Treason

“Crisis averted”!!? Really? This governing by crisis is getting old fast! All this drama is great for soap operas, but not the serious business of governing the most powerful nation on earth. The hijacking of the congress by these treasonous cold civil warriors needs to never happen again, but in all likelihood will. The next congressional Kabuki theater performance is scheduled for January 15 when government funding will be up for vote again. Another matinee performance will be on February 7, when the debt ceiling issue comes to the floor.

Is it just me, or are the people that hate the government busy taking over the government to prove that the government doesn’t work by engineering failure of the government to be successful in governing? The folks prophesying both religious and political “End Times” (to some they are one in the same) are oddly gleeful as if they, the righteous, will somehow be spared the pain they are inflicting on the rest of us.

If I called myself a Republican or identified myself with that party at this point in time I would be having serious second thoughts about my affiliation.  As time has progressed from the heady days of the Ronald Reagan “best-president-ever” era, the republicans have deteriorated to the point of no return. Ronald would be considered a vile enemy of the Tea Party ideologues today, perhaps even a traitor for wanting to parle’ with enemies of the US (Gorbachev) or espousing shrinking our nuclear arsenal. Yeah, he thought “mutual assured nuclear destruction” was probably a bad idea. Though his union busting practices and religious zeal for capitalism still bring warm and fuzzy feelings out in the Tea Bags, if Ron were around today he would be considered a right of center Democrat. If these skewed political identities weren’t destroying our country it would be laughable, but they are and it isn’t.

I’m not a shrink, but I really am concerned when people like Michele Bachmann and other elected “representatives” of her ilk are expounding the rapture as a legitimate and relevant topic of concern on the national stage. Our founding fathers, that the right wing “Christian” extremists are always speaking of and profess adoration for, were very clear on this subject. No way, no how was religion going to be a part of their blueprint for governance.

The cognitive dissonance is astounding when it comes to the rightist mentality. The most absurd outlandish behavior is either ignored by the press or elevated to the level of acceptable political discourse! The government shutdown orchestrated by the radical right is just the latest example of behavior illustrating that these people care more about some gaseous ideology than the country they have been hired to govern. Through gerrymandering and creative re-districting in the far-flung regions of Amurca, these loons have managed to hijack our country in a way that would make Osama bin Laden beam with pride. I can hear him now in his watery grave: “Why didn’t I just become a congressman from Texas?!”

I was mystified by the tacit acceptance of the shutdown by the press and people. I was utterly flabbergasted seeing the Republican congress people chastising federal park employees for closing parks when these very same Republican congress people engineered the closings. I feel like I’m losing my mind… I don’t care what party you belong to, but if you’re crazy please step down and get some help. I’m sure your free, top-shelf government health insurance covers mental disease–

which brings us to the very thing that these domestic terrorists shut the government down for to begin with. The Affordable Care Act was the original excuse/reason they came up with and when that didn’t gain traction they switched the reason/excuse to…what was it? It reminded me of George W. Bush regularly changing his reasons for invading Iraq. First it was weapons of mass destruction, oops, then it was killing Sadam, mission accomplished, then it was liberating the people of Iraq and spreading “democracy”. George never really did figure out why, although his Cyborg VP knew.

Back to the ACA. The obsessive/compulsive republican controlled House tried forty seven times to repeal the Affordable Care Act and was unsuccessful all forty seven times, at a cost of fifty million bucks. Chump change to these fiscal conservatives. They knew every time that they would fail, but did it anyway. That is plain insane. In fact the republicans did nothing except work on that impossible goal. No jobs bill and a disastrous handling of the debt ceiling are the 112^th republican controlled congressional claims to fame. The cognitive disconnect continues in the form of the Tea Bagger’s “love” of the Constitution. They are always talking about it and proudly waving their pocket size editions of it at every opportunity. I doubt any of them have actually opened their copies and read them. The extent of their constitutional knowledge is it’s a great prop when speaking in public and it has almost reached flag lapel pin status.

Speaking of the constitution, the most seriously frightening development of late is the back room Republican diddling of House rules. The chairman of the House rules committee conceded that, under normal procedure with clause 4 of rule 22, if the House amends a Senate bill and the Senate rejects the House’s amendment(s), any House member has the right to bring the original Senate bill up for an immediate up-or-down vote in the House. But just two hours before the government was poised to shut down they changed that rule to ensure that only Republican majority leader Eric Cantor could bring the Senate bill to reopen the government up for a vote – something they had refused to do. Can you say Animal Farm? Google it.

I find these examples of Republican behavior downright un-American and un-constitutional and I would hope any critical thinking citizen in the U.S. would feel the same. Frankly, the Republican induced shutdown of our government was a treasonous act and the traitors are already rubbing their hands together in anticipation of screwing the country again in January. It would appear they are engineering the End Times they so long for. Is that what you want?

Alex Symington

Key West