The joy of blinkered thinking
"We're not going to be disrespected. We have to get something out of this. And I don't know what that even is."
-Republican Congressman Marlin Stutzman, on the government shutdown
WHAT DO WE WANT? I DON'T KNOW! WHEN DO WE WANT IT? NOW! Wash, rinse, repeat.
Sorry, but you have totally disrespected the President of the United States and your Democratic Party colleagues and all of the people in this country. And you want respect? If you have to ask for respect rather than doing something that earns respect, you've already lost the game.
My wife read something interesting yesterday, it was written as a dialog with a Congressman: "Can I burn down your house? No. Can I burn down your garage? No. Can I burn down your shed? No."
I learned something interesting the other day, actually, a few interesting things. First, and I hadn't previously heard about this, a lot of Republicans are referring to the Affordable Care Act as a bill, not as a law. As if it hadn't been voted in to law, been challenged at the Supreme Court and survived, and then gone on to survive a presidential election as one of the key points. It's a law, get over it. They're totally oblivious that they're setting a horrible precedent for when the next Republican becomes president and the Democrats control the House. Of course, with the way that districts have been gerrymandered, they're largely invulnerable.
Another is that Fox and other conservative pundits are calling it the 'Government Slimdown', not shutdown. And this includes Fox reporting on news from other sources. Rather than quoting the information accurately, they're reframing it.
We're having a little family reunion this weekend, my dad's sister is turning 90. Saturday we were going to White Sands National Park. But it's closed because of the shutdown. Now the House is proposing little selective "let's fund this program: we need cancer treatments for children" without trying to fund the entire government. A documentary filmmaker went to a Tea Party rally in New Jersey after Sandy hit, asking people "Cut funding of the military? No. Cut funding on education? No. Veteran's benefits? No. Social Security? No. Then what should we cut?" No answer or suggestion was forthcoming.
And yet another new thing to me was when I was looking up Stutzman to see if he was a freshman (he is, but he had previous experience in the Indiana house and senate), and he's definitely linked to the Tea Baggers. But the interesting thing was multiple references to RNC/TP: "nihilism".
What it all boils down to is the House is trying to control legislation, already approved by Congress and signed in to law, through blackmail. They have not offered up a replacement for the Affordable Care Act, they claim it is a job-killer, yet they forced through the sequester which is killing jobs. So they kill jobs while bemoaning a program that has created jobs through the insurance exchanges and is providing health care to the unserved portions of our country.
They must have one heck of a mirror that they look at every morning.
-Republican Congressman Marlin Stutzman, on the government shutdown
WHAT DO WE WANT? I DON'T KNOW! WHEN DO WE WANT IT? NOW! Wash, rinse, repeat.
Sorry, but you have totally disrespected the President of the United States and your Democratic Party colleagues and all of the people in this country. And you want respect? If you have to ask for respect rather than doing something that earns respect, you've already lost the game.
My wife read something interesting yesterday, it was written as a dialog with a Congressman: "Can I burn down your house? No. Can I burn down your garage? No. Can I burn down your shed? No."
I learned something interesting the other day, actually, a few interesting things. First, and I hadn't previously heard about this, a lot of Republicans are referring to the Affordable Care Act as a bill, not as a law. As if it hadn't been voted in to law, been challenged at the Supreme Court and survived, and then gone on to survive a presidential election as one of the key points. It's a law, get over it. They're totally oblivious that they're setting a horrible precedent for when the next Republican becomes president and the Democrats control the House. Of course, with the way that districts have been gerrymandered, they're largely invulnerable.
Another is that Fox and other conservative pundits are calling it the 'Government Slimdown', not shutdown. And this includes Fox reporting on news from other sources. Rather than quoting the information accurately, they're reframing it.
We're having a little family reunion this weekend, my dad's sister is turning 90. Saturday we were going to White Sands National Park. But it's closed because of the shutdown. Now the House is proposing little selective "let's fund this program: we need cancer treatments for children" without trying to fund the entire government. A documentary filmmaker went to a Tea Party rally in New Jersey after Sandy hit, asking people "Cut funding of the military? No. Cut funding on education? No. Veteran's benefits? No. Social Security? No. Then what should we cut?" No answer or suggestion was forthcoming.
And yet another new thing to me was when I was looking up Stutzman to see if he was a freshman (he is, but he had previous experience in the Indiana house and senate), and he's definitely linked to the Tea Baggers. But the interesting thing was multiple references to RNC/TP: "nihilism".
What it all boils down to is the House is trying to control legislation, already approved by Congress and signed in to law, through blackmail. They have not offered up a replacement for the Affordable Care Act, they claim it is a job-killer, yet they forced through the sequester which is killing jobs. So they kill jobs while bemoaning a program that has created jobs through the insurance exchanges and is providing health care to the unserved portions of our country.
They must have one heck of a mirror that they look at every morning.