US.gov - including NASA et al - quits internet. Is the UN running it now? The US government has disappeared from the internet after a hard core of Republican party lawmakers forced the superpower's state agencies to shut down over a budget dispute. The House of Representatives refused to agree a budget that would keep cash flowing to public departments, meaning that the entire government was forced …
(Also, Obamacare should never have been passed on the basis than none of the Congressional morons who passed it actually read it. [...])
That would disqualify the vast majority of bills passed by the Congress since the beginning of the Republic. Including the badly misnamed PATRIOT ACT, and every budget resolution since at least Ronald McDonald Reagan, and quite likely before that.
Independent moderate, my ass.
We in the U.S. are about half a century behind nearly every developed society on the planet with regard to healthcare. The Republican party is a coalition of about seven "one donkey" shows. They draw in the Religious Right, paranoid firearms advocates and others with empty promises of action that never appears -- all the while vigorously protecting their only real agenda: "Help the rich get richer by any and all means."
If you have a gram of compassion anywhere in that tiny cold black heart you might be a moderate. If you didn't focus on the singular Republican scapegoat issue you might be an independent.
Independent moderate, my ass.
We in the U.S. are about half a century behind nearly every developed society on the planet with regard to healthcare.
Can you tell me what THIS BILL does to alter that? The only people who benefit from this are insurance companies.
Those who could not afford health insurance before, only get it now to avoid the fine, but they buy the cheapest thing they can to do it. It's called a "Bronze level plan" under the Affordable Care Act. These are high deductible plans, so they still have to pay for much more then they can afford out of pocket (only now, that they are play for the insurance too, they can afford even less!).
Those of who have insurance will see rates go up, in addition, many plans (in particular the ones negotiated by organized labour) will be taxed, along with taxes added to medical devices (pacemakers, insulin pumps, etc).
The penalty for businesses not offering insurance only affects full-time employees, and even then only for businesses with greater then 50 full time employees. Encouraging hiring part-time staff to keep your full time staff at 49 or less.
So, please remind me, how compassionate are the backers of this bill?
It is a law now. It stopped being a bill quite a few years ago.
The debate was had, had again and had some more. The matter is settled. That's how our political system works. Debate while the debate is on and deal with the outcome.
The refusal of all involved to follow the very rules they claim to be supporting is the highest of hypocrisies. Even worse it highlights the weaknesses of the GOP platform and its leadership. They cannot lead through this. They cannot deal with reality. They've been throughly trounced so many times over this that now they look like nothing more than spoiled brats who want to take their game home now that they're lost.
Everyday this drags on the GOP and tea party lose credibility and strength. They can act now to fix this and lose the nutter vote or act later and keep moving voters to the left. They've cut their own throats by acting like bullies in so very many other matters that the bulk of the public blames them for the shutdown. That's all that maters, voter perception. The GOP is going to have to get some leadership. Right now they've got the political equivalent of Stephen Elop in charge of the House.
>>>>>Can you tell me what THIS BILL does to alter that? The only people who benefit from this are insurance companies.
This bill has nothing to do with healthcare at all. It is an appropriations/supply bill to find the government.
Perhaps you mean the affordable care act, which is not a bill.
Seriously, if you don't know the difference you need to stop copy/pasting crap from tea party HQ and instead go spend some time learning how congress works.
We in the U.S. are about half a century behind nearly every developed society on the planet with regard to healthcare. The Republican party is a coalition of about seven "one donkey" shows. They draw in the Religious Right, paranoid firearms advocates and others with empty promises of action that never appears -- all the while vigorously protecting their only real agenda: "Help the rich get richer by any and all means."
If you have a gram of compassion anywhere in that tiny cold black heart you might be a moderate. If you didn't focus on the singular Republican scapegoat issue you might be an independent.
A very one sided way of thinking there. And pretty much wrong to.
