Wouldn't they just get arrested? I can't imagine that protest lasts long.

There has to be a law somewhere that blocking a highway intentionally will lead to the forfeiture of your vehicle.

As for the word "austerity", I don't think it applies to checks on runaway spending. The figures on how our deficit has grown are easily found online. If we keep printing money, as Obama has done in an unprecedented manner, at some point someone will have to pay the price.

For what? Driving the speed limit? They're going to circle the area doing the speed limit from what I understand.

the person who made the threat has now walked it back saying it was a media stunt.

(I'd say 50/50 it was a real idea, and they fell back to "and you fell for it" when they got made fun of)

Let's find more ways to fuck up the daily existence of people who have nothing to do with anything to make a grandstanding political point!

It's like when Occupy Boston decided to make an impromptu march at 5:00 to ruin the evening commute. I don't ever wish harm on someone, but there are times when I'm ambivalent towards it.

I was promoting the GOP? How clumsy of me. I meant to say they're quite a group of fuck-ups, much like their counterparts on the other side of the aisle.

I love activists who think that the best course of action is to anger everyone around them.

Doesn't that sum up the whole GOP thing?

GOP: "We're going to win this shutdown because people understand we're right."

Just about every poll since shutdown: "Fuck, are you kidding me? You guys are hated more then the Bubonic Plague."

GOP: See, WINNING!

How many votes is the GOP getting out of D.C.?


And honestly, how many votes from Virginia that Romney managed in a loss is this actually going to lose?

edit to add: I think the idea is rather silly, but it's not as though it carries any huge risk either. At this point D.C. is lucky that it hasn't been burned to the ground anyway, disrupting it further doesn't seem like a major misstep.

From what I understand, traffic is great in DC right now, at least compared to normal, due to the shutdown. Would people notice?

SI

Somebody again help me understand why this isn't all political theatre by the Democrats, GOP, and media? Before the regular posters start jumping on me for wearing a tin foil hat here are the current headlines on Yahoo...

Poll: GOP gets the blame in shutdown - Yahoo News

Defying government shutdown, national park visitors play ‘catch me if you can’ - Yahoo News

Obama opens door to short-term deal to end shutdown and calls possible U.S. default an economic nuke - Yahoo News

Here is one that I can't find anywhere on there...

House Votes 407-0 to Provide Back Pay to Furloughed Workers | 218

So I know I am just an internet dumb conspiracy guy but after that vote isn't it just...

1) GOP talking fiscal responsibility while agreeing to pay all workers and thus having zero fiscal responsibility.

2) The Democrats shutting down popular attractions like the DC monuments and Yellowstone to show us all how important all of the out of control spending must be.

3) The media ignoring what seems to be the biggest story which is that everyone appears to be getting paid while still feeding the fear of points 1 and 2.

What exactly am I missing here? Does everyone getting back pay mean everyone isn't really getting back pay?

Applying government shutdown logic to the baseball playoffs | HardballTalk

I agree with this. I keep reading stories about money being spent to keep people OUT of parks - if the government is shut down, how are they staffed to actually prevent people from getting in?

Crap like this doesn't help. I'm a big fan of Peyton Manning, but I wish he would stop advertising unhealthy foods that he probably never eats (Papa John's pizza, for instance).

YaleNews | Unhealthy food marketed to youth through athlete endorsements

Unhealthy food marketed to youth through athlete endorsements

By Megan Orciari
October 7, 2013

Professional athletes are often paid large amounts of money to endorse commercial products. But the majority of the food and beverage brands endorsed by professional athletes are for unhealthy products like sports beverages, soft drinks, and fast food, according to a new study by the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale. The study appears in the November issue of Pediatrics.

Analyzing data collected in 2010 from Nielson and AdScope, an advertisement database, the study reveals that adolescents aged 12 to 17 viewed the most television ads for food endorsed by athletes. Previous research by public health advocates has criticized the use of athlete endorsements in food marketing campaigns for often promoting unhealthy food and sending mixed messages to youth about health, but this is the first study to examine the extent and reach of such marketing.

Researchers selected 100 professional athletes to study based on Businessweek’s 2010 Power 100 report, which ranked athletes according to their endorsement value and prominence in their sport. Information about each athlete’s endorsements was gathered from the Power 100 list and AdScope. Researchers then sorted the endorsements into categories: food/beverages, automotive, consumer goods, service providers, entertainment, finance, communications/office, sporting goods/apparel, retail, airline, and other. The nutritional quality of the foods featured in athlete-endorsement advertising was assessed, along with the marketing data.

