Does anyone remember this amount articles about how sad it is that federal government employees aren’t getting paid when Obama shut down the government in 2013? I could be wrong but I don’t remember this volume of “Look at these poor federal/TSA/Coast Guard/etc families suffering because of Trump” sob stories.
ABOUT 25,000 FEDERAL workers deemed essential during the 2013 partial government shutdown are entitled to be paid twice for work they performed during a five-day period, a federal judge found this week.
The workers were not paid on time for work at the beginning of the 16-day shutdown, though they were given the back pay when the political crisis was resolved.
It started over Obamacare. Congress failed to come to an agreement on a budget after Republican lawmakers began pushing to defund Obamacare. Not surprisingly, Senate Democrats and the Obama administration rejected the proposals and the resulting impasse led to the partial shutdown that began in early October 2013.
Nearly 800,000 federal employees were out of work without pay. In addition, more than a million other working employees had their paychecks delayed. On day five of the shutdown, Congress voted to give the furloughed government employees retroactive pay. Meanwhile, some members of Congress kept collecting their paychecks, while others voluntarily gave theirs up.
Nonessential departments and employees were furloughed. National parks, the National Zoo and NASA were all closed. The National Park Service lost more than 700,000 daily visitors, who typically add about $76 million to the national economy each day.
One man mowed the lawn outside the national monuments. Chris Cox rose to fame after being spotted mowing the lawn outside the Lincoln Memorial. Cox took over for the U.S. Park Service employees and was seen mowing the lawn and emptying the area’s overflowing trash cans. He called the federal government’s neglect of national parks “unacceptable.”
Veterans pushed past barricades of the closed WWII memorial. The World War II memorial was technically closed because of the shutdown, but that didn’t stop 92 Mississippi Gulf Coast Honor Flight Veterans from crossing the barricades and touring the site.
V.A. financial benefits were disrupted. Millions of veterans and their families almost did not receive their benefits. The Veterans Affairs secretary at the time, Eric Shinseki, warned that if the shutdown continued through late October, the agency would not be able to send out compensation checks to 5.1 million veterans.
There was an increase in restaurant beverage (mostly liquor) sales. Beverage sales saw a 3 percent increase during the first week of October compared to the first week of September that year.
#Shutdownbeards became a thing. With extra time on their hands and no meetings to look presentable for, some furloughed federal staffers tweeted out pictures of their beards, refusing to shave until Congress ended the shutdown.
It cost the country $24 billion. According to estimates by the financial services company Standards & Poor’s, the government shutdown cost America a whopping $24 billion, or $1.5 billion a day.
The shutdown finally came to an end. On Oct. 16, the Senate and House voted to fund the government until Jan. 15 and extend the debt limit. Minor changes were made to Obamacare requiring income verification for those receiving health care. President Obama signed the bill shortly after midnight on Oct. 17, ending the shutdown.
“You don’t like a particular policy or a particular president? Then argue for your position. Go out there and win an election,” Obama said.
Californians should not be permitted to speak on the state of the country; their experiences are not universal to literally the rest of Americans, despite what they believe. As far as I am concerned, they don’t even live in the U.S.
The same is true for:
All of New Jersey
Austin, Texas
New York City, Manhattan, and Long Island
Minnesota
Also in the running to be excluded:
The entire southern half of Florida
Portland, Oregon
Seattle, Washington
Why all Californians? I mean you were specific about which texans, which i suppose is fair since if you don’t count alaska texas is the largest state however, that would make california the second largest state and you decided that we’re all the same. I may be going out on a limb here but i’d guess that you’re assuming that that we’re all like LA or San Francisco, or even San Diego, which i suppose is fair considering that you probably don’t gather how big somewhere is if you only hear about the major cities. So why all californians and just austin texas? especially when you consider that as of 2017 the population of california was 39.54 million while the population of texas was only 28.3 million, and yet you were specific about who in texas you you deem to be “not living in america” and painted all of california with one brush. I think we are living in america but one thing at a time.
