A Nod To The Gods

I have seen this before and I still get a kick out of it. Thought I would share.

Sorry, we could have saved the country a lot of money and the families of the victims a lot of heart ache. He admitted he did it, there were witnesses that saw him do it, and it was an act of terrorism. Out back, one bullet, done….boom just saved the country $4,699,998. Any questions?

Army records obtained by NBC 5 Investigates details how the U.S. government spent nearly $5 million to convict Nidal Hasan in the Fort Hood massacre — crimes for which he wanted to plead guilty.

After several months of filing requests, NBC 5 Investigates received the first detailed accounting of the costs related to the court martial and trial for the former Army psychiatrist convicted of killing 13 and injuring 32 in a mass shooting in 2009. The total bill to U.S. taxpayers was more than $4.7 million.

Hasan, who called no witnesses in his defense and asked only a few questions during the trial, wanted to plead guilty to the charges against him but was forbidden to do so by military law, so a trial had to be held.

 

Read the story here

This concerns me terribly. So if POTUS instructs park rangers to do his bidding, and they do it, what happens if he instructs the military to do the same thing? Only this time it is to suppress a revolution? If I was a park ranger, I would refuse, then get on a soap box and let the American public know whats really happening.

1. Treatments for Children Suffering From Cancer – The GOP have agreed to a compromise by funding part of the government, including the National Institutes of Health, which offers children with cancer last-chance experimental treatment. Obama has threatened to veto this funding.

2. The World War II Memorial – The WWII memorial on the DC Mall is a 24/7 open-air memorial that is not regularly staffed. Although the White House must have known that WWII veterans in their eighties and nineties had already booked flights to visit this memorial, the White House still found the resources to spitefully barricade the attraction.

The Republican National Committee has offered to cover any costs required to keep the memorial open. The White House refused. Moreover, like the NIH, the GOP will pass a compromise bill that would fund America’s national parks. Obama has threatened to veto that bill.

3. Furloughed Military Chaplains Not Allowed to Work for Free – Furloughed military chaplains willing to celebrate Mass and baptisms for free have been told they will be punished for doing so.

4. Business Stops In Florida Keys – Although the GOP have agreed to compromise in the ongoing budget stalemate and fund the parks, Obama has threatened to veto that funding. As a result, small businesses, hunters, and commercial fisherman can’t practice their trade. While the feds have deemed the personnel necessary to keep this area open “non-essential,” the “enforcement officers” to ensure no business is done are “essential.”

5. Obama Blacks Out Sports, Entertainment Programming to Overseas Troops – The American Forces Network (AFN) that provides American sports and entertainment programming to our troops stationed abroad, has been shut down. For some reason, though, AFN News will still broadcast news, just not any of the popular and fun stuff.

Camp David is essential, but popular programming for heroes overseas is non-essential.

6. Obama Closes D-Day Memorial – The GOP have offered to compromise and fund the National Parks. Obama has said he will veto this compromise legislation. As a result, along with 24 other military cemeteries, the D-Day memorial in Normandy has been barricaded.

7. Obama Tries to Close Privately-Funded Mt. Vernon – Although George Washington’s Mt. Vernon estate is privately funded, the feds blocked visitors from entering the parking area because the Park Service maintains the lot. Apparently, the New Media publicity resulted in the feds backing down.

8. Obama Closes Over 100 Privately-Managed Parks That Cost No Money to Run –  The U.S. Treasury actually makes money from the rent paid by a private company that “employs about 400-500 camp workers and managers across about a dozen states.” No federal money is used to operate these parks. No federal employees are used to staff these parks. Taxpayers make a profit from these parks. Still, Obama had them closed and as a result 400-500 employees and a private business are taking it in the neck.

9. Obama Closes Self-Sustaining Colonial Farm It Hasn’t Supported Since 1980 – “For the first time in 40 years, the National Park Service (NPS) has finally succeeded in closing the Farm down to the public. In previous budget dramas, the Farm has always been exempted since the NPS provides no staff or resources to operate the Farm.”

10. Obama Tries to Close State-Run Parks in Wisconsin – “The park service ordered state officials to close the northern unit of the Kettle Moraine, Devil’s Lake, and Interstate state parks and the state-owned portion of the Horicon Marsh, but state authorities rebuffed the request because the lion’s share of the funding came from state, not federal coffers.”

