Thread: Sequester Cuts - brought to you by Obama

Peter Anderson "Pete" Sessions (born March 22, 1955) is a Republican politician from the state of Texas. He currently represents the 32nd congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives. He was previously the Chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee,[1] and is currently the Chairman of the House Rules Committee.

This is one of the chief architects of the Republican betrayal of conservative principles. Please share this far and wide so we can shine a light on the RINO who helped Boehner increase the debt and fund Obamacare.

Rep. Pete Sessions (TX32) called for unanimous consent on the Senate bill so that it would go straight to the House floor without going through the rules committee. This allowed the bill to more quickly get voted on with Pete Sessions knowing that several dozen Republicans would vote with Democrats to pass the bill.

Pete Sessions knew passage of the bill would violate the Hastert Rule and yet he still called for unanimous consent.

The reason Pete Sessions didn't want the bill to go to the rules committee is because he is the Chairman of the Rules Committee and as Chairman he could have stopped this bill from advancing.

Pete Sessions betrayed the entire nation, and especially the people of his district.

He voted against the final bill and is now talking about how awful the bill is. This is complete dishonesty and cronyism on Pete Sessions's part. This is exactly the type of cronyism and double talk that the DC establishment tries to use against we the people because they assume we won't understand the complicated procedural processes.

By calling for unanimous consent and keeping the bill out of the Rules Committee, Pete Sessions voted for increasing the debt and funding Obamacare.

Pete Sessions stabbed America in the back and the nation needs to know it.

Please share this to everyone you know, especially people you know in Texas and let them know what a traitor Pete Sessions is.

Park Ranger Uses Nazi Superior Orders Defense Abdicates All Responsibility On Shutdown Madness
Oct 15, 2013 By Jean Paul Zodeaux

The blame for the petty, mean spirited closure of national public parks lies squarely on the Obama Administration. National Parks did not need to be closed and simple signs in areas such as Yellowstone Park declaring that due to the government shutdown Park Rangers will not be available to offer services and that people enter the park at their own risks would have been more than enough, but in this age of insanity where so called “intellectual” presidents think they can, much like a spoiled child, illustrate a point through petulance and abdicate all responsibility, I suppose it makes a pretzel logic sort of sense that lower level rank and file government employees would do the same.

The president of the Ranger Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police George Durkee, has posted an open and petulant letter to the public that begins: http://www.salon.com/2013/10/15/park...ernments_mess/

“In recent days, media coverage regarding the actions of NPS rangers has been less than flattering. The image of a United States Congressman yelling at a Park Ranger — doing her job as she was directed — was shameful.

Park Rangers are being assigned tasks that, at minimum, are an inconvenience to the public and that often deprive the public of their access to Federal lands and facilities.”

Durkee is, of course, referencing Rep. Randy Neugebauer’s outrage at the attempts at keeping World War II vets from standing at an open air memorial adjacent to a sidewalk. Let me repeat that. The World War II Memorial is a wall outside on some grass next to a sidewalk. Keeping people “out” meant erecting barricades, not shutting and locking doors, not boarding up windows, but erecting temporary barricades in a show of grotesque childishness. Yet Ranger Durkee clearly thinks it was appropriate to erect these barricades at an open air memorial adjacent to a sidewalk and the poor, poor, pitiful Park Ranger who was castigated by Rep. Neugebauer was only doing her job.

The United States military tribunal in Germany hung Nazi soldiers who made that exact same argument. Granted, placing barricades around an open air memorial adjacent to a sidewalk is no where near the atrocity of the Holocaust but a superior orders defense can only lessen a charge or conviction and is generally not accepted as a valid defense for the knowing commission of a crime. Was it criminal to place barricades around an open air memorial adjacent to a sidewalk? It is arguably coercive which is certainly criminal. Then there is the matter of violation of rights. If the government is going to prevent someone from exercising their right to visit the World War II, and just because it is a Memorial built by that federal government does not in anyway diminish the right to visit it, they must have some compelling argument to weigh against that violation of a right.

What compelling argument does the government have to coerce people into believing government shutdowns mean deprivation of rights?

