A few days on the Oregon Coast

I can't get enough of the beautiful Oregon Coast, and Yachats is one of my favorites, too bad it's a fair drive from Portland, so not good for an overnight trip, but spend a few days there and you will be at peace with yourself.  Take a walk along the dramatic rocks 50 feet from your room at the Fireside Motel, go into Yachats and enjoy the friendly feel of the town, drive to Waldport and have a fantastic helping of fish & chips at the Lazy Dayz Cafe, and drive up the Yachats River road to spectacular viewpoints in the hills.
See pictures Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3.

I Am a Terrorism Suspect, And Now You Are Too

Explore how the NSA looks at potential terrorism targets using the "3 Hops" method.  The Guardian has an interactive tool to show how you get a ridiculous number of suspicious characters.  Just by reading a Blog, you could be swept up in a terrorism investigation.

You don’t need to be talking to a terror suspect to have your communications data analysed by the NSA. The agency is allowed to travel “three hops” from its targets – who could be people who talk to people who talk to people who talk to you. Facebook, where the typical user has 190 friends, shows how three degrees of separation gets you to a network bigger than the population of Colorado. How many people are three “hops” from you?

NSA Circus Returns to Congress

Clapper and Alexander on the NSA road comedy tour went to hearings before the House intelligence committee, and did their usual act.  Why do those people still have jobs?

• Should the power of the NSA be limited more?  No.  We prevented 54 plots, don't ask me how.
• Did Obama order surveillance of Angela Merkel?  Maybe, I don't know.  Somebody did.

Dancing around the central question of how much Obama knew about NSA spying on foreign leaders, Clapper testified that the intelligence agencies “do only what the policymakers, writ large, have actually asked us to do.” But he added that the “level of detail” about how those requirements are implemented rarely rises to the attention of presidents.

Clapper and Alexander with their arrogant attitudes act as if the fix is in and nothing will change.  Considering they still have jobs in government, maybe they're right, nothing has changed so far.

NSA Circus, Nobody Can Keep Their Story Straight

The story of NSA spying on Angela Merkel and other friendly heads of state is a prototypical one of Washington circus, which has prompted a new round of "Reviews" ordered by President Obama and Dianne Feinstein of the Senate Intelligence Committee.  According to the Guardian and CNN  there is a major fight brewing in the Administration over who is throwing whom under the bus.  He either knew and is denying it or he didn't know, which most people find not credible.  He either found about it last summer and ordered it stopped, or he let it go on.  Incredible stuff, but in my view we won't find out from any of the current circus performers, they all have no credibility.  I wouldn't trust anybody's word unless it came from Ron Wyden or Mark Udall, and so far they aren't saying.

First CNN.

It's plausible that Obama wouldn't know about specific surveillance targets, said CNN National Security Analyst Fran Townsend, a member of the CIA external advisory board.

She said overall intelligence collection priorities are well-known by the White House. "Specific targets, however, (like) Angela Merkel's cell phone, are not the sort of thing discussed with the President of the United States."

No one should expect the President to know everything the NSA is doing, said Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University.

"But when you're talking about the surveillance of world leaders, and an issue that's been controversial for a while now, you would expect that there's some knowledge either by the President or people surrounding him. ... I do think there's surprise that this was off the radar in the inner circles of the White House."

And from the Guardian,

Did President Obama know about US spying on its friends, apparently going back more than a decade in the case of Angela Merkel? The answer is either "Of course he did, idiot" or "It's plausible he didn't, actually" – depending on whom you ask.
The White House message is clear: the president was in the dark.
The Wall Street Journal quoted an anonymous administration official on Sunday saying that the president didn't find out until this summer about spying on allies and he immediately ordered it stopped. The Washington Post published a corroborating report Monday.
Obama himself told ABC News on Monday that the White House merely gives the intelligence community "policy direction":

I'm the final user of all the intelligence that they gather. But they're involved in a whole wide range of issues.
We give them policy direction. But what we've seen over the last several years is their capacities continue to develop and expand, and that's why I'm initiating now a review to make sure that what they're able to do doesn't necessarily mean what they should be doing.

To members of the intelligence community, the president distancing himself in this way from data collection that fed his daily briefings is a betrayal. The intelligence officials involved aren't taking it sitting down, either. "Current and former US intelligence officials" are talking to Ken Dilanian of the Los Angeles Times, among others. The White House "signed off on surveillance targeting phone conversations of friendly foreign leaders," he reports:

Obama may not have been specifically briefed on NSA operations targeting a foreign leader's cellphone or email communications, one of the officials said. 'But certainly the National Security Council and senior people across the intelligence community knew exactly what was going on, and to suggest otherwise is ridiculous.'

Oregon, Neurotic Extroverts in Short Supply

Oregon is officially a laid back agreeable creative openness State, according to an article published in a Time.com Science Page, which quotes a personality study of over a million people conducted by a multinational team of researchers led by psychologist and American expat Jason Rentfrow of the University of Cambridge in the U.K.  I took the snap personality test and they recommended I move to Oklahoma.  It might be interesting to take the test, then ask your closest companion to rate your personality and see how closely your answers are to your companions'. 

States were graded on 5 personality traits, and Oregon scored above the national average on Agreeableness and Openness, so maybe Portlandia isn't so far off the mark.  Sanity was not a factor although Neuroticism was, and we're ranked low on that one.  Take the test.

Tea Party Club For Growth Wants Greg Walden Out

Oregons' only GOP Representative has been targeted by the Tea Party Club for Growth in the GOP primary according to Oregonlive.com, they potentially could be backing Klamath County Chairman Dennis Linthicum against Walden.

Walden, who was first elected in 1998, has been well-entrenched in his vast district and has had little serious competition since -- particularly in the Republican primary.  He is in the House leadership by virtue of his chairmanship of the National Republican Congressional Committee, which oversees the House GOP campaign effort.
But earlier this year, the Club for Growth -- a conservative group that often spends heavily in Republican races -- put Walden on its "Primary My Congressman" list of GOP members the group thinks should be ousted.
The immediate cause of the group's unhappiness was Walden's opposition to a proposal by President Barack Obama -- and supported by several Republican leaders -- to adopt smaller cost-of-living increases for Social Security recipients.  The group cited that, as well as several of his votes, as examples of a "long record of supporting increases in government spending and opposing fiscally conservative proposals."

Linthicum said he thinks he can win support from grassroots groups, particularly those involved in the Tea Party movement.  "I think the Tea Party individuals...are clearly in my camp," he said.
Linthicum recently took credit for Walden's vote against the budget deal that ended the shutdown, saying that he too would would have opposed the deal because it did not provide major spending reductions.
Walden has said he opposed the deal because it "kicks the can down the road" without providing a solution.  It marked one of the rare times that Walden had parted ways with House Speaker John Boehner on a major fiscal issue.

Blame It All On Snowden?

President Obama and the NSA brass have exhibited a basic flaw that has been exposed throughout the Snowden revelations, they make bad (I mean really bad) decisions and don't own up to them.  The US Press is still giving cover with soothing editorials, in one particularly mild, and offensive, NY Times article, they find no fault or deficiency in the decisions made, and in fact imply the NSA is out of control, totally ignoring the excuses President Obama has made for their actions.  It's clear that these were decisions made by Presidents Bush and Obama, not some out of control bureaucracy.  The NY Times helpfully offers this advice.

