Jesus is Riding the Dinosaur

Well, here we go. We're just one day away from a government shut-down, the first one in fifteen years. A government shut-down, of course, will mean no paychecks for hundreds of thousands of federal workers, thousands of federal contracts stopped cold, a multitude of federal services stopped, National Parks closed, the Smithsonian closed, etc., etc., etc., and all because the Tea Baggers have their panties in a wad.

Last fall, the Tea Baggers ran on "Jobs! Jobs! Jobs" and when confronted, claimed to only be interested in fiscal matters. Sounded reasonable, right? That's why so many people voted for them. But now, as it turns out, what the Tea Baggers really care about is abortion, gay rights, teachers' unions, the National Endowment for the Arts, you know, the same old Culture War stuff they've been fighting for thirty years. Rep. Mike Pence, R-Indiana, said his entire vote on the budget will be based on whether or not the "rider" to defund Planned Parenthood remains in the proposal. Wow.

We said it last fall, and we'll say it again. If you're dumb enough to vote Republican, this is what you get. Republicans don't care about the national debt, or the budget; they were long ago taken over by extreme right-wing religious fanatics who won't be happy until every one of us shows up for Sunday School in the Baptist Church every week and denounces any cultural aspect of American society which makes them uncomfortable, which is just about everything.

Here at East Village Afternoon, we rarely resort to outright name-calling, but in this case, it's very much needed. The base of the Republican Party in 2011 are the intellectual dregs of society; they don't have the intellect or the intellectual curiosity to be anywhere near positions of national leadership. And yes, we're looking right at you, Michele Bachmann. We'd all be better off if the Tea Baggers would leave Washington, D.C, and instead stay home where they can attend their monster truck pulls, their book burnings, their rallies to denounce homos, and stay far, far away from anything that requires complex thought. We'll repeat something actor Jeanine Garafolo said a few years ago when George Bush's backwoods ignorance was in full-flower. She said, to paraphrase, "I used to think that if you voted Republican, you were just uninformed or naive, but now I think you have a mental defect." Amen, sister.