director at the EPA, who worked at the agency when the government shut down in 1996.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-10-02 00:40:132013-10-02 00:40:13EPA to Be Hit Hard in Shutdown, Could Delay Renewable Fuel Standard
The last version of the continuing resolution that House Speaker John Boehner (R.-Ohio) pushed through the Republican-controlled House of Representatives on Monday—and that the Democrat-controlled Senate summarily rejected—surrendered a position that House Republicans had taken in the previous CR that protected Americans from being forced by an Obamacare regulation to act against their moral or religious convictions.
The Obamacare regulation in question effectively prohibits American Catholics from freely practicing their faith in the way they live their daily lives.
Indeed, the Catholic bishops of the United States have unanimously declared this regulation an “unjust and illegal mandate” and “a violation of personal civil rights.”
Many of the nation’s Catholic bishops have also publicly declared in writing that they “will not obey it.”
The CR the House approved after midnight on Sunday included an amendment sponsored by Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R.-Tenn.). That amendment said the Obamacare “preventive services” regulation–which requires almost all health-care plans to cover sterilizations, contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs–could not be imposed between now and Jan. 1, 2015 on employers, health insurers or individuals who opposed “such requirement for coverage based on religious or moral objections.”
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-10-02 00:35:102013-10-02 00:35:10Latest House CR Funds and Permits Obamacare’s Attack on Free Exercise of Catholicism
“In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies,” said Winston Churchill.
What is the truth behind the Beltway lies about these crazy Republicans crashing our government?
Twice in the last week House Republicans have voted unanimously to fund the U.S. government.
If national polls are to be believed, those House Republicans are doing exactly what America wants. A majority of Americans oppose a government shutdown. And a majority oppose Obamacare.
Who, then, is preventing the government from being funded?
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-10-02 00:30:282013-10-02 00:30:28Buchanan: The Beltway Lies of the ObamaCare War
A federal judge ruled Monday evening that the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee could indeed proceed with a lawsuit against the Justice Department to access certain Fast and Furious documents.
Attorney General Eric Holder had attempted to dismiss the suit. But U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson turned aside that request, asserting the House claim: President Obama could not claim executive privilege and halt certain “Operation Fast and Furious” records from being turned over to Congress for review, Politico reported.
Another lawsuit has been filed against the president’s health care takeover strategy – this time by a Florida company complaining that Barack Obama had no authority to simply go in and change the law once it had been approved by Congress and signed.
It was last July, according to reports, that Obama simply announced he was changing the law, which had scheduled a requirement for employers to provide adequate and affordable health insurance starting Jan. 1, 2014, or pay huge fines.
Obama, responding to complaints from businesses, simply changed the effective date of that requirement to Jan. 1, 2015, strategically after the 2014 elections.
Obamacare already has been the subject of dozens of lawsuits, and the U.S. Supreme Court last year ruled that it is a tax, and therefore constitutional, even thought he Obama administration had argued it wasn’t a tax.
There is another case now heading toward the U.S. Supreme Court, too, that could end up with critical sections being determined to be illegal.
by Charles C. Johnson – Daily Caller 