Don't misunderstand: I'm as scornful of the Republicans as I am of the Democrats. Neither party has our best interests at heart. The left puts on a good show, but they're just as guilty of some of the things you're accusing Republicans of as the Republicans are. If you pay attention you'll notice that no matter how hard things get for the rest of us the leaders of the Democratic party are still getting richer. Everyone in DC, with the possible exception of the (possibly insane) Pauls have hidden agendas. I call the Pauls possible exceptions because they, unlike others there, seem to tell their views whether it pisses off everyone in the room or not, so I find it slightly more believable that they're being truthful.
Accusing me of having a 'tiny cold black heart' on the basis that you happen to disagree with me is stupid. I won't beat around the bush there. Make you point with facts, not insults. And this is ONE issue. Commenting on it doesn't mean I focus on it. I come down on the side of the left or the right pretty evenly if you look at the whole spectrum of issues, hence why I say I'm a moderate.
Thing is, Republicans got their arses whupped in the last election. Now they're using the budget / debt ceiling issues to basically say "you either implement our agenda even though it was shot down at the polls by a huge majority, or else we screw up the entire US economy".
Harry Reid was right not to even discuss the Republican proposals because their proposals were 100% take, take, take, "you do exactly what I say, or else", no interest in negotiating anything.
Imagine if Vladimir Putin had told Obama "You're going to enact the laws that I want, even though they're complete opposite of what US public voted for, or else I'm going to nuke Washington"
It's basically political terrorism
The writer suggests, "Republicans wanted to see a public healthcare scheme dubbed Obamacare delayed by at least a year - something the Democrats just wouldn't agree to"
ummm... not exactly...
Actually, aspects of the bill have already been delayed by the Democratic President, meaning President Obama is technically breaking the law, but the Democratic Senate have not impeached Democratic President Obama for not following the law (which the Democratic Senate penned.)
Ironically, the Democratic Senate and Democratic President Obama refused to pass the suggestion by the Republican House of Representatives, the proposed extension, which would allow The President off-the-hook for technically breaking the law. The legal "relaxation" of the law was rejected by the Democrats, wholesale, leaving President Obama legally liable, and allowing the government to be partially shut down!
Does the Democratic Senate want to follow up with articles of Impeachment, for every law item that has been illegally delayed by the President Obama, of their own political party? Will the media hold the U.S. President accountable, for the illegal delays instituted by the Democratically controlled Executive branch?
Honestly, this is beyond crazy! Why can't these people just do something according to the letter of the Law and their Constitution, instead of always doing things illegally?
If it was a Republican President, one might expect the EXACT SAME THING to play out: Republican House trying to pass a law to give their President legal wiggle-room, and a Democratic Senate trying to block it... but the Democratic Senate would already be moving to impeach the Republican President.
This comedy never ceases to amaze me!!!
@ jr424242
I would guess by the downvotes that people here dont like to think of the democrats as extremists. Instead they are just sticking to their guns (so to speak).
To disagree it takes both sides. Both sides elected. Both sides believe they are right. One wants to improve healthcare, one wants to reign in the excessive spending. Both noble goals yet it is the extremists of both sides throwing insults instead of negotiating.
Is free healthcare good if the country has no money for any public services? Is it worth being a very rich country if you cant afford to live? Both are good arguments, the answer is not simple
The Republicans do not want to reign in spending. They want to reallocate spending. Read through their proposals. I challenge you to read through them and see for yourself. Don't take the pundits word for it or John Elop Boehner's word for it. Go back to 2001 or start with 2013. Overall spending remains level with a decrease in tax revenue in all their proposed and in their in place policies.
The GOP want to move the expenditures, basically to other departments, where the numbers look better. The Democrats just accept the numbers don't look good. Both parties proposed and actual policies increase the overall debt and neither really wants to do anything about it. They'll lose votes. That's the only thing they want are votes.
Instead of parroting what you've heard on TV or news sites spend the time to get to know proposed and actual legislation. It is plainly evident that reducing the debt is not a goal of either the Republican or Democratic parties.
