What’s interesting in the news today?
Open Thread.
I’m taking the holiday off. 🙂 But I did have one I wanted to post.
Mr. President, tear down those Barrycades.
Oh wait, never mind, they already did.
There’s only one thing left to do with them, return to sender.
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So of course they get treated like hardened criminals by park police. You know, ‘cuz these are the domestic terrorists DHS has been warning about. 🙄 Funny though, everything was pretty peaceful, until the armed guards, SWAT, and armored vehicles showed up.
From TheBlaze with lots of pics “Members of the so-called “Million Vet March” descended on Washington, D.C., Sunday to protest the Obama administration’s decision to close the city’s public memorials.
Thousands of demonstrators arrived early in the morning and tore down barricades that had been set up to block people from visiting the popular attractions, WTOP reports.
The group said military personnel and veterans are “being used a political pawns in the ongoing government shutdown and budget crisis,” according to a statement on its website.
The group also said it has no political leaning, but believes that the closing of memorials is “a despicable act of cowardice.”
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Some politicians like Cruz, Palin, and Lee joined them. Funny though, I didn’t see any Democrats. 🙄 As expected, most of the media treats it like a Tea Party Rally, and attempts to dismiss it.
From USAToday “Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas were among those who gathered Sunday morning, along with former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, according to WTOP radio. Cruz said President Obama is using veterans as pawns in the shutdown.
“Tear down these walls,” the crowd chanted. Protesters also sang God Bless America and other patriotic songs as they entered the memorial plaza.
The memorial has become a political symbol in the bitter fight between Democrats and Republicans over who is at fault since the shutdown began. Earlier rallies have focused on allowing access for World War II veterans visiting from across the country with the Honor Flight Network.
Sunday’s rally was more political. A protest by truckers converged with a rally by a group called the Million Vet March at the World War II Memorial. Participants cut the links between metal barriers at the National Park Service site and pushed them aside.”
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Here’s a photo, video, and Tweet montage of more of the fun from the nation’s capitol. Via WeaselZippers
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Wandering Views 
okay, I am missing something. What holiday are you taking off?
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Columbus Day. 🙂
I don’t really celebrate it, but the girls are off, so I thought I’d join them.
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Hey AJ, you might want to take down the second video or at least clean up the links behind it. Otherwise, THANK YOU for posting.
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I was wondering what Kim meant about the links. Then I noticed. I was tempted, as I’m sure most of the guys were, to click on a couple. But I didn’t. I opened one like that a while back and almost immediately, my spam folder got full of beautiful (?) hot (?) women wanting to get to know me.
That went on for a couple of weeks.
Don’t mess with it. It gets you on a list of some sort.
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Cindi and I were talking about the WWII memorial. Her comment was, “Don’t mess with these Vets. They took Europe and Japan. You think some barricades are going to stand in their way?”
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Other than blogs, did this get much media coverage?
I didn’t turn on TV until late Sunday night. Then to the Gamecock/Hogs football game.
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😳
Sorry, I didn’t notice that Kim. My apologies, and it’s down.
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Chas,
Of course not, other than Fox. Most others mentioned it briefly if at all. Those that did were only mentioning it to blame the Tea Party for yet another thing they didn’t like. Can’t have the commoners knowin’ someone was protesting the One and his childish behavior. Doesn’t fit the meme that the public blames Republicans.
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If I’m the Republican running against Cory Booker in NJ, I just found my next campaign ad.
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The suggestion was made in a thread the other day that these park and memorial closings are what small-government folks have wanted all along. That’s bullhockey. We (us small-govt folks) are stuck with the albatross big-govt folks have hoisted on us–we live in the reality you have created for us (and admittedly, many of us are converts from the big govt position, so we have some accounting to do for our past support of that baloney). But it’s ‘unfair,’ for lack of better term, to expect small govt advocates to pretend to live in a small government world when, at this point, that’s not reality. Small govt advocates wouldn’t have gotten us into the quagmire of federally funded memorials and parks, etc., to begin with, so they didn’t ask for the trouble of maintaining them, etc.
Besides, it’s simply childish–regardless of your view of government–to make hay out of small potatoes like parks and memorials by restricting access to them. It’s pathetic theatre. Man up, president Obama. You’re a lousy leader.
