Too many people being paid to practice my old craft -- journalism -- have become unctuous bags of hot air.
If their bias is centrist, President Obama just won a big victory because the damned fools in Congress decided after 16 days of theatrical idiocy to allow the government to resume governing.
If they are biased to the right, as ever increasing numbers are, the end of the shutdown and avoidance of debt default have killed democracy and created a socialist dictatorship or, as Tea Pot Minister of Propaganda Rush Limbaught put it, "it feels like we lost a war to a Communist country."
Theyre all simply bloviating.
Nobody "won" or "lost" in this sad, sad parody of democracy.
The country, the citizens who elected these buffoons, are the losers. In monetary terms alone, the most conservative estimate is that the antics of the morons cost an already battered and bruised economy $24 billion. As Sen. Elizabeth Warren put it, "How many children could have been back in Head Start classes? How many seniors could have had a hot lunch through Meals on Wheels? How many scientists could have gotten their research funded? How many bridges could have been repaired and trains upgraded? The Republicans keep . . . trying to cut funding for the things that would help us build a future. But they . . .flush away $24 billion on a political stunt."
All that was accomplished by yesterday's events was to fund government operations for a few months and set up an apparatus for agreeing on a budget. The same cockeyed contretemps that just ended could very well resume early next year.
The biggest loss is that while Congress was dancing around its Constitutional obligation to fund the government programs it has already created, terribly important matters have been pushed off the national agenda.
Warren touched on one of them when she mentioned bridges and trains. Our national infrastructure is Third World. Water mains, bridges, rails and trains, dams, roads, schools and other public facilities desperately need repair or replacement. Meanwhile, we are suffering a crisis of joblessness. When this happened 85 years ago, government stepped in and put people to work building things that still benefit people today. This has to be addressed. How many bridges have to collapse, how many long-term jobless citizens have to commit suicide because they can't feed their families, before the millionaires in Congress realize the obvious?
We are on the brink of an environmental crisis that could destroy the planet as a habitat for human and other forms of life. If that doesn't deserve immediate and serious attention from our government, what does?
We have crippled our scientifc community, thanks, again, to some of the idiots we have elected to office. If the richest nation on earth cannot, or will not, lead the way in the quest for cures, the development of safe and renewable sources of energy, the quality of the air we breathe and the water we drink, who will?
We are pursuing a policy of endless war that not only is inhumane, immoral and illegal but also is bankrupting our treasury. Yes, Ted Cruz, you uncredible fool, and all of your moronic allies, we need to cut spending; we need to cut spending on war and divert the money to increasing Social Security, improving health care for every single person in these United States, and making our government's top priority the improvement of the quality of life of its citizens.
No, members of the nattering class, there were no "winners" or "losers" in Washington yestrday. The same zoo is still there, monkeying around, behaving like asses, burying their heads in sand, flying off the handle, changing colors, lying like magpies and fluffing their tailfeathers for the camera while toadying faux journalists treat them like celeberities.
A pox on all their houses.
