Shut 'em Down!

I think life is always reflected by the genius that is a bell curve!

Here is one of about 2 dozen articles I found about banks foreclosing on homeowners who either didn't have a mortgage with them or even at all.

It would be safe to assume that incompetence is pretty universal.

It must be pretty tough to both reach so far to compose your conclusions AND stick your fingers in your ears at the same time.

It’s one thing for politicians to play shutdown theater. It’s another thing entirely for a civil bureaucracy entrusted with the privilege of caring for our national heritage to wage war against the citizenry on behalf of a political party.

Unauthorized recreation will not be tolerated.

Oh you wanna wage a pro immigration really on the National Mall? That's A-OK with us. It'll give us good PR.

Way to go Obama! Giving illegal immigrants full access to places veterans are being banned from. How can you lefties really wonder why the opposition is so skeptical?

I would say about 80% of the phone calls and correspondences I have had with the IRS had me hand-holding them into their own tax code. That is 4 out of every 5 times. Out of thousands of times.

With state employees (at least for Texas) I have talked/corresponded with them hundreds of times, and I can only remember 1 time that I had to tell them where in the Tax Code a specific deduction was allowed. I'm not 100% positive about this, but I may have done it another time and possibly forgotten. Either way, we are looking at less than 1%.

Yes, I (and everyone else) base their assumptions about the effectiveness of a group of people by how we are dealt with by that same group of people. Jassik has done that, Zero has done it, so has Kara.

I can only use my own personal experiences as my proof about how effective a system is being run. There is no study out there (pity) that shows how effective or ineffective government systems are compared to each other, or to private sector, so the only thing we can go by is our own personal perceptions.


Well, do you consider a robot as an employee or a tool?

The federal government considers military personnel as tools of war. Sad, but true.

I didn't mean to lump military personnel as part of the incompetency, but I guess I kindof did.

It wasn't the bank though... it was the city! This was property taxes not the mortgage...

What's that saying about stereotypes not being stereotypes if they're true?

Maybe because it's not a big deal? Certainly not worth going on about it for a page. It's not like they are all there at once.

Incompetence on both sides, yes.

Simple, it has nothing to do with Obama.

Edit: SARCASM DAMN IT!!!!

White House, warned for months that the exchanges weren't ready. They launched them anyways.

Just like its a democratic president now so you've taken up the bitching mantle?

I wouldn't say it has anything to do with Bush... it's a staffing issue that probably just goes along with the office... maybe too many people have too many assistants... idk...

And the tea party covered it up with a shutdown. Brilliance. Couldn't have worked any better for Obama.

Be still my beating heart!

CNN's Wolf Blitzer says Obama should have accepted GOP advice to delay the exchanges another year!

Am I actually awake? The liberal sky is falling!

Well, too bad Wolfblitzer, and you, and the GOP, are still going to be ignored.

sorry, forgot to use the /sarcasm tag.

Bush had more staff. I don't recall protests.

What I don't like is how the budget is manipulated by both parties. Security personnel and others are considered white house staff but their paychecks are charged to other departments. So you aren't able to get precise numbers.

It's probably not a bad idea. He could do the whole "it's not my red line it's your red line" speech. blame carney, appease the unions, look like a hero that single handily restarted the government...

I think the main problem obama has is he thinks he has to make a statement about issues in fifteen seconds or less... He doesn't seem to give himself a whole lot of time to weigh the pros and cons out.

Personally I think when you roll out anything this big there are going to be technical issues... I mean the government is involved right?!?! huh?!?! lol... Even Accenture was on this... I figure in about a month from the opening the kinks will be worked out and everything will move forward... its like most everything in the IT world... nothing ever goes off without a hitch... not to excuse it or anything but it's nothing less than what I expected to happen... whether it came out this year or next year...

not to mention that the republicans were most likely not trying to get them to hold off because they predicted technical issues but rather to buy more time to get rid of it somehow...

where were you?

I don't recall anything he did that wasn't protested...



Edit: I bet this picture was taken yesterday....

There's a lot of political pressure, plus the internal pressure of having made his policy transparency. I'm sure there's a fair amount of pressure to be a good example of his race, too. If the first black president is a terrible president, people will interpret it a million different ways.

I'm not making any excuses for him, obviously. And I don't think he's made good decisions in a lot of areas. I just don't envy being in that position.

I recall lots of protests but not one about the amount of white house staff he had.

Anyways, I just read that the senate and house gyms were deemed essential (really not the best article).

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2013/10/08/2748461/members-only-congressional-gyms-deemed-essential-remain-open-during-shutdown/

Everyone on this gaming website is familiar with rough launches and the cause of them, server overloads and such. Obamacare was always going to endure a rough launch, but it was time to bring it online. And the Tea Party hated it so much, they shut down the government...to distract everyone from said rough launch. Great strategy, Obama appreciates it. Meanwhile, enjoy the negative press Tea Party, and the defeat you are about to endure.

Of course, got to hide the pork somewhere.

Only like 15-20% of the government is actually shutdown.

This term "shutdown" everyone is using is pretty disingenuous.

Also a better joke to the "congressional gym" would contain some semblance of "continue to burn pork".

Someone help me out here...

Runner fined 100 bucks for running through a shutdown park

Hell hath no fury like an Obama scorned.

/yawn.

Well if you don't remember it, then it didn't happen...

Only 3,000?