Meanwhile, in the trenches.

Not too long ago it would have been easy to predict that the 2014 elections would be a referendum on the rollout of Obamacare. Today, a better guess would be that the health care law will prove to be one of those partisan issues in which supporters and critics cancel each other out. There will be the inevitable clash of testimonial ads: Democrats will favor weepy spots featuring Americans getting health insurance for the first time, while Republicans will go with small-business owners wailing about how Obamacare forced them to cut jobs. And most voters will wisely hit the mute button.
What this suggests is that the after-effects from the government shutdown and the debt ceiling dance of doom are apt to become the dominant voting issues of 2014. That is why, despite the down-with-all-incumbents mood among the voters, Republicans are disproportionately at risk. Voters are accurately blaming the Republicans for the government shutdown — and that stigma will be hard to escape.

It is telling, in the NBC/WSJ poll, that 65 percent of voters think the government shutdown is hurting the economy and 63 percent describe a failure to approve a debt ceiling bill as “a serious problem.” These are memories that are not going to be erased with a handshake deal at the White House and the reopening of the national parks.

What has been happening, in effect, is that the Republicans have been re-enacting the centennial of World War I a year early.

In 1914, cheering throngs all over Europe sent their boys off to war confident that victory could be achieved in a few months with limited casualties. Instead, for the next four years, armies on both sides endured horrible death tolls in the trenches of France. And, increasingly, soldiers found it impossible to recall what they were fighting for.

So it was when the House Republicans shut down the government confident that they could win major concessions from the White House in a few days. Now they are hunkered down in the trenches, with public opinion turning against them, desperate for any rationale to abandon the battlefield. But they cannot simply surrender because … well … that would mean that they have been bleeding in the polls for nothing.

 Rarely has a political party lost so much so rapidly from a series of strategic blunders. So, for a change, I believe the hype. Republicans will need a long time to recover from their biggest Capitol Hill debacle in memory.

Obama Retreats To Secret Bunker As “Big Event” Draws Near

A truly grim “urgent action bulletin” issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) earlier today states that the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) has received word from “highly placed” sources within the Pentagon that President Barack Obama this past week cancelled his trip to Asia and has retreated with many of his top aides to the mysterious and newly built White House bunker in preparation for what many in the world’s intelligence agencies are calling the “Big Event.”

Important to note are that these GRU sources were notified by their Pentagon counterparts last week that Obama was preparing to invoke the powers given to him under 50 USC Chapter 13 to hold that various American States are now in a “state of insurrection” thus allowing him to invoke theNational Emergencies Act under 50 USC § 1621 and invoke the highly controversial “continuity of government” plan for the United States allowing him, in essence, to rule with dictatorial powers.

Equally important to note, this MoFA bulletin says, is that the mysterious White Bunker was completed last September (2012) at a cost of $86 million (US) and had taken over two years to complete and whose purpose remains clouded in secrecy.

Critical to note, this bulletin says, is that Obama quietly last month extended the post-9/11 Declaration of National Emergency thus giving him the power to take over America should he so choose.

Joining Obama in his plan to take over United States, this bulletin continues, are his journalist cohorts (otherwise known as “presstitutes”) who now include America’s top conservative reporters who were summoned yesterday to asecret “off-record” White House meeting with the President.

To what end Obama is ordering his propaganda media allies to prepare the American people for, this bulletin further states, can be gleaned from their recent reporting which includes:

1.) Former US Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Paul Craig Roberts who is advocating that Obama declare a National Emergency and rule as dictator.

2.) US Congress member Sheila Jackson Lee who is advocating that Obama declare Martial Law.

3.) New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman who is advocating that the American people stand with Obama as democracy itself is at stake.

4.) New York Times guest columnist and professor of history at Princeton University Sean Wilentz warning that the Obama regime has neglected to do its utmost to defend the Constitution punish Republicans he said have brought their country to ruin.

5.) Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugmanadvocating that Obama create a Constitutional crisis in order to defy Republican blackmailers.

Of the greatest danger facing the American people, MoFA historical analysts in this bulleting say, is Obama becoming a modern day Abraham Lincoln, who was the 16thPresident of The United States and who engineered its 1861-1865 Civil War.

Like Obama, Lincoln was elected during one of the most divisive periods of American history with the issue then being over the rights of the individual States versus the central federal government in regards to slavery.

Lincoln, who had proclaimed prior to his becoming President that “eliminating every last black person from American soil would be “a glorious consummation,” and who in his First Inaugural Address stated “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so,” nevertheless forced his nation into civil war and became the first leader of the United States to suspend its Constitution and rule with dictatorial powers.

Today many Lincoln scholars and Obama supporters, reports the Canadian Free Press, say that Lincoln saved the Constitution by suspending constitutional liberty in the North for the entire duration of his administration. He supposedly “had to destroy constitutional liberty in order to save it.”

Lincoln further regarded the US Constitution as an unnecessary impediment to his political ambitions by exhibiting his total disregard for the law of the land (the law of America’s founders) by launching a military invasion against the South without the consent of the US Congress.