Of the 512 brands associated with these athletes, food and beverage brands were the second largest category of endorsements behind sporting goods. “We found that LeBron James (NBA), Peyton Manning (NFL), and Serena Williams (tennis) had more food and beverage endorsements than any of the other athletes examined. Most of the athletes who endorsed food and beverages were from the NBA, followed by the NFL, and MLB,” said Marie Bragg, the study’s lead author and a doctoral candidate at Yale.

Sports beverages were the largest individual category of athlete endorsements, followed by soft drinks, and fast food. Most — 93% — of the 46 beverages being endorsed by athletes received all of their calories from added sugars.

Food and beverage advertisements associated with professional athletes had far-reaching exposure, with ads appearing nationally on television, the Internet, the radio, in newspapers, and magazines.

“The promotion of energy-dense, nutrient-poor products by some of the world’s most physically fit and well-known athletes is an ironic combination that sends mixed messages about diet and health,” said Bragg.

Bragg and co-authors assert that professional athletes should be aware of the health value of the products they are endorsing, and should use their status and celebrity to promote healthy messages to youth.

Other authors include Swati Yanamadala, Christina Roberto, and Jennifer L. Harris of the Rudd Center at Yale, and Kelly Brownell of Duke University.

The study was supported by grants from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Rudd Foundation.

If star athletes sell junk food -- is your kid more likely to eat it? - NBC News.com

Another article on the same topic.

+1
Too bad this type of argument isn't sexy enough to make the news.

Because it's less expensive to pay a park ranger $X to keep people out of the park than it is to send in a helicopter and ambulance because Trespasser A is being menaced by a bear.

:D

But seriously, though, I somewhat agree. I'm not sure if it's legally possible, but I'd rather see Obama be aggressive with what's shut down. People need to understand the ramifications of the lack of government services sooner rather than later, especially if the debt ceiling doesn't get raised and we really have to do without services.

I can only assume some of these Federal workers are working without pay.

The backpay doesn't come in until after the shutdown is over. So no one is getting paid right now, not even the people who are deemed essential and have been working. I think everyone expected the backpay, since that was given in the last shutdown, so that's why it's not a huge news story. The backpay doesn't exactly comfort people who might not be able to go without however many paychecks until this shutdown ends.

It also doesn't replace the spending to non-government employees. I know a woman that has layed-off a home healthcare aid for her husband because she currently is furloughed. The healthcare worker layed-off a babysitter because she couldn't afford it.

from today's AP poll ... perhaps the next fight is actually the big one?

Conflicted is the wrong answer, I'd say stupid.

I stand corrected on how they are getting paid but from my understanding some employees are working for no pay and some are at home not working. Both will be reimbursed the same? I would be a little pissed if my essential position got the same pay as someone else who is at home with their family doing nothing.

JPhillips: Though I may come across as a heartless anti-government guy on this board I certainly have some compassion for the babysitter of the healthcare worker of the employee. But the federal government never really lays off anyone do they? This situation really wouldn't be any different if the laid off worker was employed by GM or Coca-Cola would it? It sucks but when they get their backpay hopefully they will chose to not only pick the babysitter back up but maybe give her some "back pay".

I wasn't necessarily talking about this, just the idea in general. We had some Occupy rally where they purposely blocked streets and made it a bitch to get home after work. Just never understood why a group would want to piss off people who they could use support from.

We also had anarchists during one of the summits in Chicago a year ago run around smashing windows. How is that benefiting your cause? All they did was piss off everyone.

They've cut around 100,000 in just the last year.

I get it. Salt+sugar+fat=bad, and every company in this article adds a lot of it. But...the "bliss point" as fearmongering is pretty annoying. It's like we're actively decrying things that taste good as the problem. I know, the article (and most of society) is appropriately calling out the right things, but leading the article with "they try to make it taste as good as possible" doesn't really hit the message, and comes off really more anti-science than anything else.

Fair enough.

I wasn't wild about the way they chose to lead that section either tbh.

I don't think it indicates that much of a conflict necessarily, I'd say it could indicate the most shocking conclusion of all: a willingness to suffer a painful cure.

It also doesn't do jack shit for government contractors. Come Monday when I can't use stored PTO, if I'm not at work I won't get paid, and that money is not coming back.

Republican party hits an all time favorability low, according to Gallup. The good news for them is we have a year till the next election, there's a couple pollsters who think that even with the gerrymandered districts, the House may be in play if this trend continues

http://www.gallup.com/poll/165317/re...ecord-low.aspx

Just curious, but has there ever been a link shown to exist between a party's national favorability and the results of a localized state/county election? I honestly don't know the answer to this, but I would be surprised if a republican would lose an election in rural Kentucky or a democrat would lose in Chicago because the overall party disdain level was high.

