Some Congress Creatures Are Profoundly Mentally Ill, And We're All Suffering For It.

A few relatively sane people managed to save the nation from an economic crisis with the budget deal last week,  so maybe, just maybe,  the inmates aren't running the asylum. 

But don't count on it. We haven't heard the last of that awful contingent in Congress that is profoundly mentally ill.
  
Think about it. The strange Tea Party wing that shut down the government and almost caused a global recession live in their own alternative reality where facts are besides the point. 

They just make up their own facts. It's more fun that way. 

They are so narcissitic that they expect the rest of the country to bend to their will, no matter how crazy their ideas and how many people oppose them.  And they delight in dragging the rest of us into their sad, twisted psycho drama.

Sounds like a severe mental illness to me.

Let's pick these symptoms apart.

Facts:

Most people base their decisions on the facts in front of them. Since everybody's different, people will  respond to the facts in various ways. That's why some politicians take a liberal course and others react in a conservative fashion when dealing with the facts, with reality.

That's fine. Eventually, the liberals and conservatives, using the facts as a guide, will argue a bit then work out some sort of compromise.  In the real world, maybe sane conservatives and liberals each have ideas that might improve Obamacare, improve the economy, improve our lives. Each side is worth listening to. 

However, the mentally ill Congress creatures, mostly Tea Party, that precipitated this mess didn't like the facts, so they just created their own reality, by retreating to their own bubble, brought to them by Fox News and lobbying groups like the ironically named Americans For Prosperity. 

So now, instead of dealing with facts, they think the economy won't suffer because they decide not to pay the nation's bills,  that shutting down the government will somehow lead to cost savings when in the real world it's worsening the deficit and made our economy take a $24 billion hit, that everybody supports them when in reality all the polls show most Americans really, really, really hate them.

Plus, they've gerrymandered their Congressional districts so much that they preside over what I might call weird shaped Tea Party ghettos.   

The alternate reality these Congress creatures live in is fed by a weird media and lobbying apparatus that tells them  our socialist terrorist Muslim Kenyan not legitimate president  put down his Quran, stop taking our guns away, and stop sending cash to terrorists, everything will be OK.  

It's why demonstrators, OK, one demonstrator, during a protest amid the shutdown decided to wave a Confederate flag in front of the White House, prompting  journalist Jeff Goldberg to Tweet:

"In many parts of America, waving a Confederate flag outside the home of a black family would be considered a very hostile act."

Note: Right now it's hard right conservatives who have this mental illness. But it can afflict the hard left, too. Chemtrails and 9/11 conspiracy theories, anyone?

Bottom line: That Congress creatures that created this mess are clinging to a fantasy world  is one sign that something is weird mentally. And they insist, are convinced they are right, that they are our saviors, that everyone else is wrong, and we should do whatever they say, no matter what people in the real world think

Which brings us to the next aspect of this mental illness:

Narcissism and No Responsibility:

The whole episode brought us a lot of weird moments that demonstrated this aspect of mental illness.

That's why we had one Congress Creature, Randy Neugebauer,  yelling at a park ranger for closing a national monument that HE helped close and the ranger had nothing to do with. We had another one, Lee Terry of Nebraska saying he wouldn't give up his salary during the shutdown, so that he could afford his "nice house."   (Both later apologized after the expected horrible press)

And we had another one saying the Democrats had to give the Republicans lots of concessions, because, well, they have to. 

"We're not going to be disrespected... We have to get something out of this. And I don't know what that even is," said Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind. early in the shutdown.

Yeah, he didn't know what, but they have to get something to be respected. Um, don't you have to earn respect? 

Not all Tea Party and strongly conservative lawmakers are afflicted with this mental illness, of course. I heard one Tea Party Congressman from Virginia speak on NPR the other night who gave all the Tea Party talking points, but opposed the past two weeks of shenanigans because it harmed the country, didn't get them what they want, and avoided what he sensibly called "principled compromise."

Another conservative, Peter King, a conservative Congressman from New York who does not appear to be affected by this mental illness, was moved to say this last week:

"The party is going nuts.... So many people I run into who are normal people--and I hate to use that term--just don't understand what is going on."

To understand what's going on, what King and the rest of us should do is just examine U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who is widely considered the ringleader of this debacle.

He's the one that did that weird, pointless 21 hour speech as the shutdown loomed railing against Obamacare. During the shutdown, he kept insisting he and the GOP were "winning" the fight, despite plunging poll numbers.

