No Shutdown for Government ‘Selfies’

MFNS - In turbulent times, a nation must look to those things that hold steady, remain true. Like the sailor’s northern star or the farmer’s spring rain or the DPRK’s Kim Jong Un, the American people–and its government–must find their constant.

But, if that doesn’t work, there’s always Twitter.

Like unemployment, the social phenomenon known as ‘selfies’–a candid picture of yourself sent across the virtual universe–is on the rise even in government circles.

“Hey! Reid just ‘liked’ my pic!” beamed the Vice President. “That old fart. I didn’t think he liked anything. You know, it’s amazing how quickly they’re responding to my posts–oh yeah, that’s right, the shutdown thing. Never mind.”

Social psychologists are noticing a correlation between government ineffectiveness and the rise in self-portraits.

“For many of these congressional leaders,” one psychologist offered, “It’s a real self-esteem boost. It’s also a way for them to keep their minds off of distracting things, like reality.”

Statistical tracking sites are recording a dramatic spike in social networking activity in the D.C. area and hosting websites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are noting the highest numbers in ‘selfies’ since the Anthony Weiner era.

“Right now,” a spokesperson for Facebook confirmed, “ Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are gaining on Biden for the number one ‘selfie’ spot. Although, we do have one IP address that has definitely sent the most, but it’s mostly blured shots  and extreme close-up eye shots. We’re not sure, but it’s either the President or someone who has hacked his account.”

Times Gettin' Tough at the White House

White House Gift Shop Goes Tits Up

Washington Times

"In another sign of the tough times in Washington these days, the White House Gift Shop, long run by a nonprofit group that helps uniformed Secret Service officers and their families, has gone broke. The Secret Service Uniformed Division Benefit Fund, which traces its roots to the 1940s and for years did business as the official White House Gift Shop, lists more than $600,000 in liabilities in a pending bankruptcy petition in Washington....."

The fund disclosed tens of thousands of dollars in assets consisting mostly of Christmas decorations, as well as such trinkets as magnets, puzzles and paperweights, many valued at just a few dollars each. The price of more than 140 Democratic and Republican mouse pads is listed as “???” in court records, while 10 unsold copies of the book “Adams’ Alligator” go for $8.48.

The fund’s most recently available annual report to the Internal Revenue Service lists $10,550 in expenses in 2011 for golf, soccer and hockey tournaments for employees, $5,330 for luncheons for new graduates and their families and $1,108 for flowers and fruit baskets for hospitalized members and for funerals.

Although the fund placed the value of ornaments at more than $50,000, the trustee said the decorations ultimately could fetch a best offer price of a little more than $5,600...."

Little wonder a business that operates like the government, spending more than they take in, can stay solvent selling cheap Chinese made crap  like bobble head dolls of Barack and Michelle and mouse pads with Joe Bidens picture on them. And who the hell would want an over price ornament with  Michelle's ugly mug hanging from their Christmas Tree anyway. Guess they figured they'd eventually get  a taxpayer bailout slipped into some democrat's spending bill. 

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Fishnet Friday

Your Half a Billion Dollar Website

How do you spend over a half a billion dollars on a website, take over three years to build it, and still have a disastrous completely disastrous launch? You get the government to do it for you. The taxpayers, seem to have forked up well over $500 million of the federal purse to build the digital equivalent of a rock.

from Digital Trends

"The exact cost to build Healthcare.gov, according to U.S. government records, appears to have been $634,320,919, which we paid to a company you probably never heard of: CGI Federal. The company originally won the contract back in 2011, but at that time, the cost was expected to run “up to” $93.7 million – still a chunk of change, but nothing near where it apparently ended up.

Given the complicated nature of federal contracts, it’s difficult to make a direct comparison between the cost to develop Healthcare.gov and the amount of money spent building private online businesses. But for the sake of putting the monstrous amount of money into perspective, here are a few figures to chew on: Facebook, which received its first investment in June 2004, operated for a full six years before surpassing the $600 million mark in June 2010. Twitter, created in 2006, managed to get by with only $360.17 million in total funding until a $400 million boost in 2011. Instagram ginned up just $57.5 million in funding before Facebook bought it for (a staggering) $1 billion last year. And LinkedIn and Spotify, meanwhile, have only raised, respectively, $200 million and $288 million."

Read the Rest

You don’t have to be a programmer to understand that code like this is complete nonsense. The site is so poorly coded that it has essentially been attacking itself since its launch over a week ago.

And these people are supposed to provide us with “affordable healthcare”? They can’t even build a functioning website on budget. 

They expected 50,000 people to come to the site per day.  THAT is what these morons are trying to spin now.

'Dirty Jobs' Host Mike Rowe Zings Special Ed Schultz

"I Can Get You a Truck Before You Realize You're 'Canceled!"