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My mother and both my uncles were WWII vets. They would be appalled at such tactics employed by Obama and company. I am just glad they are not here to see how much America has fallen. It would break their hearts to know they fought to keep America free only to have tyrants in DC take this great republic down.
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Actually I saw the video on RT (Russia Today), my friend’s favorite news channel. According to RT, Putin is amazing and Russia is a functioning democracy. Other than that, its an interesting version of America (taken with a grain of salt).
Here’s a commentary from a European perspective from a guy I normally don’t appreciate but this time agree with.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/11/who-responsible-us-shutdown-2008-meltdown-slavoj-zizek
And on a slightly different tack here’s an interesting blog post on a Dutch author refused entry to the US
http://dasmag.nl/why-i-will-never-return-to-the-usa/
AJ, you threw me off with the celebrating holiday bit…. was wondering why you celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving. Or perhaps you are celebrating Eid which begins tonight/tomorrow.
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solar — then exactly what to do small gov’t types want? Norquist wanted gov’t to fit in a bathtub. If gov’t is that small …. then national parks, memorials etc would have far less service than they do know or even closed. Or perhaps self-funding as in charge enough admission to maintain themselves — although charging admission to the Vietnam Memorial wouldn’t go over well. When tea party types protest the shutdown, they lay bare the emptiness of their anit-gov’t ideology — they really do what gov’t just they want to be in charge.
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hwesseli: It often amuses me to see that type of argumentation. It includes a kind of omniscience nobody can claim. We’re miles from the kind of govt/reality small govt (SG) types want–so far from it that it’s next to impossible to say what life would be like if we lived in that alternative universe. People *DO PAY* for national parks, memorials, etc. Surely, you know this. Relatively few people use them. Just saying that if we de-funded them, all that cost would immediately be foisted on the poor proletariat (or whoever) ignores about 27 intermediate steps between current reality and the ‘self-funding’ reality. No fair. SG types acknowledge there’s work to do to extricate ourselves from govt doing everything. Some things would be grandfathered; some things would be unpleasant; in the process of getting there, peoples’ paradigms would take some transforming. Big govt folks got us into the mess that is not easily untangled.
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You know HRW, I am a Vietnam Vet and I have taken personal offense at your innuendo.
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HRW, I didn’t see too much in the RT article that differed from the usually left wing talking points.
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what innuendo? I’m just stating people wouldn’t be happy if the gov’t charged admission to memorials.
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Correct, many people would be unhappy paying to get into memorials (they already have to pay to get into many national parks–on top of the taxes they pay for maintenance). Why would they be unhappy? Small govt advocates wouldn’t want federal govt funding parks and memorials in the first place–the expectation for those things rests on big govt folks. In lieu of public funding for those things, it’s possible and likely that private interests would provide. Who knows what kind of memorial an entirely privately funded Vietnam memorial would look like, if there was one at all. Who knows what kinds of donations individuals would make, or admissions people would be willing to pay? Maybe some private memorial would allow vets and family members in free. Maybe it wouldn’t be as impressive as the current one; maybe it would kick ***.
Regardless, *right now,* it’s pathetic to shut them down to make a point. How lame.
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I was reading in Newsmax magazine an article about the financial/mortgage bubble. It tells how the fed creates money. Concisely, it says, “It does this by purchasing long term notes and mortgage backed securities, using funds it essentially creates from thin air.”
If I did that, I would be thrown into jail for fraud. But this is how the Fed creates money.
The important thing is that in 2008, there were $7.4 trillion in the economy. Now, 2013, there are $10.8 trillion. That is 1.46 times as much, or a 68% increase in the amount of created money since 2008.
This is an interesting and disturbing issue. For us, money has to come from somewhere. For the Fed, it doesn’t have to come from someplace.
It occurred to me that with a $17 trillion debt, and $10.8 trillion in circulation, there isn’t enough money to pay the debt. Maybe the Fed can create it.
The Newsmax article says that many Steve Forbes and other economists fear that this could lead to double-digit hyperinflation.
They recall the Carter years. Most of you don’t remember that.
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Maybe some of the memorials would have crosses and Bible verses on them. Can’t have that.
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Its not lame to close them …. if you can’t fund them they have to close. If you want a small gov’t they would have to close. Thus, those who advocate small gov’t shouldn’t be upset they are closed … its the preview of their ideological goals. And if they remain open without supervision, the gov’t is liable.
kbells
the memorial in my town has both crosses and bible verses.