Add to the original list the tract of land upon which this guy’s house sits.
ah so this is just an anyone-who-disagrees-with-me-is-not-a-“real american” situation, good to know
Yes, the entire population of New Jersey and Minnesota disagreed with me on whether it was tasty to put french fries on their sandwiches and the dissenting opinions (corroborated by thorough and accurate SurveyMonkey studies) of literally the whole statewide population earned each state a spot on this Not-America Blacklist™ right alongside your Californian ass.
Californians should not be permitted to speak on the state of the country; their experiences are not universal to literally the rest of Americans, despite what they believe. As far as I am concerned, they don’t even live in the U.S.
The same is true for:
All of New Jersey
Austin, Texas
New York City, Manhattan, and Long Island
Minnesota
Also in the running to be excluded:
The entire southern half of Florida
Portland, Oregon
Seattle, Washington
Why all Californians? I mean you were specific about which texans, which i suppose is fair since if you don’t count alaska texas is the largest state however, that would make california the second largest state and you decided that we’re all the same. I may be going out on a limb here but i’d guess that you’re assuming that that we’re all like LA or San Francisco, or even San Diego, which i suppose is fair considering that you probably don’t gather how big somewhere is if you only hear about the major cities. So why all californians and just austin texas? especially when you consider that as of 2017 the population of california was 39.54 million while the population of texas was only 28.3 million, and yet you were specific about who in texas you you deem to be “not living in america” and painted all of california with one brush. I think we are living in america but one thing at a time.
Add to the original list the tract of land upon which this guy’s house sits.
A bombshell domestic spy scandal has been unfolding in Britain, after hacked internal communications exposed a covert U.K. state military-intelligence psychological warfare operation targeting its own citizens and political figures in allied NATO countries under the cover of fighting “Russian disinformation.”
The leaked documents revealed a secret network of spies, prominent journalists and think-tanks colluding under the umbrella of a group called “Integrity Initiative” to shape domestic opinion—and to smear political opponents of the right-wing Tory government, including the leader of the opposition Labour Party, Jeremy Corbin.
Until now, this Integrity Initiative domestic spy scandal has been ignored in the American media, perhaps because it has mostly involved British names. But it is clear that the influence operation has already been activated in the U.S.. Hacked documents reveal that the Integrity Initiative is cultivating powerful allies inside the State Department, top D.C. think tanks, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, where it has gained access to Katharine Gorka and her husband, the fascist-linked cable news pundit Sebastian Gorka.
The Integrity Initiative has spelled out plans to expand its network across the U.S., meddling in American politics and recruiting “a new generation of Russia watchers” behind the false guise of a non-partisan charity. Moreover, the group has hired one of the most notorious American “perception management” specialists, John Rendon, to train its clusters of pundits and cultivate relationships with the media.
Back in the U.K., Member of Parliament Chris Williamson has clamored for an investigation into the Integrity Initiative’s abuse of public money.
In a recent editorial, Williamson drew a direct parallel between the group’s collaboration with journalists and surreptitious payments the CIA made to reporters during the Cold War.
“These tactics resemble those deployed by the CIA in Operation Mockingbird that was launched at the height of the cold war in the early 1950s. Its aims included using the mainstream news media as a propaganda tool,” Williamson wrote.
“They manipulated the news agenda by recruiting leading journalists to write stories with the express purpose of influencing public opinion in a particular way,” the Labour parliamentarian continued. “Now it seems the British Establishment have dusted off the CIA’s old playbook and is intent on giving it another outing on this side of the Atlantic.”
“Why is my company so diverse?” complains the balding conservative.
“It’s equality! Finally! Representation matters!” parrots the intern.
The reality is that corporations do not care one way or the other, unless it makes them money; this is an excerpt from my company’s “Business Case” for “Gender Intelligence”:
Companies in the top quartile for gender diversity are 15% more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians.
why do people who study economics of any discipline maintain that US capitalism is a “free market”? the only businesses that aren’t completely entangled in government intervention operate on the black or grey market, at risk of being fined and/or jailed. everyone else reports to, asks permission, and complies with a nearly immeasurable list of government dictates. this isn’t hard to figure out or understand. the US economy isn’t even ranked among the freest in the world, so this is like an internationally known fact. I just… don’t get why anyone reads comments about a free market and automatically thinks “US capitalism.” it’s madness.
