"There's consequences to what we do"

So, everybody in the United States has lost their minds. That's pretty clear by now. It'll be even clearer when their useless goddamned government shuts down tomorrow.

Actually, let me rephrase that last part and say "shuts down tomorrow to the extent that it does. Because it's not shutting down. Not really. For example, did you know that nearly half of all federal employees will still be at work on Monday? If you filed your taxes electronically, you'll still even get your refund on time.

The last time there was a government shutdown, it was so easily dealt with that both President Bill Clinton and Speaker Newt Gingrich started dating during it.

And you know what? That's horsehit! A government shutdown should mean exactly that, a shutdown. Everything stops, which it ideally should because the government's only shutting down because it ran out of fucking money. When that happens with anybody else, everybody stops getting paid and nothing gets done. Everything. Stops.

If that was happened during a government shutdown, you wouldn't see them happen. But it isn't. Instead, the term "essential" has been stretched to the point that over half the government is considered essential - more if you count the military. So everybody's constituency gets protected, and shutdowns become nothing more than exercises in political brinkmanship.

Which in a roundabout way brings me to Congressman Mike Pence. Pence is so fuckheaded that I think that he was classically trained. He actually had the balls to say that if NPR and Planned Parenthood don't get defunded, there should be a government shutdown. And oh, how the Tea Party assholes and Brietbart liars cheered. Erik Erickson is in imminent danger of blowing a load in his pants as tomorrow night draws nearer.

Now? Maybe not so much.

The Obama Administration pushed hard to make sure that unemployment compensation was extended a few months back. But thus far they have resisted attempts to make sure that our soldiers get paid in the event of a government shutdown. As a result, charities are getting ready to make food and money for gas available for our soldiers and their families. Handouts for servicemembers doing their jobs? Disgraceful.

Oh, right. Soldiers are government employees, too. Who knew?

Look, I don't give a shit about Planned Parenthood one way or the other, but I certainly don't believe that it's anything close to being worth shutting the government down over. And by the way, I'd love to know how many budgets with federal Planned Parenthood funding Pence voted for when the GOP was in the majority. I'm willing to bet that it was all of them.

I get that this is about more than NPR and Planned Parenthood, but that's not the way that Pence, the Tea Party and retarded blogs like Red State are selling it. They insisted on a shutdown because they thought that there would be no real-life consequences for doing it. Guess what? Now there are.

One way or another, the Republican Party has got to learn that it can't listen to shitheel hucksters like Pence, toothless protesters and stupid fucking bloggers. They were elected to lead, not follow, and especially not follow such assholes.

Up until I read about the veto of the Defense authorization, I was ready to almost guarantee you that there would be a shutdown tomorrow. Now I think the Republicans will deal. Because there are consequences now.