A good way out of this mess would be for Washington to take up the proposal made Friday by Germany and France to negotiate a formal pact that would set mutually acceptable surveillance guidelines.

The US press ought to be calling for blood on the floor, all the brass at the NSA, Feinstein, Chambliss, and all the rest of the toadying hawks on the Intelligence Committees.  The president has an opportunity to be presidential, but he's behaving like a school child caught shoplifting a pack of gum.  As for the NSA brass, General Keith Alexander is mouthing off that it's the fault of the press.  Glenn Greenwald and the Guardian have the only coverage fit to print.

Speaking of an inability to maintain claims with a straight face, how are American and British officials, in light of their conduct in all of this, going to maintain the pretense that they are defenders of press freedoms and are in a position to lecture and condemn others for violations? In what might be the most explicit hostility to such freedoms yet – as well as the most unmistakable evidence of rampant panic – the NSA's director, General Keith Alexander, actually demanded Thursday that the reporting being done by newspapers around the world on this secret surveillance system be halted (Techdirt has the full video here):

The head of the embattled National Security Agency, Gen Keith Alexander, is accusing journalists of "selling" his agency's documents and is calling for an end to the steady stream of public disclosures of secrets snatched by former contractor Edward Snowden.
"I think it's wrong that that newspaper reporters have all these documents, the 50,000 – whatever they have and are selling them and giving them out as if these – you know it just doesn't make sense," Alexander said in an interview with the Defense Department's "Armed With Science" blog.
"We ought to come up with a way of stopping it. I don't know how to do that. That's more of the courts and the policy-makers but, from my perspective, it's wrong to allow this to go on," the NSA director declared. [My italics]

There are 25,000 employees of the NSA (and many tens of thousands more who work for private contracts assigned to the agency). Maybe one of them can tell The General about this thing called "the first amendment".

NSA, Your Tax Dollars At Work

The Whistleblower Edward Snowden came across a Bush era NSA memo to its staff in 2006 that encouraged them to have their "Customers" (White House, State Dept, etc,) pass along any phone numbers of important people so the NSA could tap their phones, as reported in The Guardian.

In addition to snooping on world leaders, the NSA has intercepted phone calls around the world seemingly at random, collecting lots of juicy personal details, but doing nothing to stop terrorism.

But the memo acknowledges that eavesdropping on the numbers had produced "little reportable intelligence". In the wake of the Merkel row, the US is facing growing international criticism that any intelligence benefit from spying on friendly governments is far outweighed by the potential diplomatic damage.

The memo then asks analysts to think about any customers they currently serve who might similarly be happy to turn over details of their contacts.
"This success leads S2 [signals intelligence] to wonder if there are NSA liaisons whose supported customers may be willing to share their 'Rolodexes' or phone lists with NSA as potential sources of intelligence," it states. "S2 welcomes such information!"

They've managed to piss off everybody in Brazil, France and Germany, among others.  Putin isn't too thrilled either, but hey, he's Russian so I guess he doesn't count.

Money, Politics and Corruption

While our government was awash in corruption before Citizens United created a PAC frenzy, the Center for Public Integrity reports over the top numbers for lobbyists, and it's not even peak election season yet, this looks to be a record year for lobbyists throwing money at government.

But prompted in part by roiling debate over a national farm bill, the Grocery Manufacturers Association reported spending $7.47 million to influence the federal government — never before had it cracked the $2 million mark for a single quarter. A representative for the association could not be reached for comment.
Ahead of Obamacare implementation on Oct. 1, drug makers Amgen Inc. ($2.52 million) and GlaxoSmithKline ($1.27 million), increased their quarterly lobbying expenditures compared to the third quarter of 2012. So did other large lobbying forces with prominent health care interests, such as the American Chemistry Council ($4.75 million), American Medical Association ($4.27 million) and the Biotechnology Industry Organization ($2.02 million).
AT&T Inc., oil company Chevron Corp., Coca-Cola Co., defense contractor Raytheon Co., United Parcel Service, tech firm Hewlett-Packard and bank Wells Fargo also recorded spending increases compared to their performances during last year’s third quarter.
And prominent members of the gun lobby — both for and against firearm restrictions — also topped totals from 2012’s third quarter, although their spending levels were generally down from the previous quarter this year.

Cover Oregon Still Not Functional

First target date of Oct 1 2013 was missed, then the second date Oct 15, 2013 flew by as well, and now they are hoping to be up by the end of October.  The vendor, Oracle Corp is struggling, and may get dinged financially for failing to get the program on track according to Rocky King, the director appointed by John Kitzhaber.

"The product has not been at a quality level that has not been satisfactory to me and they (Oracle) know that," King said, adding that the testing happened so late that the exchange was unaware of the extent of problems.
He says the state has not yet decided whether to withhold contractual payments to Oracle in light of the delays. "I have not been in the mode of pointing fingers, I have been in the mode of getting this up and running," he said.
Documents also show that officials were over-optimistic. According to an application for more grant money in March 2012, Oregon had earlier underestimated its needs.

I hope they do get on track soon or it will be judged a train wreck.  My sympathies to Rocky, he sounds like a good administrator working through a gnarly project.

JP Morgan Gets a Record Fine

The serial financial offender JP Morgan is still trying to negotiate its way out of criminal liability for its misdeeds over the last decade, but finally the DOJ is through playing nice with criminals and while proposing a US record fine of $13 Billion, they refused to allow JP Morgan to do the standard "Admit No Guilt" settlement, and the DOJ may charge some of the big fish in the firm with crimes.

WASHINGTON, Oct 19 (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co has reached a tentative $13 billion agreement with the U.S. Justice Department to settle a range of mortgage issues, a source familiar with the talks said on Saturday.
The tentative deal does not release the bank from criminal liability, a factor that had been a major sticking point in the discussions, the source said.
As part of the deal, the bank will continue to cooperate in criminal inquiries into certain individuals involved in the conduct at issue, the source, who declined to be identified.

JPMorgan is seeking a single settlement to resolve all claims from federal and state agencies over its mortgage-related liabilities stemming from the bust in house prices.

Oregon Tea Party Leader Talks Big, Doesn't Pay Mortgage

Consider this statement to KATU last week by John Kuzmanich, the chairman and founder of the Oregon Tea Party.

"We're just good and decent, principled Americans that believe in the Constitution, a fiscally responsible government, individual and economic liberty and want to be free and left alone," he told KATU's Steve Dunn.

But Kuzmanich's mortgage company, Fannie Mae, has filed court papers showing Kuzmanich hasn't paid his mortgage on his duplex in three years.

Fannie Mae also hasn't been able to find Kuzmanich to serve him with legal papers.

His BMW was outside the duplex Thursday night. There was a light on inside and a dog barking, but no one answered the door when a reporter knocked on it.

Fannie Mae has also tried to find Kuzmanich at a property in Cannon Beach and in Portland but with no luck.
 

 Willamette Week also reported.

