Don's Tuesday column

             THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson  Red Bluff Daily News   10/22/2013

After action post script on shutdown theater

We might have scrimped, saved and planned for a memorable, once-in-a-lifetime guided float trip down the Colorado River, like Barbara’s mom did many years ago. We might have shown up to meet the rafting company vans, ready to move rafts and supplies to water for a few days in the Grand Canyon, only to be brusquely turned away by federal park rangers “shutting down” river access. It really happened to some folks.

We could have bought a dream home, and been the retired couple, Ralph and Joyce Spencer, 77 and 80 years of age, “who were evicted from their home on Lake Mead in Nevada by an officious park ranger who told them they had 24 hours to vacate the premises. The Spencers own their home outright, but it sits on land leased from the federal government …” with a legally binding contract that the feds have no legitimate reason to violate (“Vindictive Shutdown Theater,” National Review). Locally, I would have liked to drive to the boat ramp area of the Recreation Area and hike over to the pond, but couldn’t hike there from outside the closed gate. I hope others, physically more capable than I, made use of our collectively owned land without interference.

In “Seniors Held Under Armed Guard at Yellowstone National Park,” NRO writer Sterling Beard conveyed the brutish indignities inflicted on a group of tourists: held for hours, not allowed to photograph a herd of bison, visit privately owned shops or even bathrooms at those shops, as their bus departed the park. Stated privately-owned-and-staffed Claude Moore Colonial Farm director, Anna Eberly, “I have never worked with a more arrogant, arbitrary and vindictive group representing the NPS (who shut their parking lot).”

The partial government shutdown should motivate Americans to divest the federal government of its land, facilities, agencies and powers, since they willingly punish and deprive Americans. In “HOPEY-CHANGEY: How Federal Workers Became Obama’s Private Army,” we can see that “the civil-service system has been exposed as a failure—at least in this administration. Instead of an independent workforce of professionals who implement federal regulation in an even-handed and competent manner, we have returned to the era of partisan retribution and politically-motivated malevolence … It’s part of a disturbing pattern emerging in the second term of Barack Obama … the risks of larger government and regulatory overreach go far beyond incompetence.”

Weeks worth of shutdown and debt ceiling reporting in the Daily News showed that news reporting in general, the Associated Press in particular, function as either stenographers for, or devoted advocates of, the Obama/Democrat narrative. Cartoons performed the hack job of positing phony beliefs to Senators Mike Lee and Ted Cruz (“We hate government”) and one-sided ridicule of Tea Party Republicans for the shutdown; the AP articles reflected network news blame-placing.

Paul Bedard, Washington Examiner: “Republicans never expected to get a fair shake in the Big Three networks’ coverage of the 16-day government shutdown, but the final tally … is stunning: 41 stories blamed Republicans and zero blamed Democrats … another 17 blamed both sides. The broadcast networks invariably blamed Republicans (highlighting victimized Americans and federal workers) even as they ignored examples of how the Obama administration and Senate Democrats were working to make the shutdown as painful as possible.”

The debt ceiling itself was misreported as default on debts by the AP, networks, most cable shows and, ultimately, by President Obama and his mouthpieces. However, nearly $200 billion goes into the Treasury Dept monthly; less than $20 billion must service our $17 trillion debt. By law, the President and his administration are required to allocate money to make debt payments rather than default. However, Obama predictably might feign powerlessness and rely on the Democrat/media complex to point blame at Republicans. Despicable, but true. In the last 2 years, America’s debt has increased $2.4 trillion while our GDP (value of all goods and services in America) has increased less than $1.2 trillion. Isn’t there something horribly wrong with our federal finances that our governmental/economic world would crash and burn if spending was limited to income?

In September, a Reason-Rupe poll found “70 percent of Americans oppose raising the debt ceiling … (and) 55 percent say they do not support raising it even if it causes the U.S. to default on its debt.” Most feel government spends too much money, wastes 60 percent of it, and that Congress “passes too many laws” and the “wrong kind of laws.” Sounds pretty Tea Party-ish to me. CBS found blame going to Republicans more than Obama/Democrats by 4 to 3; however, 75 percent saw “negotiations as the way out.” Obama and Harry Reid alone said “NO” to negotiations in a conference committee; Republicans made many compromises--the blame lies with the Democrats, period.

Then there’s last Thursday’s Daily News chart of an AP-GfK poll of “Adults” that found “The tea party movement” less responsible for the shutdown than Leader Harry Reid, Barack Obama, Congressional Democrats, Speaker Boehner or Congressional Republicans. Look up (or read at DonPolson.blogspot.com) “Morici: Obama Victory Based on ‘Deception and Demagoguery,’” “Barack Obama has won the shutdown; His prize is a lame duck presidency” (by Tim Stanley), and “Why the Shutdown is a Republican Victory” by liberal Peter Beinart of The Daily Beast.