US Government shuts down - WTF?

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DonDaddyD

::Gesturing ala Nas::
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I'll tell you in another lifetime when we are both
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24343698

Someone explain this to me?

America used to be the thing of fantasy when I was a child (80s early 90s). We all wanted to be American, if you knew an American you were somehow 'cooler' than your friends, if you were American you were Jesus. My Nike trainers were better than my friend's simply because they were 'from America' - both were Nike Air Max and made in Taiwan but that didn't matter. If you could go on holiday to America, oh man, that was special.

Your women were better than our women as well - more open to the freaky things that stiff upper lip British men enjoy behind the closet. Oh how I dreamed of shagging an American and adding that to the list, alas. Still, I'd argue British women have caught up since then, thanks Spice Girls.

Such was the sheer awe that the young Brits looked upon the old US of A with. Your fashion was our fashion, your music ours, your sports stars our sports stars and sports? I have a deep appreciation of basketball.

I grew up understanding that America was the World's most dominate Global power, in terms of business, finance, and military might. Your were our bigger brother, there to beat the school bully (Germany, Iraq et al) and give us extra pocket money when we spent it all.

I shit you not.

So what the fuck happened, this is humilating for your nation. From a political stand point, its a fucking joke and no self respecting politician would let the willy waving in Government get this far.

I woke up to watch Obama make the most humiliating speech ever and it looks like the Republicans will do anything to humiliate and destabalise his Government even at the detriment of the people.

But what I cannot understand is why there is no protest, no march and no riots. Surely shit should have gotten real by now.

So, please explain, what happened and what the hell is going on and if it does, how does it affect you?
 
Karma
Karma
i always appreciate the point of view from our neighbors across the pond. it helps remind us that things that pass for "normal" here may not be so normal after all
In a nutshell, our government is more concerned with fighting with each other than actually doing anything productive. It's like a middle school playground.
 
To be more specific, a minority in the House has decided to hold up everything because they disagree with one piece of legislation. The Speaker has failed to reign them in and the Senate and President have decided to not cave to this group further.
 
And the President would rather tweet and go on tv about how terrible the Republicans are than do his job and get it passed ;)
 
Karma
Karma
well... they (to be specific the TEA PARTY ppl) ARE terrible. :p
He won the election, passed the legislation, had it survive the Supreme Court and then won election again. That is what he is supposed to do.

This minority in the House decided that if they cannot have their way they would hold up the entire government.

A clean budget would pass both houses TODAY if Boehner allowed it to reach the floor. But he is too worried about holding the gavel and so he will hold up everything to fight to end a law that a majority of people voted to return the man that pushed it through.
 
Has to be said that's how I see it.

Republicans are looking petty... and what needs to be taken into consideration is that even if they were to win the next election, I'm not sure they could erase the memory of how they used dirty politics to win it. Certainly if there was an immediate (as in the next Government) Republican President to follow Obama, I'm not sure the Rest of World politicians would meet them with any level of respect...

This action did more to make Obama look bad and destabilise the Country internally, it damages your reputation and influence with the Rest of the World as well.
 
Well of course the Republicans are made to look bad - that is what the President, who campaigned on bipartisanship - does. He wants to stand there and say (and tweet), "SEE! SEE how awful they are?!" instead of working with the moderate Republicans to get it done. There are enough votes out there. Just standing there stomping your feet and saying, "I'm right and I'm not going to budge" accomplishes nothing, on both sides. That is the problem - people would rather point fingers than get something done. And people act like it's just Republicans but it's not.

There's going to have to be some sort of compromise, so throw them a bone NOW so they can save face and get the shit done. But of course, then the Administration couldn't blame Republicans for the shutdown so we are where we are now.
 
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Okay I guess I'm a little confused. This act was already passed..as in it was voted through.. And NOW people are risking shutting down the government because they don't want to fund something they already voted through?? I don't understand how that's possible...
 
Well part of the problem with the ACA is how do you pay for it BUT yes, they are trying to virtually revoke it by withdrawing the funding to it. Or actually, I think it's to put off paying for it by a year.

