Harry Reid, the Senate hand-puppet of Obama, refused to negotiate and voted down the last compromise on the CR. The last few versions of that CR gave away all the gains, defunding Obamacare, and replaced defunding with some minuscule changes that really made no difference. But Obama Reid, refused to play and time ran out.
Good!
So what is the effect? Not all that much. I noticed my neighbor was home mowing his grass this morning. He’s a ‘secret squirrel’ working for the FAA. I don’t know if he has been furloughed or if it’s his day off. He’s on rotating shifts.
I saw a notice sent out by Whiteman AFB listing the functions that would continue and which ones were reduced or closed. Single enlisted Airmen were hit the worse. No Wi-Fi in the barrack’s common rooms and no cable-TV either. The base library is closed and the hours of the auto hobby shop have been reduced, but the Base Exchange is open as is all the usual military functions.
Whiteman AFB Status:
Available:
– Child Development Center and School Age Programs will operate as normal.
– Military Personnel Section (e.g. ID cards) will remain open; however, wait times may be affected.
– Base fire and emergency response services will operate as normal.
– Base Dining Facility will operate as normal.
– All emergency service calls (e.g. HVAC, plumbing, electricity, carpentry) will operate as normal, although response times may be affected.
– All law enforcement and security functions will operate as normal.
– All Non-appropriated (NAF) functions are exempted and will operate as normal including the Club, Golf Course, Lodging, Bowling Alley.
– All education and testing capability (PME/CDC testing, counseling and TA support) will be limited.
– Voicemail services will operate as normal.
– AAFES will remain open.
– Intramural sports games will continue; however, squadrons must provide volunteer officials
Unavailable:
– Airman and Family Readiness Center will have limited services.
– Dorm Residents postal delivery will cease. Residents will need to come to the Post Office to pick up their mail.
– Dorm common room internet services will cease.
– Cable TV service in military buildings will cease; family housing residents will not be affected.
– Grounds maintenance and litter patrol will cease; units must remove litter/debris from around their buildings and in common areas.
– Outdoor Recreation hours will be reduced to 20 hours/week; all trips/tours will be cancelled.
– Auto Hobby Hours will be reduced to 20 hours/week.
– Base Library will close.
– Community Activity Center will close.
– Information, Tickets and Tours (ITT) will close.
– Fitness Center exercise classes will be limited; a new schedule will be available at the Fitness Center.
I seem to remember when I was in the Air Force, Prez Nixon issued some wage and price freezes to control government costs and the runaway inflation created by Johnson’s Great Society and massive spending. I was assigned to Richards-Gebaur AFB and we had similar cutbacks. There was no internet, nor cable-TV then. The only noticeable impact was the closing of the base library, and the Airmen’s Club quit selling 3.2 beer. The NCO and O-clubs remained open as well as the commissary and BX. The on-base gas stations, run by the BX, kept the same hours, and no prices changed. If you lived off-base, as I did, you really didn’t notice any change. The brunt of the impact was to the unmarried enlisted Airmen living on base.
But the real question is what will be the political impact. Obama Reid is counting on Boehner and the RINO-boys caving. That will probably happen. Boehner and his RINO buds have no spine. They don’t want to jeopardize their membership in the Ruling Class.
The column below appeared today in the National Journal. It mirrors the theme of my posts for the last several months. The writer and the publication aren’t conservative. They’re members of the liberal mainstream, but it is telling that they, too, see the dangers coming towards us.
This impasse could be the breaking point for a political system that has gone from dysfunctional to nonfunctioning
Step back. Try for a moment to extrapolate what a government shutdown and discredited U.S. currency could do to the economy and the public’s faith in government. Think beyond next year’s congressional elections or even the 2016 presidential race. Factor in existing demographic and social trends. I did, and this is what I concluded:
1. The Republican Party is marginalizing itself to the brink of extinction.
2. President Obama can’t capitulate to GOP demands to unwind the fairly legislated and litigated Affordable Care Act. To do so would be political malpractice and a poor precedent for future presidents.
3. Despite the prior two points, Obama and his party won’t escape voters’ wrath. Democrats are less at fault but not blameless.
4. This may be the beginning of the end of Washington as we know it. A rising generation of pragmatic, non-ideological voters is appalled by the dysfunctional leadership of their parents and grandparents. History may consider October 2013 their breaking point. There will come a time when Millennials aren’t just mad as hell; they won’t take it anymore.
At this point, the writer had to revert to his liberal bias. He applauds ‘Pub Senators like Cole (R-OK), who supported Cruz, and Coburn (R-OK), who supported Harry Reid, calling both “conservatives.” The writer villainizes Ted Cruz, Lee and their supporters as “extremists” who oppose governing(!?).
The Republican Party may be splitting apart. The divide is between conservatives who want to limit government and extremists who oppose governing.
