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Republicans in Congress would shoulder the blame for a shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security if they are unable to enact a new spending bill to keep the agency running, according to a new CNN/ORC poll. The survey finds that 53% of Americans would blame the Republicans in Congress if the department must shut down, while 30% would blame President Barack Obama. Another 13% say both deserve the blame. If a spending bill is not passed by Feb. 28, the agency's funding will run out. ...

Republican leaders have intensified their planning to prevent a government funding shutdown, weighing legislative options that would redirect GOP anger at Barack Obama's expected action on immigration and stave off a political disaster, according to sources involved with the sessions. Obama plans to use his executive authority to change the enforcement of immigration laws by the end of the year, a move that top Republicans warn could derail efforts to pass a long-term spending bill by a Dec. 11 deadline. Increasingly, some top Republicans believe that it will be difficult to pass the year-long spending package that they originally envisioned,...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration says the government shutdown last fall resulted in nearly 8 million fewer visitors to national parks, costing the parks and surrounding communities an estimated $414 million in lost visitor spending. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said the shutdown was a striking reminder that national parks are a powerful economic engine for local economies across the country. The report released Monday said five states, including California and Arizona, lost more than $20 million during the 16-day shutdown.

I know this is a few months old, but it's something that has been puzzling me. Where was Tom Brokaw when the "Greatest Generation" was being publicly disrespected and humiliated at the World War 2 memorial? All they wanted to do was visit this open air monument, {many in wheelchairs} that was dedicated to them. IN my mind, Brokaw should have been there, leading the charge to remove the barriers. I guess he had to make the choice, Greatest Generation or Obama. He chose Obama.

Texas tea party favorite Sen. Ted Cruz tells ABC's Jonathan Karl on "This Week" that he has no regrets about the 16-week federal government shutdown. In fact, he blames President Barack Obama and Democratic leaders, ABC News reports in a story on its website.

Going by age demographics, the October 2013 Employment Situation Report released last Friday revealed the following numbers. 578,000 fewer adults (Age 25 and above) were counted as having jobs in the household survey portion of the report.22,000 fewer young adults (Age 20-24) were counted as being employed in October 2013.135,000 fewer teens (Age 16-19) were working in October 2013. The big story, of course, was the partial federal government shut down that saw 815,932 government workers be furloughed at the beginning of October 2013. Here though, that number was quickly cut nearly in half as the Defense department recalled most...

Obama says he doesn't want to hear about spending cuts By Justin Sink - 10/25/13 04:41 PM ET President Obama told Republicans in Congress that he doesn't want to hear about additional cuts to government programs after the 16-day shutdown. The president said the country can afford to make investments in areas like education, and he noted that the shutdown cut into the economy. “Don't tell me we can afford to shut down the government, which costs our government billions of dollars, but we can't afford to invest in our kids,” Obama said at a school in Brooklyn. “This obsession...

First lady Michelle Obama on Friday joined in the battle over Obamacare, talking up her husband’s health-care program after a rough rollout and taking on those behind the government shutdown. “When a small group of folks in Congress shuts down our government to try to shut down Obamacare, and we watch as our President stands strong, that’s not just some political fight in Washington — it is a battle about our most fundamental values and aspirations,” the first lady told the audience at the Women’s Leadership Forum Conference in Washington, D.C. “[I]f you’re not happy about what you’ve seen in...

The IRS said this week it is delaying the start of the tax filing season, leading Republicans to argue that the agency is putting its focus on implementing Obamacare at the expense of helping average taxpayers. The IRS blamed the government shutdown, saying that when it furloughed 90 percent of its employees it lost too many work days to begin processing returns on time in January. But House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp said the IRS this year was able to begin processing returns on time despite major changes to tax laws in the "fiscal cliff" deal Congress...

Clashing tactics led to squandered opportunities, but the Right can still unite to defeat O’Care. The developing narrative, whether on talk radio or in these pages and other publications, about the shutdown fight — who was on what side, what the options were, and what was gained or not — often starts from incorrect premises, based on incomplete or erroneous assumptions. Since we need to understand how we got here if we want to do better, as a team, next time, it’s important to lay out some of the unpublished history. The ACA passed Congress without a single Republican vote....