"Viewers who watched Ed Schultz on Wednesday witnessed something rare on the liberal host's show: a guest who voted for Republican Mitt Romney in 2012. Dirty Jobs star Mike Rowe appeared and even got in a dig at Schultz's expense. After the MSNBC anchor touted his working class background and love for trucks, Rowe quipped, "I can make a call. I can have a truck in your driveway before you say, 'holy crap, I'm canceled!'

 A surprised Schultz blurted, "I'm just trying every time slot here at MSNBC." Rowe joked, "Something's bound to stick." Earlier in the segment, the Dirty Jobs host laughed as Schultz called for him to join the Democratic Party: "You know, he is the perfect independent that we have to convince that it's their Republicans fault!"

Here's the Transcript 

Moody’s busts Obama myth: “No direct connection between the debt limit and default”

Obama is the first President in history to oversee a downgrade of America’s credit rating, and if you remember, that downgrade came after Congress raised the debt ceiling the last time. This week Moody’s came out to dispel one of Obama’s top falsehoods about the debt limit.

from Washington Post:

In a memo being circulated on Capitol Hill Wednesday, Moody’s Investors Service offers “answers to frequently asked questions” about the government shutdown, now in its second week, and the federal debt limit. President Obama has said that, unless Congress acts to raise the $16.7 trillion limit by next Thursday, the nation will be at risk of default.

Not so, Moody’s says in the memo dated Oct. 7.

” We believe the government would continue to pay interest and principal on its debt even in the event that the debt limit is not raised, leaving its creditworthiness intact,” the memo says. “The debt limit restricts government expenditures to the amount of its incoming revenues; it does not prohibit the government from servicing its debt. There is no direct connection between the debt limit (actually the exhaustion of the Treasury’s extraordinary measures to raise funds) and a default.

The memo offers a starkly different view of the consequences of congressional inaction on the debt limit than is held by the White House, many policymakers and other financial analysts. During a press conference at the White House Tuesday, Obama said missing the Oct. 17 deadline would invite “economic chaos.”

Read the Rest

Without a debt limit increase, the Federal government would still have enough money to service our current debt and fulfill obligations to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.  The real risk of a credit downgrade or a default is caused by our long term debt (which currently sits around $17 Trillion), not from Obama’s legal ability to accrue more of it.

via  Poor Richard

Exclusive Hidden Camera Footage Of Obama AP Interview

By MFNS Investigative Correspondent The Earl of Taint

(Please note we are posting stills from the video portion of the evidence only. The audio was basically inaudible, due to the overwhelming background noise of some type of large carnivore savagely devouring its prey on the White House grounds. MFNS contracted at great expense with one of America’s leading lip-readers to transcribe the dialog into those balloon thingees, so our readers could follow the conversation.)

See the whole Interview Here

More Proof Harry Reid is a Space Alien

Reid complains to Politico about the Media  

Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is as crazy as a loon.  He’s a pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage, Morman from Las Vegas who thinks the media has a conservative bias. Geeze!

from Politico:

"And he argued that no objective analysis could conclude that Democrats are at fault for the shutdown given that he agreed to a lower spending level to win the support of Republicans, who later decided to tie the government funding battle to their long-standing demands to overhaul the health care law.

“You and other journalists have a real shortcoming in that you are trying so hard to be fair that you are unfair,” Reid said. “Democrats have had almost nothing to do with the problems here. It’s all Republicans......” 

So, Harry Reid thinks that the media isn’t doing their job because they’re not biased enough against Republicans? Also saying “it’s all Republicans” isn’t really a great way to find common ground across the aisle. The truth is that Harry Reid is a lying, vindictive, nasty little old man who doesn’t own a suit that fits him.

h/t Poor Richards News
    

If You Think The Beltway Media Is Bad Now, Just Wait Until This Crowd Gets In…

CNN’s Frank Sesno apparently has one of those Bob Mann-style academic gigs these days, in which an old leftist media type gets a cushy gig at a college teaching new leftists how to spin biased narratives to the public. In Sesno’s case his cush gig is at George Washington University. And yesterday, Sesno displayed the product of his current work by trotting out a gaggle of J-school clowns from GWU to ask them (1) where they get their news (hilariously enough, almost none said CNN) and (2) what they think the media’s role should be. The results?

Let’s pray this isn’t representative of the majority of what comes out of America’s journalism schools, though we all know most of them turn out much worse product than Sesno does.  The fruitcake in the green shirt is the classic example of the “everybody gets a trophy in my soccer league” entitled milennial leftist – Ted Cruz disagrees with Me, Therefore I will Deny Access To The Media for Ted Cruz. Because those who disagree with Me are not fit to breathe My Air. And that fool will likely have a position of authority in a newsroom at some point.  

via The Hayride