Congress misses deadline, sending government into partial shutdown

Congress blew by a midnight deadline to pass a crucial spending bill, triggering the beginning of a partial government shutdown – the first in 17 years.
Lawmakers missed the deadline after being unable to resolve their stand-off over ObamaCare, despite a volley of 11th-hour counterproposals from the House. Each time, Senate Democrats refused to consider any changes to ObamaCare as part of the budget bill.
House Republicans, for their part, refused to back off their demand that the budget bill include some measures to rein in the health care law – a large part of which, the so-called insurance “exchanges,” goes into effect on Tuesday.
As House Republicans endorsed one more counterproposal in the early morning hours, lawmakers spent the final minutes before midnight trying to assign blame to the other side of the aisle. Republicans are no doubt wary of the blowback their party felt during the Clinton-era shutdown, while Democrats were almost eager to pile the blame on the GOP.
“This is an unnecessary blow to America,” Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said.
House Speaker John Boehner claimed that Republicans are the ones trying to keep the government open but “the Senate has continued to reject our offers.”
Ahead of the deadline, the White House budget office ordered agency heads to execute an “orderly shutdown” of their operations due to lack of funds. Americans will begin to feel the effects of a shutdown by Tuesday morning, as national parks close, federal home loan officers scale back their caseload, and hundreds of thousands of federal workers face furlough.
The question now is how long the stand-off will last. Congress is fast-approaching another deadline, in mid-October, to raise the debt limit or face a U.S. government default. Lawmakers presumably want to resolve the status of the government swiftly in order to shift to that debate.
Throughout the day Monday, lawmakers engaged in a day-long bout of legislative hot potato.
The House repeatedly passed different versions of a bill that would fund the government while paring down the federal health care overhaul. Each time, the Senate said no and sent it back.
As a last-ditch effort, House Republicans early Tuesday morning endorsed taking their disagreement to what’s known as a conference committee – a bicameral committee where lawmakers from both chambers would meet to resolve the differences between the warring pieces of legislation.
The latest House bill, which the Senate shot down late Monday, would delay the law's individual mandate while prohibiting lawmakers, their staff and top administration officials from getting government subsidies for their health care.
The House voted again to endorse that approach early Tuesday and send the bill to conference committee.
“It means we're the reasonable, responsible actors trying to keep the process alive as the clock ticks past midnight, despite Washington Democrats refusal - thus far - to negotiate,” a GOP leadership aide said.
Reid, though, said the Senate would not agree to the approach unless and until the House approves a “clean” budget bill.
The rhetoric got more heated as the deadline neared.
“They’ve lost their minds,” Reid said of Republicans, in rejecting the latest proposal.
“Senate Democrats have made it perfectly clear that they’d rather shut down the federal government than accept even the most reasonable changes to ObamaCare,” Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell countered.
Amid the drama, President Obama said he was holding out hope that Congress would come together "in the 11th hour."
Such a deal did not come to pass.
A prior Republican effort to include a provision defunding ObamaCare in the budget bill failed. House Republicans then voted, early Sunday, to add amendments delaying the health care law by one year and repealing an unpopular medical device tax.
The Senate, in a 54-46 vote, rejected those proposals on Monday afternoon.
At this stage, congressional leaders are hard at work trying to assign blame.
Democrats have already labeled this a "Republican government shutdown." But Republicans on Sunday hammered Reid and his colleagues for not coming back to work immediately after the House passed a bill Sunday morning. Bailey Comment: "Big deal, who really cares about this government shutdown except all of the leeches sucking off the tax payers".

