Shutdown stories

[onekidanddone]

Shutdown Lockout Day 19

• Trump is a shit wad
• My last (partial) paycheck 
• Trump is a shit wad
• Anxiety attacks all day today
• Trump is a shit wad
• Surprise! More medical bills
• Night terrors and feel like shit
• Trump is a shit wad
• Wondering if I can skip my long term care insurance payment this month (or the condo fee... or the mortgage or deposit into my kid's 529)
• Trump is a shit wad
• Probably going to the credit union 
• Trump is a shit wad

[AmazonGrace]

 

[Audrey2]

@onekidanddone, I'm sending lots of (non-weird) hugs to you, and a swift kick to the seat of Trump's pants with a pair of Doc Martens. I think McConnell also needs the swift application of the Doc Martens.

[AmericanRose]

According to the MSN poll:
45% blame Trump for the shutdown
52% blame Democrats
1% blame Republicans (!)
2% have no opinion

I'm going to trust that a few people are having fun messing with that poll.

[mamallama]

Everyone seems to have forgotten that the budget that Trump wouldn't sign came from a Republican controlled House and Senate.

[Audrey2]

1 hour ago, mamallama said:

Everyone seems to have forgotten that the budget that Trump wouldn't sign came from a Republican controlled House and Senate.

But the Democrats wouldn't rubber stamp every idea the Republicans had, so it's all their fault. When the Democrats hold the Oval office, it is the Republican's job to limit the President's power. When a Republican is President and they hold the majority in one/both houses of Congress, it is the Democrats' job to blindly pass everything the Republicans want. Surely, they can't govern and none of their ideas are valid.

(sarcasm off)

[Toothfairy]

And this idiot said the workers agree with him. My daughter didn't get her paycheck. Families who depend on good stamps and ssi might not get them. Tax refunds might not be issued. This is when Congress, the president, and secret service should work without pay too. I wish the American people would be similar to the French people by protesting this mess. But his supporters are dumb

[AmazonGrace]

 

If you wanted to bribe a rogue FBI agent now would be a good time to bribe a rogue FBI agent. 

[AmazonGrace]

FYI: Some people are shitheads just because they can: 

 

[Audrey2]

5 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

FYI: Some people are shitheads just because they can: 

 

Idiots like these are why we can't have nice things. I've wanted to go to Joshua Tree, but it has been pushed down my list a little because I've seen Joshua Trees. They are fascinating. While I know there's no way to catch these monsters, I wish those who trash the National Parks during the shutdowns could be permanently banned from all national parks and monuments. 

[onekidanddone]

I marched today with my fellow Union brothers and sisters

 

[CTRLZero]

8 hours ago, onekidanddone said:

I marched today with my fellow Union brothers and sisters

I'm sorry you are suffering through this shutdown mess, but so proud of you!  ?

[fraurosena]

Here's another consequence of the shutdown that the Toddler in Chief didn't think of...

 

[Audrey2]

Just now, fraurosena said:

Here's another consequence of the shutdown that the Toddler in Chief didn't think of...

 

Let me second this. When the light in my room started shimmying a little bit a couple nights ago I immediately got on the usgs.gov site to see if we had an earthquake or if it was just a wind gust (I have experienced both and used to live where minor earthquakes or frequent enough that I'm very jumpy.) The site said that it was not receiving major updates except in cases of earthquakes and volcanoes because of the shutdown. I don't have confidence that a fairly minor earthquake would show up, just one that strong enough to be easily felt. It scares me that there are fewer people left to monitor these hazards that can be very easily experience by many in certain parts of the US.

[nokidsmom]

 

17 hours ago, Audrey2 said:

While I know there's no way to catch these monsters, I wish those who trash the National Parks during the shutdowns could be permanently banned from all national parks and monuments. 

As a avid supporter of our National Parks it pains me to see and hear what's happening in parks like Joshua Tree.  That people think they have the right to cut down trees so they can joyride is mind blowing.  Many of the environments are very delicate and even just simply walking off a marked trail in some parks can cause serious environmental damage.  Setting up and protecting our parks for all to enjoy reflects our society at our best moments but trashing them reflects us as a society at our worst.

I hope that at least some offenders might be caught and prosecuted in addition to being banned from all parks.   

 

[AmazonGrace]

Let them eat cake 

 

Anyway this is the goddamn dumbest way to run a government that I can think of. The work doesn't get done, the workers suffer financially during the shutdown, and eventually the government didn't even save any money as you have to pay the workers later for the work they didn't get done. 

[fraurosena]

This is actually pretty scary. 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

On 1/6/2019 at 6:33 PM, Cartmann99 said:

I'm sure some private business owners and their employees are already feeling it. People are understandably cutting their expenses to try and make it through the shutdown, so there's fewer customers to go around.

