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Government Shutdown? Oh, the Humanity!
During the 2013 federal shutdown, the National Park Service barricaded the pull-offs on the George Washington Parkway. Now, a couple of these provided access to toilets, exercise or picnic equipment, but the vast majority just provided a view of the Potomac River. We had all worked in federal offices or knew many who had. We all recognized the petty hatred being expressed. And, frankly, we walked down to the river behind the barricades, watched the sunset, and played Frisbee games and drained our dogs. Most of us had time with the federal offices closed. And then, wonder of wonders, the barricades disappeared and our long national nightmare was at long last over. The survivors resumed normal life, the nation trudged on.
Now the excellent Sharyl Attkisson writes on X (or, for those who have been sheltering for a long time against the threat of a federal shutdown who might have lost touch, Twitter):
Quick story about govt. shutdowns and the theatrics behind them. One year when I was reporting at CBS News during a govt. shutdown, I think 2013, we were sincerely searching for real life impact. When we couldn’t find any, *that* should have been part of the story. Instead, we kept trying to create the appearance of an impact. It wasn’t really trying to be dishonest. It was, in my retrospective view, because the general editorial idea for the story was to show how bad the “Republican” shutdown was for ordinary Americans, and the answer simply couldn’t be that it wasn’t. I’ve written quite a bit about this but we, as journalists, too often “decide” the story in advance and shape the facts to fit our narrative, rather than gathering information and letting that tell the story, whatever it may be. Anyway, the Ds were blaming Rs for the shutdown, so we were calling Ds and the Obama administration for ideas to report what was the real impact. Taking our cue, these officials fabricated impact that we could report. For example, they cordoned off outdoor public monuments in Washington DC. We knew and even discussed in the newsroom that this made no sense. These monuments weren’t “manned” to begin with. The only reason to cordon them off from the public was so that visiting tourists would see the “impact” of the shutdowns and the news media would have something to take pictures of and interview people about. There are other examples but this is the one I remember the most.
And that is the rest of the story.
I have bulk rice and bottled water. Come on by if things get hard.
Published in Politics
Finally outed my political self on X over this.
A little misleading, I take no exception with Musk’s reply. Jeffries’ initial xeet was that R’s have to “own this.” Yeah.
Good job, Chris and to Sisyphus, too. They just keep on playing us and refuse to see that we are watching their show of deceptions. I’m so sick of it.
Are not all Presidential level decisions made from January 20,2021 until now being scrutinized again? Will we ever know precisely who dug this hole we are in?
Shut it down now!
The compromise may be to leave it shut down until January 20, 2029. From there, JD will want to have a say.
Perhaps ESPECIALLY shut down “auctions” of border wall materials!
We know all the “non essential” employees who get furloughed in the event of a shutdown are going to get back pay. Basically a shutdown is just a paid vacation. And especially at the Holidays, it’s not like they’re really doing much work anyway.
Make it clear that government employees will actually lose pay for the time of the shutdown, then maybe there will be some pressure on the Dems to actually negotiate in good faith.
They went to ridiculous lengths setting up barriers and tape to close access to open-air monuments in DC during past shutdown kabuki. What was the fiscal authorization for the extra man hours and acquisition of materials and signs to block off areas that are never otherwise manned?
For the parkway, it was more then that. Park police did chase people away a couple of times. Almost never. So we had kids lunging to hide behind trees and whatnot. I don’t know of any arrests.
DC is always theater, the surprise protests that pour into the street just ahead of you so you need to back out into a major throughfare and figure out the right route through one way streets and dead ends to get yourself to the block behind the solid mass of thugs. The fifty vehicle formations with sirens blaring and lights flashing to get the deputy undersecretary for fluorescent lighting to the Guatemalan Embassy in time for cocktails. Official business. Very hush hush.
The blame game on X is all about who to blame for the shutdown. They miss the mark. We blame all of them for the spending.
We are not the audience. Big Donors are always the audience.
