My Father Fell Down The Stairs, My Brother's On Furlough...

[AGBF]

...And There Is No Government.


I started thinking of a title for this thread, and after thinking of several things that were wrong in my world the song, "Shoo Fly" came into my head. Doesn't it make a kind of nice little ditty? My father fell down the stairs, my brother's on furlough, there is no government, and I don't care.

Of course I actually do. It was a great time to have my brother available to visit the hospital and then the rehab unit almost every day with me and he wouldn't have been able to do that if the government hadn't closed down. Since he is an attorney we discussed the legalities of his going into his office. (He didn't.) He had been saying that getting paid for the time he was on furlough would be nice, but wouldn't at all make up for mess of it. He said that he, being a manager, would still have every bit of work he had had to get done finished whether or not he was in the office these weeks, so he wished he could legally go in and work. (As an attorney for HUD he does closings on buildings.) He said it would be ironic to be fired for having gone in and worked while the government was shut down, but that if he went in that he could be fired since he wasn't listed as being needed.

Is this Catch 22 or what? Are the Republicans insane? If they can shut down the government every time they don't like a law that has been passed, we may never have a functioning government as long as they have a majority in either house of Congress!

Link to update on the situation...http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/16/us/politics/congress-budget-debate.html?_r=0

Deb/AGBF


PS-My father fell down a flight of stairs to the cellar, landing on concrete and hit his head. My daughter and I were home and I heard him scream. His head was bloodied. He broke 3 bones in his cervical spine (neck) but, miraculously, did no neurological damage. I put pressure on his head until the police arrived and they held his neck in place until the EMTs came. It happened September 29. He came home yesterday, walking with a walker. He spent his 93rd birthday in the hospital.

 

[Skippy123]

Re: My Father Fell Down The Stairs, My Brother's On Furlough

Oh your poor dad; I am sorry to hear that. hugs.

off to read the article. Things are insane!

 

[kenny]

Re: My Father Fell Down The Stairs, My Brother's On Furlough

Sorry about your dad.
I hope he recovers well and soon.

 

[movie zombie]

Re: My Father Fell Down The Stairs, My Brother's On Furlough

LOL, deb, I think you should finish that song and make a youtube vid!
therapeutic and i'm betting many will relate!

sorry about your dad, though.

 

[junebug17]

Re: My Father Fell Down The Stairs, My Brother's On Furlough

So sorry to hear about your father Deb, hard for him and for you Glad he's back home and hope he's feeling better soon.

 

[texaskj]

Re: My Father Fell Down The Stairs, My Brother's On Furlough

Deb, I hope things get back to normal soon.

 

[artdecogirl]

Re: My Father Fell Down The Stairs, My Brother's On Furlough

Sorry about your father Deb, glad he is home now and on the road to recovery

 

[JulieN]

Re: My Father Fell Down The Stairs, My Brother's On Furlough

Speedy recovery to your dad.

 

[Dancing Fire]

Re: My Father Fell Down The Stairs, My Brother's On Furlough

Sorry to hear the news about your father. hoping for a speedy recovery.

 

[susimoo]

Re: My Father Fell Down The Stairs, My Brother's On Furlough

Sending some healing dust across the oceans. I hope your dad is better very soon.

 

[SB621]

Re: My Father Fell Down The Stairs, My Brother's On Furlough

Oh AGBF I hope things get better. To me it seems like whenever something goes wrong it always happens all at once at a bad time...murphy's law right??

I'm sending you dust and hugs!

 

[yennyfire]

Re: My Father Fell Down The Stairs, My Brother's On Furlough

I'm so sorry about your Dad! Thank goodness you were home when he fell! I hope that he recovers quickly and that your brother can get back to work soon.

 

[Kaleigh]

Re: My Father Fell Down The Stairs, My Brother's On Furlough

Oh Deb I am so sorry. Hoping your dad has a speedy recovery.. How awful!!!

 

[JewelFreak]

Re: My Father Fell Down The Stairs, My Brother's On Furlough

Deb, how scary for you all! Wonderful his injuries weren't worse & I'm glad to hear he's better. Chin up!

--- Laurie

 

[chrono]

Re: My Father Fell Down The Stairs, My Brother's On Furlough

Oh Deb, I'm so sorry. I hope your father gets better soon and the Government will face up to their responsibility to their constituents, allowing your brother to get back to work (and paid rightfully for it). What a scare to come home to.

