The Reign Of Morons

Reign Of Morons

The Article: The Reign Of Morons Is Here by Charles P. Pierce in Esquire.

The Text: Only the truly naive can be truly surprised.

Only the truly child-like can have expected anything else.

In the year of our Lord 2010, the voters of the United States elected the worst Congress in the history of the Republic. There have been Congresses more dilatory. There have been Congresses more irresponsible, though not many of them. There have been lazier Congresses, more vicious Congresses, and Congresses less capable of seeing forests for trees. But there has never been in a single Congress — or, more precisely, in a single House of the Congress — a more lethal combination of political ambition, political stupidity, and political vainglory than exists in this one, which has arranged to shut down the federal government because it disapproves of a law passed by a previous Congress, signed by the president, and upheld by the Supreme Court, a law that does nothing more than extend the possibility of health insurance to the millions of Americans who do not presently have it, a law based on a proposal from a conservative think-tank and taken out on the test track in Massachusetts by a Republican governor who also happens to have been the party’s 2012 nominee for president of the United States. That is why the government of the United States is, in large measure, closed this morning.

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Chronicling The Hours Before The Shutdown

Shutdown Diaries

The Article: My Shutdown Diary by David Weigel in Slate.

The Text: Monday, Sept. 30, 2:08 p.m. If the House GOP’s Saturday night vote-a-rama had a point, it was pure PR. House Republicans were at work while Americans were watching baseball; Senate Democrats were AWOL. On Sunday, led by Conference Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a gaggle of House Republicans had stood between the Capitol and C-SPAN cameras and hectored Majority Leader Harry Reid’s Democrats for not moving the newest continuing resolution—the one with the one-year delay of the Affordable Care Act. “Come back and do what is required in a democracy!” said Arkansas Rep. Tim Griffin. “O Senate, where art thou?” asked Tennessee Rep. Marsha Blackburn.

The Senate was biding time until Reid brought it back to kill the resolution. Senators filed in to table it, all 54 Democrats versus all 46 Republicans. Arizona Sen. John McCain stuck around after his vote to tell reporters, who have rekindled their affection for him, why the House GOP was careening toward death and destruction.

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Atheists Start Their Own PAC To Elect Nonreligious Candidates

Atheist PAC

The Article: Atheists Start PAC To Elect Nonreligious Candidates by Frank James in NPR.

The Text: Americans who count themselves among the “nones” — as in atheists, agnostics or those of no definite religious affiliation — have launched a new political action committee.

The goal? To support the election of like-minded lawmakers or, at a minimum, candidates committed to upholding the constitutional separation between church and state.

“The Freethought Equality Fund will work to elect the nones … in addition to those who will work for our rights so we can finally have the representation in Congress we deserve,” said Maggie Ardiente of the American Humanist Association, at a Washington news conference Wednesday where the new PAC was rolled out.

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Afghanistan Veteran On Food Stamps Writes To “Caring” Conservatives

Homeless Vet

The Article: Afghanistan Veteran on Food Stamps Writes Letter to ‘Caring’ Conservatives by Richard Roe in Americans Against The Tea Party.

The Text: Some people measure a society’s condition by the lifestyles of the rich and famous — and those people are usually the rich and famous. For the rest of humanity, a society’s success is measured by the living conditions of the poorest. And who exactly the “poorest” are.

This letter, posted on September 19th by a combat veteran named Jason, speaks volumes of what American poverty looks like on the side streets of our society, and of the people who sleep on them.

“My name is Jason. I turned 35 less than a week ago. My first job was maintenance work at a public pool when I was 17. I worked 40-hours a week while I was in college. I’ve never gone longer than six months without employment in my life and I just spent the last three years in the military, one of which consisted of a combat tour of Afghanistan.

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Why Young Americans Should Emigrate

Young Americans Emigrate

The Article: Get Out While You Can: Why Young Americans Should Emigrate by Thomas McGath in AlterNet.

The Text: The 20-somethings of my generation have been marginalized by the economic situation in America. We’ve had a tricky time finding a place in the economy and many of us have become burdens on our families, through student loans and living costs. Now, how do we fix that?

Emigrate, if you can afford it. Millennials have a ton of education and no use for it. There are many other countries that represent a great opportunity for millennials looking to enter into an increasingly globalized work market. I’m not saying we should try to be members of an elite in other countries — we should reject our shackles and become more worldly.

Part of that is learning a second or third language, something I thought I never would do. This changed after my time abroad in Ireland while studying at University College Dublin. I decided I was going to learn German, even though it was not the most useful of languages. Four years later, after teaching myself German from scratch, I have an operating fluency in German and now live in Berlin, where I will soon start my master’s degree. The tuition costs a fraction of what it would in America. Despite being an foreigner, I have access to public health insurance available for students at only 60 Euros a month.

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