This ends just as it’s getting good, but it’s still the most important five minutes you’ll ever spend to understand what the Republicans are doing to end democracy as we know it, and to overthrow the system of government that America once represented.
John Oliver, of Daily Show fame, is also half of a funny, intelligent podcast called The Bugle. Comedian Andy Zaltzman, who lives in England, is the other half, and John recently explained our government shutdown to his countryman.
He particularly pointed out the depressing legacy of legislative redistricting, and how it’s left even the worst representatives invulnerable to losing office. Oliver:
It’s a pretty bold move for Congress to do something that pisses almost everyone off on this kind of scale for no kind of rational reason, but again, that’s hardly surprising. There is no incentive for them to be anything other than awful. Just look at the numbers.
Congress currently has a ten percent approval rating. Apparently that is lower than the approval rating for colonoscopies, which actually makes sense because the more you think about it, both Congress and colonoscopies deal with assholes, but the American public can at least acknowledge that colonoscopies serve a practical function.
Also, colonoscopies exist to make assholes better; Congress just seems to make them worse. And yet, Andy, and yet, even with this mere ten percent approval rating, members of Congress also have a ninety percent re-election rate. How is that fucking possible? Andy, they’re somehow batting 900 while striking out every time they’re at bat. That doesn’t obey the basic laws of mathematics.
There’s no shortage of jokes about Kentucky.*
Q: What do a divorce in Kentucky, a tornado in Kansas, and a hurricane in Louisiana have in common?
A: Somebody’s fixin’ to lose the trailer.Q: What do you get when there are 32 Kentuckians in a room together?
A: A full set of teeth.We are a nation lost in tea party mission creep, as the Party of No struggles to figure out its evolving hostage demandTwo Kentucky guys were driving in the pickup, drinking a couple of long-neck Buds, when they came upon a police roadblock. The driver told his friend to peel off the label and stick it on his forehead, then stash the bottle under the seat, and he did the same. When it was their turn at the roadblock, the officer said, “Have you boys been drinking?” The driver replied, “No sir, we’re on the patch.”
So it came as small surprise that many in Kentucky who bombarded the state’s phone line and website to sign up for health coverage on Oct. 1 specified that they did not want Obamacare. Instead, they insisted, they wanted to sign up for coverage under the Affordable Care Act.
[Kentuckians, please note: Emergency FOXectomies are not covered under Obamacare.]
Kentucky’s response proves Republicans were right on almost every point.
In the diplomatic ranks, trained professionals toil,
To keep the peace and tamp down foreign turmoil.
But for Greek ambassador,
Trump picked an artful dodger —
The grifting, drunken blackmailer Kimberly Guilfoyle.