If the national polls are indicative of future outcomes, a 3rd party will sweep the next federal election.

edit to add:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politi...6ee_story.html

Overall, 62 percent mainly blamed Republicans for the shutdown. About half said Obama or the Democrats in Congress bear much responsibility ... Most Americans disapprove of the way Obama is handling his job, the poll suggests, with 53 percent unhappy with his performance and 37 percent approving of it. Congress is scraping rock bottom, with a ghastly approval rating of 5 percent.

Indeed, anyone making headlines in the dispute has earned poor marks for his or her trouble, whether it’s Democrat Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, or Republican John Boehner, the House speaker, both with a favorability rating of 18 percent.

Everybody loves a good after-party.

Sen. Bob Corker said today that if Tres. Sec. Lew really stated that the 17th was the Dday and didnt leave himself a few months of 'runway' then he would be committing 'malpractice'. What?! Imagine if they found out the opposite occurred, that he stated the 17th but in fact they have oh, um, jeez I dunno, some arbitrary amount of runway that forced these idiots to bring a deal together before they had to because their faces were going to be sawed off tomorrow. They'd have him in front of a Sen. hearing in no time. You're Demamp if you do, and Demamp if you dont.

I've seen some correlation to national generic Dem/GOP preference having a predictive outcome, but I forget where I saw it. When a wave election is 10% switching parties there obviously won't be that much turnover.

WTF?

We technically broke the debt limit months ago , but Treasury has been using "extraordinary means" to keep things going. On or about the 17th is when those run out.

I see a story where a couple mutual funds are trying to divest themselves of short term US Treasury bonds, because if there's a default (even a short term technical default), they're required by law to mark it down to zero.

Bill Gross: We're buying what Fidelity is selling - Yahoo Finance

I'll set up a different thread for a poll if there's going to be an actual default.

Pretty good Rolling Stone article on how we got here:


Tea Party Politics: A Look Inside the Republican Suicide Machine | Politics News | Rolling Stone

Guy that my wife went to school with is running as a Tea Party candidate. I'm not really aligned with most of his ideas as he tends to go more towards a Rand Paul line of thinking. Should be interesting to see if he can unseat Pat Roberts. I know there's a lot of Tea Party money being pumped into his campaign.

Is Milton Wolf the next Ted Cruz? - The Week

How the hell is Pat Roberts not conservative enough?

Wolf is apparently upset that Roberts voted to raise the debt ceiling. Wolf sounds like a fucking moron.

LMAO

It figures they'd get the abbreviation for the state the billboard is in wrong.

Fucking idiots.

I think they got the state the billboard is in (MO) correct.

Also, for the record, TX better not secede. I just bought a house here and I'm not living in some hellhole "country" that includes Lousiana (no offense), Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Missouri.

SI

Was there MO on the billboard? I guess I didn't look at the picture close enough and just assumed that's the one they got wrong. MI/MS makes more sense though I suppose.

Haha.

MI isn't a contiguous state to the others.

Right. The state they got wrong was Mississippi.

Holy crap. I was thinking MS not MI. I'm not sure Michigan connects with Missouri. Maybe there's a tunnel under Illinois and Lake Michigan.

I was also thinking "damn, you're all around Arkansas but want no part of it".

SI

Nice. Good to see they are talking. Wonder what Cruz will do next.

Showdown lowdown Day 10: The latest – CNN Political Ticker - CNN.com Blogs

There have been a bunch of truther ads on the trains here. I hope we continue to see weird ads appear.

Crazy to think a second reconstruction could solve some problems?

Did you not learn your lesson the first time?

I'd be more inclined to say a second Sherman's March would do much more good.

And to think this thread had been pretty dead for the last couple of months!

SI

Eh, it'll take better bait than that to get anyone to play would be my guess.

I was thinking more about how the debt ceiling/budget negotiations got people in here and back to the old games pretty quickly

SI

Hehe - I need to play more of that this weekend.

Here's some chutzpah for you.. on the one year anniversary of the Sandy Hook Massacre, a group of gun lobbyists want to celebrate "Guns Save Lives" Day:

http://blogs.seattletimes.com/politi...ave-lives-day/

Cruz does seem to have support from a "core" group. Not sure if the straw poll is valid ... its got some credible names on it but don't know who Ben Carson is.

Cruz the overwhelming favorite in conservative straw poll - NBC Politics

Kudo's to Obama for his 2 wins and also trying at Somalia.

al-Libi is on a boat being interrogated instead of Gitmo. I think they should fly him to Bagram like the other guy.