I had to fly into National Airport (I refuse to call it St. Ronnie's airport) yesterday. The taxi driver who brought me home told me that business has been really bad. I'm guessing with the partial shutdown, government employees and contractors are not traveling. I was also amazed because the ride home would normally take about 90 minutes at the time of day we were going, but it only took 37 minutes. Traffic was so light due to few government employees and contractors on the road.

[GreyhoundFan]

WTAF? "Coast Guard families told they can have garage sales to cope with government shutdown"

Spoiler

Employees of the U.S. Coast Guard who are facing a long U.S. government shutdown just received a suggestion: To get by without pay, consider holding a garage sale, babysitting, dog-walking or serving as a “mystery shopper.”

The suggestions were part of a five-page tip sheet published by the Coast Guard Support Program, an employee-assistance arm of the service often known as CG SUPRT. It is designated to offer Coast Guard members help with mental-health issues or other concerns about their lives, including financial wellness.

“Bankruptcy is a last option,” the document said.

The Coast Guard receives funding from the Department of Homeland Security and is subjected to the shuttering of parts of the government along with DHS’s other agencies. That stands in contrast to other military services, which are part of the Defense Department and have funding.

The tip sheet, titled “Managing your finances during a furlough,” applies to the Coast Guard’s 8,500-person civilian workforce. About 6,400 of them are on indefinite furlough, while 2,100 are working without pay after being identified as essential workers, said Lt. Cmdr. Scott McBride, a service spokesman. They were last paid for the two-week period ended Dec. 22.

“While it may be uncomfortable to deal with the hard facts, it’s best to avoid the 'hide your head in the sand’ reaction,” the tip sheet said. “Stay in charge of the situation by getting a clear understanding of what’s happening.”

The Coast Guard removed the tip sheet from the support program’s website late Wednesday morning after The Washington Post inquired about it.

The suggestions do not “reflect the Coast Guard’s current efforts to support our workforce during this lapse in appropriations,” McBride said. “As such, this guidance has been removed.”

The situation shows the increasing strain that the service is under as the partial government shutdown continues. About 41,000 active-duty Coast Guardsmen are working without pay. Their next check is due Jan. 15.

Overall, about 420,000 government employees are working under the promise they will be paid retroactively, with nearly another 350,000 on furlough at home.

Adm. Karl Schultz, the Coast Guard commandant, said in an email to his service’s personnel on Wednesday that he recognizes “the concern and anxiety” across the fleet.

“Uncertainty fuels anxiety and requires strong and steady leadership navigating forward,” Schultz wrote. “Now is the time to “lead through leaders” and I call on you to be intrusive leaders at your respective units, demonstrating empathy, conveying key information, and identifying and ensuring our most vulnerable shipmates get the assistance they need.”

The Coast Guard’s status as an unfunded military service increasingly has become a political issue, as family members share their worries about a shutdown with no end in sight amid a political dispute about President Trump’s proposed border wall. Coast Guardsmen rely not only on paychecks, but also now-frozen government allowances for housing in expensive coastal cities where many are assigned.

Late last month, the Coast Guard announced it had found enough money to pay its service members one last time through the end of the year. The Trump administration took credit afterward, releasing a statement that said the president and some of his staff members had worked “round the clock” to address the issue.

The Coast Guard’s situation has stirred up old frustrations that the sea service’s contributions are not as appreciated in Washington as those of the rest of the military.

Among some military families, it also has undermined some good will that Trump established with the Coast Guard by praising their “brand,” spotlighting their efforts in hurricanes and promising funding for icebreaker ships to boost polar security. Funding for those ships is no longer a certainty this year, with the Senate version of an appropriations bill including $750 million to begin construction of a new ships and the House version including no money.

Coast Guard leaders have sought to provide as much information as possible to its people about the shutdown, and offer suggestions for where financial assistance might be possible. It also released a letter for families to provide to creditors while seeking temporary financial relief.

“This lapse in appropriations is beyond our members' control and is expected to be a temporary situation,” said the Dec. 27 letter, signed by Rear Adm. Matthew W. Shibley. “We appreciate your organization’s understanding and flexibility in working with Coast Guard members who request forbearance on their obligations until this situation is resolved.”

A bipartisan effort to get the Coast Guard paid through the shutdown was launched in Congress last week, but it isn’t clear if or how quickly lawmakers might vote on the proposed “Pay Our Coast Guard Act."

Coast Guard family members said Wednesday that there are no easy solutions as the political standoff continues, but that they are getting by.