And when it was all over the other day, when Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell was saying a deal had been reached, Cruz tried to steal the media spotlight outside at that very moment saying he'd fight on

And Thursday,  Cruz said Thursday he wouldn't rule out causing another government shutdown to stop Obamacare. 

So they're all delusional. The sad thing is, had more sane people who oppose Obamacare, who have different ideas on how to coax the economy along, they might have made some progress had it not been for the crazies.

And the economy, Americans, wouldn't have suffered as a result. 

Of course, the whole point of trotting out these crazies is to make barely less crazy right wing ideas seem a bit less off the wall, thereby making them acceptable to us.

Hey, sequestration, which use to be regarded as completely off the wall, seems like the norm now.

Obviously, I have no good ideas on how to get out of this mess. I'm not a psychiatrist, so I can't fix Congress. I don't think anybody can. That's the disheartening thing about living with someone with a mental illness.

You're trapped in their chronic, sad condition.

All you can do is make jokes about it. The Onion had it right with its story last week about a broken sewer pipe. You've GOT to read it to make you feel better. (click on this hyperlink)  

Even Bison Are Protesting Government Shutdown Closing Of Public Lands

As the extreme frustration and white hot anger at Congress mounts, it gets uglier and uglier.

In Wyoming, even the bison are protesting Congress
and the government shutdown.  

National parks and monuments have been closed because of the government shutdown, though a few states are using local funds to reopen them.

In some cases, people have knocked down barricades at National Parks out of frustration.

In Wyoming, a stretch of federally owned land was also blocked off because of the government shutdown.

There, even the bison are getting into the act. They were caught on video tearing down the barricades on that federal land. Watch and have fun:

Running Into A $100 Fine Due To Government Shutdown

The federal government shutdown is definitely costing money, what with having to close then reopen everything once Congress gets its act together.

John Bell holds the ticket
he got for daring to run
through public lands during
the government shutdown  

Of course nobody wants the deficit to get worse, so you have to make up the money that might have been lost in the shutdown, right?

They're starting with a guy named John Bell. He took a run last week through Valley Forge National Historic Park as he often does, and got fined $100 for the effort, according to CBS Philly.  

It's a national park you see, and it's closed due to the insane federal shutdown over the budget impasse.

Plus, the federal government says it's short of money so I suppose they could use the $100 from Bell.

Bell said he parked his car in a remote lot that wasn't blocked off and figured the shutdown probably closed the visitors center and such, but the trails were still open.  No federal work has to be paid to just watch the trails, he figures.

Bell said he notes the irony of the fact that he was running for fitness, which would ultimately hold down health care costs. The shutdown was originally about Republicans wanting to stop funding Obamacare. He was doing his part to stay healthy and save health care dollars.

But then again, as I said, the government needs the $100.  Bell said he will appeal the fine, however.

Bell has company. The King of Prussia Courier in Pennsylvania said at least 20 other people have gotten fines for going into the Valley Forge Park.

If Bell and the others appeal the fines, I think they have a good chance. After all, aren't national parks technically their property?  The lands belong to the public, after all.

If not, I can picture an angry crowd with torches and pitchforks chasing John Boehner through the Valley Forge park trails. 

U.S. Government Not Working, So Chris Cox Of South Carolina Steps In, Perfectly

My new hero is a guy named Chris Cox of Mount Pleasant, South Carolina.

My new hero Chris  Cox tidied up the grounds
around the Lincoln Memorial because the
government shutdown made the landscape look shabby  

Cox. 45, is a chain saw sculptor who is in Washington DC for an art show.

The government shutdown means that the grounds around national treasures like the Lincoln Memorial are not being maintained, so they're starting to look shabby.

So Cox got to work, big time.  

He bought a $200 leaf blower at Home Depot, spent $100 on a used lawn mower at a thrift shop and got to work.

He mowed the lawn around the Lincoln Memorial, cleared pathways with his leaf blower, used his chain saw to get rid of a huge branch that fell across a walkway during a Monday storm, and cleaned out the trash barrels.

The U.S. Parks Service, which isn't doing any work except shooing people away from national monuments, shooed Cox away, too, but he got most of his work done (I don't blame the park rangers for doing this. They're kind of under orders to do so thanks to the idiots shutting down the government.)

I love this bit about Cox in the Washington Post:

"He said her does not have a political position on the shutdown. 'I'm not here to point fingers,' he said. 'I only want to inspire people to come out and make a difference.'"

"The building behind me serves as a moral compass, not only for our country but for the world. And over my dead body are we going to find trash pouring out of these trash cans,' he said. 'At the end of the day, we are the stewards of these huildings that are memorials."