“Closing National Parks is against our nature. The reason we became Park Rangers and love our profession is because we enjoy welcoming people from around the world to our national treasures, and providing for safe and enjoyable visits to these sites, while leaving them protected for future generations.



However, there is a law governing government shutdowns, the Anti-Deficiency Act. Over the decades, multiple administrations have implemented closures under this law. We are unaware of any injunction or other court-issued document that has ever overturned the government’s authority in these matters. For those who believe they have standing, we urge you to seek legal remedies in court if you believe NPS actions to close park facilities to be illegal. Life would be much easier for us if the parks were open.”

The emphasis is added, but before emphasizing this legal argument made by Ranger Durkee, let’s consider his claim that closing national parks is against the nature of park rangers. If this is so, then why has no Ranger refused to follow the order to “make life as difficult for people” as they can? Is it also in a park rangers nature to use gestapo like tactics to harass old women at Yellowstone Park? Is this what the Anti-Deficiency Act requires of Park Rangers, to “make life as difficult for people” as they possibly can?

The Anti-Deficiency Act does no such thing! What the ADA does is prohibit the federal government from entering into a contract that is not fully funded. Presumably our National Parks are fully funded and further the order to “make life difficult for people” is arguably a new contract made with Park Rangers as there is no evidence such a contract was made with Rangers prior to the government shutdown. Is Ranger Durkee lying by pointing to the ADA? Probably he is lying, and at the very least that falsehood is rooted in his probable ignorance of the actual language of the ADA.

Police officers across the nation, federal, state and local, generally have a tendency to cite some legislative act to defend their criminality counting on the general ignorance of the law most people hold in this country. However, a park ranger counting on the ignorance of the law in others while bragging about his own ignorance of the law is a recipe for embarrassment, at the very least. When a police officer or even a park ranger misinterprets law and is guilty of mistakes of fact and is confronted by someone who actually knows the law, time after time the reaction is the same. They look like frightened deer caught in the glare of headlights.

Ranger Durkee apparently believes that part of his job as Park Ranger is to enforce the Anti-Deficiency Act:

“Without any contrary court findings or changes in the law, we will carry on with this miserable, thankless, and pay-less task denying public access to parks during the government shutdown. Although our actions too often make sensational news stories and fodder for pundits — they are supported by precedent and legal guidance from government lawyers, under laws we are sworn to enforce.”

This memorandum, however, makes clear who is tasked with enforcing the ADA and it sure as hell ain’t Park Rangers ignorant of the law. http://www.justice.gov/olc/2001/ada-jan-19.pdf

There was a time when non-acquiescence was a central part of the American spirit as is demonstrated by 90 year old World War II veterans who tore down the barricades to the World War II Memorial, but that’s “Joe Sixpac” engaging in non-acquiescence and more recent generations hardly even know the term let alone engage in it, but there was a time when politicians and law enforcement would also practice non-acquiescence. If ever there was a valid reason for Park Rangers to not acquiesce to an order, this was the moment and that none did is what is shameful.


http://collapse.com/jean-paul/2013/10/15/id584.htm

Take a look at some of the items in President Obama's proposed budget:
http://www.nbc33tv.com/news/a-look-at-whats-in-obama

How might some of these items directly impact on you?

Press Largely Ignores GAO Finding That Sequestration Led to Just One Federal Layoff
By Tom Blumer | May 14, 2014

According to a Government Accountability Office report released in March but inexplicably only getting attention just now, the pain resulting from last year's sequestration "cuts," which were mostly reductions in the growth of spending in comparison to the previous year, bore no resemblance to the Armageddon-like warnings which preceded their imposition. Only one federal employee was laid off. You read that right — one. Only seven agencies out of 22 furloughed any employees http://bizzyblog.com/wp-images/GAOse...tMarch2014.png and they were ultimately given $2 billion in back pay. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...ral-employees/

What the results exposed by the GAO demonstrate, in addition to the fact that the government had plenty of places to cut and funds to access to keep its operations going without meaningfully affecting the federal workforce, is either that almost nobody in the establishment press cared about what the GAO had to say, or that if they did, they didn't believe that they should tell the nation that the Obama administration's scare tactics had no basis. Excerpts from one of the establishment press reports I found via CBS News's Stephanie Condon predictably turned the whole thing into a "Republicans attack" exercise: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/gop-sena...esters-impact/

GOP senator charges feds with exaggerating sequester's impact.

