As Matt noted on Facebook, the two worst people in America are Harry Reid and Barack Obama…bringing on crisis after crisis because, quite simply, they can’t have regular order in Congress as that would result in the whole Obama-Reid project going down in flames…remember, even Democrats don’t want this nonsense (or, at least, enough of them who are under threat in 2014 don’t want this).

But as we’re all going to die due to lack of government as of October 1st, let us just relax and enjoy our last few moments…and discuss whatever comes to mind.

UPDATE:  Have you ever been to the WWII Memorial in DC?  I have.  So has Matt.  Its a beautiful, moving monument to the men and women who sacrificed so much to win the Second World War.  Its an open park.  There is no “gate”; no entrance, as it were.  It is just there and you are free to wander through it as you will.  But for some reason the Park Service put up barricades to prevent entry this morning.  Why?  I can only surmise to make us all feel bad – in other words, on orders from on high, they decided to be rat bastards and prevent people from visiting the memorial in order to punish us and so get us to blame the bad, old Republicans for Obama and Reid shutting down the government.  Well, the veterans of WWII are equal to any task – and so they just broke down the barricades and went on in, anyway.

UPDATE II: From what I’ve read, what I thought would be a day or two shutdown until the House GOP caved looks like it might go on for a couple weeks.  Don’t get me wrong, there’s still an urge to surrender in the GOP House…but also a dawning realization that surrender won’t help the country or the party.  True, there is a risk of a national backlash against us – but I believe such a risk is small.  Most of the people who are going to really hate us over this already hate us – but, meanwhile, as long as we fight those who love us, will love us even more.  Eventually there will be a resolution of some sort – but I’m willing to go for weeks on this and see what we can get.  I bet if we hold firm we do get at least a year’s delay on the individual mandate and some other reforms.  And a year’s delay on that sets up a situation where we might even get another year’s delay…and so on.  Stand firm, GOP.

UPDATE III:  Ed Morrisey over at Hot Air notes a new CBS poll taken after the shutdown started – it is rather unsurprising.  Overwhelming majority disapproves of the shutdown and more people blame the GOP than blame Obama…but the kicker on that is that during the 1995 shutdown the blame GOP/blame President breakdown was 2 to 1 in favor of the President…now its 44% blaming GOP, 35% blaming Obama, and the poll was taken before the debacle of the WWII memorial and Reid’s comments about kids with cancer made the news in a big way.   Compromise is demanded by overwhelming majorities, and so the Obama/Reid plan to automatically reject everything unless they get 100% of what they want will probably work over time to increasing disadvantage to the President and his Democrats – they are going to have to give ground (so will the GOP, but as we’re already willing to do that, its less of a sacrifice for us).

Remember, this is not 1995 – the MSM does not control things as well as they used to. The New Media is out there.  The longer this goes on, the worse this gets for Democrats.  And, of course, the Democrats know that – which is why we’re getting so much advice that its in our interest to end this as swiftly as possible by a complete surrender.  Democrats wanted the shut down because they figured it worked best for them, and so we got it – Democrats now want this ended quickly with our surrender, because they figure that works best for them.  Don’t fall for the lies.  Stand firm!

UPDATE IV:  Mark Steyn hits a point no one has yet made:

…In fact, government by “continuing resolution” is a sleazy racket: The legislative branch is supposed to legislate. Instead, they’re presented with a yea-or-nay vote on a single all-or-nothing multi-trillion-dollar band-aid stitched together behind closed doors to hold the federal leviathan together while it belches its way through to the next budget cycle. As Professor Angelo Codevilla of Boston University put it, “This turns democracy into a choice between tyranny and anarchy.” It’s certainly a perversion of responsible government: Congress has less say over specific federal expenditures than the citizens of my New Hampshire backwater do at Town Meeting over the budget for a new fence at the town dump. Pace Senator Reid, Republican proposals to allocate spending through targeted, mere multi-billion-dollar appropriations are not only not “irresponsible” but, in fact, a vast improvement over the “continuing resolution”: To modify Lord Acton, power corrupts, but continuing power corrupts continually…

A continuing resolution is essentially a blank check to the Executive to just keep doing whatever it wishes – each department is supposed to have its own appropriation so that Congress can review what the money is going to be spent on, and make changes as appears necessary.  Just continuing things is an abdication of Congressional authority – and a nullification of the Constitution in a lot of ways.  The plain fact of the matter is that the government should be shut down right now – and should stay shut down until the House and Senate agree on a series of funding bills to send to the President…and this will take negotiations between the House and Senate, and therein lies the real reason Reid and Obama don’t want it:  such negotiations would force cuts in various Democrat proposals which are unpopular with the public, but popular with the cronies of the Democrats.

UPDATE V:  Obama kicks out a 77 and 80 year old couple who have owned their house on Lake Mead for decades.  Because it sits on federal land, Obama says “get out”, and, of course, we’re all supposed to blame the Republicans because of this.  I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Lake Mead but its mostly just empty land with a big lake in the middle of it.  It has a gate, of course, and they charge you $10 a car load (which means during this splendid fall weather the government is denying itself a large amount of money in entrance fees) to get in…people do live in private homes in various parts of the Lake Mead area, and there is no risk at all in them being in their homes.  But Obama and Reid just want to be creeps, and so this happens.