Both parties are equally guilty of fucking the taxpayer. Neither party is going to help you, the average citizen. It is in their best interests if you choose sides and take at face value the things their 'platform represents'. A divided populace is good for them and they'll do everything they can to keep it that way. People should set an example for the lawmakers and stop choosing sides: That's extremism.
The article author writes, "The reforms came into force today, allowing millions of poor Americans access to low-cost, state-backed health insurance."
Millions of poor Americans already had government-backed health insurance for generations - it is called Medicaid.
Millians of poor Americans already had state-backed health insurance, offered on a state-by-state level, depending on where they choose to live, and how they choose to vote.
The first Federal Government funded Health Insurance plans for the "uninsurable" were offered many months ago. The subsidy funding "dried up" with weeks, and the plan was already closed to new participants. This exchange is for a class of people that were once considered "insurable".
The law actually compels employers (who did not get a waver by The President's appointees) to offer health insurance to full time employees. This has been forcing government, educational, and cost sensitive retail institutions to force employees to part-time status, cutting their wages.
The law actually compels non-poor people, through a tax penalty, to purchase health insurance, who might not otherwise have health insurance. This means, the people who used to be working middle class, but not poor enough for Medicaid, to be taxed at the end of the year, placing additional pressure on former middle-class families.
The law raises the cost of medical devices (i.e. splints, machines, etc.) consumed by people. This raises the cost of medical care for everyone.
Sure, there will be a subsidy for those families, but will it be the equivalent to the 25%-50% of the salary, that they lost due to The Affordable Health Insurance Act?
Sure, there will be a subsidy for some families, but will it be the equivalent of the taxes they will pay for the medical devices that they need in their treatment process?
The Federal Government "taking over" student loans and encouraging students to take out more loans for college/university, regardless of aptitude or likelihood of being able to complete their degree, was supposed to be a major source of (guaranteed) funding for the Affordable Health Care Act. Was this a reasonable thing to do?
The number of uninsured, in the United States, is projected by the Congressional Budget Office, to remain about the same after the law. Some people are asking, why all of this cost & effort, when there will be no-net-change in the people being covered?
The President exempted the Federal Government from the Affordable Care Act, which cut into a guaranteed funding source. It is illegal for Congress to pass a law, exempting themselves, but it is not corruption for Congress to pass a law and have the Executive Branch exempt them from it, drying up subsidy funding (tax) sources?
Over 50% of polled Americans disagree with Obamacare, many of them for may more reasons that above, but The Republicans taking the "populist" role may not be as politically expedient as they desire.
"Over 50% of polled Americans disagree with Obamacare..."
If this is in fact true, why is it that when 90% of Americans were polled indicated that they were in favor of Universal Gun Registration nothing was changed? I suppose that that was politically expedient.
I believe over half of that 50% you referred to said they would not want a Government Shutdown to make the point.
The US Congress passed ACA in to law and the president signed it and it was ruled Constitutional by the Supreme Court . If they now want to change the law, then change it, but don't close down the government just because now you don't like.
They've tried to change it. The Republicans have had more preliminary vote counts and floor votes trying to change the ACA than any other bill in US history. Every single one failed. They couldn't even muster up enough support within their own party to change the law.
Every Congressperson is equally responsible for the shutdown. But only the GOP are responsible for completely wasting two years of legislative time focusing on the past instead of dealing with reality and moving forward. The GOP is broken and their leadership is weak. Like any weak entity, the first to strike are the extremists and that's exactly what happened to the GOP. The tea party nutters got in and have poisoned the party from the inside.
This is 'let them eat cake', isn't it?
Not everyone can just up and move to another state, and not everyone is somewhere where their vote matters.
Some are somewhere where there have been active attempts to stop them voting. Some are somewhere that's been gerrymandered to fuck. Even for presidential elections, if you are not in one of a handful of states, your vote is irrelevant.
