Shutdown Hits Parks Across Nation (+video)

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Photo Credit: KAZVorpal

Photo Credit: KAZVorpal

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.

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McCain: ‘Apocalypse is Upon Us’ (+video)

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john_mccain4622Canceled football games and a veterans’ insurrection were among the unexpected events that marked the first day of the federal government shutdown.

The Department of Defense released a statement early Tuesday that shocked college sports fans. The department said that all athletic competitions at the Army, Navy and Air Force academies would be postponed for as long as the government remained closed.

The Air Force and Navy are scheduled to square off in a sold-out, nationally televised football game on Saturday, while the Army has a planned match-up against Boston College. If the government impasse isn’t resolved by Thursday, both games will be suspended.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a graduate of the Naval Academy, told reporters that the cancelation of the Air Force-Navy game would be the “defining moment” of the shutdown.

“The apocalypse is upon us,” McCain lamented.

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‘Deuce Bigalow’ Actor: I Haven’t Made a Movie in California in 7 Years Because of Democrats (+video)

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Photo Credit: Wikipedia

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

“Saturday Night Live” alumnus and “Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo” actor Rob Schneider appeared in a short video (embedded below) with California Assemblyman — and Republican gubernatorial hopeful — Tim Donnelly and Politichicks reporter Ann-Marie Murrell on Monday. In the video, Schneider declared that he hasn’t worked on a film in California in seven years because of the recent rise of Democrats in state elections.

“The state of California is a mess,” Schneider declared, “and the supermajority of Democrats is not working. I’ve been a lifelong Democrat and I have to switch over because it no longer serves the people of this great state.

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Showdown on Meet the Press and Ted Cruz Doesn’t Back Down (+video)

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Screen shot 2013-09-30 at 12.41.00 AMNBC’s David Gregory repeatedly pressed Republican Texas Senator Ted Cruz Sunday, over his strategy aimed at defunding President Barack Obama’s landmark healthcare law.

The showdown came on Sunday’s “Meet the Press” with Gregory taking issue with Cruz’s characterization that the Democrats in Congress and the president won’t compromise over their stance on Obamacare.

“There are not protests in the streets arguing to do away with this law in the way that you’d like. Again 56% in one poll said let’s uphold the law,” Gregory continued. “I’m focusing on results. Where have you moved anything?”

Cruz responded, noting even unions are asking for exemptions to the law, but that answer did not satisfy Gregory who continued to grill the Texas firebrand.

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Ten States where Obamacare Wipes out Existing Health Care Plans (+video)

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller

Photo Credit: Daily Caller

President Barack Obama famously promised, “If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.” He later got even more specific.

“If you are among the hundreds of millions of Americans who already have health insurance through your job, or Medicare, or Medicaid, or the VA, nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have,” Obama said.

But as Obamacare’s rollout approaches, we have learned this is not true. Here are the ten states where consumers may like their health care plans, but they won’t be able to keep them.

1) California: 58,000 will lose their plans under Obamacare. The first bomb dropped in California with a mass exodus from the most populated state’s Obamacare exchange. Aetna, the country’s third largest insurer, left first in July and was closely followed by UnitedHealth. Anthem Blue Cross pulled out of California’s Obamacare exchange for small businesses as well.

Fifty-four percent of Californians expect to lose their coverage, according to an August poll.

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Saturday Night Live Mocks Obamacare (+video)

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Photo Credit: SNL Screenshot

Photo Credit: SNL Screenshot

Late night comedy show Saturday Night Live turned the tables on President Barack Obama and devoted an entire skit last night aimed at mocking his signature healthcare law.

The roughly seven-minute skit depicted an actor playing the president delivering a speech dedicated to showcasing the supposed benefits of the healthcare law.

Unfortunately the stories that “everyday Americans” deliver contradict the President’s message about the ease and enrolling and the benefits of Obamacare. “Senator Ted Cruz” also shows up to recite some Dr. Suess.

Watch here. (Warning video contains mature content):

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Glenn Greenwald Working on New NSA Revelations (+video)

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Two American journalists known for their investigations of the United States’ government said Saturday they’ve teamed up to report on the National Security Agency’s role in what one called a “U.S. assassination program.”

The journalists provided no evidence of the purported U.S. program at the news conference, nor details of who it targeted.

Jeremy Scahill, a contributor to The Nation magazine and the New York Times best-selling author of “Dirty Wars,” said he will be working with Glenn Greenwald, the Rio-based journalist who has written stories about U.S. surveillance programs based on documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

“The connections between war and surveillance are clear. I don’t want to give too much away but Glenn and I are working on a project right now that has at its center how the National Security Agency plays a significant, central role in the U.S. assassination program,” said Scahill, speaking to moviegoers in Rio de Janeiro, where the documentary based on his book made its Latin American debut at the Rio Film Festival.

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Senator Says Politics Have Reached Civil War Levels (+video)

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Photo Credit: ryanjreilly

Photo Credit: ryanjreilly

As the clock ticks down toward a possible government shutdown, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, isn’t holding back.

On the Senate floor before 10 a.m. Friday, the senator gave a speech describing how American politics have reached the level at which “a small group of willful men and women who have a certain ideology”—read: the tea party and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas—have been able to take over the congressional budget debate in the last week. “Since they can’t get their way,” Harkin said, “they’re going to create this confusion and discourse and hope that the public will be so mixed up in who is to blame for this, that they’ll blame both sides.”

This isn’t just congressional business as usual, Harkin said. It’s much, much more dire:

It’s dangerous. It’s very dangerous. I believe, Mr. President, we are at one of the most dangerous points in our history right now. Every bit as dangerous as the break-up of the Union before the Civil War.

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Senate Backs Cloture Over Cruz’s Objections – 18 Stand With Cruz (+video)

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller

Photo Credit: Daily Caller

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz’s latest battle to get the Senate to defund Obamacare came to an abrupt halt Friday afternoon, when a large majority of senators voted in favor of the procedural move that Cruz had been opposing as the last barrier against the health-care law.

Over Cruz’s objections, Senators voted 79-19 in favor of invoking cloture on the House-passed resolution to fund the federal government past Monday, when the current funding resolution expires. Voting on cloture is a procedural vote that allows the Senate to move forward with consideration of the bill.

Cruz was joined by just 18 of his fellow Republicans: Sens. Mike Crapo of Idaho, Mike Enzi of Wyoming, Deb Fischer of Nebraska, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Dean Heller of Nevada, James Inhofe of Oklahoma, Mike Lee of Utah, Jim Moran of Kansas, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Rob Portman of Ohio, Jim Risch of Idaho, Pat Roberts of Kansas, Marco Rubio of Florida, Tim Scott of South Carolina, Jeff Sessions of Alabama, Richard Shelby of Alabama, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and David Vitter of Louisiana.

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Romney Decries the ‘Political Dysfunction’ in Washington

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romney_bigotryMitt Romney thinks Obamacare is a bad law and would like to see it “go away,” but said Friday he disagrees with how conservatives are trying to engineer that.

In an interview with CNN, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee said using the the Affordable Care Act in the debate over a funding bill and debt ceiling rise is not effective — and counterproductive.

“We’re more effective tactically not to use a shutdown of some kind to pursue the … anti-Obamacare objective,” he said. “I don’t think that will be as effective.”

“The tactic of using a government shutdown to try and push that will be counterproductive politically, that it’s going to end up hurting our party, and it could well – it could be inconvenience, and hurt some individuals as well, and checks are late, and so forth,” said Romney.

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