9/09/2015

Republicans Will Not Govern Your Sinful, Socialist Country

In some ways, newly-free God shrieker Kim Davis is emblematic of the entire Republican governing apparatus right now. See, Davis simply wanted to stop something. She didn't want to do anything. She didn't want to create anything. She didn't want to compromise. She didn't care about a goddamn thing other than not allowing same sex couples to marry in her county, the one place where she has power. Driven by a religious madness that we would call "extremism" if she was Muslim, Davis saw her role as roadblock, not as bridge builder.

As goes the Republican Party, so goes its most devout.

See, you need to prepare yourself for a coming showdown in the GOP, and while it may be delicious to sit back and watch, if the nutsiest of the nutsy have their way, they will shut shit down again over the lie that Planned Parenthood is a baby parts trafficker. The Rude Pundit will spend more time on the actual hearing actually occurring right now in our actual Congress on whether or not to defund Planned Parenthood (spoiler: it's fucking pathetic). But the rumblings out in the bowels of the conservative movement have created a kind of motions towards a climactic moment here.

It can best be summed up by Rep. Mick Mulvaney of Fuckyermother, South Carolina: "In the House—I can only speak for the House—the amount of control we have is the power of the purse. If we’re not willing to talk about a lapse in appropriations over selling dead baby parts I doubt seriously we’ll have a discussion about a lapse in appropriations over a nuclear-powered Iran. We’re afraid to shut the government down. We gave up the power of the purse about four and a half years ago. If you’re not willing to go to the mat on defunding anything, then you are not willing to enforce the power of the purse.”

That's what it's coming down to for the pro-life wing. Either you stop giving money to rip up the babies for profit, even if it's not true, or you're an apostate who needs to be cast out. Here's Erick "Erick" Erickson of the right-wing outhouse known as RedState, saying essentially that in response to a Wall Street Journal editorial saying that it would be foolish for Republicans to shut down the government over Planned Parenthood funding: "I say there is too much at stake not to fight. There are thousands and thousands of children who are being ripped apart and sold for scrap...If the GOP is not prepared to fight on this issue, they will fight on no issue and we might as well go with Donald Trump and be done with it because at least, by God, at least he fights. The Wall Street Journal just wants the leviathan to continue funding the crony capitalists and their agenda the Journal editorial board supports. Damn the babies."

You can look at that and admire the dullard's purity of Erickson's sentiment. Or you can say that, again and again, Republicans have nothing left but obstruction. When it comes to same sex marriage, the fight is over. But you can still try to stop it with your jailed body. When it comes to Planned Parenthood, most Americans are actually smart enough to know that the good the organization does far, far outweighs the imagined bad. But you can still try to end it. On issue after issue, Obamacare, the Iran deal, whatever, the Republicans offer nothing but frantic handwaving and occasional speed bumps. A rational party might want to present logical alternatives or offer legislation that would prevent their false narrative from ever occurring in real life. Oh, wait, those laws already exist and Planned Parenthood is following them to the letter.

Now congressional Republicans are already attempting to cock-block President Obama when it comes to making a pact with other nations on climate change. Since Obama figures getting a treaty through a Senate filled with snowball-tossing fools is a non-starter, he's trying to negotiate an agreement with the rest of the world to do some fucking thing about the weather rape that's been occurring. But an aide to Senate majority leader Mitch "Bug Eyes" McConnell "has had conversations with a select group of representatives from foreign embassies to make it clear that Republicans intend to fight Obama's climate agenda at every turn, sources familiar with the efforts say."

In other words, they want the nations of the world to be like them: Do nothing. Stop what's happening. Sit back. Tell your idiot base you've done your job. It's worked up until now. And if they win the presidency, we will once again get to see how far the clock can be turned back.