Lincoln suspended habeas corpus and imprisoned thousands without trial for opposing his political policies, censored communications and even imprisoned numerous publishers of newspapers who wrote in opposition of his tactics, confiscated firearms, and as this article warns: “Is any of this beginning to sound familiar?”

So today, this bulletin continues, Obama has become the first President in American history to declare he will not negotiate with his equal counterparts in the US Congress, has ordered Federal workers to “make life as difficult for people as we can,” has suspended all oversight of his massive NSA spying apparatus has the most terrible and feared secret police force since the Cold War, and controls over 120,000 armed Federal agents he can unleash upon his people at a moments notice and that has been described as “equally as powerful as the US military”.

And in its summation, this bulletin warns, with Obama now “secure in his bunker,” threatening priests with arrestif they minister to US soldiers, and US banks stuffing ATMs with 20-30% more cash in case of panicked withdrawals, these GRU warnings of a “Big Event” soon to occur in the United States cannot be dismissed as they may, in fact, point to a complete overturning of America in the coming weeks.

http://www.eutimes.net/2013/10/obama-retreats-to-secret-bunker-as-big-event-draws-near/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheEuropeanUnionTimes+%28The+European+Union+Times%29

Let's Demand our Rebate!

Democracy can be messy, of course, and the usual unsatisfying prescription for addressing its flaws is to wait until the next election, or the one after that, or maybe the one your children’s children will vote in decades hence, when politicians will surely be more upstanding than today’s jackals. Then you’ll be able to throw the bums out and send better people to Washington. But the retail sector may have a better model, which works for Amazon  and Walmart  and Apple and any company, really, that cares about its customers: If you screw up, offer them a refund.

This would be simple to do. For every day the government is shut down, every American's 2013 tax bill would be reduced by one day's worth of income taxes. Here’s the math. The average family earns about $50,000 per year and pays about 12 percent of that in federal taxes. That works out to about $16 a day. Might not sound like much, but a two-week shutdown would generate a rebate of about $230. If you earn $100,000, the rebate would be close to $500. If the shutdown lasts for a month, you’d be pushing a $1000 rebate.

California's Brown Signs Bill Permitting Non-Physician Abortions

Isn't this exactly the kind of thing Roe was suppose to eliminate? .....  Liberals and the feminist movement threw in with Planned Parenthood....  Little did they know that Planned Parenthood was nothing more than a chop shop enterprise with an eye to the long game...... Planned Parenthoods sole purpose in helping promote women's 'reproductive freedom' was and is to make abortions an everyday convenience item.

Next step is for them to go public then everyone can have a vested interest in the number of abortions they perform every year.... hell, they might offer a profit sharing plan or a punch card plan - Bring in Three, Get one Free!

Maybe Occupy will go and picket the clinics because the owners are part of the 1% taking (literally) from the other 99%

That ALL IMPORTANT Free Speach !!

Today the AP has a very damming report

Oct 10, 10:10 AM EDT

Report: Obama brings chilling effect on journalism

By BRETT ZONGKER
Associated Press

The AP Story can be read on from the Drudge Report of today Oct 10 2013

This report is provided by

Committee to Protect Journalists: https://www.cpj.org/

The AP story is copyrighted,therefore I will not post any portions.

THIS IS A WORTH THE READ

Gunman Fires at Federal Building in WV.

(Reuters) - A gunman opened fire on the Federal Building in Wheeling, West Virginia, on Wednesday, and the shooter has since died, police and news reports said.
The gunman fired more than 20 shots into the building in downtown Wheeling, the Intelligencer/Wheeling News-Register website said.
Sergeant M.T. Baylous, a spokesman for the West Virginia State Police, confirmed there had been a gunman at the Federal Building.
"He is now deceased. The investigation is ongoing," he said, adding that there had been no other life-threatening injuries.
Baylous gave no details on how the man died.
The Intelligencer/Wheeling News-Register website said a security guard was slightly injured.
The website quoted a witness as saying the man fired at the Federal Building with an assault rifle before reloading and firing at a nearby YWCA building. There was no word on a motive for the shooting.
WV MetroNews cited U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of West Virginia William Ihlenfeld as saying the shooter was a former Wheeling police officer, although that could not be independently confirmed.
(Reporting by Ian Simpson; Editing by Cynthia Johnston Editing by Andre Grenon)

More Tea Party Cavalry

http://dcist.com/2013/10/hundreds_of_truck_drivers_will_clog.php

Truck Drivers Will Clog The Beltway, Want To Arrest Members of Congress (UPDATE)

Via Shutterstock.

Brace yourselves, D.C.: A shit-load of truckers are coming and they're going to be blocking most lanes on the Beltway.
Yes, you read that right. On the morning of October 11, conservative tractor-trailer drivers will depart from the All-American Truck Plaza off I-95 exit 98 and head to I-495, clogging the Beltway as part of an organized protest of our country's political leaders, whom they feel are "disregarding the Constitution," according to U.S. News & World Report. The rally, dubbed "Truckers Ride for the Constitution," will last until October 13.
U.S. News reports that the cavalry of trucks will ride "three lanes deep," as they make their way to Congress, to supposedly "seek the arrest of congressmen for allegedly disregarding the Constitution."
During their ride around the Beltway, anyone who doesn't support them will be shut out.