 

[dragonfly411]

Re: My Father Fell Down The Stairs, My Brother's On Furlough

Deb, I'm thinking of you and your family. I hope your father has a speedy recovery!

 

[Mayk]

Re: My Father Fell Down The Stairs, My Brother's On Furlough

So sorry about your dad... Bless his heart at 93... That sounded like a horrible fall!

 

[luv2sparkle]

Re: My Father Fell Down The Stairs, My Brother's On Furlough

So glad your dad is on the mend. That must have been so scary for all of you.

 

[monarch64]

Re: My Father Fell Down The Stairs, My Brother's On Furlough

Oh, Deb, how scary for your Dad. I hope he is well soon! Regarding your brother, one hates to say that something negative is a blessing, but sometimes that's just what it is.

I would just like to give you a giant, gentle, warm, and fuzzy hug from afar. Or an elegant, firm, dry yet meaningful handshake, whichever you'd prefer. I really hate to hear of any sorrow that's come your way. I'm sending peaceful thoughts your way, friend.

 

[Maria D]

Re: My Father Fell Down The Stairs, My Brother's On Furlough

Aw Deb, how awful for your Dad! Glad to hear you have him home now. I guess it was "dumb luck" that your brother got to spend time with the family while your father was in hospital.

And yes, the Republicans are insane. Even they are saying so.

 

[Smith1942]

Re: My Father Fell Down The Stairs, My Brother's On Furlough

So sorry to hear about your poor dad. Glad he is home now and that it wasn't any worse.

 

[AGBF]

Re: My Father Fell Down The Stairs, My Brother's On Furlough

Thank you all for your warm and caring replies. You made me feel very loved when I came back here in the middle of the night and read them! I also had to read about the return of government workers to their jobs, however, since my brother is returning to work tomorrow (actually today now). He didn't spend the night with us here at my father's house last night as he sometimes has, because he had to drive home.

So I read, "The New York Times" on-line just now. I saw this on the front page with many other articles about Congress passing legislation allowing the debt ceiling to be raised and government workers to return to work. I just had to have this here in my thread. It typifies the insanity that has been infused in my life and the national life of the United States recently.

Going Mad in Congress...http://www.nytimes.com/news/fiscal-crisis/2013/10/16/disruption-on-the-house-floor-as-measure-passes/?_r=0

"WASHINGTON — And just when it seemed as if things could not get any more bizarre in the Capitol, a House stenographer, shouting and protesting, was dragged off the House floor as the House voted to pass the Senate deal, 285 to 144, late Wednesday night.

According to members who witnessed the incident, the stenographer, who many lawmakers and aides said they recognized, got up on the dais in the front of the chamber and began shouting. At first, lawmakers and aides thought she was a protester, and the presiding member used the gavel to try to bring the House back to order.

'The greatest deception here is this is not one nation under God. It never was,' the stenographer said as she was carried off the House floor, through the speaker’s lobby and into the hall. 'It would not have been. The Constitution would not have been written by Freemasons that go against God.'

House staff members and aides were visibly shaken as they tried to calm her down. 'Come on, sweetheart,' one said as a group tried to get her into an elevator and Capitol police officers came streaming toward the House floor."

...and she was one of the vital workers! (My right-wing Republican husband suggested that all the non-vital workers who had been furloughed simply be fired permanently if they were not vital. Perhaps that left with a touch of bitterness in my mouth?)

Deb/AGBF

 

[missy]

Re: My Father Fell Down The Stairs, My Brother's On Furlough

Deb, I'm so glad your dad is at home recovering and sending hugs your way and keeping your dad in my thoughts for continued improvement to his health!

Also glad things are (sort of) resolved for now with the government shutdown and that your brother is back to work.

 

[Sky56]

Re: My Father Fell Down The Stairs, My Brother's On Furlough

I'm sorry to hear that about your Dad. I hope he recovers well and quickly!

 

[canuk-gal]

Re: My Father Fell Down The Stairs, My Brother's On Furlough

HI Deb:

How are things? Your Dad recovering? Tell us all that is fit to print.

cheers--Sharon

 

[diamondseeker2006]

Re: My Father Fell Down The Stairs, My Brother's On Furlough

Thankful that you were there to help your Dad, Deb! Hope he is better soon!

Crazy is not limited to one political party, though.

 

[AGBF]

Re: My Father Fell Down The Stairs, My Brother's On Furlough

Crazy is not limited to one political party, though.