Libyan terror suspect Anas al-Libi being interrogated at sea - CBS News

I don't get Karzai. He must have a lot of confidence in Afghanistan being able to stand on its own if the US pulls-out. If I was him, I would be signing whatever needed to be signed and doing what the US needs to stay. Good chance he ends up like the other PM right after the USSR pulled out.

Senior Pakistan Taliban commander captured in Afghanistan | Fox News

Dr. Ben Carson is a surgeon who said of ObamaCare-"It's the worst thing to happen in this nation since slavery."

Ben Carson: Obamacare worst thing to happen to the U.S. since slavery - Washington Times

Well that was stupid of him, saying was bad is not going to make him popular with deep south conservatives.

Which complements Tavis Smiley's statement below I guess.
Tavis Smiley: 'Black People Will Have Lost Ground in Every Single Economic Indicator' Under Obama | NewsBusters

Wonder if the press would spend as much time on a conference that chose Bernie Sanders and Sean Penn 1 and 2?

Joe the not-a-plumber comes right out and says it:

Um whoa - is that for real and not a parody?

Actually if you check the link to the full article at the bottom, it takes you to the TheBlackSphere.net. There it shows the article was written by Kevin Jackson, who is black. Not nice of the Plumber there to make it look like he wrote it.

And too bad for him and the original writer because the next President will likely be an equally if not more Liberal Democrat and a woman on top of that if Hillary runs.

I do think the recession was a primer for the decline e.g. just because the recession officially ended in 2009 doesn't mean the Financial crisis during the Bush years didn't continue to linger and impact black Americans.

However, it has been long enough and it is happening in Obama's second watch. I do think in the next couple years (assuming we don't go into another crisis) the numbers will get better for black Americans.

America Needs a White Republican President

I saw a billboard in St. Louis. It said: "If Aliens Land Remember The 1st Commandment."

Kind of on par with the secession billboard.

So,the thought was that the Republicans were looking to trade cancelling out the second round of sequester cuts to get entitlement reform, but since they've overplayed their hand here, and taken such a kicking in the polls, the Democrats new goal is to only use the first year sequester cuts as a short term, and look to raise the spending in the negotiations.

edit: New tweets from Costa:

per aide, McConnell's chief fight now is to protect BCA spending levels set in '11. McConnell's fear is that Dems, if they get some more momentum/House Rs stall, will req change to BCA levels, and he's trying to prevent that. top Sen GOP aide: "Dems want to spend $80 billion more next year than the BCA allows". McConnell's end-'13 goal, per his broader circle, was to only trade sequester relief for entmt ref (Medicare age raise, CPI, etc). But the shutdown/CR fight + debt limit showdown pretty much spoiled (for now) McConnell's (and Ryan's) plan for seq/entmt trades. So McConnell working not just to solve current impasse, but to protect BCA levels--his chief leverage pt for future fiscal talks. Big pic: McConnell World fears if Ds get seq relief now, that card will be hard to play in future, makes revenue the chief trade option and McConnell is never going to "go there" on revenue, same goes for most Rs. so they want to save seq relief for smthg other than CR/DL. Sen Rs griping that House's stumbles/Cruz's defund push didn't achieve repeal or delay or anything-except now putting BCA levels at risk

So in short, the Senate Republicans are furious that the defund/delay Don Quixote tactics by the House have not only failed to acheive anything, but emboldened a unified Democrat caucus to try to push for an end to the second year of sequestration (and perhaps even a rollback to pre-2011 numbers). The Republicans have to get something out, because they're standing on the cliff edge, and are trying to find a way to step away from the cliff that doesn't result in either the Tea Party or the Democrats pushing them off the cliff.

"The fact that we are here today to debate raising Americas debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. government cannot pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our governments reckless fiscal policies. Increasing Americas debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that the buck stops here. Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better."

Senator Barack Obama, 2006

Here's a thought ... let's just leave it shut the fuck down. Til midterm elections if need be.

But everyone knows if they raise the debt limit this year that it was George Bush's fault. You can't fault Obama.

And that would be the end of the Republican party AND the conservative movement.

Doubtful. Not in more than a small handful of districts I imagine.

And it might be even less as people figure out just how much shit the gov't handles (and spends money on) that it really ought to be out of.

GOP House vs GOP Senate.

T-4.

Government shutdown debate grates on Congress members’ moods - The Washington Post

Hopefully some positive news before tomorrow morning.

Last Hope? Still Stuck And Running Out Of Time, Reid And McConnell Meet On Debt Ceiling

Good God they try really hard with the scare tactics and end of the world stuff don't they?

