Patterico's Pontifications

10/11/2013

GOVERNMENT SLOWDOWN, DAY ELEVEN

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:27 am



Is Obama using the slowdown as a way to bury embarrassing data?

The White House has taken down online White House visitor logs and blamed Congress.

. . . .

It is unclear how much money it costs to keep the visitor database up on the site, but the Obama White House has a history of overspending for web services. The Daily Caller reported today that taxpayers spent $634 million to build its non-functioning Healthcare.gov exchange for Obamacare. (Related: Report: Glitchy Healthcare.gov cost taxpayers more than $634 million to build)

This is also one of many cases in which the shutdown has been cited as a reason to disappear information that is potentially embarrassing to the administration. The Bureau of Labor Statistics quickly deep-sixed its September unemployment statistics as other employment proxies indicated the work situation has worsened once again. The Department of Agriculture has buried its September food stamps statistics which are also expected to show increased poverty, dependency and economic regression under Obama.

I can’t believe they would do such a thing.

Yes, I am joking.

L.A. Times Has Roll Call of Pain Caused by “Shutdown”; Systematically Fails to Mention House Efforts to Fix Each Problem

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:25 am



When you go to the link at the L.A. Times about the government slowdown, there is a piece they have made permanently accessible from each link, personalizing the stories of those affected by the slowdown. The story is titled: The individual pain of the government shutdown. Here are some examples of individual stories — as well as what editors decided to leave out.

Cleo Tung and Matthew Locascio had planned to marry this weekend in Yosemite National Park, with El Capitan and Half Dome as backdrop.

Plans didn’t go through. No mention is made of the fact that the House has voted to fund national parks, but Harry Reid won’t take up the bill, and Barack Obama has threatened to veto it.

Peter Wisniewski first applied for permission to raft the majestic Colorado River through the even-more-majestic Grand Canyon back in 1995. He was 26 then, and he had no idea that he’d have to wait until 2013 for the National Park Service to issue him the necessary permit.

He can’t do his trip now. Without government dollars, the Colorado doesn’t flow. Or, more accurately, it does, but the NPS will issue you a criminal citation if you try to “recreate.” Ditto on the lack of mention of the House bill to fund the NPS. Also, no mention is made of Gov. Jan Brewer’s offer to keep the Grand Canyon open. Nor is any mention made of the shutdown theater in which the NPS, in other locations, has gone far out of its way to make life difficult for people trying to enjoy the parks.

Bobby Harsh says a clinical trial at the National Institutes of Health saved his life. In 2008, he was battling melanoma that wasn’t responding to drugs. His doctors sent him to the NIH in Maryland, and as part of that clinical trial, doctors found his cancer had spread to his lungs.

The story says other people like him won’t be so lucky. Except, further down, it takes it back: “NIH spokeswoman Renate Myles says the NIH will not turn away patients who are critically ill.” No mention is made of the fact that the House has voted to fund the NIH, but Harry Reid won’t take up the bill, and Barack Obama has threatened to veto it.

At 7 days old, Ava Saunders is blissfully unaware of the political firestorm brewing around her, but her mother, Shanaya Saunders, is not.

Saunders was in Bushwick, Brooklyn, on Thursday morning, picking up assistance checks from the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, or WIC. When Saunders was born 28 years ago, her mother relied upon WIC to buy baby formula, nutritious foods and other necessities.

Now, Saunders does the same.

“You need help, even when you’re working, because the cost of living is just so high,” said Saunders as her mother, Beth Mack, pushed the stroller holding the sleeping Ava, swaddled in pink blankets.
Saunders, 28, plans to return soon to her $13-an-hour clerical job, but the pay is not nearly enough to cover rent and other expenses. With WIC checks, Saunders can buy produce at participating farmers’ markets. She can get low-fat milk, lentils, eggs, peanut butter and other healthy foods from stores that take WIC checks.

WIC officials say they have funds to last through Oct. 31. Saunders and Mack, though, worry that participating vendors soon will stop taking WIC checks, for fear they will bounce.

No mention is made of the fact that the House has passed a bill to address this issue, but Harry Reid won’t take up the bill, and Barack Obama has threatened to veto it.

Nutrition Assistance for Low-Income Women and Children Act (H.J. Res. 75): provides immediate funding for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, which “serves nearly 9 million mothers and young children,” and provides “vital nutrition that poor families might otherwise be unable to afford.” (Passed in the House 244-164)

At a certain point, the disinformation becomes so pervasive and consistent that it’s fair to call it lying.

We’re at that point, editors. You’re lying to your readers. It’s a disgrace. You are a disgrace.

The next time you want to give a speech about how you’re nonpartisan and just out to inform people, save it. Review this post. Realize what frauds you are. And then go back to the work of killing this newspaper.

It’s dying, yes. But: faster, please.


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