"Ted"

There is a scene in the film, "DAVE", where Kevin Kline, who plays Dave (who is playing the President of the United States) is going through the Federal budget with his buddy, Murray (Charles Grodin) who is an accountant.  Dave notices an expenditure of some ridiculous amount in a government program that, in his estimation, makes people 'feel good about the American car they already bought'. It's a waste of money.

Well, the teapublicans just blew TWENTY FOUR BILLION American dollars making the delusional fools who follow them feel good about the insane, anti-American activities they have been at since the very moment Barack Obama was elected President. That's a pretty hefty price for the rest of us to pay. In the fictional '93 film, tens of millions of people bought American cars that they already probably felt OK about. In the reality of 2013, only a few million people feel good about tea party tactics. It was a very expensive and unnecessary sermon to the choir.

Oh, I know that they believed they would gain some converts. They also believe Obama was born in Kenya and didn't go to college, as well as a thousand other easily checked tidbits about his life. I won't go through those because they are stupid. Suffice to say, they have been brought to us by the same folks who brought us the shutdown though. And that speaks volumes. Billions really.

For their time and our money, House teapublicans got nothing. None of their demands were met. The ACA (Obamacare) is still the law of the land and all the other demands they piled on in hopes of getting Obama to settle for something were not met either. They got nothing.

This was terrorism. Economic terrorism. Hostages and demands- just no gun play. The tea partiers like Cruz are simply terrorists who don't like the finality of airplanes. Al Queda surely took notice. One of their stated goals is the financial destruction of the US. 9/11 and a few terrorist attacks have caused the government to spend untold billions on anti-terrorism. They likely view that as a "victory". We view it as something to spend money on.

Our own House republicans shut down the government and nearly bankrupted the nation, something Al Queda could only dream of doing.

I'd like to know why. They've been acting like jilted lovers since Obama's first election. The GOP- the Grand Old Party- for a party that fancies itself  the party of patriots, they haven't cleanly won an election since GH Bush waaaaaay back in the 20th century. This whole thing reeked of: "If I can't have her- no one will!" That's no way for a patriot to treat Lady Liberty.

Whether it's greedy Wall Street bankers orchestrating a recession for fun and profit, or a party in part of the legislative branch of the government trying to...do whatever they were trying to do, there is no greater threat to the US than us. We've got the right guy in charge. I'm just not so sure we've got the right country.

Ted Cruz, by the way, was born in Canada to a Cuban father who fought alongside Fidel Castro in the communist revolution in Cuba. True story. Ted just led the shutdown of the United States government. His followers believe our president is Kenyan and not qualified to serve as POTUS.

You can't make this shit up. If it were a movie, you'd walk out. It just wasn't worth $24 billion.