Crazy may not be limited to one party, but crazy was limited to the actions of only one party in this last fiasco in which the Republicans closed down the government rather than to allow a vote in the House on a the budget! That is a no no. That is un-democratic. The United States cannot function if the Republicans close the government whenever they do not like a law that was legally passed. Ask Senator John McCain, whom the Republican Party wanted to be president of the United States! He said what the Republicans did was a disgrace! And I think you may remember what he said about Senator Ted Cruz, the wingnut who led this expensive fight against the will of the American people!

"John McCain on July 22, 2013.

After Senator John McCain referred to Senator Rand Paul, Senator Ted Cruz and Rep. Justin Amash (all Republicans) as 'wacko birds' back in March, he apologized. In an interview with The New Republic’s Isaac Chotiner published this morning, he used much nicer language to explain why he dislikes the avian cohort."

AGBF

 

[movie zombie]

Re: My Father Fell Down The Stairs, My Brother's On Furlough

I snorted out loud at "avian cohort"......

 

[AGBF]

Re: My Father Fell Down The Stairs, My Brother's On Furlough

Paul Krugman does say that although it is the Republicans who are insane, that President Obama and the Fed share the blame for the fiasco (President Obama for not standing up to the Republicans earlier) and he warns us that this is just a hiatus. Another vote will be coming up soon.

Paul Krugman...http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/18/opinion/krugman-the-damage-done.html?src=me&ref=general

Excerpts from it are below:


"The government is reopening, and we didn’t default on our debt. Happy days are here again, right?

Well, no. For one thing, Congress has only voted in a temporary fix, and we could find ourselves going through it all over again in a few months. You may say that Republicans would be crazy to provoke another confrontation. But they were crazy to provoke this one, so why assume that they’ve learned their lesson? Beyond that, however, it’s important to recognize that the economic damage from obstruction and extortion didn’t start when the G.O.P. shut down the government. On the contrary, it has been an ongoing process, dating back to the Republican takeover of the House in 2010. And the damage is large: Unemployment in America would be far lower than it is if the House majority hadn’t done so much to undermine recovery.

A useful starting point for assessing the damage done is a widely cited report by the consulting firm Macroeconomic Advisers, which estimated that “crisis driven” fiscal policy — which has been the norm since 2010 — has subtracted about 1 percent off the U.S. growth rate for the past three years. This implies cumulative economic losses — the value of goods and services that America could and should have produced, but didn’t — of around $700 billion. The firm also estimated that unemployment is 1.4 percentage points higher than it would have been in the absence of political confrontation, enough to imply that the unemployment rate right now would be below 6 percent instead of above 7.

(snip)​

Putting it all together, it’s a good guess that those estimates of damage from political hostage-taking understate the true harm done. Elections have consequences, and one consequence of Republican victories in the 2010 midterms has been a still-weak economy when we could and should have been well on the way to full recovery.

But why have Republican demands so consistently had a depressing effect on the economy?

Part of the answer is that the party remains determined to wage top-down class warfare in an economy where such warfare is particularly destructive. Slashing benefits to the unemployed because you think they have it too easy is cruel even in normal times, but it has the side effect of destroying jobs when the economy is already depressed. Defending tax cuts for the wealthy while happily scrapping tax cuts for ordinary workers means redistributing money from people likely to spend it to people who are likely to sit on it.

We should also acknowledge the power of bad ideas. Back in 2011, triumphant Republicans eagerly adopted the concept, already popular in Europe, of “expansionary austerity” — the notion that cutting spending would actually boost the economy by increasing confidence. Experience since then has thoroughly refuted this concept: Across the advanced world, big spending cuts have been associated with deeper slumps. In fact, the International Monetary Fund eventually issued what amounted to a mea culpa, admitting that it greatly underestimated the harm that spending cuts inflict. As you may have noticed, however, today’s Republicans aren’t big on revising their views in the face of contrary evidence.

Are all the economy’s problems the G.O.P.’s fault? Of course not. President Obama didn’t take a strong enough stand against spending cuts, and the Federal Reserve could have done more to support growth. But most of the blame for the wrong turn we took on economic policy, nonetheless, rests with the extremists and extortionists controlling the House.

Things could have been even worse. This week, we managed to avoid driving off a cliff. But we’re still on the road to nowhere. "

AGBF

 

[Dancing Fire]

Re: My Father Fell Down The Stairs, My Brother's On Furlough

yes,Deb...the Democratic Party can do no wrong...

btw; I think Hillary will be our next President.