Volume 148
Volume 147

Boner has said they aren't backing down without some sort of concession to Obamacare.  It makes no sense, they want a concession to a legally passed law upheld by the SCOTUS.  As if the 1000 concession they got in the original bill weren't enough.

Next they will want a concessions for abortions or not being able to put up paintings of Jesus in every classroom.

D's ask for concessions for the Patriot Act and MMA, maybe even ask for them for Iraq.  If we are going to demand some sort of compromise for settled legislation, let's shoot for the stars.

The shutdown did not prevent us from mounting military strikes in Somalia and Libya.

Possibility of no Social Security checks... but military strikes, thank god, go on unfettered. Plenty of money for that. Gotta love our priorities.

Anyway - the NSA domestic spying - the absolutely essential fate-of-the-world-rests-upon-it bombing of Syria... All gone.

My point is that the government winds us up - with the help of the frenzied media - and then, once we are pulling our hair and gnashing our teeth, they have a cocktail or something and go away. Until we start to relax - then comes the next crisis.

I am increasingly coming to believe that, for all the talk of how the conservatives have hurtled into a box canyon, it is the administration, bright people all, that may have been euchred into a situation that will truly damage it. After all, if the shutdown ended tomorrow, the sequester would still be in place. Austerity still would be the tacitly agreed upon program for both parties, and Paul Krugman likely still would be drinking before noon. The administration's brilliant eleventy-dimensional chess in 2010 looks more and more like a case of being too smart by half. It created a new reality in which both sides decided that what a country barely out of a devastating recession really needed was some belt-tightening and some fiscal discipline. If the administration really believed that the conservative monkeyhouse elected in 2010 wasn't going to be completely at home in this new reality, then somebody over there needs to be fired.

I don't always agree with Mr. Hersh, who sometimes seems almost a relic from a bygone era, and who is contemptuously dismissed by so many so-called journalists today, as though he were just some old guy yelling at the youngsters to get off his lawn.

But I greatly admire Hersh's fearlessness when imparting his perception of truth to the powers that be, and I very much respect his past work. He's the type of no-nonsense journalist who'll keep taking names and kicking a$$ until the day he finally expires -- and even then, I wouldn't put it past him to leave a few posthumous bombshells to detonate in his wake, after he's laid six feet under.

So, if Hersh demands that we pay attention, it would probably be in our best interest to listen. we may not like what he says, but odds are that we'll need to hear it nonetheless.

Nearly a year after Malala was almost murdered by the Pakistan Taliban for defying a ban on female education, one of its leaders told the Daily Telegraph she's still not safe.

"We are not against Malala herself but we are against her ideology," Shahidullah Shahid told The Telegraph by telephone from an unknown location.

"Anyone who campaigns against our religion and criticizes Islam, like she is doing with her secular ideology, is our enemy and so we will target her again, and again," Shahid added.

JEFFERSON CITY -- Thousands of Missourians risk losing access to food stamps next year under a rule change proposed by Gov. Jay Nixon.

But isn't it exciting MO will be first in something!

If Missouri voluntarily allows the statewide waiver to expire, it would become the first state with a Democratic governor to do so.

Missouri still qualifies for the statewide waiver and probably will until the end of 2015. However, the state's Department of Social Services has proposed changing eligibility rules to only allow the waiver of the work requirements in counties where unemployment is higher than 10 percent. That was the rule in place prior to the 2009 economic recession.

According the state Department of Labor & Industrial Relations, only three rural counties had unemployment higher than 10 percent in August -- Caldwell in northwest Missouri, Reynolds in southeast Missouri and Shannon in south-central Missouri.

Unemployment is 9.9 percent in the city of St. Louis. So an area with a very large population of extremely poor people will see food stamps discontinued because it falls .1 percent under the 10% criteria.

"Cutting people off the program will not suddenly create jobs for unemployed adults in Missouri," Oxford said. "The inability to find work stems from high unemployment and the very slow recovery of the labor market."

Volume 150
Volume 149

I would imagine it's going to change because right now that the way the Broncos are playing, seems like easy money.

The largest spread in history before this week occurred Dec. 5, 1976 when the Steelers were -27 against the Buccaneers. Pittsburgh won that game 42-0.

Major insurers, state health-care officials and Democratic allies repeatedly warned the Obama administration in recent months that the new federal health-insurance exchange had significant problems, according to people familiar with the conversations. Despite those warnings and intense criticism from Republicans, the White House proceeded with an Oct. 1 launch.

A week after the federal Web site opened, technical problems continued to plague the system, and on Tuesday people were locked out until 10 a.m., although some applicants were able to sign up as the day went on. Officials said they were working 24 hours a day to improve the system and that they were confident it would soon be able to meet the demand. They added that there was ample time to correct the site to allow consumers to get insured by Jan. 1.

SNIP

Rep. Robert E. Andrews (D-N.J.), who played a key role in passing the health-care law and has worked on its implementation, said he told White House officials early this summer he had been hearing from insurers that the online system had flaws.

"Nothing I told them ever surprised them," Andrews said in an interview. "The White House has acknowledged all along something this massive was going to have implementation problems."

Two allies of the administration, both of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the controversy surrounding the rollout, said they approached White House officials this year to raise concerns that the federal exchange was not ready to launch. In both cases, Obama officials assured them there was no cause for alarm.

It's our land, but it ain't our f*ckin' shutdown...536 arseholes in DC can own that sh*t all they want, but the parks are ours.