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hwesseli: Try to get my point: there are plenty of things that could be closed or temporarily defunded without such theater. Why is Camp David still funded? The WW2 memorial could easily have been kept open.
You say, “If you want a small government, they would have to close.” Please try to understand an opposing argument: No small govt person wants to “close” existing memorials. Sheesh. The objection is to their being publicly funded in the first place. We can have that argument at the appropriate time. I don’t quite see what you and those left-wing blogs you referred to aren’t following. These closings are cheap theatrics.
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I want a small government and I dislike paying prople to keepthe parks closed.
i.e. We paid the park police to keep the provately owned inn on the Blue Rideg Parkway closed when the inn returns j$1.2 million to the Park Service each year.
The purpose is to infjlice inconvenience and pain.
These are evil people at work.
There is no, that is zero, redeaming feature in this.
The memorials on the mall are there. They can only be viewed. It takes no effort on the part of the government, except to post policemen to keep people from seeing what is there.
It is impossible to make a sensible argument that this is a good thing.
Small people at work.
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hwesseli, they spent more money on gates and guards than it would have cost to just leave them alone. A friend told me that they had 8 guards at the Grand Canyon to keep people away from a ferry that it normally took two people to run. This was just spite
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About those promises to unite the country — here’s a very good and comprehensive piece in the Boston Globe:
http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2013/10/13/the-purple-nation-president-obama-once-envisioned-has-grown-into-hues-deeper-red-and-blue/xxGBjFlwZXTRMp7kEx2F0I/story.html?s_campaign=sm_tw
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Donna, Obama is devisive. He means to be.
He is a community organizer, a student of Saul D. Alinsky who taught him to use every crisis to bring about his objctive. And, if there is no crisis, to create one.
He created the “health care” crisis, when there was none.
He was elected ranting about the debt crisis, and made it worse.
He voted against extending the debt limit in one of his few votes as a senator.
He is an agitator by profession and nature.
You can’t believe anything he says.
Nothing.
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Obama’s War on the Christian’s Faith in the Military is shown here again
US Army defines Christian ministry as ‘domestic hate group’
By Todd Starnes /
Published October 14, 2013 /
FoxNews.com
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/…cmp=latestnews
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Kind of a joke when big govt spawns a giant brood of children to feed at the govt trough, creates dependencies on those children (because, after all, we pay so much to feed them), then says, “Hey, if you don’t like funding this stuff, you don’t get it.” Well yeah! We didn’t want it to begin with. It’s gonna take some work to back out of it; it’s understandable if we don’t do it all right away.
And I do think some nominal small-govt advocates have to own up to the fact that they’ve come to support fed funding for far too wide an array of stuff, even if it’s less than what big govt advocates want.
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I see on Fox News that Macy’s is going to open on Thanksgiving day.
I remember when they weren’t open on Sunday.
It doesn’t make much sense. They will increase overhead by paying employees more.
The other stores will open to compete.
There is only so much money to spend.
Black Friday will have no meaning because it will be spent on Thanksgiving instead.
A dumb decision. But that’s the way the world is going.
I am not at all surprised by this.
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From the Globe link in my 3:41 post:
“’We are up against decades of bitter partisanship that cause politicians to demonize their opponents instead of coming together,’ Obama said in his victory speech that night. ‘But we are here tonight to say that this is not the America we believe in. I did not travel around this state over the last year and see a white South Carolina or a black South Carolina. I saw South Carolina.’
“That would be the last time he would see South Carolina. He hasn’t been back since.
“As president, Obama has taken more trips to South Korea (three) than he has to South Carolina (zero). He’s been to Ghana but never to Utah. He’s visited the citizens of Denmark (twice) more frequently than the residents of Kentucky (once). … ”
The irony being that he so effectively persuaded voters that he was not partisan, but that he would unite the country. But he hasn’t even made a decent effort to do anything of the sort. It’s simply a lack of leadership, he doesn’t know how to lead the country.
Makes one yearn for the days of Tip O’Neill and Ronald Reagan, to be sure.
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Last 2 graphs were from ‘me,’ alone not from the story, of course.
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Tip O’Neal and Ronald Reagan both loved the America they knew. They had different social and economic views, but it was about accomplishing the same thing.
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