THE SHUTDOWN

Yeah … plenty to say about this.  Here are some points:

• First, it is NOT a government shutdown.  The government is still operating.  It is a partial shutdown of non-essential government functions. 
• Blame the Republicans?  Well sure!  That’s what the media is doing, and that is what 0bama and the Democrats knew the media would do.  Never a doubt. 
• There is a reason we have a Senate, a House of Representatives and an Executive Department.  There’s a reason we have three distinct branches of government (well, four … if you count the media.)  It’s called checks and balances.  Perhaps Herman’s listeners will learn something about this.
• Government workers who are furloughed will not lose any money.  Yes, they may be going without paychecks right now.  Many of them are working on other projects.  Some have actually engaged in other money-making activities.  But they WILL eventually be paid for this time they are NOT working.
• It may come as a surprise to some, but the purpose of government is not to provide jobs for government workers.  We don’t pay taxes in order to provide jobs for government workers.  You are not going to get any sympathy from me – or from other clear-thinking Americans – by pissing and moaning all over my radio and TV about the money these workers are supposedly losing during this partial shutdown.
• Who gets to decide what government functions are curtailed during this budget impass?  The president, that’s who.
• In previous shutdowns .. the 1995 shutdown, for instance .. memorials in Washington were not shut down.  They were not closed.  This time they were.  Why?  A National Park Service Spokesman says they were closed at the specific direction of the White House.  Now when I get to talking about this today … well, this is where I stand the greatest chance of losing it and letting you know just exactly what I think about Barack Obama. 

  I have to take some comfort in this shutdown scenario believing that more Americans every day are discovering what an arrogant, narcissistic, incompetent schmuck we have in the White House.

Government Shutdown Survival Guide

Sorry it’s so late; hopefully you aren’t dead already from governmentlessness.
GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN SURVIVAL GUIDE
* First things first, make sure to find something or someone who will interfere and get in the way of everything you try to do. Needy pets and small children will work fine, but ideally you want it to be someone loud and obnoxious who is constantly pestering you.
* You’ll need someone to randomly take money from you and spend it in ways that benefit absolutely no one. This is hard for civilians to replicate. You may need the person to just burn the money — but far away from you so you don’t even get the benefit of warmth from the burning.
* Form a committee in the neighborhood whose job it is to make decisions on every little thing. No matter how small or insignificant it is, make sure it has to go through the committee first.
* Help someone else pay for credit cards they are using to pay off other credit cards.
* Have someone with no knowledge about health care or economics make decisions on your health insurance.
* Find people to yell at you and look down on you and boss you around. The key, though, is that these need to be really stupid people who ideally have no useful skills or experience whatsoever. Teenagers are a good source for this.
* Find people who aren’t working and pay them to call you a racist and extremist and to demand more money from you.
* * * *
Do all this, and it will be like the government never shutdown. Ah, the comforting feeling of my caring government kicking me in the shins.

Exemption Contention

Some say claims that Congress is exempt from Obamacare are disingenuous, and that the workaround they’re getting — employer contributions to their health care coverage — is justified, because all other employers are free to do the same for their employees.

Well, the last time I checked, I believe their employers would essentially be us taxpayers — and, unlike taxpayees, most of us in the private sector don’t get automatic cost-of-living pay increases that we must humbly vote to not accept, in order to not receive them.

That said, I think it’s time for a comparative pictorial vocabulary primer.

Today’s word is “exempt.”

Shutdown

So, the government is shut down?
Maybe.
Hopefully.
Here’s what I don’t understand, though, and I’m hoping some of the smart people around here can explain it to me.
The government doesn’t really shut down. Some of it keeps going. I think they say “essential services” stay running, but a lot of government employees will be sent home, according to news reports:

If Congress fails to fund the federal government by Oct. 1, the start of the new fiscal year, the government will go into partial shutdown. Some government functions – those deemed essential – will continue as usual, while others will be suspended. If a shutdown proceeds the way it would have in 2011 (had the last funding impasse had not been resolved in time), 800,000 of 2.1 million federal employees would be furloughed.

And that’s what I don’t understand. Why is the government doing anything other than essential services in the first place? I mean, if it’s not essential, why is the government doing it?
That’s easy. Because people want you and me to pay for their stuff. It’s totally unreasonable to expect people who want things to actually go out and get a job and buy stuff, when they have the government spending other people’s money to give them things.
Now, the media is gonna play this whole thing as the mean ol’ Republicans — especially those influenced by the Evil Tea Party — not caring for women and babies and such.
But don’t blame the GOP. Or the TEA Party.
Blame me. I’d love to get credit for shutting down non-essential government services. So, if you’re one of those leeches that live off the government and you’re impacted by the shutdown of non-essential services, maybe you’re non-essential.
So go make yourself essential, grow up, and become a productive member of society.
Or be your normal self. As long as the non-essential services aren’t supplying non-essential people with non-essentials, I’m good with it.

Shutdown!!!1!!!11!

Wow! Shutdown is worse than Sequester.
Wait. Sequester is still going on, right? So we have Sequester AND Shutdown? Arrgghh! How will we survive it?
Already, the moon broke loose from its orbit and is crashing into the sea sometime this afternoon. Plus, in case you missed it, the sun didn’t turn on this morning.
Also, iPhones aren’t working. Android phones, either. Only BlackBerry phones work during Shutdown. Who saw that coming?
Traffic lights are out. Buildings are collapsing. Breaking Bad won’t be airing. It’s pandemonium.
Worst of all, the Internetz are down, and you can’t even read this brilliant post.
What can we do?
Nothing.
You can’t call on the military to defend us as Shutdown roams the streets of America and destroys the pieces of our country that Sequester left standing.
We’re doomed, I tell ya. Doomed.

