Bravely the House soldiers on toward a government shutdown at midnight Monday night, proud in its assertions that it knows best for the country, the other half of the legislative branch is full of traitors and knaves and the President is beyond the pale (heh heh! Get the joke?).
The Senate and the White House reacted with disgust.
Mr. Reid made it clear that failure was inevitable. “After weeks of futile political games from Republicans, we are still at Square 1,” he said. “We continue to be willing to debate these issues in a calm and rational atmosphere. But the American people will not be extorted by Tea Party anarchists.”
The White House was just as blunt. “Any member of the Republican Party who votes for this bill is voting for a shutdown,” the press secretary, Jay Carney, said in a written statement.
It’s astonishing, pathetic, and frustrating. We have a rump group of Tea Party Republicans in the House who are entirely sure of their own righteousness and who are willing to destroy the country (that’s next, when the debt ceiling battle begins in October), assured that they’re doing The Right Thing according to Rand, Norquist, Hayek, Milton Friedman or somebody. And because there are about 80 of them, they can do that.
It’s gotten beyond ridiculous now it seems.
They’re just shoving crap in there willy-nilly & shouting out crazy stuff.
Birth control stuff. The kitchen sink.
They may as well have thrown in there a directive to form a committee to prove the moon landing was a hoax, mandatory minimum juvenile detention sentences for first offense grade school truancy, and a provision to handsomely fund elected officials using government forums for dramatic readings of children’s books.
“government forums for dramatic readings of children’s books”
Like elementary school classrooms for the reading of “The Pet Goat?”