“In late 2009,” according to a Kuzmanich bio on the University of Iowa website, “John made the decision to run for United States Congress in Oregon’s 1st Congressional District, his home, and following in the political tradition of Senator Mark Hatfield, a member of his family, he decided to put all his relevant experience to work to serve and represent his principles, his family, his community and country.”

He added this in his 2010 Voters’ Pamphlet statement: “We need to decrease the size of government and make it live within its means just like we do.”

Medical Industrial Complex Tramples US

I continually run across stories on health care costs in the US that make me gasp in disbelief at how we are being legally robbed (sometimes robbed to death) by the Medical Industrial Complex and their partners in crime, the FDA.  The latest is an article published in the NY Times about Asthma treatments.  It includes many of the infuriating facts driving drug costs in the US.

Pulmicort, a steroid inhaler, generally retails for over $175 in the United States, while pharmacists in Britain buy the identical product for about $20 and dispense it free of charge to asthma patients. Albuterol, one of the oldest asthma medicines, typically costs $50 to $100 per inhaler in the United States, but it was less than $15 a decade ago, before it was repatented. 

Rhinocort Aqua, a prescription drug that was selling for more than $250 a month in Oakland pharmacies last year but costs under $7 in Europe, where it is available over the counter.

Unlike other countries, where the government directly or indirectly sets an allowed national wholesale price for each drug, the United States leaves prices to market competition among pharmaceutical companies, including generic drug makers. But competition is often a mirage in today’s health care arena — a surprising number of lifesaving drugs are made by only one manufacturer — and businesses often successfully blunt market forces. 

Thanks in part to the $250 million last year spent on lobbying for pharmaceutical and health products — more than even the defense industry — the government allows such practices. Lawmakers in Washington have forbidden Medicare, the largest government purchaser of health care, to negotiate drug prices. Unlike its counterparts in other countries, the United States Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, which evaluates treatments for coverage by federal programs, is not allowed to consider cost comparisons or cost-effectiveness in its recommendations. And importation of prescription medicines from abroad is illegal, even personal purchases from mail-order pharmacies.

“Our regulatory and approval system seems constructed to achieve high-priced outcomes,” said Dr. Peter Bach, the director of the Center for Health Policy and Outcomes at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. “We don’t give any reason for drug makers to charge less.”

And taxpayers and patients bear the consequences.

See also this story on the FDA,  this story on high health care costs, and this story on Novartis in particular, as well as this one.

US Shutdown the $24 Billion Mistake

The great polarization racked our political system for 16 days in October 2013 and while it was a win for President Obama and Democrats, everybody shed some political blood, and S&P estimated the direct economic loss to the US was $24 Billion.

The GOP was unified by fear of the wrath of the extremist conservative Tea Party apparatus, mostly directed by the Heritage Action Fund, FreedomWorks and the Club for Growth organizations.  The organizations promised to oppose any Republican straying from the fold in the 2014 primaries.  87 Republicans felt safe enough in their districts to vote Yea on the final bill extending US funding through 2013 and into January 2014.  Oregon Rep Greg Walden is evidently feeling insecure, he voted Nay.

The influence of the extreme Right-Wing groups is based mostly on big money, Koch and other Right Wing supporters - the number of Republicans who say they are favorable to the Tea Party was once at 46%, but have fallen to 27% of Moderate Republicans and Independents according to CNN.

"The Tea Party’s favorability rating has fallen across most groups since June, but the decline has been particularly dramatic among moderate and liberal Republicans. In the current survey, just 27% of moderate and liberal Republicans have a favorable impression of the Tea Party, down from 46% in June," a release from the Pew Research Center said.
Cruz has become much more visible during the shutdown and the showdown leading up the shutdown. And the poll indicates Cruz's popularity among tea party Republicans has soared, from 47% in July to 74% now. But among those who say they are non-tea party Republicans, the freshman senator from Texas and possible 2016 GOP White House contender's unfavorable rating jumped from 16% to 31%.
The Pew Research Center poll was conducted October 9 to 13, with 1,504 adults nationwide - including 655 Republicans and independents who lean toward the GOP - questioned by telephone. The survey's overall sampling error is plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.

 We  seem assured that this battle will rage again in early January 2014, who knows if we'll get another attempt to hold the debt limit and force a default?  The extremists seem willing to have another go at it.

US Meltdown Day -1, Time to Do or Die

Now that things have dragged on to the final few hours, it looks like a bill that can pass both houses will proceed through the House and Senate, and kick the can down the road for less than 6 months. The US rating agency Fitch was about to downgrade US Treasury debt, probably causing another spike in rates.

The news came as the Treasury Department said it had only about $35 billion in cash on hand. It expects to run out of “extraordinary measures” to keep on paying all of the government’s bills on Thursday, at which point outgoing payments might exceed that cash, plus any revenue, on any day going forward.

As the United States nears default, investors have demanded more compensation for lending to the government, with yields on short-term debt spiking to their highest levels in years.

Fitch warned that Congress has not “raised the federal debt ceiling in a timely manner.” It said that it “continues to believe that the debt ceiling will be raised soon,” but that “political brinkmanship and reduced financing flexibility could increase the risk of a U.S. default.”

US Shutdown Day 16, It Ain't Over Till It's Over

"Very Close to a Deal" has become the most over-used phrase in the headlines, and so far it has just been wishful thinking, but it looks like the House and Senate will actually pass legislation today to fund the government and raise the debt limit, but we will likely be going through the same song and dance in January, 2014.

We will soon see if Ted Cruz and the Tea Party will try to delay the bill even though they have no hope of stopping it, but they could still make the default happen if several things went wrong at once.

US Meltdown Day -2, Deal, Maybe

The stock markets seem almost euphoric, which may make for a brutal awakening if this nail biter doesn't go down perfectly.  The "close to a deal" phrase has been overused since late last week, before the House deal unraveled.  Whatever deal evolves still has to pass both House and Senate, seems like a lot of ifs driving the optimism.  The US may not default on Treasury Bonds, but it would have to default on something, like payments to government contractors, Social Security payments and who knows what else.

I think the hardliners will not hesitate to force us into the abyss, and we'll see if it even gets a vote in the Senate by Thursday.  Any single senator could block a vote for several days, and I'll bet Cruz does it, so we will probably go past the Oct 17 deadline before any vote.   President Obama may have to use the 14th Amendment to stave off disaster.

I hope voters remember this in elections to come, the Tea-Party creating a crisis plan is irresponsible, and a danger to us all.

US Shutdown Day 15, Senate May Deliver, But What About The House?

I found a NY Times article that detailed the forces behind the shutdown planning and execution, and no surprise that the Koch brothers are generous supporters.  In addition they are prepared to back ultra-conservative primary challenges to any moderate Republicans who stray from the hard line.  This will make it nearly impossible to get a deal through the House.  I am not nearly as optimistic as the newspaper headlines announcing "the Senate is very close to a deal".  I think the hardliners will not hesitate to force us into the abyss, and we'll see if it even gets a vote in the Senate.  Any single senator could block a vote for several days, and I'll bet Cruz does it, so we will probably go past the Oct 17 deadline before any vote.   President Obama may have to use the 14th Amendment to stave off disaster.