Stop. Right. There. This is just ridiculous.

Memo to Stephanie Condon: That the "feds" — and by that you mean the Obama administration led by the President himself, in speech after speech after speech — exaggerated (i.e., completely fabricated) the sequester's impact is an observed and confirmed fact. It is not something a "GOP senator" has merely charged. An example of a correct headline only four characters longer would have been: "GOP Senator Asks OMB Why Sequestration Cuts Had Little Impact."

Condon's content isn't any better (links are in original; bolds and numbered tags are mine):

Conservative Sen. Tom Coburn [1], R-Okla., on Wednesday requested more information from the Obama administration on the impact of the so-called "sequester," suggesting that the across-the-board budget cuts haven't had the dire economic consequences that were predicted. [2]

Coburn's inquiry to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) was prompted by a March report from the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office, which found that just one person was laid off by a federal agency because of the sequester.

The report detailed several other consequences of the sequester -- including the fact that hundreds of thousands of government workers faced furloughs last year, and nearly every federal agency curtailed hiring in response to the cuts -- but Coburn said the report's findings offered "good news" for federal employees. He called it "devastating to the credibility of Washington politicians and administration officials."

"The American people deserve to know the truth, especially if it suggests politicians' favorite programs can endure far more in budget cuts than sequestration imposed," he said in a statement.

Specifically, Coburn asked the OMB to provide him with information such as the number of permanent, federal civilian employees over the last five years and a list of agencies that have reduced their workforce because of the sequester. He also asked about the legal obstacles hindering agencies from making further reductions.

The across-the-board "sequester" cuts, which amounted to $85.3 billion in 2013, were required after Congress failed to reach a better budget agreement in 2011. When the cuts were finally applied in March 2013, President Obama said they were "just dumb." [3]

"I don't anticipate a huge financial crisis, but people are going to be hurt," he said. "The longer the cuts remain in place, the greater the damage to our economy."

Notes:

[1] — There was no reason to tag Coburn as a "conservative," at least unless and until I see the press apply the "liberal" tag in equal measure. In this instance, I guess we're supposed to assume that only "conservative" politicians are concerned about the federal government crying wolf.

[2] — Again, it isn't a "conservative" senator "suggesting that the across-the-board budget cuts haven't had the dire economic consequences that were predicted." It is an objective fact "that the across-the-board budget cuts haven't had the dire economic consequences that were predicted."

[3] — Although Condon was careful to limit the time frame of her Obama reference, President Obama did far more than call the "cuts" (again, predominantly reductions in spending increases compared to the prior year) "just dumb." (Let's also not forget that sequestration was his idea.) On February 28, 2013, the day before Condon's arbitrary cutoff, the Politico reported the following Obama prediction

President Barack Obama says the sequester will cause a "tumble downward" for the economy. He acknowledges many people may not immediately notice the full impact of the so-called sequester cuts if they take effect Friday. But he says yanking $85 billion from the economy this year would be a "big hit" on a nation still trying to fully recover from a recession.

A Google News search on "sequestration layoffs" (not in quotes) at 11:50 PM ET Tuesday returned about 75 relevant items, a large majority of which are from center-right blogs and outlets. A search at the Associated Press's site on sequestration returned nothing relevant.

Adapting a point I made in late April, the reason politicians and bureaucrats can continue to scaremonger about the horrors of budget "cuts" while running largely unaccountable agencies with shoddy controls and little accountability is that the press isn't interested in "boring" things like responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars. In this instance, there's likely another motivation, namely that exposing the Obama administration as having cried wolf will make it that much harder to try such a tactic next time and may put the brakes on runaway government spending. We simply cannot allow that.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blu...#ixzz31pAUTiYw