The House GOP Members: Burning Down the House

"Watch out.  You might get what you're after."

Talking Heads, "Burning Down the House."

It is only fitting that on the end of Day 15 of the Government Shutdown, and only one day away from the first-ever U.S. government default, I dedicate the Talking Heads' "Burning Down the House" to the House GOP members.  I couldn't imagine for the life of me that our elected leaders would play Russian Roulette with the full faith and credit of U.S. obligations and would be willing to tank not only the U.S. economy but the world economy in an effort to get back at President Obama.

Do they hate this Black man that much?  Oh yes.  Yes they do.

Before you go all ballistic and accuse me of playing the race card, let's call a thing a thing:  This shutdown isn't about defunding Obamacare.  It's about embarrassing and weakening this African American president whom the GOP has despised since Day 1 of his first term, what with Mitch McConnell vowing to make him a one term president (How's that workin' for ya, Mitchie?) before the President even started governing.

Note how the target has shifted.  First they wanted to defund Obamacare.  When they realized that the President wasn't going to roll over as easily as he did in his last term (see, that's what happens when a President is re-elected -- he can tell you to kiss his ass), they were lost trying to find any semblance of a bone to be thrown at them (e.g., medical device tax repeal) so they could declare victory and avoid embarrassment once polling showed that the nation primarily blamed the GOP for the shutdown.  Instead of unconditional surrender by reopening the government and raising the debt ceiling without negotiation, these fools would rather "burn down the house" by incurring the first U.S. default.  When your own party elder, John McCain, declares defunding Obamacare as a "fool's errand" (which he has done not just once, but twice within the last week), that should tell you to give up the ghost.

But not these rabid Republicans.  They even have the nerve to protest outside of the monuments they have shut down and blame the President for the shutdown.  They're worse than that sick joke about a child killing his parents and seeking the mercy of the court because he's an orphan.

Almost as insipid as these House GOP members are the people who support them, who have no idea of what a U.S. default would mean or even how "bad" Obamacare really is.  BMNB (my husband, Black Man Not Blogging) and I have recently had the pleasure of having conversations with these idiots.  I spoke with a clerk at Target who told me that Obamacare was going to run up the deficit.  I told her that, in the short run, costs might rise, but in the long run, as more healthy and young people are forced to buy health care insurance, health care costs would go down and, as a result, the national deficit.  I walked away and it hit me:  I just had a conversation with an idiot.  She probably makes minimum wage, works less than full time, and isn't receiving health care benefits.  She needs to thank her lucky stars that there is Obamacare, because she's probably going to need it.

My husband's strange encounter with an idiot involved someone who told him she opposed raising the debt ceiling because it would just encourage the government to "spend, spend, spend."  My husband responded, "The spending has already occurred.  Raising the debt ceiling just ensures that the government can cover the bills it has already incurred through its appropriations."  He, too, realized he'd just had a conversation with an idiot.

So here's to the idiots in the GOP who hate President Obama's black ass so much that they're willing to burn down the house.  They're probably related to the Confederates who were willing to burn down a country because they hated black people so and the segregationists who were willing to lynch black folks instead of acknowledging our equal rights.  Today's GOP idiots should at least have the intellectual honesty to put on their white robes and burn a cross in the White House lawn.

But as the song "Burning Down the House" says, "Watch out.  You might get what you're after."