With agencies like the Judiciary running out of money to stay open, things are getting dire.  If hypothetically the courts run out of money (likely to happen by Thursday), will criminal cases have to be dropped?  They are already postponing all Civil cases due to being short-staffed, and some say they will work without pay if that comes to pass. 

This shutdown is tearing our society apart.

US Meltdown Day -3 Are They Really That Crazy?

My personal message to Congress is that you're nuts to even think of the possibility of shutting down this great nation.  My personal expectation is that congress funds and reopens the government by a unanimous vote and those opposed should resign and we hold new elections.  Shutting down the US government and crashing the world economy are irresponsible acts and those who cause it to happen should not be trusted to govern.

US Shutdown Day 14, Losing Our Grip?

While congress bickers, the agencies of the Federal government have largely ceased functioning, save for Defense spending, and congress is still being paid.  We seem to be at a historical turning point, but the question is whether the players are concerned with their personal agendas or the good of the nation.  What is the will of the people, and what does congress need to do to represent it?

We need some means of breaking the Democrat / Republican deadlock and get them both to move forward and provide stability as their first priority, we need congress to preserve our government, not tear it down.  The shutdown is currently considered small potatoes next to the debt limit, but the shutdown has put 800,000 Federal employees on the streets and its effects are rippling through all the states and the City of Washington DC.  This must end or we all suffer.

US Meltdown Day -4, Rough Ride Ahead

The news is bad and getting worse as we approach the day of possible default on the government debt.  If we don't get something going on Sunday, the stock market might finally speak loud enough for all to hear.  Lindsay Graham said today,

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said on ABC's This Week that a Democratic proposal to increase spending beyond limits set by automatic budget cuts -- known as the sequester -- cannot be supported by Republicans.
He doesn't anticipate a deal by the Oct. 17 deadline.
"I don't see one," Graham said. "If you break spending caps you're not going to get any Republicans in the Senate."

The Democrats are just as pessimistic, but with such a fluid situation anything can happen.

David Plouffe, a former senior adviser to Obama, said the nation is dangerously close to default. "I think the notion that somehow this is going to be easily solved this week is completely false," Plouffe said on This Week.
Plouffe put the odds of a deal by Thursday at "no better than 50/50. And so I think the country needs to prepare that this could go on for a while."

US Shutdown Day 13, It Was a Fools Errand

The effort to negotiate in the House has collapsed with John Boehnor and House Republicans giving it up, and now Senators Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell must put something together.  John McCain provided some color commentary on CBS News.

“I guess we can get lower in the polls,” McCain said. “We’re down to blood relatives and paid staffers now.   “I’m glad that negotiations are going on,” McCain said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” I’m disappointed that twice … we were close to a deal and the Democrats moved the goalposts, in light of the polling data.”
McCain said he was also “disappointed” that Obama “has not played a more active role in this, as Bill Clinton did in ‘95.”
“Maybe we need to get Joe Biden out of the witness protection program,” McCain said, noting the vice president’s lack of visibility in recent weeks and relationships with his former colleagues in the Senate.
McCain said it was time for Democrats to be “magnanimous and get things done.”
“I know what it’s like to be in the majority and in the minority, and it won’t be forgotten,” he added.
McCain called the effort to tie the shutdown to an effort to defund ObamaCare a “fool’s errand.”
“The irony of all this is the rollout is a fiasco,” he added.

Meanwhile the Shutdown grinds on, nobody is saying for how long.

Living in the Society the GOP wants?

It could be argued that the GOP (at least the more conservative faction) favors many of the things happening today.  They just don't like being subject to the howls of outrage it has produced.
They don't like giving away things to the little people, or "burdensome" regulations.  Because of the bad PR, they have proposed funding a few things, like National Parks, Armed Forces, Veterans' benefits, etc., but for a lot of people who rely on the safety net, things just get harder.

• The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program is suspended, it provides supplemental food vouchers and support to nearly 8.9 million people, mostly women and children under the age of five. Without it, they're going without food and formula.

•  Head Start funds serving low income programs have been suspended, although wealthy private donors are trying to keep some centers open.  Some of those same funds provide payments to seniors and low income families for paying heating and energy bills, and without that the victims will be a lot colder.  Meals for the elderly are also at risk.

• Federal courts, which have been using fees and other funds to operate since the shutdown began, will likely have enough money to operate until Oct. 17, and possibly Oct. 18.After that, the courts will run out of money and shut down all nonessential work.

• The Nuclear Regulatory Commission shut down most operations on Thursday. However, resident inspectors will remain on the job and any immediate safety or security matters will be handled.

• The Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say they can handle recalls and high-risk foodborne outbreaks, but discovering them will be more difficult because many of the people who investigate outbreaks have been furloughed. Routine food safety inspections were suspended, so most food manufacturers won't have to worry about periodic visits from government inspectors. 

•  The National Transportation Safety Board is not investigating most transportation accidents, making an exception only if officials believe lives or property are in danger. The agency suspended 1,500 investigations that were underway before the shutdown. Nor has the board collected information on or sent investigators to the scene of 20 accidents involving U.S.-manufactured aircraft that have occurred around the globe since Sept. 30.

•  At the Environmental Protection Agency, the shutdown means the agency can no longer certify whether vehicles meet emissions standards, delaying some new models from reaching car lots. New pesticides and industrial chemicals are also in limbo because the EPA has halted reviews of their health and environmental effects. And the nation's environmental police are no longer checking to see if polluters are complying with agreements to reduce their pollution.

• New patients are generally not being accepted into clinical research at the National Institutes of Health, but current patients continue to receive care. NIH has made exceptions to allow 12 patients with immediately life-threatening illnesses — mostly cancer — into research studies at its renowned hospital. Normally, about 200 new patients every week enroll in studies at the NIH's research-only hospital, many of them after standard treatments have failed.

• Some borrowers are finding it harder to close on their mortgages. The delays could worsen if the shutdown continues and possibly undercut the nation's housing recovery. 

• Officials at the Department of Veterans Affairs have quietly told Congress that they likely won't have enough money to pay disability claims or make pension payments for veterans if a government shutdown lasts for more than two or three weeks. That could affect some 3.6 million veterans who receive these benefits.

• Every fall, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention monitors the spread of flu and figures out how best to direct vaccine programs around the country. During the shutdown, however, the agency will be "unable to support the annual seasonal influenza program," according to a memo from the Department of Health and Human Services.

• During the shutdown, the Social Security administration won't have enough staff to schedule new hearings for those applying for disability benefits. And the Veterans Appeal Board will be closed, which means veterans appealing a decision on disability benefits will have to wait until the shutdown ends.

Wyden, NSA, and the Business-as-Usual Brigade

If the government budget crisis ever ends, Senator Ron Wyden, Senator Patrick Leahy and Representative Jim Sensenbrenner all have a common goal, end the NSA bulk phone collection.  Wyden says,

They will “try mightily to fog up the surveillance debate and convince Congress and the public that the real problem here is not overly intrusive, constitutionally flawed domestic surveillance, but sensationalistic media reporting”, Wyden said. “Their endgame is ensuring that any surveillance reforms are only skin deep.”