What the Dems should do is agree to take the exemption for members of Congress out of Obamacare - which is the right thing to do anyway - and be done with the whole thing.
 
ok....keep in mind (especially those of us here in america) that the DIVIDE between the republican dominated HOUSE is becoming more & more apparent....w/ moderate republicans (the few that remain after the tea party wave of 2010) are finding a BACK BONE to start openly criticizing the likes of Ted Cruz, Paul Ryan & the rest of the Teapublican toads.

Mccain himself said that these idiots' continued attempt to defund "Obamacare" (CORRECTLY identified as the patient protection affordable care act) even after the SUPREME COURT upheld it is ridiculous & counterproductive! What has the house of representatives done in the past 2 yrs? they've taken up over 3 dozen votes to defund PPACA....while completely PASSING on the need/opportunity to vote for OTHER IMPORTANT legislation (jobs bill etc). WTF is going on? This not governance or any facsimile of it...this is "governining by TANTRUM" & that's all the fucking teapublican toads know how to do! This is THEIR FAULT. no one else's.

& we wonder why America is rapidly losing it's standing on the world stage?
 
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It's not just their fault though. That's the problem. The dems won't shoulder ANY of the blame for what passes as the US government. They just stand around saying, "it's not me." It's all bullshit. None of them do ANYTHING. On EITHER side.
 
Caroline Forbes said:
It's not just their fault though. That's the problem. The dems won't shoulder ANY of the blame for what passes as the US government. They just stand around saying, "it's not me." It's all bullshit. None of them do ANYTHING. On EITHER side.
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the reason why nothing is getting done is b/c of the level of gridlock in congress that has rendered the government BEYOND impotent. I mean really? this is ridiculous. filibuster abuse, threats of shutdowns, temper tantrums & the level of disrespect being shown to t his president by members of congress are BEYOND anything that has been seen in recent memory.

now dont misunderstand me, i'm not a democrat. i find that the dems capitulate FAR too easily (caving on the fight over ending the bush era tax cuts is just one example of that) but when it comes to who's TRYING to do something & who's sitting on their hands throughout the whole process...its the HOUSE, which is dominated by the republicans & more than a handful of tea party freshmen who dont have a clue as to what they're doing...all the want to do is "stick it to obama" by any means possible no matter how it may effect t he country as a whole. 63% of ppl polled TODAY by gallop said that the republicans are responsible for this shutdown & looming crisis.

Once upon a time there was this thing called compromise & "reaching across the aisle"...but all of that shit went RIGHT OUT THE WINDOW when a BLACK MAN became the president. What did Mitch Mcconnell say when he rode in on that tea party wave? "our TOP priority is to see Obama a 1 term president..." NOT jobs, NOT the economy, NOT ending wars we shouldnt even be involved in...noooo "lets get the muslim out of office" :rolleyes:

if the house could see t heir way to be as aggressive about tackling REAL ISSUES that required our gov'ts attention as they were w/ these futile, wasted efforts to pass legislation to "defund obamacare" every three months for the past 2 yrs...perhaps we would be further along than we are now?

the problem w/ the DEMS @ this point is that up till NOW, nobody wanted to take a stand & just stop this bullshit. Look @ the senators & congressmen (dems) in colorado who passed the first meaningful piece of GUN CONTROL legislation in decades, following the aurora shootings. They got that legislation passed, but it cost them their seats in the state's recent election. But both the men said they needed to do the RIGHT THING regardless of if it cost them their seats. That's what we need more of & what we USED to have from BOTH sides until recent years.
 
Jill Monroe said:
63% of ppl polled TODAY by gallop said that the republicans are responsible for this shutdown & looming crisis.
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Lol yeah because Americans are so well informed lol

They believe what the media tells them to believe.

"Once upon a time there was this thing called compromise" - yeah, except the only ones who are expected to compromise are the republicans.
 
Caroline Forbes said:
Lol yeah because Americans are so well informed lol

They believe what the media tells them to believe.

