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[freeformschooler]

One of my few entertainments outside of computers is hiking and the top two local hiking spots are going to be closed for the duration. rageragerage

[RedKing]

They're forbidden, by law, from fucking computerizing their license records. They're required to keep records of every Federal Firearms license, but have to do so by keeping literally THOUSANDS of filing cabinets with the actual paperwork.

What is the legal rationale for getting to stay on paper. I mean, that's fucking ridiculous as all get out, but how do you legislate something like that? With as much free reign as we give law enforcement in this country, jesus, you'd think the ATF make a bigger stink about it.

You can thank the batshit-crazy "black helicopter, New World Order" crazy right-wingers from the 90's for that (or as I've come to think of them, Tea Party: Year Zero). They were utterly convinced that allowing the ATF to have an easily searchable database of legal gun owners was merely a precursor to jackbooted stormtroopers knocking down millions of doors and confiscating all firearms in the United States.

And they pitched their Glenn Beck-like apocalyptic vision (and millions in NRA political donations) to enough Congresscritters to get that shit passed. And nobody's had enough votes since then to reverse it. The Democrats might have been able to for that brief period they had 60 in the Senate, except that:

1. They couldn't do shit WITH a fillibuster-proof majority.
2. There's more than a few conservative Dems on the gun lobby payroll too.


And yeah...we're heading up to the mountains Sunday for a week vacation, but all those lovely national parks are gonna be closed. And if that means shutting down the roads that run through the Great Smoky Mountains Park, we're screwed for making any day trips into Tennessee. I suppose the nice thing is that we'll be totally incommunicado. No cable, no Internet, not even sure the cell phones work all that good up there. So after tomorrow, this is all "Not My Problem" (TM) for at least a week. Hopefully we'll have a government when I get back.

[inteuniso]

No, RedKing. You are the government.

[Criptfeind]

So after tomorrow, this is all "Not My Problem" (TM) for at least a week. Hopefully we'll have a government when I get back.

Better pack some survival supplies just in case it goes the other way.

[inteuniso]

NO SHUTDOWN! For now...

[Aqizzar]

Looks like some people aren't too happy about the big news.

Boehner has faced pressure from the Tea Party not to compromise with Democrats on spending cuts. Amid reports a deal had been reached, Tea Party Nation's Judson Phillips Tweeted, "Boehner is selling us out tonight. We will primary Boehner next year."

Sarah Palin also pressured the GOP not to compromise, Tweeting, "GOP: don't retreat! The country is going broke. We can't AFFORD cowboy poetry & subsidizing abortion...If we can't fight to defund this nonsense now when we have the chance, do you think we'll win the big fight on entitlement reform later on?"

I love that "Tweets" have become the coin of the realm in political messaging.

[Chunes]

One of my few entertainments outside of computers is hiking and the top two local hiking spots are going to be closed for the duration. rageragerage

The government hasn't trademarked walking, dude. You're seriously not going to go hiking because the government shut down? That's.. absurd.

[Aqizzar]

Did you actually try to read that sentence?  He's mad that his favorite places to hike are furloughing, not saying that he's not going to walk.

[Chunes]

Since when does someone need to collect a paycheck in order to hike along a trail?

[Aqizzar]

...Yeah, you're not even trying.  It has nothing to do with his paycheck, it has to do with the trail's.  His hiking places are national parks.  If the government shut down (and it probably will for the weekend anyway given the last minute nature of the spending extension), that means national parks are closed to visitors, because it's against the law for the property or employees to be operational.

[RedKing]

Looks like some people aren't too happy about the big news.

Boehner has faced pressure from the Tea Party not to compromise with Democrats on spending cuts. Amid reports a deal had been reached, Tea Party Nation's Judson Phillips Tweeted, "Boehner is selling us out tonight. We will primary Boehner next year."

Sarah Palin also pressured the GOP not to compromise, Tweeting, "GOP: don't retreat! The country is going broke. We can't AFFORD cowboy poetry & subsidizing abortion...If we can't fight to defund this nonsense now when we have the chance, do you think we'll win the big fight on entitlement reform later on?"

I love that "Tweets" have become the coin of the realm in political messaging.

"Cowboy poetry"?? WTF?
Ahh...I see. After checking it out, it's a reference to something Harry Reid used as an example when discussing the fact that the H.R. 1 proposal would have completely defunded the National Endowment of the Humanities. Something that the GOP couldn't even do back when it was Robert Mapplethorpe they were using as an excuse.

Tell ya what, Caribou Barbie...I'll support defunding the arts ($161 million) if you agree to defund the Federal subsidies to Alaska (hard to calculate, but somewhere on the order of several billion) for...y'know, being Alaska. How bout that, you betcha?

So they ostensibly reached a deal. No details yet, though I've heard a $36 billion number floated around. Not a lot of details on the particulars. If Reid and Obama agreed to it, I'm guessing a fair amount of the social and EPA riders were dropped. BUT (and this is a huge BUT) it still has to be passed by both houses of Congress. All they've got right now is a six-day extension so they can get the bill through Congress. Already, it sounds like the Tea Party is ready to monkeywrench the whole thing. At least this puts them squarely in the blame seat if they manage to bring about another crisis. And I don't think they have the votes to block it, if the mainstream GOP signs on to passing it. What it hopefully *will* do is trigger another round of civil war within the GOP. Especially considering the next two big budget fights are already on the horizon (the 2012 budget and the next vote to raise the debt ceiling).

[mainiac]

I'm not seeing what specifically is being cut and that pisses the hell out of me.  You can't just cut 'government'.  What specific programs did they sell out to get to their compromise?

[darkrider2]

They took out the portion of the bill that chops the funding to planned parenthood.

The main reason for putting that in there in the first place was that planned parenthood provides abortions, but that's only about 3 percent of what they do, and the federal government is literally not allowed to fund abortions anywhere so any chops to planned parenthood would not affect abortions... so I wonder why was that in the bill at all?!?

I'm surprised the republicans would agree to a bill with democrats at all. Isn't that some kind of weakness in their world?

[RedKing]

Unknown what the details are yet (other than the Planned Parenthood rider being dropped, and some rider about school vouchers in D.C. being added -- apparently a pet project of Boehner's).

Looked on THOMAS, and it looks like the crucial document is going to be S. Amdt. 291, amending H.R. 1363. Text not yet released. The initial House bill passed on Wednesday, 247-181-4. The revised version passed this morning, 348-70-14. The interesting thing is that the initial bill was almost purely a party-line vote, with Republicans voting 232-6 in favor, and Democrats voting 15-175 against. The revised one passed with Republicans voting 208-28 in favor and Democrats voting 140-42 in favor. So that in itself seems to favor the Democrats a bit. The ones opposed to the revised bill were pretty much a mix from the edges of each party. Michelle Bachmann voted no (both times, actually....she's wanted a government shut down all along, despite her lying through her teeth the other day and blaming the Democrats.)

[Lagslayer]

They took out the portion of the bill that chops the funding to planned parenthood.

The main reason for putting that in there in the first place was that planned parenthood provides abortions, but that's only about 3 percent of what they do, and the federal government is literally not allowed to fund abortions anywhere so any chops to planned parenthood would not affect abortions... so I wonder why was that in the bill at all?!?

I'm surprised the republicans would agree to a bill with democrats at all. Isn't that some kind of weakness in their world?

Unless it really was all for show. Just saying.