Reid vows to reject House spending bill

With what would be the first government shutdown in 17 years due to take effect at midnight Tuesday, the Senate will return to business Monday afternoon to consider the Republican House’s weekend spending-bill offer, which the chamber's ranking Democrat has vowed to reject.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., had made his feelings on the the bill, which includes an amendment providing for a one-year delay in the implementation of ObamaCare, known even before the House approved the measure early Sunday morning. Throughout the day Sunday, House Republican leaders chided Reid and others in the Democrat-led chamber for not hustling back to Capitol Hill to negotiate a compromise.
“O Senate, where art thou,” said Tennessee Rep. Marsha Blackburn, riffing on the movie “O Brother, Where Art Thou.”
In a package of weekend votes, the House also agreed to an amendment to repeal the health care law’s medical-device tax and voted in favor of a bill to pay the military on time should a shutdown occur.
Just hours after House Republicans announced their plan Saturday afternoon, the White House vowed President Obama would veto it and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid made clear it was unacceptable.
“To be absolutely clear, the Senate will reject both the one-year delay of the Affordable Care Act and the repeal of the medical device tax," Reid said. "After weeks of futile political games from Republicans, we are still at square one."
On Sunday, Reid spokesman Adam Jentleson called the House votes “empty political stunts” and said, “Tomorrow, the Senate will do exactly what we said we would do and reject these measures.”
The Senate is scheduled to convene at 2 p.m. Monday and Reid is expected to move quickly against the House legislation. Reid is not subject to a filibuster while doing so, and the bill is likely to be voted down with the support of the Senate's Democratic majority. The House is due to convene at 10 a.m. Monday, but it is believed that GOP leaders will wait on Senate action before sending any alternate proposals to the upper chamber.
Blackburn made her comments along with other members of the House Republican Conference at an informal press conference on the steps of Capitol Hill.
“That the senators are not here … is all that everyone needs to know,” said Arkansas Republican Rep. Tim Griffin. “Democrats want to shutdown the government. … That’s a scorched earth policy.”
Grifffin and others tried to recast the blame for a possible shutdown on Democrats who have argued Republicans’ insistence on tying a spending bill to ObamaCare is intended to force a shutdown.
“Today we see where the Senate doors are shut,” said conference Chairwoman and Washington Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers. “Harry Reid says that a shutdown is inevitable.”
House Speaker John Boehner was among the first to put the burden of responsibility back on the Senate.
“Now that the House has again acted, it’s up to the Senate to pass this bill without delay to stop a government shutdown,” the Ohio Republican said after the weekend votes. “Let’s get this done.”
The government would technically run out of money Monday night should Congress fail to pass a spending bill -- resulting in a partial government shutdown that would begin with hundreds of thousands of government workers likely being sent home from work without pay.
The government would still keep open operations and agencies that protect “life and limb,” but national parks would likely close right away and other non-essential programs would also be temporarily shut down.
There have been 17 government shutdowns, the most recent lasting from Dec. 16, 1995, to Jan. 6, 1996 -- the longest in U.S. history.
House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy said Sunday morning the chamber has several last-minute options to avoid a government shutdown should the Senate reject the most recent House plan.
The California Republican insisted the proposal can indeed pass in the Senate but acknowledged having an alternative plan.
“You assume they won’t vote for it. Let’s have that debate,” he told “Fox News Sunday.” But “we have other options for the Senate to look at.”
Earlier this month, the Senate rejected a House spending bill to defund ObamaCare, despite a filibuster-style effort by Tea Party-backed, Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz.
McCarthy declined to tell Fox News whether one of the proposals would be passing a so-called “clean” spending bill, or continuing resolution, which would keep open the government for a few days until Congress agrees on a longer-term plan. But he insisted the House will not be responsible for a shutdown and that it will offer a proposal with Democratic support.
“We are not shutting the government down,” he said. “While the president was out playing golf [Saturday], we were here until 1 a.m. We will pass a bill that reflects this House. … I think there'll be additions that Democrats can support.”
Right now, the House bill covers government spending through Dec. 15, while the Senate bill goes through Nov. 15.

House backs ObamaCare delay as Congress nears shutdown deadline

The House of Representatives approves a temporary spending bill that includes a one-year delay for ObamaCare, increasing the chance of a government shutdown as the White House says President Obama would veto such a proposal.

