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a silver lining
Oct. 1st, 2013 08:12 pmU.S. spy agencies face big layoffs in government shutdown
WRT the underlying tempest in a teapot du jour, i'm surprised that neither party can count. no, i don't mean count the political or economic costs of their game of chicken, but something more direct. it appears that the republicans are unable to count to 51 (or 67, depending on how your look at it) and the democrats are unable to count 218. that is, while both parties are fighting over a substantive issue, neither one appears to be engaging in the usual political wheeling-and-dealing that gets votes from people nominally opposed to that issue. i find this strange, since both parties have moderate and extreme (or pragmatic and ideological) wings.
i'm not sure which party would have an easier job if it tried. OT1H, the democrats appear to, since the GOP is already fragmented on the issue, and speaker boehner seems barely able to keep them agreeing on tactics. OTOH, the republicans need only peel a handful of democratic senators away from their party for a simple majority; surely, there must be some red meat they can think of tossing some democratic senator up for re-election during the mid-terms.
on various other limbs... ideological shoving matches are fun until somebody loses their seat... and both sides appear confident that the other guys will take the blame for this boo-boo. round two is coming up soon enough, so i can see both sides wanting to "appear strong" to their respective political bases, even if that makes them look like stubborn asses to everybody else. also, i have to wonder what's going on behind the scenes despite the public posturing. i expect something is, even if it's curt and icy. (hm... that sounds like a name of random new product chosen by focus grope. i wonder what sort of thing it is.)
(Reuters) - More than 70 percent of the civilians working for U.S. spy agencies have been deemed "non-essential" employees and face temporary layoffs due to the government shutdown that began on Tuesday, three officials familiar with the matter said.i'm amused that "non-essential" personnel are apparently vital to the country's ability to identify threats. assuming there are any; the little we know about no such agency's domestic spying says they've found one threat thereby.
The agencies affected are the Central Intelligence Agency, the Office of Director of National Intelligence and 15 others, the officials said.
The CIA expects to furlough about 12,500 civilians working for the agency, according to the sources. But specific numbers for other agencies were not immediately clear, the officials told Reuters. The CIA and White House declined to comment.
...
These agencies include the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency, whose secretive electronic eavesdropping methods recently become the focus of controversy following leaks by former contractor Edward Snowden.
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"The Intelligence Community's ability to identify threats and provide information for a broad set of national security decisions will be diminished for the duration," Turner said.
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WRT the underlying tempest in a teapot du jour, i'm surprised that neither party can count. no, i don't mean count the political or economic costs of their game of chicken, but something more direct. it appears that the republicans are unable to count to 51 (or 67, depending on how your look at it) and the democrats are unable to count 218. that is, while both parties are fighting over a substantive issue, neither one appears to be engaging in the usual political wheeling-and-dealing that gets votes from people nominally opposed to that issue. i find this strange, since both parties have moderate and extreme (or pragmatic and ideological) wings.
i'm not sure which party would have an easier job if it tried. OT1H, the democrats appear to, since the GOP is already fragmented on the issue, and speaker boehner seems barely able to keep them agreeing on tactics. OTOH, the republicans need only peel a handful of democratic senators away from their party for a simple majority; surely, there must be some red meat they can think of tossing some democratic senator up for re-election during the mid-terms.
on various other limbs... ideological shoving matches are fun until somebody loses their seat... and both sides appear confident that the other guys will take the blame for this boo-boo. round two is coming up soon enough, so i can see both sides wanting to "appear strong" to their respective political bases, even if that makes them look like stubborn asses to everybody else. also, i have to wonder what's going on behind the scenes despite the public posturing. i expect something is, even if it's curt and icy. (hm... that sounds like a name of random new product chosen by focus grope. i wonder what sort of thing it is.)