The “Death Gratuity” is an emergency financial distribution ($100k) to the family of a service member killed in action.   It’s typically sent to families within three days to help cover funeral costs or travel to meet the flag-draped coffins of their loved ones.

Sunday night was not a good night for troops on the ground. A Marine was killed during a combat patrol. A platoon from 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment helicopter assaulted onto target. In the end, four died—two Rangers, two attachments. There were so many wounded by the command detonated IEDs and suicide bombers that the platoon was rendered combat ineffective. For those of you that have served, it was the nightmare you hope you’d never have to face: it was a mas-cas.

But because of what I can only describe as one of the grossest failings of our government during the current shut down (and that’s saying something, I know), the tragedy of Sunday night’s actions are just beginning.

According to sources inside of Special Operations Command, this morning at roughly 0930 there was a video teleconference. In the conference, liaison personnel who were already tasked with the almost impossible job of telling these families their son or daughter has been killed in action, now have to tell them something else: that their government has failed them and they will not be getting any governmental assistance until the government shutdown is over.  (continue reading)

Five servicemen were killed in Afghanistan this past weekend.  The DoD has released the following statement:

“Unfortunately, as a result of the shutdown, we do not have the legal authority to make death gratuity payments at this time.  However, we are keeping a close eye on those survivors who have lost loved ones serving in the Department of Defense.” – Nate Christensen, a spokesman for the DoD

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WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama sustained an hour-long press conference without a single question about his signature healthcare law and the glitches that continue to plague the insurance exchanges — a point that frustrated several conservatives.
“Explain to me how in a dozen questions the second biggest story of the week, the healthcare.gov debacle, doesn’t even come up,” Brendan Buck, the press secretary for House Speaker John Boehner, asked in an email to POLITICO.
“Questions from WH press corps are pathetic,” Brit Hume, the Fox News analyst tweeted. “As of this moment, not a single tough or challenging inquiry.”  (read more)

Still Dancing !!

Yesterday we noted a slip in the strength of narrative from President Stompy Feet.  A slip that’s reflective of a change in internal White House polling on the current issues around the federal government shutdown.
However, the most *telling* of stories was around Stompy saying he was personally backing off from any influence.

President Obama has handed over the reins of leadership on government funding and the debt limit to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).
Reid is now fully in charge of his party’s negotiating strategy, a significant change from past showdowns with Republicans.  (link)

It makes sense he would because Stompy always prefers to lead from behind. (more…)

Message to GOP – Hold the line ! Message to Tea Party Freshman Patriots – “Hold The GOP” !

*Note this picture is from TODAY.  Note what has replaced the “Halo” – It’s subtle, but if the media did not notice Stompy Feet was a pontificating whiner, it would not be allowed.  US President Barack Obama speaks about hurricane preparedness as well as the budget showdown with Congress on October 7, 2013, on the seventh day of the government shutdown (AFP Photo/Saul Loeb)

In the politicized back and forth, that has become the new normal, you must review each subtle movement through the prism of ‘narrative risk management’.   As the New York Times now weighs in “This is most closed, control-freak administration I’ve ever covered,”… (link)   This is a brutal recognition of Dear Leader, Valerie Jarrett and Denis McDonough.
Internal White House polling must be giving them fits right now. The American People are not losing resolve; in fact, just the opposite is true, more and more people are joining a growing group awakening to the reality of how destructive Obamacare is, and just WHAT the reason is for this fight.   THIS is from a moonbat in Californiastan:

“I was laughing at Boehner — until the mail came today,”  […]   “I really don’t like the Republican tactics, but at least now I can understand why they are so pissed about this. When you take $10,000 out of my family’s pocket each year, that’s otherwise disposable income or retirement savings that will not be going into our local economy.” […]  “Of course, I want people to have health care,” Vinson said. “I just didn’t realize I would be the one who was going to pay for it personally.”   (link)

NPR, the liberal basement for all media pontifications, tells it’s reports to back off using the term Obamacare?  If Obamacare was so dreamy, that would never happen.  No, what’s happening is Obamacare has become a risk.   Within that “risk” is the future of all left-wing liberalism.
And even more telling is this.  Stompy Feet moves to put himself on the outside of the issue(s), trying to give himself some distance from the inherent risk:

President Obama has handed over the reins of leadership on government funding and the debt limit to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).
Reid is now fully in charge of his party’s negotiating strategy, a significant change from past showdowns with Republicans.  (link)

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(Article @Daily Pamphlet)  This week, the left’s psychosis is on full display. Nowhere more obvious is the loss of mental function than in the far-left MSM, who will obfuscate the highest level of crime, and the lowest level of deviousness of Democrats, to propagate and proselytize their ideology
Today, in all its glory, the left wing rag The New Republic went so far as to suggest the Obama Administration break out the tanks, and do some killing of Republicans, to “put the boot on the throats” of the Republicans in the House of Representatives. Actor James Woods tweeted the adage to me a few weeks ago, if you scratch away the surface of a leftist, you expose a fascist. Nowhere is this more evident and proven than the suggestion by The New Republic’s Senior Editor Julia Ioffe’s suggestion that Obama act as Boris Yeltsin did when he shot up Russia’s Parliament building with T-72 tanks.
I have now heard it all. I have seen it all. What we are witnessing is what “The Great One” Mark Levin calls “Soft Tyranny.” Such tyranny is a slow walk to 25% of our population being murdered, as Stalin, Pot, Mao, and Castro did, to name just a few of the most illustrious and storied Marxist “revolutionaries” who murdered all of those who couldn’t be “retrained”…as Obama crony Bill Ayers promised to do in his manifesto. (more…)

[Via The Peoples Cube]  Comrades, President Obama needs your help to raise everyone’s awareness of how the government shutdown is utterly ruining everyone’s lives and destroying everything in its path, and all at the behest of those greedy, evil anarchists, arsonists, extortionists, bomb-throwers, flame-throwers, terrorists, fearmongers, hatemongers, hostage-takers, killers, murderers, and thieves that make up the Tea Party Republicans, who are holding their guns, including assault weapons, to the heads of the American people, strapping explosives to the chests of children, and chowing down on kittens and puppies and bunnies while forcing everyone else to starve to death!

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We are all Tank Man NOW !!

President Stompy Feet is a petulant man-child.  A typical leftist.   Don’t give him, or anyone of likeminded inconsequence the satisfaction of deliberate consideration.  Laugh at them;  Sing joyful out loud songs, and Dance.
These people, who proclaim to rule over us, have the keen intellect of a dimwitted gnat and do not deserve even a modicum of reasonable discussion.   Something happens when a rational person crosses over the Potomac river –  They become dense, illogical and absent of standard cognitive capacity;  in short they get stupid.
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October 13th 9:00am Washington DC

Million Veteran’s March –  WEB SITE HERE and Facebook HERE
[…]  We do not care what political leanings you may be; be it liberal, conservative, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent or whatever. The actions of the U.S. government this week with regard to barricading and shutting down the World War II Memorial to veterans, that may or may not be on their last trip to Washington DC, is a despicable act of cowardice.

[…]  Many in our group have decided that enough is enough. We are Americans. We are proud of our heritage and our service. As all of us were military brats and spouses, we have served in some form or another our entire lives. This is our way of life. We will not stand by and let the U.S. government dishonor the legacy of sacrifice of the generations before us. It is time to make a stand! We hope that you will join us in our peaceful protest against anti-American policies.  (facebook link)
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Andrea Shea King links to a recent accurate comment at PJmedia which opined in part:
[…] That’s the fundamental Republican Party problem in dealing with a conflict with the Community Organizer in Chief; they simply cannot stand conflict and confrontation, and he likes it, or at least he likes the kinds of mealy-mouthed half-measures that people have always used against the cool black dude because they were afraid of being called a racist.
I advocated here at PJM the other day that Cruz brewed up this sh*tstorm and now he will show what kind of man he is. Cruz or somebody equally articulate needs to go all Joe Wilson on Obama, and I mean right in Obama’s grill. Obama needs to be insulted and disrespected. He needs to be called on his lies. He needs to be provoked into a spittle-flecked rage, preferably before the cameras.  (link)
….. and we have just the right man for the job

2013 Twitter Post from Washington DC

Vietnam Wall entrance is open to all. Guard dog and guards are solely for intimidation. Go in. God Bless 'em pic.twitter.com/O7XSjOzbtj

— Steve King (@SteveKingIA) October 5, 2013

If Twitter existed on June 5th 1989 would you have seen?: (more…)