Professors chide University of Kansas for sanctions over tweet

University of Kansas anthropology professors are accusing school officials of violating the constitutional rights of a fellow professor by placing him on leave because of a post on Twitter.
Journalism professor David Guth got into hot water for a tweet aimed at the National Rifle Association after the Sept. 16 shootings at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., that left 13 dead.
"The blood is on the hands of the (hash)NRA. Next time, let it be YOUR sons and daughters. Shame on you. May God damn you," Guth posted. Bailey Comment: "Someone who is teaching our kids is putting out this crap, and other teachers are taking up for him"? Are you frigging kidding me!
The backlash was swift, with many accusing Guth of wishing death on the children of NRA members. Some Kansas legislative leaders have called on the university's Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little to fire Guth, with a few saying they will not support funding for the university if he isn't fired.
Guth said he wasn't advocating violence but was trying to make gun-rights advocates look at shootings from the point of view of the victims' families.
In a statement issued Friday, 14 professors and anthropology department chairwoman Jane Gibson said the university's actions against Guth have a chilling effect on academic freedom, The Lawrence Journal-World reported.
"While we take no position on the content of what he said, David Guth spoke as a private person and exercised his right to free speech that is protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the Faculty Code of Rights, Responsibilities, and Conduct," the statement said.
Gray-Little has said Guth was placed on indefinite leave to avoid disrupting classes, "not because of the nature of the professor's comments, regardless of how controversial they may be."
Tenured faculty members in the journalism school also have issued a statement supporting Guth's First Amendment rights to free speech, though they said they disagreed with his statement.

House Republican Spending Plan to Include Obamacare Delay

House Republicans on Saturday pushed the government to the edge of a partial shutdown next week, insisting that President Barack Obama's health care law be delayed a year in defiance of White House and the Democratic-controlled Senate. 
They rejected a Senate bill passed Friday that would keep the government operating another 45 days and make no changes to the health law. Instead, House Republicans prepared to pass their own version Saturday and throw the issue back to the Senate, which is not scheduled to return until Monday afternoon, 10 hours before the shutdown deadline.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has insisted the Senate would not pass a bill that alters the law. The White House has said Obama would veto such a bill.

But in an exclusive interview with Newsmax, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell insisted that Republicans weren't fighting a lost cause to defund Obamacare as part of legislation to prevent the federal government from shutting down next week.

"I don't think it was a waste of time," the Kentucky Republican said. "The American people do fully understand that still, not a single Republican in the House or Senate favors this awful new law — and if they will send us enough additional new members to get rid of it, we will."
In addition to delaying final implementation of the Affordable Care Act for a year, the House bill would repeal a tax on medical devices that helps pay for the law, said Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif.
The measure would provide the government with operating funds until Dec. 15; the Senate's version lasted until only Nov. 15.
Dealing with the possibility the Senate would reject the bill, the House also planned to pass a companion measure Sunday directing that U.S. military troops be paid on time despite any partial shutdown.
Obama, in his weekly radio and Internet address, accused House Republicans of being more concerned "with appeasing an extreme faction of their party than working to pass a budget."
Before news of the new plan emerged, lawmakers took to the House floor and mixed name-calling with cries for compromise.
"I've got a titanium backbone. Let 'em blame, let 'em talk, it's fine," said Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., about Democratic claims that the GOP would be at fault if the government must close.
She said the GOP wanted to keep the government open, but also wanted to reduce its size and "delay, defund, repeal and replace Obamacare," as the health law is known.
The Senate's 54-44 vote Friday was strictly along party lines in favor of the bill, which would prevent a shutdown of nonessential government services.
That followed a 79-19 vote to cut off a filibuster by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, that exposed a rift among Republicans eager to prevent a shutdown and those, like Cruz, who seem willing to risk one over the health overhaul.
All 52 Democrats, two independents and 25 of 44 Republicans voted in favor. That included McConnell, R-Ky., and most of the GOP leadership.
Cruz was trying to rally House conservatives to continue the battle over heath care. He was urging them to reject efforts by Boehner and other GOP leaders to offer scaled-back assaults on the law such as repealing the tax on medical devices as the House response.
Some conservatives were taking their cues from Cruz rather than party leaders such as Boehner hoping to avoid a shutdown. Closing down the government could weaken Republicans heading into an even more important battle later in October over allowing the government to borrow more money.
If lawmakers miss the deadline, hundreds of thousands of nonessential federal workers would have to stay home on Tuesday.
Critical services such patrolling the borders, inspecting meat and controlling air traffic would continue. Social Security benefits would be sent and the Medicare and Medicaid health care programs for the elderly and poor would continue to pay doctors and hospitals.
The new health insurance exchanges would open Tuesday, a development that's lent urgency to the drive to use a normally routine stopgap spending bill to gut implementation of the law.

