posted April 11, 2011 11:47 AM            

Americans should be asking themselves...Who are these clowns, what planet are they from and how do we get them far away from the levers of power in the United States.

Shut the People Down
By The Prowler on 4.11.11 @ 6:10AM

STANDOFF CYNICISM
No one can say that President Barack Obama and his administration weren't thinking of the American people during the budget standoff with Republicans. Their inconvenience was very much on his mind.

According to White House sources, in the weeks leading up to last week's push for a budget deal, the President approved plans that had the White House and federal agencies looking at every federal government resource that entailed public interaction, and whether it could be shut down during a closure of the government -- even if under normal government closures those resources would have or could have remained open.

"The goal was to inflict as much inconvenience and pain on the American public and lock them into supporting the Administration's perspective on the budget fight," says a White House source. "It was our nuclear option, but we saw how a government shutdown under Gingrich just destroyed Republican standing with the public, and we felt we could achieve that kind of damage and more, even if we really didn't have to."

For example, a number of websites that provide the public with information about everything from Social Security options to veterans services, even public-private educational websites operated by the Smithsonian, would have been shut down by the Obama Administration had a government closure taken place Saturday morning. "Those sites don't even involve government employees to operate, but we were going to shut them down anyway just to hit home the right message with the public," says the White House aide.

White House sources say some agencies, like the Smithsonian, which manages a number of the museums and Washington attractions tourists prize most during their visits, pushed back on shutting down the websites, but were overridden by the White House.

While about 800,000 federal employees might not have gone to work on Monday, the White House did have options to ensure that visitors to Washington got at least some of their tax-dollars worth. For example, the Smithsonian could have been identified as a federal program requiring "essential personnel," so that public-facing employees, such as security guards, docents, and exhibit managers, would be present to enable tourists to visit the museums. Also, museum employees covered by private foundation grants for specific exhibits could have been deployed. But the Obama Administration shot down all those plans, putting in place a draconian government shutdown plan.