Its the fault of all the retards in government. You have two sides unwilling to negotiate on anything. One side claims they are negotiating by demanding they get only what they want.... and the other the exact same thing. Its all their faults and anyone who refuses to see it is just a blind partisan unwilling to look deeper than the news headline on their favorite news channel.
That's just it, regardless of your personal politics, this is 100% the fault of everyone in Congress. No finger pointing, no nothing, this is abject failure on the parts of Federal Legislators. Every single one of them is just as responsible as the next.
The only people this hurts are the Citizens. With no functional government they have broken the only thing they were supposed to be doing. Stopping government is not an optional move, you simply can't do tat and consider yourself as doing a good job.
They can horse trade and place blame all they like, but when they can't come to an agreement and keep the government working they are all to blame. Trying to decide which side is 'right' only hurts us more as Citizens. It is to their advantage, and our disadvantage: Like nearly everything they do. Fuck 'em all, each and every one.
It'll be the same lizards, no matter which lizard gets in. The system is rigged from step #1 to keep 'alternative parties' out of Washington. Only the two main parties quality for State or Federal campaign funds and the radio and TV networks don't give them time because they don't have to. The system is so insanely rigged that occasionally big 'Brand Name' candidates can't get on the ballot in their own State.
The Republicans and Democrats both skew the system equally. They despise other parties so badly they'd rather elect their enemy than have someone else get in on the flag burning they get up to on Capitol Hill.
That's not exactly the right question. Now that gerrymandering is the law of the land (both parties do it as much as they can) and the SCOTUS has decreed that "money is speech", Incumbents are extremely hard to remove, except at the primary level (where our highly intelligent, civic minded, voting populace is eager to exercise its franchise...Oh, wait...I forgot the <sarcasm> tag....).
To show common sense, Americans need to start voting out state representatives, and vote in those who will create a fair mechanism for redistricting.
Yeah, like that's gonna happen....
Corporate USA has funded all the winners. Those winners will never change the system that allowed them to win. They may talk a little different, but take a Republican and give him/her a new sound track (you might need to lube him/her up a bit) and you have a Democrat.
"Obama-care" does provide for the USA's disenfranchised, but it also makes it illegal to choose not to be insured. By law you must send your money to an insurance company. This is a Republican wet dream. If the Republicans tried to create that law they would get stomped for their blatant avarice (AKA Republicanism).
It does not matter who gets elected. Without corporate funding (and the resulting special interests), no one has a chance. Meat the new boss. Same as the old boss.
Of course the ACA is a Republican wet dream. The overall plan was drawn up by the most conservative think tank in the nation. That plan was chosen as a way to get conservatives onboard. That predictably backfired because the GOP isn't after any sort of successful policy, they're after the Democrats Congressional seats.
Instead of trying to include the GOP, the Obama administration should have rammed through real public health care and let the GOP negotiate down to an ACA plan. That would have let the GOP feel strong, and that's really what all this is about. The GOP are supposed to be the strong party, but in reality they can't cope when things aren't exactly to their liking. That's how the tea party got in, posing as 'strong'.
...In the library world a surprising number of XML formatted documents rely on LOC for the Schema needed for validation. Those are all gone now, so work just grind to a halt for now....
So this is a very good trial run to find out what we would have to do to take the net away from the US permanently, then...?
"So this is a very good trial run to find out what we would have to do to take the net away from the US permanently, then...?"
It's tempting, but no.
This is just the US government.
BTW as the NSA comes under the DoD I think it will remain connected, although it's web site is probably off line.
Like Newt Gingrich before him, John Boehner is at the far end of the plank, and seems to be sawing away at it with every opportunity. The inevitable backlash will force his supporters to distance themselves..it's already happening... and then he'll be the whipping boy for the Republican party, not the poster boy.
hard to reach. It seems demand for the "unpopular" act is overwhelming. I have been unable to access it since 8am EST. It could of course just be my state, which Hates the Prez (tm).