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Barack Hussein Obama II

Read more at http://www.conservapedia.com/Barack_Hussein_Obama#Obama.27s_Medical_Administrator
Barack Hussein Obama II (b. August 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii) is the 44th President of the United States. Through heavy use of early voting by the Democrat political machine, Obama was elected president in 2008 with 365 electoral votes and 53% of the popular vote. In 2012 he was elected to a second term with 332 electoral votes and 51% of the popular vote. Promoted heavily by liberals, as demonstrated by his unjustified receipt of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, Obama won the presidency despite a short and unremarkable political career by outspending his opponent, John McCain, by hundreds of millions of dollars in 2008^[2], and spending more than a billion dollars from special interests to attain reelection in 2012.^[3]
The liberal claptrap that helped elect Obama as president seems silly today. It was claimed, for example, that Obama has millions of followers on Twitter, when allegedly some 70% of them are fake.^[4] And although the lamestream media promoted Obama as a great orator, in fact he relies almost entirely on teleprompters for his speeches and press conferences, and at one point even had teleprompters set up for him in a middle school classroom in order to speak to the media.
Obama is pro-abortion. During his campaigns Obama said that he intended to "spread the wealth around" and has been portrayed as saying that entrepreneurs and employers deserve no credit for building their businesses.^[5] On March 1, 2013 Obama issued executive orders to implement his sequester of budget cuts which^[6] has been widely criticized for destroying jobs in what was an anemic and fragile recovery.^[7]
Former Democrat Presidential candidate Joe Lieberman endorsed Obama's opponent in 2008 and has declined to endorse Obama for the 2012 presidential election.^[8]
Following the 2011 debt ceiling standoff between Obama and House Republicans,^[9] the United States Government's credit rating was, for the first time in its history, downgraded from AAA to AA+, and poverty^[10] increased markedly. By and large his programs, said to combat the recession, unemployment, slow growth, and deficits, have failed^[11] leaving the the country saddled with a $16 trillion national debt and climbing.^[12] One of his most well known tactics is blaming someone else, such as George W. Bush, for all his failures instead of taking responsibility. Also on the domestic front, Obama passed an expensive health care bill in 2010 with no national concensus or bipartisan support and 34 Democrats dissenting. Recently, the Congressional Budget Office wrote an open letter to John Boehner, the Speaker of the House, outlining the effects of repealing Obamacare and explaining why net loss of over 100 billion dollars would occur from the repeal. [10]
Americans deaths in Afghanistan have more than doubled under Obama's leadership compared with the preceding eight years of George Bush, according to the Congressional Research Service ^[13] Against his own Defense Secretary's advice, Obama attacked Libya - a possible violation of the War Powers Act. After he he took credit for the killing of September 11th mastermind terrorist Osama bin Laden, the U.S. State Department warned of increased risk to the lives and safety of Americans.^[14] Bin Laden's successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri confirmed the Benghazi Attack which killed four State Department employees, was motivated by revenge.^[15] Bin Laden's killing, however had negligible impact on Obama's approval ratings.^[16]
Obama's bizarre gaffes are frequent and embarrassing, but typically unreported by the liberal media. Many hardworking American businessmen took offense to a 2012 campaign speech about the economy where he says "You didn't build that." Obama offended Poland by referring to the Nazi death camps there as "Polish death camps." Later Obama apologized.^[17] Even the New York Times was critical of Obama's incessant boasting about the killing of bin Laden.^[18]

If You Don’t Like ObamaCare, Can You Quit?