"Privacy protections that don’t actually protect privacy are not worth the paper they're printed on,” he said. “And just because intelligence officials say that a particular program helps catch terrorists doesn’t make it true.”
He was also sceptical about the Obama administration’s professed commitment to greater transparency. “When it comes to greater transparency and openness, the executive branch has shown little interest in lasting reforms that would actually make the intelligence community more open and transparent, and executive branch officials will probably resist any attempts to mandate greater transparency,” he said.
Wyden was scathing about the government’s “trust us” argument on surveillance, which he said was undermined by the NSA’s own track record. “The rules have been broken, and the rules have been broken a lot,” he said.

Sensenbrenner has also introduced legislation.

Sensenbrenner has called his bill the Uniting and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ending Eavesdropping, Dragnet-Collection, and Online Monitoring Act – or USA Freedom Act, and a draft seen by the Guardian has four broad aims.
It seeks to limit the collection of phone records to known terrorist suspects; to end "secret laws" by making courts disclose surveillance policies; to create a special court advocate to represent privacy interests; and to allow companies to disclose how many requests for users' information they receive from the USA. The bill also tightens up language governing overseas surveillance to remove a loophole which it has been abused to target internet and email activities of Americans.

US Meltdown Day -5, House Fiddles, Nobody Singing

It surprises nobody that the House can't agree on much of anything, they've descended into a rabble of  finger pointing. After a week of supposed "progress" in talks, the House came up empty.

“The problem here is that we don’t have a functioning majority,” said Representative Devin Nunes, Republican of California. “After three weeks of this, they’re still not figuring it out. I don’t know what it takes.”

“Perhaps he sees this as the best opportunity for him to win the House in 2014,” said Rep. John Fleming, R-La. “It’s very clear to us he does not now, and never had, any intentions of negotiating.”
“It doesn’t have to be this way. It’s not supposed to be this way,” President Barack Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday. “Manufacturing crises to extract massive concessions isn’t how our democracy works, and we have to stop it. Politics is a battle of ideas, but you advance those ideas through elections and legislation — not extortion.”

“The Senate needs to hold tough,” Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., said Boehner told House Republicans who met in a Capitol basement meeting room for an update on negotiations. “The president now isn’t negotiating with us.”

 CNN reports:

There is growing concern being expressed in private meetings that the House GOP plan extending the debt ceiling for six weeks would come back to haunt the party, because it would expire close to the holidays, hurting retailers.

There also are worries about the impact of the partial shutdown dragging on, especially with polls showing the Republican Party getting the brunt of the blame.

US Shutdown Day 12, A Lot of Talk, No Action

Before Friday nobody was talking, now everybody is talking and there's more than one deal under discussion and Obama seems to be shopping for the best deal.  Quite a change from what has been going on before. 

GOP lawmakers from both chambers are expressing confusion and frustration with how their colleagues across the Capitol are approaching talks with the White House, with many thinking their respective camp should be in the lead.

"There's plates spinning everywhere. Everybody's now trying to work on this," said Rep. James Lankford (R-Okla.), a member of House GOP leadership. "It's just confusing to try to figure out what's the deal that's actually getting traction."  Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said the House has the right idea with its plan.

"I see the House is much more serious about putting together a package to open up the entire government and make changes to ObamaCare to lessen the pain," Graham said.

But other Senate Republicans expressed confusion more than anything else about the House approach, which saw multiple tweaked offers come over the last several days, and scant details about what they entailed.

Asked if she backed the House plan, Sen. Kelly Ayotte said she wasn't exactly sure what it was.

"I'm not sure what their plan is. I would need to know what it is," she said.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said Friday he also was befuddled by the House GOP's strategy.

Late Friday, there was news that one of the positions put forth by the House wasn't going to fly.

President Obama is rejecting a key element of House Republicans’ latest proposal to extend the federal debt ceiling, opposing a linkage between a short-term increase and negotiations on the budget, White House spokesman Jay Carney said Friday.
Briefing reporters after financial markets closed for the week, Carney welcomed a “new willingness” among congressional Republicans to open the government and avoid default, but he said the president would not agree to tie budget negotiations to a six-week debt-limit extension.  “It is our view that we cannot have a situation where the debt ceiling is extended as part of a budget negotiation process for only six weeks, which would put us right back in the same position that we’re in now,” Carney said.

US Meltdown Day -6, Will we or won't we?

Still no deal as the Republicans squirm in the quagmire they walked into.  They still have their finger on the nuclear trigger and who knows what they'll do?  It may be that the fringe Tea Party is for the moment defanged now that they've been denounced as fakers by the watchdog group representing real hostage-takers.  That doesn't faze Ted Cruz, who is off to declare victory at the Values Voter Summit, where he'll be preaching the gospel of no compromise to the choir.

The Guardian reports:

Republicans have been under intense pressure from business leaders and party donors to avoid a possible US default by removing the debt ceiling threat from their arsenal. But there is no guarantee that the more conservative Republicans in Boehner's caucus will support it.
US stock markets soared on news of a deal. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the day 323 points higher (up 2.18%). The S&P 500 rose over 36 points (2.26%). Keith McCullough, CEO of investment adviser Hedgeye, said investors had been nervous about the talks. "I changed by views on the US markets three times yesterday. That can't be good for anyone," he said. "People are sick and tired of Boehner, Obama, Bernanke or whoever dominating the markets."

US Shutdown Day 11, OK Maybe We Won't Default

The White House and House Republicans have committed to talking about ways to avoid a default on U.S. debt, the first concrete sign of a potential compromise since the government shut down 11 days ago.  Boehner and the House Republicans are blamed by 70% of Americans for putting their ideological positions ahead of the good of the nation and they're squirming in the spotlight.

There are still debt crisis "deniers" in the House and Senate announcing that there is enough money to pay the interest on bonds, so what's the big deal.  They will fade into the woodwork once they realize they're prioritizing the Chinese (they hold about $1.2 trillion in government debt) ahead of things like Social Security recipients, Veterans' benefits,  disabled Americans, Prison Guards, Corporate Welfare, etc.  Their big money handlers via legions of lobbyists will soon set the idiots straight.  Maybe even Rand Paul will listen to them, but in his case I wouldn't make any bets, reality doesn't intrude on his ideology.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, both bastions of Republican support, sent letters to Congress on Tuesday urging action on the debt ceiling.

“Our nation has never defaulted in the past, and failing to raise the debt limit in a timely fashion will seriously disrupt our fragile economy and have a ripple effect throughout the world,” wrote Jay Timmons, the president of the manufacturers’ group.

But we digress, the government is still shut down and while that may be like comparing the Bubonic Plague to global thermonuclear war, the plague is still serious business.  I listed a few of the effects already, and those aren't going away any time soon.  Maybe the Federal Prison guards will just open up the cells and go home if they aren't paid.

So far despite all the hopeful press, there is no deal and Day 11 may just be another day of business as usual in Washington, but fear and anxiety for everyone else.

Oregon Corporate Welfare System

How much do we pay corporations just to stay here?  The information is fragmented all over the place, but the NY Times has pulled it all together and listed the names of the top recipients of corporate welfare over the entire US, broken down by State.  By national standards Oregon is a middle of the road corporate welfare state, spending only $850 Million a year or $226 per capita yearly.  That is $226 for every person in the State, every year, and that doesn't even include the tax breaks we gave to Nike last year, the top name on the list is Intel.