The truckers circling I-495 will keep the left lane open for emergency vehicles, Conlon said, but "everybody that doesn't have a supporter sticker on their window, good luck: Nobody in, nobody out." The trucks will be going the 55 mile-per-hour speed limit. D.C. commuters who wish to be allowed past the convoy must have "T2SDA" - an acronym for the event's original name, "Truckers to Shut Down America" - written on their vehicle, he said.

So far the rally's Facebook page has 555 people confirmed as participating. The Truckers Ride For The Constitution Facebook page, which is promoting a larger, general strike throughout the country during that weekend, has 48,531 Facebook "Likes."
UPDATE: Well this all just got really confusing. According to the Post, Earl Conlan, one of the rally's organizers, tells them that what he originally told U.S. News wasn't entirely true.

The comments to U.S. News were designed to do one thing and one thing only: stir the feather of the mainstream media,” said Conlon, a father of three. “Nothing gets the attention like the mainstream media, like some sort of disastrous threat. I knew it was going to ruffle some feathers.

But U.S. News reports that, while they truckers decide they won't arrest members of Congress, the traffic jam is still planned.
DCist reached out to Conlan for a request to comment and will update when we hear back.

 

Todays market update

4:10 pm : It was a poor start to the week for the equity market and the same thing could be said for politics in Washington.  The two were inextricably linked today as stock market participants were put off by some revelations from House Speaker Boehner over the weekend that made it sound as if partisan positions are hardening and not easing the closer we get to the October 17 debt limit deadline.

In particular, Mr. Boehner told ABC's George Stephanopolous that:

• the House does not have the votes to pass a clean continuing resolution
• the votes are not in the House to pass a clean debt limit increase; and
• the US is on a path to default because President Obama won't negotiate over the debt ceiling

Mr. Boehner's viewpoints were decried by his opponents as reckless rhetoric.  The bottom-line for the market, however, is that nothing has been done yet with respect to the budget and debt ceiling.  That understanding in turn left many participants sticking to the sidelines on concern that a deal may wait until the last minute.

Even though conventional wisdom holds that a deal will get done and that a worst-case scenario will be averted, the market is nonetheless mindful that a similarly-held position in 2011 didn't stop the S&P 500 from falling 17% between July 22 and August 8 that year.

Not surprisingly, volume was on the light side today as the incentive to participate was taken away by Washington's woes.

An absence of buyers paved a path to a sizable decline when the opening bell rang.  Shortly after the start of trading, the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P 500 dropped 152, 34, and 16 points, respectively.

ObamaCare surprises supporters with massive premium increases

From San Jose Mercury News via RedState

Marilynn Gray-Raine, a breast cancer survivor, is thrilled to find out that her premiums dropped several hundred dollars per month. This was primarily because her cancer was no longer penalizing her as a pre-existing condition. Ending the penalties for pre-existing conditions was one of the few parts of Obamacare that received widespread bi-partisan support. In fact, during the famous “Healthcare Summit,” Paul Ryan & others specifically mentioned that they believed any health care reform should include it.

But of course the cost of offsetting the risk of covering someone with a pre-existing condition is going to find its way into someone’s wallet. For the purposes of this article, that someone was Cindy Vinson, a huge supporter of Obamacare who is seeing her premiums skyrocket.

There are many choice quotes from Cindy that show how the reality of Obamacare is not squaring with her rosy expectations, but the one that prompted my headline was this:

“Of course, I want people to have health care,” Vinson said. “I just didn’t realize I would be the one who was going to pay for it personally.”

As Lady Thatcher famously said, “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”

This very simple concept was somehow not relayed in a way that pulled people to our point of view in 2012. They continued to rally around a law, ignorant to the cost to themselves, only now awakening to its difficulties.

There were other enlightening quotes from Obamacare supporters saddled with the new reality of their premiums. Tom Waschura, who saw annual premiums for his family raise by $10,000 per year said this:

“I was laughing at Boehner — until the mail came today,” Waschura said, referring to House Speaker John Boehner, who is leading the Republican charge to defund Obamacare.

“I really don’t like the Republican tactics, but at least now I can understand why they are so pissed about this. When you take $10,000 out of my family’s pocket each year, that’s otherwise disposable income or retirement savings that will not be going into our local economy.”

Apparently, Republican messaging was so bad in 2012 that harsh reality has become the only thing capable of getting people to understand where we are coming from. This guy had to be saddled with $10,000 in new bills to finally believe that Boehner wasn’t a rich jerk trying to hurt the poor.

Must be nice to retire at the age of 51.

Marcia Ingram spent 33 years working for Detroit's health department before retiring nine years ago. She now receives about $2,000 per month. Her pension would be capped under the proposal in Detroit.

"I feel let down by the city," said Ingram, 60. "I expected to get an increase every year like I did while I was working. Not a big increase, but it still was something."

She probably retired on nearly 100% of her income so it made no sense for her to continue to work. 

or maybe she could have saved an extra half million dollars by working until 65 if she had a job that paid $64,000.

Either way not much sympathy.