n2doc
n2doc's JournalIf you are a Government employee in the DC area, these people wish to help you out
Being declared "nonessential" certainly isn't ideal, but it's also not necessarily a bad thing for people in the D.C. area who are hungry or want to get drunk. Several bars and restaurants around the city, as all as some museums, will offer discounted goods to federal employees. Email [email protected] with an additional deals.
SEE
The National Museum of Women in the Arts "will offer free admission to any furloughed federal employees. The employees just need to show their federal government IDs at the admission desk. This will include our two special exhibitions American People, Black Light: Faith Ringgold’s Paintings of the 1960s and Awake in the Dream World: The Art of Audrey Niffenegger."
National Geographic Museum "will be open and offering free admission tomorrow. In addition to free admission to the museum, guests are also invited to 'Tuesdays at Noon,' a free series of programming offered every Tuesday by National Geographic Live. Tomorrow they will be showing The Incredible Dr. Pol. The NG Farmer's Market will also be open tomorrow."
The Alexandria Symphony Orchestra "is offering all furloughed federal workers two complimentary tickets to our Saturday, October 5 performance featuring Carlos Rodriguez, pianist. The performance will be held at 8:00pm in the Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall and Arts Center, located at 3001 North Beauregard Street in Alexandria, VA. Free parking is provided. Additional tickets are available for $5 (18 and under), $10 (students with ID), and start at $20 for adults. To redeem, please present a valid ID at the Box Office on the night of the concert. Prior purchases excluded. Subject to availability. For more information, call 703-548-0885."
EAT
Pork Barrel BBQ : "Free pulled pork sandwich for any gov employee if there is a shutdown. 1 per day, must have gov ID & EXCLUDES CONGRESSMEN."
much more
http://dcist.com/2013/09/government_shutdown_roundup.php
Rick Perry: Implementing Obamacare Is A ‘Felony’
During a campaign stop for U.S. Senate candidate Steve Lonegan (R-NJ) on Tuesday, Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) offered an odd assessment of President Obama’s signature health care law. “If this health care law is forced upon this country, the young men and women in this audience are the ones who are really going to pay the price,” Perry claimed. “And that, I will suggest to you, reaches to the point of being a felony toward them and their future. That is a criminal act, from my perspective, to put that type of burden on them, to mortgage their future like that.”
In the lead up to this month’s implementation of the Affordable Care Act’s exchanges, the law’s opponents tried to gin up opposition to the law by claiming younger Americans will be hit with significantly higher premiums. These claims, however, are largely overblown. In Minnesota, for example, a 25 year-old nonsmoker will be able to buy coverage for as little as $90.59 a month, and that’s before federal subsidies are taken into account. While it is likely that some young people in some areas will see higher premiums, the subsidies will ensure that the full burden of these premiums are limited to relatively affluent young people.
Although it does not appear that Perry was speaking literally when he labeled implementing a law that was passed by Congress, signed by the President and upheld by the Supreme Court a “felony,” Perry has a long record of doubting the legitimacy of federal actions that he disagrees with. Perry signed unconstitutional legislation nullifying a federal light bulb regulation enacted under President George W. Bush. He’s called Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security unconstitutional. And he once even suggested that Texas could secede from the union.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/10/02/2716961/rick-perry-implementing-obamacare-is-a-felony/
US: the GOP and the mullahs
Editorial
The Guardian,
A timeworn trope of rightwing discourse about Iran is that it is futile talking to ideologues. Historian Bernard Lewis thinks that the dichotomy between Iranian moderates and extremists is false. A more accurate description, he maintains, is between pragmatists and ideologues, between those who find it necessary to make compromises in power and those who maintain the pure doctrine of the revolution. How would America's Grand Old Party fare under the same analysis? After all, Republican leaders have complained that Barack Obama was more interested in talking to Iran than to them about the budget. The comparison between Iran and the GOP might be closer than they think.
The GOP ideologues are those who refuse to see their attempts to repeal or delay the Affordable Care Act as an unwinnable fight. Why do it, then? "Because we're right, simply because we're right," says Steve King, the representative from Iowa. As hundreds of thousands of civilian employees began to be laid off yesterday, the pragmatists are those Republicans who believe they are about to sign the biggest suicide note in their party's history.