Now, it is entirely possible the website was "not ready", but the fact it was not stopped by the shutdown, sort of makes Obama's point. It is law and it is going to happen.
We are ALL waiting to see what happens....
P.
All the thickos complaining about this are missing the point; the point is this was only able to happen because the US government failed to live within it's means i.e. budget. If you think this is bad, just wait until foreign countries finally have enough and dump US treasuries, so the government can't get new debt, and has existing debt which come due and can't be refinanced, so it suddenly has a massive growing hole in it's budget! It is only a matter of time before this implosion occurs, and the attempts to stop this are becoming less and less effective; the FED can only buy so much US treasuries, before the stink becomes unbearable!
Um, no.
Appropriations and spending bills have to be passed all the time, surplus, deficit, or anything in between. They are bread and butter bills to reallocate funds from the treasury to the departments.
The Debt ceiling problem is in two weeks.
The reason why this has happened to because the republicans in the house haven't been able to convince the senate to repeal the AHA any of the 40 odd times they've tried... So they're now taking hostages.
"Republicans wanted to see a public healthcare scheme dubbed Obamacare delayed by at least a year - something the Democrats just wouldn't agree to, because"
The Obamacare bill had passed all legal requirements and was duly signed into law, and has no connection with Republican attempts to blackmail Obamo by threatening to shutdown the economy if they didn't get their own way. If the democrats had tried this then wails of 'anti-American traitors' would have gone up all over Washington.
Companies reeling from NSA snooping revelations are further hit by the realisation by Business that the USA has a government which is intrusive and has banana-republic stability.
If you really want to correct your budget (and yes, we know you really do need to), stop waging wars on people and stuff. I offer a two-pronged strategy: keep the health-care, stop sending your young men to dangerous places. You'll save far more lives using health-care than you'll save by stalking Bin Ladin's roommates and you'll look far more noble.
(That goes for the UK gov too.)
Maybe they should declare a 'War on Budgets'! Declaring war on something is a proven way to accomplish exactly the opposite its intended goals.
Declaring war also provides an easy out for all involves. You can change the goals as soon as you start losing, declare it all a smashing success and go home to decide what thing to declare war on next. It's a win-win for all, especially for anyone involved in the targeted thing!
Its the political equivolent of the kid taking his ball home because no-one will do what he tells them.
It doesn't matter if everyone else is stopped from doing what they want all that matters is that they feel they are the most important.
There should be no way to stop government from continuing to work like they have now there should only be the right to stop changes to the budget ie cuts / increases until voted for.
That way government could carry on kicking the ball while the snotty kid sorts out his problems with a few others.....
"Due to the lapse in federal government funding, this website is not available." ...what kind of funding does it take to actually keep the previous contents - no updates,i admit that those can cost someone's time - ? It can't even be about hosting since the website is still there and displaying the message - arguably they had to pay someone to write this page and do the redirect .
As other commenters have noted, including myself. There is the cost of bandwidth to provide a full service (apparently that Nasa closed page is 21k, as opposed to a browsing session in the Mbs per person), and the problem of noone patching out security flaws as they arise.
Lets say a new vulnerability is discovered next week that GovernmentProjectA.gov is vulnerable to. lets say that site has personal data on it... I dunno maybe ticket sales to an event or a submission system for a permit or something.
Would it be better for the site to be down, or up and not maintained?
You're right about the unpatched vulnerabilities, but even if one were found it is highly unlikely it would be fixed in a week or so anyway.
But the bandwidth costs thing doesn't work. The government pays an annual set fee for bandwidth. The providers have already been paid. This is more about making it visible the government has quit working. I work in DC and even there it is hard to tell the government does anything other than fill up the metro with staff and clog up the highways. They've got to so something extremely visible or nobody would notice they were gone.
"Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, "
This sounds like a job for the well regulated militia baring arms I hear so much about.
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