Analogies for Obamacare

So Ted Cruz was filibustering — or doing something like a filibuster — to stop Obamacare. And part of what he’s been saying in his many hours is trying to explain what a disaster Obamacare will be. People already know it’s bad, but it’s not even in full effect yet. But any day now, Obama will be like, “Now witness the firepower of this fully ARMED and OPERATIONAL health care law!” It’s hard to comprehend how bad that will be, so I’m trying to come up with some analogies to explain.
ANALOGIES FOR OBAMACARE.
* It’s the Hindenburg crashing into the Titanic.
* It’s a tall burning building toppling onto the fire station.
* It’s a nuclear bomb that only wipes out hospitals and your savings.
* It’s a train crashing head on into another train and they’re on a bridge and all the train cars rain down onto an orphanage below.
* It’s Miley Cyrus.
* It’ll be like you’re trapped in a burning building, but instead of “Break Glass in Case of Fire” to get to the extinguisher it’s “Open Clamshell Packaging in Case of Fire.”
* It’s the new Star Wars sequels directed by Joel Schumacher and starring Tyler Perry.
* It’s Gilbert Gottfried loudly narrating your life wherever you go.
* It’s New Coke, except it’s mandatory to drink and trying to obtain Classic Coke will get you arrested.
* It’s there’s a huge war looming, but the only recruits the military can get resemble the members of One Direction.
* It’s going on a blind date and finding it’s Debbie Wasserman Schultz who then roofies you and you wake up legally married to her.

Defunding Obamacare Scheme Pros and Cons

So this push to somehow defund Obamacare is still going on. They got like a bill to defund it… and the Republicans are going to filibuster their own bill for some reason. Yeah, it’s getting kind of weird. Well, a lot of people are saying we have to make the stand now or we’ll never stop Obamacare, and others are saying it’s a stupid scheme that will never work and could cost Republicans politically if the government gets shutdown and people get angry.
So, I think we need to weigh the pros and cons of this scheme. I was going to put pros on one side and cons on the other and then realized the html is kinda complicated for that — I’ll have to do a table or something and I just don’t feel like doing that. So, I’ll do a list of pros followed by a list of cons that we can weigh against each other.
DEFUNDING OBAMACARE SCHEME PROS
* Obama doesn’t like it.
* It’s standing up for the Constitution and for the American people against an oppressive administration.
* It’s takes a stand Republicans should take against the horrible bill, Obamacare.
* If we don’t stop Obamacare now, it will become the law of the land and be nearly impossible to repeal as most entitlements are.
* This could lead to a government shutdown, which is good because the government is stupid and we don’t need it.
* And everyone will probably blame the shutdown on Obama and be like, “Obama, why did you let the government shutdown over your stupid bill which we hate?”
* When successful, the defunding could basically destroy the Obama presidency, perhaps crushing Obama so much he’ll just mope around the White House in a bathrobe all day until the end of his dumb presidency.
* Biden won’t even be able to cheer him up with his juggling, clown antics, and falling down stairs.
* It will also crush the hopes and dreams of Obama’s dumb followers, leading to the collapse of the Democrat party.
* Starting with this success to roll back government would lead to future successes and eventually a small government with a balanced budget.
* We’d have such a prosperous future that will soon get our libertarian colony on the moon in which Obama and his administration will be forced to work there on a chain gang.
* American would finally be free of expensive, poorly thought out entitlements. Everyone we disagree with politically will most like starve to death without them.
* Future generations will look upon those who took this stand as heroes and make statues of us and sing songs of us — and hopefully not in whatever horrible pop-style is popular then.
* I’ll have a building named after me. A building on Mars. One that shoots a giant laser at our enemies. The Frank.
* And finally, the scheme to defund Obamacare inspired me to write a list and I like writing lists.
DEFUNDING OBAMACARE SCHEME CONS
* This probably won’t work and we’ll look stupid.
* The media will make fun of us for pursuing this dumb plan that was never going to work in the first place.
* It could cause Obamacare to cry, and when the American public see his puppy dogs eyes filled with tears, they’ll all be on his side.
* If we keep pushing this, the government could get shut down and then we’ll get blamed for it.
* Everyone will be like, “Why did you shut the government down over this defund Obamacare scheme that was never going to work! Stupid, stupid Republicans!”
* We’ll look like such idiots, it will lead to huge losses in 2014.
* Soon after, the leaderless, internally fighting Republican Party will dissolve, and the two party system will now be the Democrats and the Green Party.
* Eventually, the Green Party will be replaced by the Apes.
* The Apes will soon dominate over the Democrats until we’re all under ape rule. And then we’ll enslave.
* It may not be apes who do this; it may be robots.
* The only traces left of the Republican Party will be the insult, “You’re such a Republican!” which mean “You’re an idiot who pursues stupid plans that will never work and ruin everything for everyone!”
* I don’t think the list ended up as funny as I hoped.
So there are the pros and the cons. We just need to weigh them against each other and pick what we want to do. When we make a decision, does someone have Ted Cruz’s phone number so I can call him up and tell him what’s going on?