To bring federal government to its knees for the first time in 17 years is one matter. If the disruption is short, it can be tolerated. Judging by yesterday's rise on Wall Street, investors are betting that Washington will soon find a compromise. But to threaten a fragile economic recovery is quite another matter. Even the partial suspension of government should be seen as a taster of the political paralysis that may be to come. The opinion of the credit-rating agency Standard & Poor's is worth quoting here: "This sort of political brinkmanship is the dominant reason the [US government's] rating is no longer 'AAA',".
It is part of the Tea Party's credo to treat the launch of health insurance subsidies as a groundbreaking development that will change the nature of politics, creating a new class of entitlement addicts. But for anyone else in the party who places strategy above the glory of the fight, the purity of the cause, this week must be profoundly disturbing. They are in the firing line more than anyone else.
more
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/01/obama-shutdown-republicans-iran
5.5 billion awarded in defense contracts monday
Gotta get that pork out before the shutdown!
http://www.defense.gov/contracts/contract.aspx?contractid=5144
What's Essential
By Matthew Yglesias
"Due to the government shutdown, FOIA/PA requests or inquiries submitted to the FOIA/PA Office will not be addressed until the office reopens." That's America's National Security Agency breaking the bad news that thanks to the lack of appropriations there'll be even less disclosure than usual about what the Intelligence Community is up to in your name.
The actual spying itself, however, will continue. That's essential.
The entire essential/non-essential breakdown is a fascinating semiotic window into national priorities. The official criteria for determining what services are exempt refer to ideas like the protection of human life and property. But the operational definition of these things is that if you have a gun and a badge and a uniform, you're almost certainly "essential" while if you merely feed pregnant women and newborn children you aren't. Whether it's genuinely true that the DEA's activities are more life-protecting than WIC's activities doesn't really enter into the calculation. It's more that the violence-oriented branches of government have higher social status in the United States than the helping-oriented ones.
By the same token, of course, we've addressed and largely rescinded the aspects of sequestration that were hampering air travel. The aspects of sequestration that are hampering child care services for poor kids and their parents remain in place. These crises draw out the real priorities of the country.
Krugman: The 1 percent has created a monster
In a post at his New York Times blog, the award-winning economist and columnist Paul Krugman argues that the right’s crusade against Obamacare is a byproduct of class antagonism and a radical right-wing movement that’s gone beyond the control of its hyper-wealthy benefactors.
Concerning the government shutdown over Obamacare, Krugman writes, “There’s a definite class-war aspect to this fight, pitting the interests of the 0.1 percent against those of lower-income families.” But according to Krugman, that doesn’t explain the whole story, because “the 0.1 percent, by and large, are pleading with the GOP to knock it off.” He then notes that even Karl Rove, “more or less the designated defender of upper-class privileges,” is complaining over not being listened to.
Ultimately, Krugman concludes, the radical right is like Frankenstein’s monster, with the hyper-wealthy playing the role of the doomed mad scientist. “[M]y working theory,” he writes, “is that wealthy individuals bought themselves a radical right party, believing … that it would cut their taxes and remove regulations.” What the .01 percent didn’t realize is that “eventually the craziness would take on a life of its own, and that the monster they created would turn on its creators as well as the little people.”
http://www.salon.com/2013/10/01/krugman_the_1_percents_created_a_monster/
Troop of Walruses 10,000 Strong Hauls Ashore in Alaska
A herd of walrus approximately 10,000 strong has come ashore on Alaska's northwest coast.
The burly, tusked mammals have gathered on a remote barrier island in the Chukchi Sea near Point Lay, about 700 miles north of Anchorage.
On Sept. 12, aerial observations indicated between 1,200 and 4,000 walruses had hauled out on the island. The number swelled to as many as 8,000 on Sept. 22 and has since grown to roughly 10,000, though a more accurate count is impossible to make from aerial photos.
Towards late summer and into fall, walruses tend to herd in large aggregations such as this, but officials from NOAA fisheries report that the mass aggregations in this region of Alaska are a relatively new phenomenon.
In 2011, about 30,000 walruses were observed not far from where this recent aggregation has been spotted.
more
http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/4267/20131001/troop-walruses-10-000-strong-hauls-ashore-alaska.htm
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