Shutdown: Behold the Horror

The shutdown is only a few days old and America is noticing some bizarre developments. There will eventually be some winners from all this, but for now there are only self-inflicted wounds. Among the causalities: common sense and bipartisanship (Ha! Snort!). 

 

More casualties: the Park Service rescinds the KKK permit for a rally in Gettysburg. Okay, I’m trying to find the down side of this development, but…nope, I got nothing! Okay, so they don’t get to exercise their First Amendment rights. Boo hoo! Hey, KKK, life’s a bitch and then you die!

Then there are the closures of museums, national parks, and pandas, oh my! Tourists to national parks and museums were turned away and disappointed when they could not enter sites they traveled far to see, sites incidentally funded (albeit not for the foreseeable future) by their tax dollars. This included the Smithsonian, which also runs the National Zoo, which in turn activates the “panda-cam”. For the record, the panda-cam went dark hours after the shutdown began. So Mama Panda may get a few days of private time with her newborn without being bothered by the voyeuristic intrusion from humanity. Some people will obviously get upset by this, and they’re probably the same people who get beside themselves whenever a human mother whips her nipples out in public to nourish her youngin’. Go figure!

The shutdown has also created outlaw veterans. The media and internet showed a video of veterans running the barricades at the WWII Memorial. The barricades were set up by the Park Service because of the shutdown. It seems odd that these battle-hardened desperadoes, who fought to preserve the American way of life (and by convoluted logic its laws, which at that moment dictated that the site was closed and otherwise off limits), should resort to such outlaw activity. Why? Answer: because they could, even given the fact that many of them are in wheelchairs and unable to literally jump over the barriers. Let’s face it, what kind of impediment is a movable wire rack after you’ve survived the withering Nazi machine gun fire at Omaha Beach? Pussy rack!

For the record, the wire barricades were removed, not by Park Service employees, but by members of the House, Republican members of the house, who may or may not have been motivated by guilt because their actions were responsible for the barricades going up in the first place. On the second day, Representative Michele Bachmann was on hand to assist another group of veterans carry out what the Park Service now considers a First Amendment protest.

How nice of her! A wonderful demonstration to America’s most patriotic Americans that Republican lawmakers aren’t the hoary beasts which the liberal blogosphere makes them out to be. YO, MICHELE! YOU COULD DO A BETTER DEMONSTRATION TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE IF YOU GET YOUR SKINNY, TEA PARTY ASS BACK UP ON THE HILL AND DO YOUR JOB, BITCH! You know, your day job as an elected representative of the American people, not as a mall tour guide!

The House did return to work the next day to make amends for their behavior by voting to fund the more high profile departments. They will allow the Park Service to reopen museums and monuments, the NIH to admit children with cancer to their research facilities, the Veterans Administration to reopen, and trash pick-up in the District of Columbia…for a time period up to six weeks! I hate to nit-pick, but I must point out that the US government has more than four or five departments which serve the American people/taxpayer. Also, funding is usually done for a fiscal YEAR (caps mine), which I believe is usually defined as twelve months, not six weeks.

It’s all very well and good to allow parks and hospitals to open, but what about the rest of the 800,000 government employees on furlough? Are they chopped liver?

So, how long will this insanity last? No one knows, because the people who could end it are too busy pointing fingers at the other side to make a move towards talking, negotiating, and compromising. You know, those pillars of democratic principles? Yeah, those!

And all this only has to last two more weeks when it collides with the next crisis: the debt limit ceiling!  Wow, two crises at once! Who says the American taxpayer isn’t getting the most bang for their bucks!  

(Thank you for reading. BTW, Michele, Mandy called and wants to know if you can cover her 4:30p tour group at Universal Studios.)