Nationally the NY Times estimates $80 Billion a year is given to corporations, which works out to about $256 bucks a year for everybody, babies and retired included.  Corporations know how to play the system for free handouts, and they do it every day with the cities and States begging them to relocate.

US Meltdown Day -7 Possibly Postponed 6 weeks

Update: 1:00 PM PDT It looks like Boehner will push to postpone the debt limit crisis for another 6 weeks with a temporary increase.

We are 7 days away from the alarming event.  The US markets will trade Thursday 10/10 and Friday 10/11, but will be closed Monday 10/14 for Columbus Day.  If it comes to pass, Thursday 10/17 will likely be the start of a history changing event.  Most people think it won't happen.

Richard G. Mitchell, an emeritus sociology professor at Oregon State University and author of "Dancing at Armageddon: Survivalism and Chaos in Modern Times,".
"Absolutely zero, if we're talking in whole numbers," Mitchell said of the probability of a default.

The Worlds markets are nervous, and if the meltdown comes to pass, there will be carnage, the IMF says.

"A threat not to pay interest on US government bonds is a threat to blow up the world; it would be a bloody catastrophe," says John Cochrane, professor of finance at the University of Chicago.
"A default of even a few hours on any US bond would undermine a key, long-standing assumption underpinning the world's financial system: that US government debt is risk-free," says Justin Wolfers, senior fellow at the Brookings Institute in Washington. He suggests banks worldwide would immediately mark down the value of US bonds outstanding and would be scared to lend to each other.
- See more at: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/another-global-meltdown-at-stake-as-us-plays-fiscal-russian-roulette/story-fnc2jivw-1226733203752#sthash.Bq1iG7XK.dpuf

"While the damage to the U.S. economy from a short shutdown is likely to be limited, a longer shutdown could be quite harmful," the report said. "And even more importantly, a failure to promptly raise the debt ceiling, leading to a U.S. selective default, could seriously damage the global economy and financial system."

 The Wall Street Journal predicts the dominoes toppling in the first hours, when the money carriage turns into a pumpkin.

The first ripples in a rapidly expanding financial crisis will be felt in an obscure but giant sector of the short-term credit markets. 
There, in the $5 trillion-a-day repo market – more formally known as the securities repurchase market – Treasury securities are treated as the equivalent of currency. In tapping it, large Wall Street dealer banks work on the assumption that they can turn their inventory of U.S. government bonds into cash at any given moment, simply by offering the bonds up as collateral to money-market funds and other lenders that participate in this giant short-term funding market. If for just one of those securities this liquidity is turned off, those assumptions go out the window. The ramifications are enormous.
“All of a sudden, people will have to reevaluate their liquidity positions and this can quickly turn into panic,” says Lou Crandall, an analyst at market research firm Wrightson ICAP LLC.

 CNBC reports the survivalist business is booming.

Companies like MRE Star, an Arden, N.C.-based maker of pre-packaged "meals ready to eat," or MREs, are also getting a boost.
"Orders were fairly steady from January to three weeks ago," said company operations manager Ken Lester. "But the orders in September were double any month from January to August."
Lester said MRE Star, which ships thousands of cases of MREs each month to customers that include U.S. embassies abroad, is now seeing larger-sized retail orders from individuals, stemming from concerns surrounding the government shutdown and potential debt default.
"Individual retail orders have been significant in the sense that people are ordering more than a couple of cases. Instead of ordering single cases, which have 12 meals, they're ordering more than a couple days' worth of meals," said Lester. "What's trending is four to 10 cases of MREs."

"A threat not to pay interest on US government bonds is a threat to blow up the world; it would be a bloody catastrophe," says John Cochrane, professor of finance at the University of Chicago. - See more at: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/another-global-meltdown-at-stake-as-us-plays-fiscal-russian-roulette/story-fnc2jivw-1226733203752#sthash.Bq1iG7XK.dpuf

"A threat not to pay interest on US government bonds is a threat to blow up the world; it would be a bloody catastrophe," says John Cochrane, professor of finance at the University of Chicago.
"A default of even a few hours on any US bond would undermine a key, long-standing assumption underpinning the world's financial system: that US government debt is risk-free," says Justin Wolfers, senior fellow at the Brookings Institute in Washington. He suggests banks worldwide would immediately mark down the value of US bonds outstanding and would be scared to lend to each other.
- See more at: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/another-global-meltdown-at-stake-as-us-plays-fiscal-russian-roulette/story-fnc2jivw-1226733203752#sthash.Bq1iG7XK.dpuf

US Shutdown Day 10 The Heat is On

The NY Times reports Polls show "Growing Concerns About Shutdown".

Responding to an open-ended question, 33 percent of Americans said the nation’s most important problem was the government, politicians or Congress – up from 16 percent who said so last month, and the highest since Gallup began asking the question in 1939.  The Republican Party netted the worst ratings during the first week of the shutdown – just 28 percent of Americans now find it favorable, down 10 points from September, and the lowest rating for either party since Gallup started measuring party favorability in 1992. The Democratic Party is holding fairly steady, with a 43 percent favorable rating, compared with 47 percent last month. Gallup’s three-day rolling average of President Obama’s job approval has him at 44 percent, about the same as when the shutdown began.

The national media are starting to find evidence of collateral damage.
Veterans' Benefits are at Risk.
Federal fuel assistance shut off to tens of thousands of poor and elderly Massachusetts residents just as the heating season gets underway.
New beer brewery applications halted, affecting the creation of new small businesses.
National Parks shut down.  Lost visitors: 715,000 a day.  Lost spending: $76 million a day.  Lost revenue to the federal government, in the form of entrance fees and rentals: $450,000 a day.
Accident investigations halted.
Retail investors’ confidence in financial markets could fall to its lowest levels in seven years if the shutdown persists, even lower than in the midst of the most devastating financial crisis since the great depression.
Federal Bureau of Prisons workers aren't being paid, but about 36,000 of them still have to work.
Product Safety Recalls shut down.

The list goes on and on, this is destroying our country one day at a time.

US Shutdown Day 9 Ground Control to Major John

Boehner is holding his line, no negotiations, no vote.  The Republicans are still getting bashed worse than Democrats while both are held to be less preferable than Obamacare itself.  Rand Paul is holding forth with the Kool Aid induced notion that even if the debt limit isn't extended, the Government doesn't need to default on debt, just pay the principle and interest and not "lower priority items", presumably wages for federal workers.  Thanks Mr Paul for those pearls of wisdom.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and others have argued that the U.S. could still pay interest on its debt, even if the limit isn’t raised, by using existing revenue. The U.S. would still miss payments on lower priority items, but Paul says that action would avoid a technical default and wouldn’t roil the markets.

Most economists argue that not raising the debt ceiling would create havoc and possibly plunge the U.S. into a deep and unnecessary recession.

Sixty-two percent of respondents in the poll said Republicans in Congress bear “almost all responsibility” for the shutdown. Only 49 percent said the same about President Obama and Democrats in Congress.

