You do know The Daily Show is a commentary and humor program, not a real news cast, right? It's about as real as Rush Limbaugh.

"The appropriations bills are law and have to be carried out. "

Actually, the only parts of the ACA that have to be carried out where the parts passed as Mandatory. Much of the ACA was passed as Discretionary and it is the purview of Congress to choose to fund or not to fund those parts.

So while the President can see to it any *mandatory* appropriations articles are paid, he can't see to the paying of *discretionary* ones.

He wasn't pointing it out as a real source. He was pointing it out as a way to exemplify how stupid the debate is.

"Start at 8:55 and tell me who still believes the shutdown is Obama's fault? "

Sounds to me he is accepting 8:55 and beyond as some kind of truth. It's nothing but libtard spin.

Draug, this is YJ... you realize that, right?

@YJ: can you provide a youtube link for that video, the daily show website is only available to Americans.

Obama has been the President for quite a few years now, and arguably the most influential politician in the US. The environment that has led to the shutdown has been shaped by him more than anyone else.

The view that it isn't Obama's fault is one that I have about as much sympathy for as a German player insisting he is entirely blameless when he gets stabbed by England. Yep, it's the other guy sticking the knife in, but there are 1001 things you could have done to make it less likely.

After shutdown started, the republican house passed a budget that partially funded Obamacare, Reid rejected it saying he would accept nothing less than full funding.

The democrats, early into the shutdown, started refusing to negotiate with the republicans, and have repeatedly tried to delay negotiations.

As for what is Obama's fault here:
Closing down the monuments and parks and closing down websites. The lapse in funding didn't require their closing. Obama ordered the closing to try a show what a world without government would look like.
He's being a big baby about this, and its why I will continue to maintain that its the democrats fault (I blame Reid as much as Obama)

Octavious, you're talking to Americans. I'm probably the only one in this country that understands that analogy.

“President Stompy-Feet” – Best name for Obama I have heard yet on radio, as he throws his childish tantrums and refuses to even sit down at a table and talk. I blame Obama for denigrating the Presidency to the point where a nickname like “President Stompy-Feet” becomes sadly accurate…

@Fasces sorry man, I cannot. It was yesterday's show so hasn't made it to youtube.

@Draugnar they interviewed a republican strategist. Were the questions unfair? Her answers alone seem to me to show exactly what is the problem.

Republicans wont pass funding unless Obamacare is cut.

Obama's fault.

Hey Fasces... this "partial funding" thing is going back to an earlier point I was asking. What happens to Obamacare if the democrats accept "partial funding?"

Do we just go into debt to pay for the rest? Do the parts that don't get funded get cancelled? The answer to this is pretty crucial if you are going to say this is entirely Harry Reid's screw-up.

I'm really interested in this. It seems that the different sides have really different feelings about this, but when I ask what the consequences of the suggested compromises are, nobody seems to have a clue.

@YJ - Consider this -- an arguement could probably be made that the ACA (Obamacare) is a terrible law in this: it requires fuding, which can not be guaranteed by it's passage. We have lots of laws...it's illegal to murder...and it takes money to enforce, which they may or may not have. It's illegal for undocumented aliens to cross teh border and work here - it takes money to enforce, and Obama has pretty much said he isn't going to enforce this law and spend that money. Certain narcotics are illegal, and Obama has pretty much recently said he's going to stop enforcement of the use of certain drugs...which costs money.

So clearly we have a President for whom spending money to enforcement law is a selective process at best. So, this diatribe by the Left that this is the law, and it **must** be funded is absolutely contradicted by President "Stompy-Feet" Obama. The lack of need to enforce this law (and thus spend money) is further enforced by the fact that Obama himself declared that the law can be delayed for **some** groups in society...

So please...keep it real, folks...a law on the books is written words, no more, no less. If laws need money to be enacted/enforced, this **by no means** suggests it is illegal/un-Constitutional to not fund the laws, as our government frequently ignores and does not enforce laws on the books - especially President "Stompy-Feet" Obama...so you really need a new argument other than "it's the law, it *must* be funded" because that simply is NOT true. There are lots of unfunded laws in the land...

@Yellowjacket

"Can you be a bit more specific as to what the more immediate consequences are, and how they lead into the rather grim picture you've painted? So in this hypothetical scenario, some things get funded, other things do not get funded. What does that actually mean?"

If there's partial funding, then the political pressure on the Republicans to end their obstruction at all costs strategy eases immensely. Then, the Republicans have no real incentive to actually negotiate in good faith. Indeed, at that point, all the incentives favor intensifying their stance, given that there's no real political cost they'd have to pay for obstructing the funding of anything their base doesn't like, and a real risk of being primaried out of a job if they do compromise.

In the long term, with demographics being the way they're moving, the Republicans have to rely upon increasingly stringent methods to try and keep anyone who isn't a rich white dude from voting effectively. Given the composition of the courts, and the bottomless well of cash they have to draw from in their eagerness to aid in the upward redistribution of wealth, they'll probably succeed in these efforts. After a couple of generations of assisting in the selloff of America's infrastructure, we'll be a third world nation, although to be fair, by that time, given the increasing concentration of wealth worldwide, nations won't mean very much. At some point, the military starts seeing more and more of their family getting utterly screwed to maintain the good life for a handful of wealthy neo aristocrats, and starts radicalizing. From there, it's a short leap to a Committee for Public Safety, although, if the superwealthy prove more capable than I suspect they will after a couple of generations of expecting private profit but socialized risk as their birthright, they may be able to gin up a convenient "other" and steer us into right wing fascism instead.

