Shut down the government republicans. I DARE YOU.

Sorry about the dearth of new posts. Started a new job this week that has me away from the computer most of the day.

I've been working on a big post about serious approaches to reducing the deficit (yes it's about raising income tax rates) but it's not quite finished and I want it to be awesome for the all of 2 readers I get a day (thank you I love you guys and gals!).

In the spirit of Christmas, next week I'll be shining my tiny but revealing spotlight on AM radio's most popular right wing voices. It'll be fun if nothing else.

In the meantime, to tide you guys over, I issue a challenge to our brave, patriotic (lol) republican lawmakers in Washington, D.C.: shut our government down. Filibuster the omnibus spending bill along with any stopgap measures the democrats might try to pass.

I say this to make a point. I don't actually think any of those right wing paper tigers has the balls to try to pull  this off (though republicans get a lot of mileage out of threatening it). It's too bad that the democrats, like sad live-in hostages, fall for it every time.

Just to make sure we're on the same page, the omnibus spending bill funds the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. Assholes like Rush, Hannity and Beck would have their listeners believe the omnibus was some once yearly excuse to pillage the treasury and run the deficit up, just for the fuck of it. That Washington D.C. was run by a bunch of mentally ill spend-thrifts burning through money because the voices in their head told them to.

Guess what my conservative dead-enders? It's a bunch of BULLSHIT. You know why the government is so fucking BIG? Oh I'm sure it has nothing to do with stationing American military in over 150 countries (not all on bases), at immense cost to the tax payer. It also has nothing to do (sarcasm intended) with the previous republican President creating an utterly unneeded and completely redundant bureaucracy with the Department of Homeland Security.

Despite President Obama being responsible for NONE of that, the right tars him as an enabler of "big" government. What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Because he oversaw the TARP program he DIDN'T sign into law? Because he had the guts and the vision to help get health insurance reform get passed? Or was it because he helped spearhead the effort to FINALLY reign in Wall Street so they can't royally ass-rape us again?

Again, republicans check your facts. TARP was a HUGE success: taxpayers got their money back without destroying the personal or commercial credit markets. Health insurance reform wasn't some government takeover of health care. That one was such a whopper, Politifact.com crowned it their "Lie of the Year." The Consumer Protection agency created by the Wall Street reform bill can only help by assisting Americans who were preyed upon by rapacious credit card mills.

So again, republicans, man up, put your vote where your mouth is: shut the federal government down. See how long your vaunted military protects you when they stop getting paid.

P.S. In a bit of Congressional absurdist comedy, Michele Bachmann is named to the House Intelligence Committee. Her most recent gaffe was declaring that the estate tax was "unconstitutional". An embarrassment to yours truly, her previous occupation was as a tax lawyer.

P.P.S. Watching Fox News makes you dumber or at least more misinformed.