It’s the latest in a string of polls to show the public is blaming Republicans for dysfunction in Washington more than Democrats.

Politicians on both sides are seeing their approval ratings plummet. Fifty-three percent said they disapprove of the job Obama is doing, against only 37 who said they approve. Congress’s approval rating sits at a dismal 5 percent.

The AP-GfK poll of 1,227 people was conducted between Oct. 3 and Oct. 7 and has a 3.4-percentage-point margin of error.

Jimmy Carter: Today's Middle Class Resembles Yesterday's Poor

Jimmy Carter offers his assessment on the state of the middle class in the US.

During an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, he said that years of tax breaks for the wealthy, a minimum wage untethered from the inflation rate and electoral districts drawn to maximize political polarization have reduced the quality of life for all but the richest Americans.  Former President Jimmy Carter said Monday that if he were back in the White House, he would work with Republicans and Democrats to secure more funding for affordable housing and urge more flexibility in resolving differences involving the critical issue.

US Shutdown Day 8 Race to the Bottom

As the government poker game continues, everyone is keeping an eye on the poll results to see who might hit bottom first.

Republicans in Congress have seen disapproval of their handling of the shutdown negotiations spike from 63 percent at the end of last month to 70 percent in the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll released on Monday.
Republican handling of the fiscal showdown is the worst in Washington by far. Only 24 percent said they approve of how GOP lawmakers are handling the budget negotiations, down from 26 in the same poll from Sept. 29.

Democratic handling of the negotiations is also wildly unpopular. Thirty-five percent said they approve of Congressional Democrats, against 61 who disapprove. That’s up from 34 percent approval and 56 percent disapproval in September. While a majority of the public disapproves of the way President Obama has handled the fiscal negotiations, he’s seen his approval rating tick up. In September, only 41 percent said they approved of the job the president was doing, against 50 who disapprove. In the latest poll, 45 percent said they approve, against 51 who disapprove.

Former Sen. Olympia Snowe (Maine), a centrist Republican who compiled a long record of working with both sides of the aisle, said most voters will view the Tea Party as responsible for the crisis.
But she said Obama and GOP leaders will also be held to account for not intervening to stave off what she called a “belligerent minority.” 
Snowe said it is not legitimate for Republicans to insist on using the stopgap spending measure or debt limit to make a major policy change, such as defunding or delaying ObamaCare.
“If they want to try it through the normal legislative process, then obviously that’s their right,” she said. “To condition it on the basis of the operations of government or on our full faith and credit as a nation at a time we’re beholden to foreign investors, it’s not even realistic.”

US Shutdown Day 7 No Progress

Nothing but finger pointing going on at the moment, but the Republicans must be the more nervous of the two, they are getting more relative credit for the impasse at the moment.

A default is widely regarded as a much bigger economic disaster than the shutdown of non-essential services. President Barack Obama has demanded that Congress raise the debt ceiling, and avoid default, without conditions.

But House Speaker John Boehner said Sunday there will be no debt limit increase, and no end to the partial shutdown, unless President Barack Obama and Senate Democrats negotiate with House Republicans. 

"There are not the votes in the House to pass a clean CR," the speaker said.

But Boehner also used his rare Sunday news show appearance to back away from insisting on repeal or delay of the Affordable Care Act, or "Obamacare," as a condition for ending the shutdown and raising the debt limit.

Instead, Boehner said, he wants spending cuts through entitlement reform.

US Shutdown Day 6 Taking the Day Off

The Legislators are taking a day off Sunday, to make time for TV appearances it seems.  The only progress, if it can be called that, is both sides have reiterated their positions.  The House Democrats tried to get a majority of House Members to sign a Discharge Petition to force a vote on a increasing the debt limit until Nov 15, but one of the Republicans they had hoped to help, Rep Peter King of NY, refused to sign it.  This seems to insure that we are at a stalemate until Oct 16, ten days away.

To recap house action the last week,

House Rejected the Senate response to H.J. Res. 59, a "Clean Funding CR".
H.J. Res. 70 Fund the National Parks and Smithsonian. 
H.J. Res. 71 Fund the City of Washington DC 
H.J. Res. 72  Fund Veterans Benefits 
H.J. Res. 73  Fund National Institutes of Health
H.J. Res. 75  Fund Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children
H.J. Res. 85  FEMA Funding
For the most part, all failed in the Senate, but a bill to pay federal workers for time lost due to the shutdown did pass both houses.  Here is some commentary on the standoff from the New York Magazine.

The debt ceiling turns out to be unexploded ordnance lying around the American form of government. Only custom or moral compunction stops the opposition party from using it to nullify the president’s powers, or, for that matter, the president from using it to nullify Congress’s. (Obama could, theoretically, threaten to veto a debt ceiling hike unless Congress attaches it to the creation of single-payer health insurance.) To weaponize the debt ceiling, you must be willing to inflict harm on millions of innocent people. It is a shockingly powerful self-destruct button built into our very system of government, but only useful for the most ideologically hardened or borderline sociopathic. But it turns out to be the perfect tool for the contemporary GOP: a party large enough to control a chamber of Congress yet too small to win the presidency, and infused with a dangerous, millenarian combination of overheated Randian paranoia and fully justified fear of adverse demographic trends. The only thing that limits the debt ceiling’s potency at the moment is the widespread suspicion that Boehner is too old school, too lacking in the Leninist will to power that fires his newer co-partisans, to actually carry out his threat. (He has suggested as much to some colleagues in private.) Boehner himself is thus the one weak link in the House Republicans’ ability to carry out a kind of rolling coup against the Obama administration. Unfortunately, Boehner’s control of his chamber is tenuous enough that, like the ailing monarch of a crumbling regime, it’s impossible to strike an agreement with him in full security it will be carried out.

US Shutdown Day 5 No End in Sight

There are no negotiations planned, no legislation in the works, no end in sight.  The Democrats say:

“Once the government reopens and we get the debt ceiling settled, we’ll be happy to talk to them about anything they want to talk about,” Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) told reporters Friday afternoon.

Republicans want more than that and are holding everyone else hostage to their demands, and given their history of not yielding until a crisis is actually reached, the Oct 17 date when the government will default, indicates that we have another 12 days to go.

US Shutdown Day 4 Poliical Theater

Lawmakers spent the day pointing fingers, Boehner was reported to say he would not risk a government default, and at the same time the Republicans (at least a few of them) turned on a dime and abandoned the assualt on Obamacare, leaving that task to the tea party to carry on.

“This needs to be a big bipartisan deal,” Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), a close Boehner ally, said as he emerged from a luncheon meeting in the speaker’s office Thursday. “This is much more about the debt ceiling and a larger budget agreement than it is about Obamacare.”

 “We do need to sit down. I’m happy to talk to them,” said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Patty Murray (D-Wash.). “But the government has to open up first.”

With one side proposing a deal and the other insisting on funding with no negotiation, it is still going to be tough to get things running again.  Meanwhile a deranged woman tried to bust into the White House and was killed by police, providing a grim metaphor for the other goings on.

At a noon leadership event, staff had blown up a poster featuring a quote from Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-Ind.) in which he said the House GOP won’t be “disrespected” by the Senate. Reid and his leadership team took turns mock apologizing to Stutzman for hurting his feelings.