To sum up: I tend to be a liberal because distribution of wealth and mobility of class matters, and modern day conservativism seems to be about concentrating wealth and diminishing class mobility, which accords with what happens whenever humans have let an oligarchy consolidate power in a society.

"Do we just go into debt to pay for the rest? Do the parts that don't get funded get cancelled? The answer to this is pretty crucial if you are going to say this is entirely Harry Reid's screw-up."
The proposal was to delay unfunded parts.

"distribution of wealth and mobility of class matters"

Therein lies our fundamental difference. I think Robin Hood was a thief and should have been hung the moment he was caught.

No trial?

Changing the scoring system in scrabble so z is to be worth only 6 instead of 10 . Whose fault is that? You've guessed it.

Ahh well then Fasces, that answers everything then.

Republicans are refusing to fund the law that has been passed. There is no compromise in that offer. They are just making a cheap effort to stop legislation that has already gone through. Obamacare has passed and conservatives need to accept that. And they will.

But I wonder, before it's too late?

Their approach right now is going to ensure they lose the next cycle as well. People won't stand for this, and I believe somebody already put up some numbers on just how badly public opinion is swaying against them.

OK, so that was a joke.

Anyway, what happens to a society where wealth gets concentrated to a high degree? The wealthy start making the rules of society disproportionally favor themselves, right? As the process of concentration continues, do you think it tends to slow down or find a new equilibrium, or do you think it tends to speed up? To me, history's pretty clear that it's the second option. This leads to the birth of hereditary aristocracies. I don't think an aristocracy is an optimal form of social organization; indeed, I tend to think it's pretty close to the least successful form of social organization that we've yet devised.

In the middle ages... Na! No trial needed back then.

But today, try him, find him guilty, and put him in an FBI black site prison for grand larceny.

I'm pretty sure Draugnar saying Obama is like Robin Hood.

Stealing all Draugnar's money and giving it to the poor.

Obama's fault!

@krellin sorry I missed your post. That's a good point, I think, but only to a degree.

Obama selectively enforcing antidrug laws that already have funding, (funding which will still be used within the same DEA agencies and whatnot) and that most people don't feel strongly about isn't a great parallel to holding the whole government hostage because the minority (arguably, I guess, we don't KNOW it would pass) doesn't want to call a piece of legislation to the floor.

@YJ -- First, NOBODY is "holding the government hostage" Seriously...that rhetoric is childish. (Yeah, I called something childish....)

If Obama/Redi would sit at a table and negotiate -- as every administration facing an opposition party in the House has done in the past -- then progress could be made. There is nothing Holy about this law...it's just another half-baked law that is already so obviously fraught with bad law, bad implementation, etc, that Obama himself has decreed it broken by virtue of telling corporations they can ignore it for a year.

So I find it highly ironic that all the lefties out there that *HATE* corporations are now opposing the Republicans, who are simply asking that individual be held to the same law (or waiver from the law, as the case may be...) that corporations have.

This "hostage" bullshit is just low-class hateful rhetoric. No American is being held hostage, because, apart from the ACA, the Republicans have passed funding bills for EVERYTHING ELSE, pretty much. So I completely fail to see how anyone is being held hostage, when the key to release them has not only been offered by the Republicans, but been literally been put in Harry Reid's hands. All he need to do is vote on those bills and 99% of the government gets funded and goes back to work.

Please don't claim Obama ignores laws, he defers to state law for certain drugs (marijuana), he has a policy of prioritizing the deportation of more troublesome illegal immigrants, but enforcement of the border was being done perfectly fine. He does show disrespect for international law, which I am intensely annoyed at.
Nonetheless, in a time of crisis, for both sides to spend all their time telling the news about how bad the other side is is much dumber. Can we please get to working out a funding bill for the government? The whole government, by the way, even if it fails to include certain parts, as is part of any budget negotiation?

That's why his administration sued Arizona over their immigration enforcement law. They won't enforce it and they don't want Arizona doing it for them. Obamigrant unenforcement is what it should be called.

@phil - you say he doesn't ignore laws...and then proceed to say how the government selectively enforces laws, and "disrespects" international law. Let me rephrase your statement: Obama ignores certain laws. Much more concise...

As for "get to working out a funding bill"...ahhh...I see you are then supporting the Republicans in their desire to sit down and negotiate out an actual budget (instead of 6 years of CR's)? Glad to have you on our side.

Arizona was being kind of odd about their enforcement, but point conceded.
@Krell
He selectively enforces laws in that he selects laws that he will enforce, laws that he will leave up to the state, and sets priorities for others. Not completely fair game, I guess.
As for the funding bills, yes, if and when Republicans offer a spending bill to fund the entire government, with certain things being up for debate as to the spending, yes, I will support a fair and complete bill from any side. I am not rabidly for or against any side, I have a set of opinions, and will support the party, candidate or whatever that represents them best.