By G. Keith Smith, MD - http://SurgeryCenterOK.com

At a physician’s roundtable years ago, I asked Senator Orrin Hatch why I couldn’t punch out of Social Security, happy to leave all that I had paid “into the system” on the table. Why couldn’t anyone, I asked, willing to leave behind all they had paid in, be allowed to walk away from these entitlements, as long as they were willing to forgo a future claim to these “benefits?”

He wouldn’t answer me. The answer is obvious, though, isn’t it? Without the current “contributions” of the young (and yes, draws on the credit line of the unborn), the current beneficiaries would discover that these programs were bankrupt.

Virtually all of the legislators that brought us Medicare are dead and gone now. All of the legislators who brought us Social Security are dead and gone. This is no coincidence, for these men realized that it was politically much more popular to give away government goodies paid for by the young and unborn than to tax the very same people who were to “benefit” from their “ideas” and “programs.”

Dead now, these criminal politicians have largely escaped the harsh judgment they deserve for buying votes with property that would belong to future generations. Currency depreciation (“inflation”—the current political class’s favorite way to rob the young for the benefit of their current constituents) has the same effect on future generations.

This is the essence of a Ponzi scheme. That is a fraudulent investment scheme that pays investors not out of profits but out of money paid in by later investors.

If you think about it, all government programs are Ponzi schemes. It is becoming increasingly clear that the same can be said about the [Un]Affordable Care Act. I call it the UCA, instead of the ACA.

UCA can’t let young people out for the same reason that Social Security can’t. Young workers aren’t paying or saving for their own benefits, but for older, sicker people.

UCA rules force insurers to charge them more than they actually cost to help offset the higher cost of insuring older and sicker people. If the young don’t sign up, premiums for everyone in the insurance pool will dramatically increase, as will the cost to the government.

People generally don’t volunteer to be overcharged so that strangers can be undercharged. Hence the individual mandate, and tax penalties.

Young adults are beginning to see the reality as the UCA takes shape, and understand how they wind up losing from every angle. Hence the $600 million advertising campaign and multimillion dollar Navigator program to steer people into the program as quickly as possible. UCA promoters know how hard it is to take away an entitlement once people are trapped in it.

The idea is to entice people with subsidies so they won’t notice how outrageous the premiums are. When enough are lured away from private insurance—the “crowding out” effect shown so well with the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP)—private insurance will collapse. Like Medicare beneficiaries now, all Americans will be without options for major medical insurance.

The success of the UCA hinges on the successful fleecing of the young people. This is the same immoral basis for Medicare and Social Security, “programs” that are still alive because participation in these Ponzi schemes is involuntary. With Bernie Madoff, at least people could take their lumps, having learned their lesson and move on. They didn’t have to continue to give him money after they learned what he was up to.

I am optimistic that today’s young people will reject the shackles that many of their elders have embraced.

---

G. Keith Smith, MD is a board certified anesthesiologist in private practice since 1990. In 1997, he co-founded The Surgery Center of Oklahoma, an outpatient surgery center in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, owned by 40 of the top physicians and surgeons in central Oklahoma. Dr. Smith serves as the medical director, CEO and managing partner while maintaining an active anesthesia practice.

In 2009, Dr. Smith launched a website displaying all-inclusive pricing for various surgical procedures, a move that has gained him and the facility, national and even international attention. Many Canadians and uninsured Americans have been treated at his facility, taking advantage of the low and transparent pricing available.

Operation of this free market medical practice, arguably the only one of its kind in the U.S., has gained the endorsement of policymakers and legislators nationally. More and more self-funded insurance plans are taking advantage of Dr. Smith’s pricing model, resulting in significant savings to their employee health plans. His hope is for as many facilities as possible to adopt a transparent pricing model, a move he believes will lower costs for all and improve quality of care