Congress May Shut Down Government This Week. Again.

Are you ready for Government Shutdown II: The Shutdownening ? Because that might be where we’re heading if the sacks of uselessness that make up our Congress can’t put together a spending bill to keep the federal government operating past Thursday. Hooray for government by emergency.

The spending plan that Congress is working on has been termed a “cromnibus,” and there is an explanation of the term here. As with any bill that comes out of Congress, partisans are rushing to attach riders upon which the fate of the Republic depends, or else we’ll have to shut down nonessential functions and furlough employees during the holiday season. Sorry kids, Santa isn’t coming this year because Republicans still can’t accept the contraception mandate.

Let’s look at a couple of the riders that the Insane Dipshit Caucus tried to pass, any of which could make or have made the difference between having a functioning federal government or not in approximately 48 hours.

• The aforementioned contraception rider, which would have let employers opt out of providing contraception coverage in their health plans. We don’t know why these employers don’t just go the Hobby Lobby route and pretend to have sincere religious objections to their employees taking slut pills. Certainly it can’t be a case of employers having consciences and being unwilling to lie all of a sudden. In any case, this rider has apparently already been killed, which is good news for employed sluts everywhere.

• Legalized weed in Washington, D.C. The residents of the nation’s capital in November passed Initiative 71, which legalizes the sale of pot in the city. This did not sit well with conservatives in Congress, who really want to show all those crazed District residents who is boss. (Hint: It is not the people who as it is have no congressional representation.) So as it stands now, possession of up to 2 ounces of pot and three marijuana plants at home will be legal, but developing a regulatory scheme similar to that in Colorado and Washington State to tax and sell the devil’s weed will be a no-no. Sorry, D.C. residents!

• A rider that would roll back certain provisions of Dodd-Frank and allow Wall Street banks to trade financial derivatives that are insured by the FDIC, which means taxpayers might be on the hook for any losses the banks incur. What could possibly go wrong? Let us put it this way. When even Chuck Schumer is resistant to an idea that helps Wall Street, you can assume it’s a bad one.

• Hey, do you like your kids' schools serving lunches with lower levels of salt? Well tough shit, hippie. One measure Republicans are pushing in the omnibus bill would cut funding for First Lady Michelle Obama's nutritious school lunch programs. Conservatives claim that they are not opposed to healthy lunches but just want to give school cafeterias "pace and flexibility" in how much kidney-destroying sodium they dump onto little Tyler's tray at mealtime. It certainly has nothing to do with all their years-long efforts to demean the FLOTUS and her efforts  in encouraging the nation's children to not be obese, slovenly, waddling coronaries in Raffi t-shirts.

Yr Wonkette will monitor this story closely and keep you apprised of whether Congress will have to cancel its Christmas vacation and stay in town all through next week to get a deal done. Please try to avoid dripping crocodile tears on your keyboards and shorting out your computers.

[ Talking Points Memo / Washington Post / HuffPo ]