i would say that i can't believe that republicans would willingly lie to themselves (and the American public) about the contents of a set of badly edited (and provably false) videos concerning Planned Parenthood, and are willing to blow up everything (figuratively) to prove a stupid point. but this is the same party that puts science deniers on the House and Senate science committees, pretends that Obamacare is going to be "worse than slavery" and "the destruction of everything", and thinks that running failed business leaders for president is proof that billionaires need more tax breaks. i mean, reality is not exactly republicans' strong point is what I'm saying here.

what makes it worse is that we have a few members of the Senate running for president, and are trying to use an impending shutdown to somehow prove they're capable of running the country. if this happened in an off-year campaign cycle we probably see an imminent shutdown and a last-minute deal to prevent it. this time around, we've got Ted Cruz staking his entire political future on the premise that the foremost provider of women's health care in the US is harvesting fetal body parts for profit, and he's willing to prevent the entire nation from functioning just to prove this point. and John Boehner is unwilling to allow Democrats to vote against the republican plan to keep the government running, but he's also hesitant to tell the extremists from his own party to go fuck themselves because he doesn't want to face a coup for Speaker of the House where he might not win again.

and the worst part of it all, is they'll all be on TV the day after the government shuts down trying to pretend it's Obama's fault, or the Democrats' fault, or anyone but themselves.