You don’t know yet? Hint: Starts with B, full of self regard, lazy, shallow, over entitled, hates our nation.
I remember the 2013 fiasco. The Park Service tried to close down the war memorials from veterans out there with Honor Flights. The “barriers” were bike racks chained together. The vets disassembled them and went on through. The Park Rangers had the good sense not to oppose them. If the Wehrmacht couldn’t stop those birds with rifles, tanks, and artillery, what chance did the Park Service have?
After 34 years of federal employment I have been “non essential” at least half a dozen times. I know both I, and many of my peers @ GSFC, would attempt to ignore the charades since we knew we would eventually get paid so we worked from home long before the whole WuFlu teleworking operations. However most of us rationalized that getting calendar back on our projects, especially when you have a hard window for your launch, doesn’t care about congressional shenanigans.
I recall the 2013 one (I think it was that one, I remember it was during the Obama era) which was going to occur in the middle of a full satellite TVAC verification test in Boulder. To stop the test and safe the spacecraft is a least a week endeavor, and each day in the TVAC tank was running a bit over 2 million a day back then. Since both our government employees, and the Ball crew were required to staff the test, we couldn’t even just step away from the test. Eventually we collectively had a “failure to communicate” with all of us in Colorado forgot to turn on our phones for a few days and were “too busy” with the test to check our email. If we had complied with what we eventually heard was a couple of days of “stay home” time it would have been close to 15 million hit. When you work for what is a non constitutional feel good part of the federal government we never want to disappoint the folks who still think the science return from NASA is a worthwhile expenditure, yet if we screw up either technically or financially the consensus is the support would dry up quickly*.
*Note the unmanned side of the house operates on a somewhat different paradigm since they have a much better established division of a wide contractor base vs the congressional districts that receive the federal largess. (eg the whole Artemis program)
I have, according to Wikipedia, lived through ten government shutdowns. I have never noticed any effects of any of them.
You missed vicious (always when in power) venal, liar.
Is it Barack Obama? Or maybe Justice Brown-Jackson? No? Could it be Sec. Blinken?
The bigger question is what, in fact, is the underlying reality of the acts committed in this guise? Of course, in some form it continues for another month of time, are we witnessing criminal acts? Is it legitimate? Can anything be done about it?
Even as I was disappointed that Donald Trump lost the Presidency in 2020, I never anticipated what we got.
We supposedly have Constitutional provisions to deal with the incapacitation of a sitting President. That has not been effective in Biden’s case.
No, it has not. It puzzles me why Ms Harris did not invoke the 25th back in 2022 or so.
That is likely a good indicator that the real actors behind what we have be getting wield enough power within the Executive Branch to prevent that happening and the two political parties as a whole have held enough anti-Trump power in the Congress to prevent any action there. Not a good outcome for Americans.
And we had at least tampering with the electorate during this period but it looks as if that may be changing in order to cope.
Have you ever seen Ms. Harris try to answer a question? Those word salads are a snapshot of her cognitive activity.
She would have needed permission. But things were going very well for them in ’22.
Ironically, if things hadn’t gone so well for them in the 2022 midterms, Biden probably would have been pushed out, there would have been a real primary for the 2024 Dem nomination, and Trump probably would have lost…
Very good: “You thought we’d be too busy shopping. Thanks to inflation caused by your spending, we weren’t!”
I still have bulk rice and bottled water left over from Y2K.
I knew we could count on you.
And Trump won’t be their next opponent. JD is already fully engaged. I hope he takes to the field to turn the 2026 off-year elections into a MAGA rout to assure the real and lasting return of the republic. I know, I know. Romans said the same kind of stuff about their Republic after Tiberius and after Caligula and after Nero. They were wusses, though.
Probably because Harris and Biden were just placeholders until the PTB found their next Obama.
Trump shifted the center of political gravity in the country so that it is much harder for the progressives to find, let alone elect, the next Obama.