The latter sect is represented by Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas who is misleading his supporters. He knows that the GOP can’t overturn Obamacare because Republicans only control one half of one branch of government. And yet, Cruz and other tea party Republicans pledge to do the impossible, presumably to build email lists, bank accounts, and fame.
…
The strange thing is that Obamacare could be a good issue for the GOP. It is an unpopular law freighted with complexity. Successful implementation requires precision from an Obama team that has proved itself weak on the nitty-gritty of governing. One could argue that the GOP is fighting Obamacare at its peak strength – prior to implementation. Why not wait for it to go into effect, seize on the flaws and, as Cole says, win some elections?
Obama can’t and won’t gut his bill. Even if you set aside his politics, capitulation would set a horrible precedent: The nation’s credit and the government itself cannot be taken hostage by the extreme wing of a minority party.
At the risk of being accused of “false equivalency” I need to state the obvious: Obama and his party won’t emerge from a shutdown or debt crisis unscathed. To suggest otherwise is a false purity. For starters, the president of the United States is the living symbol of our government and thus receives undue credit when things are going well and outsized blame when they’re not.
Second, voters want Obama to work with Republicans – or at least try. The president is seen by just half of Americans as trying to work with GOP lawmakers, according to the New York Times/CBS News poll. That is down from six of 10 Americans who said the same thing in January 2012 and three-quarters who said he would work with Republicans in 2010 and 2011.
Remember the central promise of Obama’s presidency: He will change the culture of Washington. What happened? Obama has not only been taken hostage by the worst of Washington, gridlock and pettiness, but he seems to be suffering from Stockholm syndrome. His criticism of the GOP last week was as petulant as any GOP talking point. While announcing historic negotiations with Iran, a regime that sponsors terrorism, Obama said he wouldn’t bargain with the GOP.
Reaching out to rivals doesn’t mean capitulating on Obamacare. It does mean swallowing his pride, listening and helping the GOP find a way out of the box they’ve built for themselves. If this was merely a leadership pageant, Obama would win by default because House Speaker John Boehner is performing so poorly. But it’s not. It’s about the country that Obama leads, and everybody gets hurt when he cloisters himself off from the dirty process.
Obama’s job approval numbers are already slipping. For the first time in months, more voters disapprove of his performance than approve. Two-thirds of Americans think the country is on the wrong track. The “wrong track” metric is one that often tracks the president’s popularity. A government cataclysm this month will heighten voters’ anxiety and Obama’s jeopardy.
The salt in voters’ wounds is that this fight does not directly address their biggest issue, jobs. It also not about the nation’s long-term, entitlement-fed debt, an existential issue both parties stopped trying to solve. — The National Journal.
The writer seems to place great faith in the “Millennials.” True, some are becoming politically active—as Tea Party members. Others, raised in the entitlement atmosphere of public education, are whining about the lack of “good paying” jobs, lack of diversity and the unfairness of their situation.
Some may come to realize that reality is not fair and become Tea Partiers. The remainder will be locked into a mold of waiting for Mom and Dad, or the government, to bail them out; not believing the days of bailouts are past.
Where does all this lead beyond the next election cycle or two? Nobody knows, but the best place to look for answers is within the Millennial Generation, the nation’s rising leaders and voters. Last month, in a lengthy essay on Millennials [ The Outsiders: How Can Millennials Change Washington If They Hate It?], I concluded that their revolutionary view of government and politics points toward two possible outcomes. One is that they might opt out of Washington, which leads us to some dark places. The second and more likely outcome is they will blow up Washington (“disruption” is the tech-inspired term they use), and build something better outside the current two-party dysfunction.
Millennials don’t fit neatly into either the Democratic or Republican parties. They are highly empowered, impatient, and disgusted with politics today.
“This tension – two parties thinking they are in the trenches dueling it out, and a burgeoning generation who reject trench warfare altogether – is, for me, the key,” said Michelle Diggles a senior policy adviser at the Democratic think-tank Third Way and an expert in demographics and generational politics. “Washington doesn’t get that change isn’t just a slogan. It’s about to become a reality,”
“Neither party,” she said, “gets what’s coming down the pike.”
What happens in Washington this month might make a Millennial Revolution all the more likely. — The National Journal.
When the writer mentions “Millennials,” I see him really referring to the conservative base that is supporting Cruz, Lee and others. Those conservative supporters are washing their hands of the two party, business-as-usual Washington environment and demand change. If you change “Millennial” above to “grassroot conservatives,” I think he is right.
The “Shutdown”, will disrupt some in the short-run. In the long-run, it really won’t make much difference if Boehner and McConnell caves as Obama Reid expects. But! If the real conservatives in Congress apply pressure, and pressure is applied as well from the electorate, perhaps it will be Obama Reid, who ends up failing…to the betterment of us all.
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GROTON, Conn. (AP) – The U.S. Navy has christened its newest attack submarine, a $2.6 billion vessel that can launch cruise missiles, deliver special forces commandos and carry out surveillance over areas at land and sea.