Your Morning Default Wonkdate: If You Have Not Yet Laid In A Supply Of Survival Seeds, You Should Probably Do That

 
 Because we are terrible nerds, our mental health breaks from our day job on Tuesday consisted of scrolling through our Twitter feed looking for news about the impending debt default and occasionally hitting ourselves in the face with a hammer. Because holy sobbing Majority Leader was Tuesday ever nuts. Let us see if we can sum it up before we feel the need to pick up that hammer again and not stop with the hitting until we pass out.

As morning broke, the Senate was close to agreeing on a plan to lift the debt ceiling and reopen the government so that our nation’s most cherished resource, old World War II veterans, could visit a memorial again. And also some kids could get treatment for their cancer and poor people could buy food again or something, who the fuck cares because GREATEST GENERATION BARRYCADES ARGLE BARGLE. It was a modest deal the Senate had put together, with a couple of very small concessions on Obamacare from both sides. Not ideal, certainly – nothing about this entire fuck-tussle is – but if the alternative is crashing the economy and returning to an all-TruckNutz-based monetary system, we could live with it.

Then Orange Julius decided he needed to make one last stab at pleasing the exploding brain embolisms masquerading as the GOP caucus in the House. So his leadership team (or perhaps we should say “leadership” team) announced it had a new proposal, one it unveiled to the entire caucus at a morning meeting, but not before everyone present joined in a rousing rendition of “Amazing Grace.” All three verses of “Amazing Grace.” This whole shitfuffle is turning into a Frank Capra movie written by Buck Henry.

The White House quickly pronounced this new plan unacceptable but it needn’t have bothered. Boehner’s new goodie bag was not enough for the Neanderthal-browed cockwagons of the Tea Party. In withholding their support, the teabaggers were egged on by Heritage Action, the lobbying arm of the Heritage Foundation, which furiously lobbied against the plan because it didn’t fully repeal the entire ACA -- a law, we never get tired of noting, that is based on a policy idea that originated with the Heritage Foundation.

So after fruitlessly whipping members and trying to get the Senate to fold by threatening to vote their plan through and then pull a Brave Sir Robin, the House “leadership” team gave up and announced it would not bring the bill to the floor for a losing vote. So now the Senate must save us all from economic apocalypse, or else it’s Thunderdome for everyone. Go Team Venture!

Then late on Tuesday whey-faced chipmunk turd Matt Boyle, reporter extraordinaire for Dead Breitbart’s Carnival of Emu Bukkake Fetishists, posted a story about how conservative activists are just so darn mad that their tiny minority of legislators representing 18% of the country’s population could not force their will on the rest of Congress. They had real momentum too! Ted Cruz told them so and everything! So we can look forward to more wingnut temper tantrums, which would be a hell of a lot more entertaining if they really were all taking place in a Buck Henry movie.

Now, where did we put that hammer?

[ TPM / Breitbart ]