Californians should not be permitted to speak on the state of the country; their experiences are not universal to literally the rest of Americans, despite what they believe. As far as I am concerned, they don’t even live in the U.S.
The same is true for:
All of New Jersey
Austin, Texas
New York City, Manhattan, and Long Island
Minnesota
Also in the running to be excluded:
The entire southern half of Florida
Portland, Oregon
Seattle, Washington
frankly if you don’t live in Hawaii don’t even call yourself American
“Real America” TM is in fact a single square meter of forest in appalachia whose exact location is a closely guarded secret
nah they uprooted it and it’s stored in Area 51 for safe keeping, along with the Ark of the Covenant
The real US is actually one square mile in Georgia with the most racists per capita.
Populist “liberal elite” rhetoric has fried peoples brains so hard that people legit think that California, New Jersey and Minnesota are sheltered liberal safe spaces completely segregated from the rest of the country, and not very, very large states with diverse populations that hold a wide range of political views, upbringings, experiences and lifestyles.
Yeah excuse the fuck out of us for being the epicenter of the second great wave of immigration. You know, a major, significant part of American history?
(and let me tell you…just because jersey is perpetually blue doesn’t mean that the majority of the population isn’t casually racist asf. Especially with the exodus of young people due to high cost of living. Fucking dumbass bitches on here talking out of their asses about shit they know NOTHING about.)
Californians should not be permitted to speak on the state of the country; their experiences are not universal to literally the rest of Americans, despite what they believe. As far as I am concerned, they don’t even live in the U.S.
The same is true for:
All of New Jersey
Austin, Texas
New York City, Manhattan, and Long Island
Minnesota
Also in the running to be excluded:
The entire southern half of Florida
Portland, Oregon
Seattle, Washington
frankly if you don’t live in Hawaii don’t even call yourself American
“Real America” TM is in fact a single square meter of forest in appalachia whose exact location is a closely guarded secret
nah they uprooted it and it’s stored in Area 51 for safe keeping, along with the Ark of the Covenant
So quick to determine what people can and cannot take about because they disagree with him.
Tate writes that after the laptop revelation, she and her daughter reached a tentative agreement about her future writing. Her daughter has veto power over photos, for one. Tate will discuss what she’s writing before publication and keep personal details to a minimum when they involve her daughter. She is “taking under advisement” her daughter’s request to be referred to in future essays by a pseudonym.
Tate is surely an extreme case when it comes to such narcissistic self-justification, but if she were the only writer treating her family’s inner workings as a commodity, this episode would be not much more than future therapy fodder for her daughter. She is part of an entire generation of writers and Instagrammers and YouTubers who have turned their family’s daily dramas into content. These are the children whose tantrums have gone viral, who have been pranked for LOLs on Jimmy Kimmel’s show, and who have turned into brands as preschoolers. Some of these mothers make serious money.
Now, those children are growing up. Leta Armstrong, the daughter of Heather Armstrong of the pioneering parenting blog Dooce, told Slate last year that she remembers first becoming uncomfortable with one of her mom’s posts in third or fourth grade, around the same age at Tate’s daughter. (She now has veto power over posts that relate to her.) Other parenting writers have already gotten out of the game, for the sake of their children. Darlene Cunha wrote a farewell to mommy blogging last year in response to her twin daughters’ unsettling comfort with their ministardom. Another writer worried that her 6-year-old was becoming “overly aware of her own image.”
And their generation has a different approach to online self-disclosure. As much as young people now live their lives on social media, they’re very self-aware when it comes to sharing pictures and real names online. They use separate private social media accounts with their close friends, and they’ve learned about internet safety in school. A 2016 university study of 249 parent-child pairs found that the children had much more draconian technology instincts than their parents: The children were twice as likely to say that adults shouldn’t post about their kids without permission. “When I had pictured our first serious conversation about how the Internet is forever, I always thought we’d be talking about content posted by her, not me,” Tate wrote, edging up to an epiphany that she never quite reaches: The generation of kids who seem like they’re baring it all online are actually more savvy about self-presentation—and self-protection—than their parents. And in another decade or two, they’ll start writing memoirs of their own
