- by NoahOnly pawns in their game. So sang Bob Dylan. He was singing about the assassination of Medgar Evers and how politicians and others in authority use poor whites as pawns and pit people against eachother to gain and keep power. But if Bob Dylan were to rewrite his song today, he could write it about the children with cancer who were at increased risk when republicans wouldn't fund CHIP when they'd had months to do so but didn't because they wanted to use those children in their shutdown game. He could also write a verse about DACA and the Dreamers, many of whom could be sent to their deaths, and, he could certainly write one about our people who serve in the military. All were pawns in this game, as were we all.CHIP and the DACA got a lot of coverage in the most recent Government Shutdown (or Shitdown as I call it when Señor Trumpanzee clouds my mind), but, the use of our military people as pawns got less attention. As both sides pushed their various pawns around the slimy congressional chessboard, it was the Republicans, once again pretending that they were the party that supports the troops more than the other guys, not that either party has much of a right to make that claim. Mitch McConnell and his crew of miscreants made a big deal of our military not getting paid because of his shutdown. Of course, he didn't say it was his shutdown. He ignored that rule about "He who lives in a glass house shouldn't throw stones" and pointed his manicured fingers at the other guys. That's what politicians do. They think they are born to do it and they do it because we let them.Another twisted little fuck named Mike Pence slithered over to the Middle East for the weekend, apparently just to pull some more of his seemingly endless bullshit out of his bag when he spoke to a handpicked group of soldiers and cried crocodile tears about "You troops won't get paid because the Democrats hate you. The handpicked crowd even applauded on cue; just like at a gameshow. The thing is, this little worm was saying this while, back in the Capitol Building, McConnell was killing a proposal by Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill that would get "the troops" fully paid regardless of the shutdown. He even said he would take it up the very next day, which, of course he didn't, because he is incapable of an act of honesty. The whole thing gets sicker when you realize that Senator McCaskill is one of those Republican types with a D next to her name. So, for McConnell, "the troops" had nothing to do with it. It was all despicable theater. "The troops" be damned. If a Democrat was gonna propose paying those who protect us, well, I'm just gonna stand here, purse my lips and throw one of my patented hissy fits. Pawns in their game.When I look at McConnell and Pence and the game they played over the weekend, I see them being what they were meant to be:gameshow hosts on a prison planet. They really aren't capable of much more than spinning a big wheel and saying Ha Ha! Fuck you! You lose!" And, we do. They played their game well. Republican voters got all up in arms about, not only their deep need to deport "brown people," but the "libtards don't support our troops" thing as well. They let themselves get played again. They even think people like Pence and McCConnell support them just like they thought their Señor Trumpanzee was going to save their jobs at Carrier and Sam's Club and in the coal mines, just like he said. And, that tax scam was going to make a bigly swell difference for them. Pawns in their game.So, the shutdown is over, for a couple of weeks. What goes on in the Capitol Building isn't just a circus. It's also not just a game of Jeopardy where the public are victims and the gameshow hosts and the TV station take all their money and live on it. The Capitol Building is a horror movie. The Capitol Building is the hotel in The Shining. One day, I'll be looking at that beautiful dome, that dome flanked by the House of so-called representatives on one side and the $enate on the other and it'll be like that elevator scene where blood is oozing and then rushing out of the elevator. But, this time, it won't be blood that's pouring out every door and window and flowing down those marble steps. It'll be exactly what you'd expect. It will be the essence of the people who work there. It will be a tidal wave of raw sewage.
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