"Shocking Development: Republicans Shut Down Prefrontal Cortex"

There is a new conspiracy theory circulating among the far-right proclaiming that the President of the United States is secretly arming al-Qaeda-linked terrorists in Syria. The precise reasoning by this theory is, as usual, a bit vague, but seems to have something to do with the presumption of all far-right conservatives that all brown people everywhere are secret members of al Qaeda, and that Barack Obama is secretly a Muslim and therefore secretly a member of al Qaeda, and all those drones killing people across the world for so much as drawing "I heart al Qaeda" on napkin is a false flag to distract us all from how the President of the United States secretly wants the terrorists to win. It may also be a delayed reaction to John McCain going to Syria and demanding in very stern tones that we give people he barely knew those very weapons, or a general confusion as to which of the twenty or so existing far-right gun conspiracy theories ought to be linked to brown people at any given time, or—you know what, parsing this out is impossible. Suffice it to say that they now believe Barack Obama is funneling arms to al Qaeda because of fucking course they do.
Leave it to Michele Bachmann, who I will remind all of America is still an actual member of Congress and not a crazy person with twenty cats who calls C-SPAN every evening to inform the hosts as to what legislative ideas her cats have given her today, to take this new theory to its only logical conclusion: the End Times are upon us.
"This happened and as of today the United States is willingly, knowingly, intentionally sending arms to terrorists," she said. "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 signs of the times, which is your ministry, we are to understand where we are in God’s End Times history.”
"Rather than seeing this as a negative, we need to rejoice, Maranatha Come Lord Jesus, His day is at hand," Bachmann added. “When we see up is down and right is called wrong, when this is happening, we were told this; these days would be as the days of Noah.”
So it's the best of all possible news, America: it's the apocalypse! Praise the secret Muslim Barack Obama for unleashing it!
Again, Rep. Michele Bachmann is a member of Congress. She's one of the people currently celebrating the shutdown of the American government as being a fine thing. She is on—and I am not making this up—the House Intelligence Committee. She, along with Rep. Biff and the various Texas gas leak victims that state has elevated into positions of national responsibility, decides the mundanities of whether we need to bother with government at all or need to abandon it all and dedicate ourselves instead to writing WELCOME BACK JESUS in gigantic, burning oil-fueled letters written across the middle of the North American continent.
What's shutting down the national government or defaulting on the national debt when Jesus himself is on His way down to officially give your ideological enemies the final what-for? I'm beginning to suspect the only reason Michele Bachmann was so keen on becoming president was that she wanted to give the ol' nuclear football a nice, hard kick.

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Republican presidential candidate, Pat Buchanan, the living American who has served longest as a White House senior staff adviser, observed: “The Republican philosophy might be summarized thus: To hell with principle; what matters is power, and that we have it, and that they do not.” “Where the Right Went Wrong" 


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"The Reign of Morons Is Here," Charles P. Pierce, The Atlantic

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"A Southerner Explains Tea Party Radicalism: The Civil War Is Not Over"


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Diane Rehm's Brilliant Panel Discussion: "Possible Repercussions Of A U.S. Debt Default At Home And Abroad"

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"The Great Recession Vaporized 40% Of Americas's Net Worth. The Tea Party Intends Worse."

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"The Shutdown Is A Republican Civil War" by Ezra Klein


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Republican Rule And Economic Catastrophe: A Lockstep Relationship"

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"Politics and Economics: The 101 Courses You Wish You Had"

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"Republicans for Revolution," A Study In Anarchic Apocalypticism

"Sarah Palin As The Mad Hatter" (Image)