"Once upon a time there was this thing called compromise" - yeah, except the only ones who are expected to compromise are the republicans.
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just as the dems had to when ronald regan was the president & they did...on things that they were deeply @ odds w/ the president about. hell, even republicans were @ odds w/ him over passing the biggest tax hike in u.s. history to help offset the MASSIVE DEBT...debt that HE caused when he TRIPPLED defense/military spending.

compromise is compromise. & while regan was no saint (the man opposed civil rights & opposed recognizing dr. martin luther king's birthday as a national holiday TOOTH & NAIL & he handled the dawn of the AIDS crisis in a most SHAMEFUL manner etc) ...he DID care more about making sure the country WORKED & moved forward more than he did about RUINING everything based on his ideological principals. The same cannot be said for Cruz, Ryan, Mcconnell, Boehner & cohorts.
 
Now, I'm not the most politically savvy kind of person, and I find a lot of the information we get to be a little misleading and kind of overwhelming...

But I feel like this is what I have seen for a LONG time now in politics. It seems like instead of WORKING towards a goal, BOTH sides seem to just want to "spite" the other. It's become less about what is IMPORTANT for the country and has become "which party is in power" or "holds the cards". And that kind of thing drives me crazy.

We don't get things done because no matter WHAT the idea or plan of action is, the other side has a huge problem with it, and it gets bogged down into all this bullshit. Plus I feel like with Obama's presidency coming to a close, EVERYBODY wants to be this rainmaker or to be the one "clear candidate" for the presidency.

Instead of working together, we've reached this far LESS important thing of "what party has the power" which has led to both parties being almost incapable of working together. We are placing so much power on this "POWER STRUGGLE" that we aren't being effective.. I mean when we get to the pissing contest that is now and we have to SHUT DOWN our government??? There's a problem and it's not just Republicans or Democrats, it's EVERYONE involved in this "game".
 
I refuse to simply place the blame all over so as to exonerate the guilty.

When Bush was President the Democrats fought him tooth and nail...and passed lots of legislation that they weren't in love with but got what they could and let the gov work.

The Republicans in the House have presided over only the second stoppage of gov EVER (they did it last time they were in charge...hmnnnn) and they plotted to obstruct Obama LITERALLY from the night he was elected.

It is not all of the Republicans and there are a ton of people on that side with sense. But apparently not enough. Obama won the Obamacare fight fair and square. There is nothing to compromise there and the budget of the country is no bargaining chip.

Republican complain about Obama compromising and getting things done when half of what he proposed pisses his own constituents off because he starts off in a centralist position. And THEN they want to pull further right when they are the minority party.

Nope, not gonna play, "it's everyone's fault" game. Many Republicans specifically are delusional about who won the Presidential election and why. Obama won and people want what he is offering. The House needs to fall back from that and Boehner is too weak to lead them to do so. They can pass a clean bill tonight save for the Hastert rule. So democracy is held up by a minority of one party in one chamber of one part of our government. Shameful.
 
exactly. i'm not going for the whole "it's everyone's fault" b/c it's quite clear who wanted this & who made it happened. they tell you all the time in so many ways...out of their own mouths! you got ppl like bachman & cruz who were giving interviews earlier TODAY saying the shut down was a GOOD THING wtf?

they were the ones who did this shit in 1995 & they're the ones who did it 2013.

is our gov't broken? of course. has been for a long time but it's NOT something that just suddenly happened on Obama's watch & he's BARELY had a chance to fix in 1 & a half terms to even TRY to fix what his last 3 predecessors BROKE & he's been stonewalled & obstructed EVERY STEP OF THE WAY & we know this b/c THEY (the republicans) have said, out of the OWN MOUTHS this is what they were going to do! When they failed to "make him a 1 term president" (again, their stated TOP PRIORITY, NOT anything that actually MATTERED like jobs or the economy) , they decided to do the next best thing & try to render him too IMPOTENT to be effective @ any real governance.
 
I don't want to pass judgement or debate politics I'm not properly informed about but I'm wondering is why there seems to be such widespread hatred against 'Obamacare'? Affordable healthcare... How can it be a hot button topic? Enough to cause something huge like this! I don't get it...
 
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