Well, Chris Cox is totally the breath of fresh air we needed!

Frankly, though, it's my experience that most people really want to do the right thing. They might be imperfect, mistaken, wrong, stupid sometimes, but overall, they get things right and make things in their path better.

But when egos get in the way, it all goes south. Really, certain members of Congress seem like they would rather save face than save their country. Totally disgusting.

You want to fall into despair, but then people like Cox come along. He makes you think that maybe, yeah the idiots running the show are causing a huge clusterfuck, but maybe the rest of us can clean up the mess.

Cox used a mower, a leaf blower, and his generous frame of mind to clean up the mess. Not all of us have a mower or a leaf blower that will do any good easing this government shutdown.  I do feel a bit helpless as Congress careens out of control. But at least we had Cox to put just a tiny bit of order into the chaos.

Thank you Chris!!

Did Somebody Put Stupid/Crazy Pills In Washington DC's Water?

It's official. Some terrorist put some horrible substance in Washington DC's water, which made everybody go crazy and off the deep end.

Michelle Bachmann never fails to disappoint
with her craziness  

We had the tragic and definitely unfunny incidents in which the woman in the car with the toddler thought she was being monitored, caused that chase and was shot to death by Capitol Police.

This was followed a couple days later by that guy who mysteriously burned himself to death on the Mall.

Then, this week, people are saying the most amazing things.

We have the ever reliable Michelle Bachmann, who added to her usual cannard about how Obama is funding terrorists

But she's changed her tune! She's no longer upset about that! Because it's a good sign.

It's a sign of the End Times!  According to Right Wing Watch she said this:

"This happened and as of today the United States is willingly, knowingly, intentionally sending arms to terrorists, now what this says to me. I'm a believer in Jesus Christ, as I look at the End Times scripture, this says to me that the leaf is on the fig tree and we are to understand the sign of the times, which is your ministry, we are to understand where we are in God's end times history.

I'd settle for the End Times to Bachmann's Reign Of Error in Washington, but you can't have everything.

Meanwhile, a group of truckers have come up with a remarkable plan for later this week.  According to U.S. News and World Report, the truckers, to protest what they say is Washington trashing the Constitution, will slow traffic in DC, then put handcuffs on members of Congress and President Obama and make citizens arrests for treason, says Earl Conlon, a Georgia trucker who is handling logistics for this whole plan.

I'm almost disappointed a truckers group
won't try to arrest Obama, Congress during
a planned protest this weekend.  

What can possible go wrong with that plan?

Well, for one, not all of the group, Truckers Ride For the Constitution, are on board with this.

On the Truckers Ride for the Constitution Facebook page, it turns out that Conlon was not authorized to be spokesman.

Contrary to what Conlon might have said, the Truckers Ride for the Constitution people say now they will NOT try to arrest Obama or members of Congress.

In a way, I'm disappointed by this sudden little dose of sanity,  because the drama would have been a nice diversion.

Love the logo for the group, by the way. A hot babe in a blue dress standing in front of a big, manly truck. Cool!

I'm all for the trucker protest, as long as they don't play that hideous trucker CB radio song from the 1970s "Convoy." Makes me throw up every time.

Judging from the Truckers' Facebook page, most people in their ranks are relieved. They want to make their voices heard, which is good, but they don't want to be regarded as kooks, which is also good.

However, there's a few in every crowd. commenters on the Facebook page want action and some  arrests. Somebody named Cody Updegrave wrote of the arrest idea:

"Unlawful you say? How about the citizens who are being drug (sic) from their homes because the government want their land...or the countless Americans who have been stripped of their 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th amendment rights. FUCK THE LAW...it's time to take back our country."

 Um, from who? The people you elected.

It must be something in the water.

Most Blunt News Headline Ever: N.Y. Daily News And Congressional "Turds"

Tell us how you really feel, New York Daily News!

Today's New York Daily News  

There's widespread disgust with Congress with the shutdown and the failure to do their job and all that.

I saw a poll yesterday that shows Americans like Vladimir Putin more than they like Congress.  The sour, dour Putin gets a 19 percent approval rating while the Congressional approval rate is 10 percent.

I'd like to know who the 10 percent who like Congress. I haven't met any of them lately.

Today's New York Daily News cover, though, as you can see by the image in this post, takes the disgust with Congress to a new level.

So what do you think of the Daily News cover? Does it take things too far? Tell the truth? Prod people or Congress into action? Something else? Other opinions? I want to hear them. Just for fun, I guess