I'm surprised no one has posted this yet, well at least I'm unaware if someone has, but as a former Rand Paul fan I am furious, I am enraged, I am disappointed. I'm at a loss for words, I don't even know what to say. The Tea-party jihadists, RP & McConnell discussing their true intentions to bulls**t and waste as much time as they can on a Mic they didn't know was on. While 800,000 + people just got laid off of work... WE NEED TO CLEAN THE HOUSE AND START OVER AGAIN!

So what was accomplished by the government shutdown? Peter Beinart declares that, contrary to conventional wisdom, the resolution of the shutdown was a Republican victory because their "surrender" consisted of perpetuating federal spending at sequester levels. But I think what was accomplished was bigger. What was accomplished was that the conservative base communicated how serious it really is about reducing the size of government. The usual game in which the Democrats try to grab for as much as they can get, and Republicans fight back by giving them only half of it—and the result is that government still keeps growing,...

<p>Senate Republicans emerged Wednesday from the Capitol meeting that ended the shutdown and debt ceiling crisis at least for a couple of months, saying, “Never again,” followed by, “I told you so.</p>

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper admitted that furloughing "nearly three-quarters of the workers at the government's intelligence agencies" due to the shutdown "put the United States at greater risk of terror attacks."According to McClathcyDC, "lawmakers, former intelligence officials and national security experts say they were shocked that the administration furloughed the bulk of federal workers at 16 intelligence agencies, many of them tasked with the most important job in government: safeguarding lives."Former CIA Director Leon Panetta said a justification for the furloughs was "difficult for [him] to understand." He added: "People that are involved in our intelligence are critical....

If a government shuts down in the forest, and nobody hears it, that’s the sound of liberty dying. The so-called shutdown, as noted last week, is mostly baloney: 83 percent of the supposedly defunded government is carrying on as usual, impervious to whatever restraints the people’s representatives might wish to impose, and the 800,000 soi-disant “nonessential” workers have been assured that, as soon as the government is once again lawfully funded, they will be paid in full for all the days they’ve had at home. But the one place where a full-scale shutdown is being enforced is in America’s alleged...

NEWBURYPORT — Pat Vaillancourt went on a trip last week that was intended to showcase some of America’s greatest treasures. Instead, the Salisbury resident said she and others on her tour bus witnessed an ugly spectacle that made her embarrassed, angry and heartbroken for her country.... For many hours her tour group, which included senior citizen visitors from Japan, Australia, Canada and the United States, were locked in a Yellowstone National Park hotel under armed guard.

Lost in the news shuffle of the government shutdown and debt ceiling debate this week was the story progressives are quite happy you likely missed. But the story is important to note now, especially since we are on the verge of a massive expansion of the welfare state. The Electronic Benefits Transfer system went down for a couple of days. The EBT system replaced food stamps with a debit card to remove the stigma attached to using food stamps and is “reloaded” with a recipient’s government allotment once per month. When the money is gone, it’s gone, until the next...

House Republicans on Wednesday assailed the National Park Service director for erecting barriers at national monuments during the government shutdown. They accused Jonathan Jarvis of violating federal law by putting up the barricades at 401 national monuments and parks with no apparent imminent threat. In a joint hearing Wednesday, the House Natural Resources, and Oversight and Government Reform committees met to review the actions of the Park Service since the government shutdown took effect Oct. 1. Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah) charged the NPS with violating the Antideficiency Act in barring visitors from the parks during the shutdown. The law prohibits...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) sat down with MSNBNC anchor Andrea Mitchell on Wednesday to discuss what appears to be a deal which is poised to end the government shutdown and raise the nation’s borrowing limit. She criticized the unfocused Republican members of Congress and praised Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) who she said had been “a master at work” during the shutdown. “Have you ever seen anything quite like this, a battle over what most people felt was nothing — nothing relevant to the issues at hand?” Mitchell asked. “I think that Republicans even forgot what they...