Stocks Slip as Budget Talks Falter in Washington - ABC News

By the way here the actual quote if you click the article. "The Dow Jones industrial average was down 31 points, or 0.2 percent, at 15,205 in midday trading Monday." Wish I could make this stuff up!

Lebron's scoring average down drastically! "He was averging 35 points a game, after his 34 point performance he is at 34.99"

Good thing I cashed in my 401(k) and invested in gold!

So 'slip' is now a scary word that signals the end of the world?

I am glad that the Senate is actually acting like the grownups we assumed they are. Whenever someone goes off that the Senate is "undemocratic" and how its unfair each state gets equal representation, I remember things like this - its the Senate who ends up making the deals that the children in the House can't possible come up with.

Though I assume the comprehensive deal comes on Wed night - just before the debt ceiling day.

Then we'll have to see if Cruz or Lee or Paul object and cause enough delay to cause problems. We're apparently past the point where the Senate has time to respond to objections.

If the government is shut down, where is all the spending coming from that is putting us against the debt ceiling? Shouldn't the shut down have delayed the debt ceiling hit?

All asked tongue-in-cheek, of course.

Well, I think if this Gang of 12 can come to a deal - there may be 60 to prevent a Cruz or Lee or Paul from gumming up things.

My understanding is that a single senator can object and force the process back to a normal time frame which would require more time than we have. This could go quickly, but only through unanimous consent. When it comes to that, Ted Cruz will become the most important man in America.

There may be something to that, but we actually passed the debt limit months ago and have used accounting tricks since then. It also isn't certain that Oct. 17 is D-Day. I thought it was like my house closing, "on or about..."

You're so right they always report on 0.2% changes in the market come up with explanations for them. I stand corrected.

Or how about the other 97 who just keep spending the money we don't have? Of course no empire has ever collapsed for economic reasons before, roll out the printing presses otherwise we are all going to die! :rolleyes:

You must miss that there are several channels devoted to covering financial markets, so yes, there are usually several news reports a day commenting on even minute changes in a market's price.

Front page of yahoo? Not usually... but I realize you have to apologize for the Feds like Texas sports so don't know why I bother.

So the Fed put that on the front page of Yahoo? Interesting.

I'm sure that throwing on the brakes to your spending in an uncontrolled and haphazard manner is good for all companies and governments. If we want to use the now tortured metaphor of "spending money we don't have like a regular family", it would be like deciding to just stop paying the mortgage for a few months but continuing to pay for cable and pork-of-the-month club because Mom and Dad can't decide which ham or tv program to give up (or, you know, like selectively attempting to stop "all" discretionary funding like hurricane relief and then while begging for aid when there's a fertilizer explosion in your state).

But that would be silly because stretching a metaphor that far and basing your decisions on it would be impractical because it's no longer representing what you're trying to relate it to and is just a gross oversimplification, right?

SI

Yes I don't think it is quite Alex Jones territory to say that ABC and Yahoo and Fox are government mouthpieces. (Or at least mouthpieces for the two pieces of the monster)

narratives

Thought this was good.

The Last Psychiatrist: How Does The Shutdown Relate To Me?

And I would agree with you SI if that wasn't the explanation every single time that debt limit comes up. This has been going on since at least Clinton and its always the same thing... we will fix it later but for now we just can't do anything about it. Otherwise the economy will crash. Why? The experts say. Why do they know? Because they explained why the 2007 crash after it happened, not before so they must know what will happen. You guys laugh all the time at the goldbugs (rightfully so on the fear mongering) when they claim the economy will collapse if we keep spending. Why then is the fear mongering the other way really any different?

Well, raising the debt ceiling doesn't authorize any more spending. The budget had already been passed, so they knew at the time that they would be spending the money, and what they authorized was going to exceed the debt ceiling. That is one reason why it is different.

I know, despite your "pox on both houses", stance, you do love to get in your Democratic rip (I don't remember when it started but it was probably Clinton!), never mind that since WW2 Democratic Presidents have presided over decreases in debt while Republican Presidents have gone the other way with GWB and Reagan responsible for the two largest percent increases in debt.



But how about that a national debt has been going on since the country was founded


Is structural debt bad: yes. Are there ways to fix it that we're ignoring: of course. Could many agencies stand to get a trim? Yes. Are arbitrary cuts or "across the board" cuts stupid? YES! Because there are downstream effects. And certain services have societal benefits beyond profit motive (just because the park service doesn't necessarily turn a profit doesn't mean it doesn't provide a benefit to the United States).

SI