Posted on 10/10/2013 11:31:09 AM PDT by Idaho_Cowboy
The presidency is a "bully pulpit," said Teddy Roosevelt.
"For Roosevelt, 'bully' was an adjective meaning 'excellent' or 'first-rate' -- not the noun 'bully' ('a blustering browbeating person') that's so common today," the Merriam-Webster dictionary explains.
For Barack Obama, "bully" has the more common meaning.
The dirty little secret about the government "shutdown" is that not very much of it is shut down. Essential services go on. Checks for Social Security and Medicare go out as usual.
Spending is cut about 17 percent during the "shutdown." If it were to last a full year, spending would be cut from $3.6 trillion to about $2.9 trillion -- which is what the government spent the year before Mr. Obama became president.
Few Americans are hurt. Primarily impacted are the roughly 800,000 federal employees deemed "nonessential," who've been put on unpaid leave. But they'll get back pay once the "shutdown" ends.
To make the reality of the "shutdown" comport with his apocalyptic rhetoric, President Obama is inflicting as much pain as he can on ordinary Americans.
He's ordered all national parks closed -- including more than 100 privately staffed parks that make money for the government.
It's one thing to close a park for lack of staff, to prevent injury to visitors or damage to the property. It's quite another to spend more money to prevent people from viewing monuments when neither the people nor the monuments are at risk.
*When Wesley Pruden of the Washington Times asked a Park Service ranger why the Park Service tried to block access to George Washington's home -- which is owned by the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association, not the government -- the ranger replied: "We've been told to make life as difficult for people as we can. It's disgusting."
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
The democrats and Obama have turned the US into USSA the united socialist states of America.
Hold the line Republicans. keep the useless government shut down.
the way to limit government is to permanently cut their funding. the only tax allowed by any branch of government shall be a 10% sales tax divided by federal, state and local and that’s it. Federal 5%, state 3% , local 2%:. no income tax, no property taxes ever. no government regulations against businesses.
The Government shut down? Gee When did this happen? I was so busy working I never even noticed. We are saving money so keep it shut down.
>>I still don’t understand why the park rangers go along with the program and do just what they are told.
Because, that’s human nature. Anyone, in any nation, in any time, who puts on a uniform runs the risk of letting that uniform go to his head. When orders come “from above”, most people follow them. It’s just “mob mentality” multiplied by sanctioned power. This is why we have posse comitatus in the US...so the uniformed military is never put in a place to be tempted.
Obama would like to call it the “bully minaret”. Pulpit sounds so Christian.
Must be those brown shirts they wear.
President Cruz should permanently fire the non-essential federal “workers”.
They said on Fox this morning that the furloughed workers are drawing unemployment. Then they’re going to be back paid. So it’s a double-paid bonus vacation.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.