11. Obama Closes Vietnam Memorial – The GOP have passed compromise legislation that would fund national memorials and parks, and open them to the public. Obama threatened a veto. Apparently, the “essential” government employees are those erecting barricades, not those who could keep the memorial open.

12. Obama Closes Privately-Owned Hotel, Police Block Parking Lot – “The operator of a 51-room inn located on U.S. government-owned land in North Carolina abandoned his defiant stance on Thursday to keep the property open despite being ordered to close as part of the federal government shutdown.”

October is this inn’s prime season. The GOP have offered compromise funding opening the parks. Obama said he will veto that compromise.

State troopers blocked customers from entering the inn’s parking lot.

13. Park Service Ranger: ‘We’ve Been Told to Make Life As Difficult For People As We Can’ – “It’s a cheap way to deal with the situation,” an angry Park Service ranger in Washington says of the harassment.

Why the hell is the GOP playing games with these asshats, if they hold the power of the purse, they can do what they want regardless of the Senate. Why can’t they articulate this?

Who Shut Down the Government?

by Thomas Sowell

Even when it comes to something as basic, and apparently as simple and straightforward, as the question of who shut down the federal government, there are diametrically opposite answers, depending on whether you talk to Democrats or to Republicans.

There is really nothing complicated about the facts. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted all the money required to keep all government activities going — except for ObamaCare.

This is not a matter of opinion. You can check the Congressional Record.

As for the House of Representatives’ right to grant or withhold money, that is not a matter of opinion either. You can check the Constitution of the United States. All spending bills must originate in the House of Representatives, which means that Congressmen there have a right to decide whether or not they want to spend money on a particular government activity.

Whether ObamaCare is good, bad or indifferent is a matter of opinion. But it is a matter of fact that members of the House of Representatives have a right to make spending decisions based on their opinion.

ObamaCare is indeed “the law of the land,” as its supporters keep saying, and the Supreme Court has upheld its Constitutionality.

But the whole point of having a division of powers within the federal government is that each branch can decide independently what it wants to do or not do, regardless of what the other branches do, when exercising the powers specifically granted to that branch by the Constitution.

The hundreds of thousands of government workers who have been laid off are not idle because the House of Representatives did not vote enough money to pay their salaries or the other expenses of their agencies — unless they are in an agency that would administer ObamaCare.

Since we cannot read minds, we cannot say who — if anybody — “wants to shut down the government.” But we do know who had the option to keep the government running and chose not to. The money voted by the House of Representatives covered everything that the government does, except for ObamaCare.

The Senate chose not to vote to authorize that money to be spent, because it did not include money for ObamaCare. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says that he wants a “clean” bill from the House of Representatives, and some in the media keep repeating the word “clean” like a mantra. But what is unclean about not giving Harry Reid everything he wants?

If Senator Reid and President Obama refuse to accept the money required to run the government, because it leaves out the money they want to run ObamaCare, that is their right. But that is also their responsibility.

You cannot blame other people for not giving you everything you want. And it is a fraud to blame them when you refuse to use the money they did vote, even when it is ample to pay for everything else in the government.

When Barack Obama keeps claiming that it is some new outrage for those who control the money to try to change government policy by granting or withholding money, that is simply a bald-faced lie. You can check the history of other examples of “legislation by appropriation” as it used to be called.

Whether legislation by appropriation is a good idea or a bad idea is a matter of opinion. But whether it is both legal and not unprecedented is a matter of fact.

Perhaps the biggest of the big lies is that the government will not be able to pay what it owes on the national debt, creating a danger of default. Tax money keeps coming into the Treasury during the shutdown, and it vastly exceeds the interest that has to be paid on the national debt.

Even if the debt ceiling is not lifted, that only means that government is not allowed to run up new debt. But that does not mean that it is unable to pay the interest on existing debt.

None of this is rocket science. But unless the Republicans get their side of the story out — and articulation has never been their strong suit — the lies will win. More important, the whole country will lose.

Much like not knowing where the gulf states are, Obama tosses this jewel out there.

Obama: Why, Just Imagine If a Worker Wanted to Extract Concessions from a Factory. And So He Stopped Working and Shut the Factory Down. Imagine Such a Thing. He’d be Fired!

There’s nothing more dangerous than the Egotistical Idiot whose personality dysfunctions effectively hide his incompetence from himself. Such a man will make mistake after mistake after mistake, and will never learn a damn thing from it, because his Ego will just keep telling him, “You’re the best.” – Ace

That last quote is from a daily read over at Ace of Spades