Jacqueline Esparza, whose husband is in the Coast Guard and stationed in Seattle, said not all families affiliated with the service live in houses where having a garage sale is possible. Service members, who are still required to work, also are not easily able to find supplemental income, she said.

“Doing odd jobs and selling items we don’t need anymore is a temporary fix,” she said. “It’s not going to help us pay the rent.”

Natalie Daniels, whose husband is stationed in San Diego, said her family’s situation isn’t “dire just yet,” but missing the coming paycheck would definitely “start the clock” on that. Their family includes four children.

“I am not afraid of this shutdown,” she said. “I am afraid of the current political discourse that may discourage future generations from wanting to serve their country on the basis of being used as political pawns."

Daniels said both political parties are “playing a game of political chicken with Americans,” and it needs to stop.

"Frankly, I am exhausted, stressed, and emotionally drained by our current political climate, but if you were to ask my husband what I’ve said to him when he’s called every night, he would tell you I’ve said, ‘We are fine,’” she said. “That’s how a military spouse supports her husband, and that is how a military spouse supports their country.”

 

[CTRLZero]

17 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I had to fly into National Airport (I refuse to call it St. Ronnie's airport) yesterday.

How was it getting through the TSA checkpoint?  I am supposed to fly out of Newark in a few days and am feeling a bit anxious about the whole shutdown effect on morale of the airport workers by then.  My husband keeps reassuring me that everything will be up and running again before then.  But, Trump may decree otherwise.  A rental car may be an option. 

[fraurosena]

It's official. This is the longest shutdown in history. It will also go down as the most infamous one.

McTurtle is up to his eyeballs in Russian connections. There is no other explanation for him covering for the presidunce to the detriment of the country like this.

Is there any way McTurtle could be removed from office? Other than being elected out, I mean.

[GreyhoundFan]

18 minutes ago, CTRLZero said:

How was it getting through the TSA checkpoint?  I am supposed to fly out of Newark in a few days and am feeling a bit anxious about the whole shutdown effect on morale of the airport workers by then.  My husband keeps reassuring me that everything will be up and running again before then.  But, Trump may decree otherwise.  A rental car may be an option. 

At National, it was pretty straightforward. I always set off the alarms because I have artificial body parts, including a huge amount of abdominal mesh. I got felt up like usual, but the woman was polite about it. In Miami, when I was flying back to DC, it was a bit backed up and the employees were pretty obviously demoralized, but nothing worse than normal. I did see that Miami is shutting down one of its terminals due to the shutdown -- they can't keep enough TSA staffers available.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Tensions rise in federal prisons during shutdown as weary guards go without pay and work double shifts"

Spoiler

Prison guard Brian Shoemaker was patrolling the halls of Lee penitentiary in southwestern Virginia on Friday when an inmate tried to squeeze past him into a restricted area. Seconds after Shoemaker told the prisoner to turn around, the inmate lunged at him, punching him in the shoulder.

Shoemaker did not sustain a major injury. But it did not escape him that he is working without a paycheck at one of the most dangerous federal jobs in America during the partial government shutdown. Fears for his and other prison staff members’ safety are escalating as 16-hour shifts become routine and a growing number of guards call in sick in protest or to work side jobs to pay their bills.

“I don’t think we should be subjected to that kind of thing and not receive a paycheck,” said Shoemaker, 48, a 17-year veteran of Lee penitentiary. “I’m walking in here and doing my job everyday, and it’s very dangerous.”

Shoemaker is one of 36,000 federal prison workers deemed “essential employees” by the U.S. government, which means he is expected to report for work during the shutdown even though he will not get paid until after the government reopens.

Even though these employees are supposed to work, union officials at 10 prisons reached by The Washington Post, including Lee, say the number of employees who are not showing up for work has at least doubled since the shutdown began.

As a result, those showing up are routinely working double shifts, correctional officers and other prison staff members say. Secretaries, janitors and teachers are filling in for absent officers. At at least one prison — Hazelton Federal Correctional Complex in West Virginia — the number of assaults on officers has increased since the shutdown, according to a union official there.

“There has been a rise in people calling in sick and taking leave during the shutdown,” said Richard Heldreth, the local union president at the Hazelton prison. “The staff who are showing up are dealing with this violence, long hours and extra overtime with the uncertainly of when we will be compensated.”

There are numerous reasons that correctional officers — commonly called prison guards — are unique among federal employees. They are in the rare position of risking injuries, even their lives, every time they report to work. Prison staff members also are among the lowest paid of those working in federal law enforcement, with a verage annual salaries of between $40,000 to $50,000.

Many work in remote rural towns where there is no mass transit and commutes are often an hour or more each way. The prisons are frequently the lifeblood of these rural towns.

Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), whose district includes a federal prison in Lisbon, said the safety conditions of the prisons were already tenuous due to staffing shortages, but the dangers have spiked since the shutdown.

“I do know the anxiety level is going up and the stress levels are going up. It’s been building for some time. This is putting gasoline on the fire,” said Ryan, who toured the prison Tuesday.

The tense nature of the situation is evident at Hazleton, the high-security facility where crime boss Whitey Bulger was killed by inmates in October.

Union and prison officials say seven officers have been attacked in three separate incidents since Friday. None of the officers received serious injuries. The high-security prison typically sees that many assaults over the course of a month, said Heldreth.

Prison officials acknowledged the three incidents took place but did not provide further comment.

The number of officers and other staff members calling in sick has quadrupled at the prison, rising from an average of 15 to 20 employees a day to about 80 a day, Heldreth said, citing data provided to him by the prison.

Officers are being asked to work 16-hour shifts once or twice a week as opposed to once or twice a month, Heldreth said. Staff members who are not law enforcement officers are being told to leave their desk jobs to fill in for absent guards on nearly a weekly, as opposed to monthly, basis. At the time of their hiring, these workers receive three weeks of guard training at the Federal Bureau of Prisons academy in Georgia.

That was 20 years ago for 52-year-old Opal Brown, a secretary in the Hazleton prison’s education department. Since the shutdown, Brown has worked two shifts as an officer, once in the high-security penitentiary patrolling inmates whom she never encounters during her regular job.

“I have no rapport with them. They know you are not an officer, and they want to push you to see how far they can go. It’s very dangerous,” Brown said.

One particularly humiliating aspect of the shutdown for prison guards has been that inmates are aware that the guards are not getting paid.

On New Year’s Day, prisoners even received special meals like steak or Cornish game hen, which were served by officers who were not receiving pay.

Sensing the guards’ insecurity, the prisoners are taunting officers and even testing them to see if they can be bribed, union leaders and staff members say.

“Inmates know about the shutdown; they know we aren’t getting paid. They play on that stress,” said Shoemaker, the correctional officer in Virginia.

Meanwhile, few things have changed for prisoners, who continue to receive food and medical care out of a fund that has already been appropriated for the year by Congress.

Several officers said inmates openly gloated on Friday when they received their paychecks for the work they perform at the prison. If an officer didn’t hear about it from an inmate, they saw the telltale sign of payday when inmates lined up at the commissary to buy their weekly supply of snacks, stamps and soda.

Prisoners perform various jobs — mostly to maintain the facilities — for between 12 cents and $1 an hour, plus the occasional bonus. Inmates aren’t making much money, but their paychecks felt like a slap in the face, said Shane Fausey, the local union president at the prison in Allenwood, Pa. Fausey said they are funded through commissary profits.

“We are risking our lives, but we aren’t getting paid,” Fausey said. “We are paying the guys who molest our kids and steal from the elderly.””

At a prison complex in Lompoc, Calif., correctional officer Ryan Enos said that since the shutdown began, two inmates have taunted him about not being paid and one tested him to see whether he was susceptible to being bribed.

Enos works in a place called “the hole,” where inmates who are being disciplined are locked in their cells for 23 hours a day. The first taunt, Enos said, came last week as Enos was walking an inmate in restraints back to his cell after his one-hour break.

“He said, ‘Hey are you getting paid yet? That’s why you should work for the cartels. They never close,’” Enos recalled.

“They are always looking for an angle,” he said. “Anytime anyone shows any type of weakness, they will use that to their advantage.”

Several prison workers said there is widespread anger directed at Washington, especially since President Trump and members of Congress are still receiving pay during the shutdown while they are failing to resolve the budget impasse. They also said they feel abandoned by Trump and Congress.

“These are honest, hard-working people who are paying the price for this game of political cat and mouse,” Fausey said. “They just want to go home safe and sound and be able to take care of their families. I think the government needs to show them some loyalty and pay them for a good day’s work.”

At a news conference with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Wednesday, the national president for the union that represents correctional officers said Trump’s argument about the wall is disingenuous.

“What does it serve America, the public, to shut down the government in the name of border security and neglect our internal security and the fabric inside our federal prisons?” said Eric Young. “We are the faces behind this shutdown . . . If something happens to any of our professionals behind this distraction, blood will be on your hands. Stop playing chicken with our lives.”

 

[mamallama]

Kids flew out of Newark last Friday which I think was a day or two after the reported sick out but it was no worse than normal.  They flew in last night into JFK where customs was a shitshow but that is not unusual.

[GreyhoundFan]