Get Ready For Stupid

Unless something very significant changes in Washington in the next 12 hours or so the US government is going to start shutting down in in the early hours of Tuesday morning in a last-ditch attempt to keep from defaulting on its debts.  To be clear, the entire mess is avoidable; the budget line-items covered by a debt increase amount to expenditures which Congress has already signed off on and the only thing standing between the House and a budget that would sail through the Senate and across the President's desk is political grandstanding over an issue on which they've already held more than 40 votes.

What's happening in Washington right now amounts to the Republican Party threatening to wreck the nation and its economy if they don't get their way.  It's government by hostage taking.

False Religion

The hits just keep on coming from the Republican Party, both in Washington DC and, apparently, in Richmond.  Virginia plays host to the only competitive Governor's race this year and as things heat up national attention is focused in on the race between Ken Cuccinelli (R) and Terry McAuliffe (D).

As weird as that race is shaping up to be -- Cuccinelli is actively under investigation by the FBI and McAuliffe is featured in almost every Cuccinelli doing what looks like a shot -- it's nothing compared to the race for Lieutenant Governor featuring Republican E.W. Jackson and Democrat Ralph Northam, who's name I actually had to look up because he's so irrelevant to the race.

Northam is an unmemorable candidate and his presence or absence in the race will likely not move the polls one point in either direction.  Jackson, on the other hand, is a loose cannon, espousing all manner of highly controversial, almost theocratic, views on a wide range of social issues.  The most recent, though far from the most outrageous, of these was given voice in a sermon he gave at the Restoration Fellowship Church in Strasburg, VA in which he described non-christians as "engaged in some sort of false religion."

Good luck defunding Obamacare

It is rare that this blog, leftist as it is, agrees with much of anything that Karl Rove has to say but before being Leftist I strive to be a Pragmatist and in this I have to give Karl a tip of the hat.  His editorial in the Wall Street Journal is spot on.

Understanding Chemical Weapons In 10 Easy Lessons

This post on PolicyMic is the dumbest thing I've ever seen. There are many, many good reasons for the United States to avoid involvement in the Syria situation, not the least of which is that the people we would be aiding - the rebels - have had their movement largely co-opted by more or less the exact same folks we've spent the better part of the last decade fighting in Afghanistan.

Wesley Messamore, however, thinks that we lack "moral authority" to intervene in Syria because of "10 chemical weapons attacks Washington doesn't want you to talk about."

Let's run down Mr Messamore's list, shall we?