Meanwhile James Clapper tried to do his part in stopping the bickering.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told a Senate panel on Wednesday that the government shutdown — which forced the furlough of 70 percent of the CIA and NSA workforce — amounted to a "dreamland" of opportunity for foreign spy agencies.
Clapper, who appeared side by side with National Security Agency chief Gen. Keith Alexander, told a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee that failure to fund the government "is not just a Beltway issue. It affects our capability to support the military, diplomacy and our policymakers."
Alexander and Clapper said a core of counterterrorism staff was still working but a prolonged shutdown could damage intelligence efforts.

 Well maybe the upside is that everyone will realize how miniscule the actual danger of a terrorist attack really is, and NSA will be the last one funded, or deemed irrelevant.  Stay tuned.

US Shutdown Day 3 "This time's different"

President Obama had a meeting with Republican and Democrat leaders of the House and Senate which went nowhere.

Mr Boehner left the talks complaining the Democrats "will not negotiate".  Mr Obama said he would not set a precedent where "an extremist wing" of a party holds a government to ransom.  He told CNBC ahead of the meeting that he was "prepared to negotiate on anything" over the budget once Congress passes "a clean piece of legislation that reopens the government".

This theater is just Act 1 of the drama,  the Debt Limit will have to be raised in 2 weeks or the government will default of some payments and that's when the stuff really hits the fan, tarnishing the US credit rating and shutting down services to the most vulnerable in our country.

"This time's different"
So far the markets have yawned, but that will change soon.

Earlier Wednesday, Mr. Obama said that Wall Street should be worried about more serious consequences now that the government is closed for business and the debt limit deadline is just around the corner.
"This time's different," Mr. Obama said in an interview with CNBC that aired Wednesday afternoon. "I think they should be concerned."

The president told CNBC's John Harwood that he told the financial leaders "that it is not unusual for Democrats and Republicans to disagree -- that is the way our founders designed our government." However, he continued, "When you have a situation in which a faction [of Congress] is willing potentially to default on U.S. government obligations, then we are in trouble."

 More drama to come in Day 3 I'm sure.

Want to petition to end the Shutdown? Sorry

I thought I'd check if anyone had a petition to end the shutdown.  If they do, the site is down, the height of irony.  Sorry bout that.

US Shutdown Day 2 and Apocalypse

The impact of the shutdown got more personal for John McCain when he found out that the Defense Department was cancelling military academy football games this weekend if the shutdown is not resolved by Thursday.  There is a sold out nationally televised Air Force vrs Navy game scheduled this weekend.

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.

 The House Republicans thought to cough up funding to reopen National Parks, but the Senate Democrats said no deal, either fund it all or nothing.

Since the measures were brought before the House under expedited procedures requiring a two-thirds vote to pass, House Democrats scuttled them, despite an impassioned plea by Democratic D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, who recalled that in the last shutdown 17 years ago she prevailed on House Speaker Newt Gingrich to win an exemption to keep the D.C. government running.

‘‘I must support this piecemeal approach,’’ Norton said. ‘‘What would you do if your local budget was here?’’

Republicans said there could be more votes Wednesday, perhaps to allow the National Institutes of Health to continue pediatric cancer research. The NIH’s famed hospital of last resort wasn’t admitting new patients because of the shutdown. Dr. Francis Collins, agency director, estimated that each week the shutdown lasts would force the facility to turn away about 200 patients, 30 of them children, who want to enroll in studies of experimental treatments. Patients already at the hospital are permitted to stay.

US Shutdown Day 1

Oh No, say it ain't so, the Statue of Liberty is closed?  Well at least they haven't covered it with a tarp.  The Guardian reported that hundreds of thousands of government workers go on unpaid leave today.  I guess the Smithsonian is in the same boat.

National Guard soldiers rebuilding washed-out roads would apparently be paid on time — along with the rest of the country's active-duty personnel — under a bill passed hours before the shutdown. Existing social security and Medicare benefits, veterans' services and mail delivery were also unaffected.
Other agencies were harder hit — nearly 3,000 Federal Aviation Administration safety inspectors were laid off, along with most of the National Transportation Safety Board's employees, including accident investigators who respond to air crashes, train collisions, pipeline explosions and other accidents.
Almost all of NASA shut down, except for mission control in Houston, and national parks closed along with the Smithsonian museums and the National Zoo. Even the zoo's popular pandacam went dark.

The Washington Post reports that:

An estimated 800,000 federal workers now face furloughs indefinitely, while roughly 1.3 million will remain on the job as “excepted” employees because they protect human life and property, or because their positions are paid for by funds outside of congressional appropriations. 
Federal workers will show up for work on Tuesday regardless of whether they face furloughs, and those who are placed on leave must spend a few hours making preparations for their absences. That means closing down work stations, setting up their out-of-office e-mail alerts, and putting things in order.
More on the Post’s Shutdown FAQ page.
Agencies will eventually pay excepted employees for work they do during the shutdown, but not until Congress approves a new round of appropriations.  The situation for furloughed feds is not so clear, as lawmakers would have to pass legislation that pays them for time they didn’t actually work — through no fault of their own. That’s what legislators did in 1996, but it’s far from certain that today’s Congress would agree to such a deal.

Other headlines on the political situation
LA Times "Because the No. 1 priority of House Republicans is to cater to the fantasies of their tea party constituents, the federal government has been shut down. The loony legions that drive Republican primary elections now are driving the United States toward calamity."
 Washington Post "We are no longer seeing a revolt against the Republican leadership, or even against the Republican “establishment”; this revolt is against anyone who accepts the constraints of political reality."

Coveroregon "We are testing up until the very last minute"

It is October 1 and Coveroregon is supposed to be ready to enroll people in the Exchange created by the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), but the people running the show are saying the system is not quite ready yet.  In an article at Oregonlive.com the agency said that thy are still having problems computing the actual premiums that people will pay given all the factors that go into tax credits and the Healthy Kids programs.  It sounds like another month of development is needed before they overcome this.

But Oregon's exchange is still fixing an array of glitches that make data on the site untrustworthy, much like other states are doing. Initially coveroregon.com will be for browsing only, and may not be fully operational until November, officials say. Individuals and small businesses were supposed to be able to immediately use certified agents or application "assisters" to enroll until the site is ready for the public, hopefully by the second half of October.
Agents, however, won't have full use of the site on Tuesday as was planned, they learned Monday. Instead, they'll be asked to not fully enroll anyone. The problem is the site is still not providing accurate information on whether enrollees qualify for government assistance such as tax credits or Healthy Kids. Until that is fixed, agents are being asked to enter and save client information, but not check on eligibility for assistance.
Rocky King, executive director of Cover Oregon said he hopes that the problem will be fixed by the coming weekend, but he doesn't want people being improperly denied help. "I will not go out with something until I am satisfied that this is correct," he said.
He said Cover Oregon's instruction to stop scheduling clients was intended as a suggestion to agents. Consumers can still shop for insurance through agents, but those agents won't yet have the ability to use the Cover Oregon website to qualify for tax credits and enroll.