First Wisconsin, now this. It's amazing how little Republicans care about democracy, quality of life, etc. It seems like their constant agenda is to ensure that the 2000 coup d'etat just rolls on & on, as undisturbed as humanly possible. And Democrats seem to do their absolute very best to just lie down and let it roll.

(Bob Dylan had interesting things to say about it all, nearly 50 years ago. About our current incredibly useless President: Only A Pawn in their Game; and these breathtaking times we live in -- no, thrive in! -- here in America, that undereducated, unhealthy, impoverished, fascist & racist land we live in:  With God On Our Side.) (Oh, calm down, gang! It's just all delightful metaphor for a wonderfully sunny Saturday here in the Midwest.)

The NPR ‘emergency’ 

Dana Milbank, The Washington Post

House Republicans called an “emergency meeting” last week, suspending the usual procedures to rush an urgent piece of legislation to the floor.

Had the new majority finally come up with a job-creation bill? A compromise with Democrats to rein in the deficit?

Not quite. This particular emergency involved the lower end of the FM-radio dial. Republicans, in an urgent budget-cutting maneuver, were voting to cut off funding for National Public Radio. All $5 million of it — or one ten-thousandth of 1 percent of the federal budget.

“I wish,” longtime Rep. David Dreier (R-Calif.) said in a moment of candor, “this could have been handled a little differently.”

President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner both say that they want an “adult conversation” about the nation’s problems. But so far the discussion resembles one that might be heard on a school bus.

Democrats would have been in a good position to point out the Republicans’ lack of seriousness, except they were engaged in their own trivial pursuit. On Thursday, the same day the Republicans were doing battle with Diane Rehm, the House was also debating a bill by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) ordering full withdrawal from Afghanistan by year’s end. Kucinich recently established his gravitas by suing the House cafeteria over an olive pit he found in his lunch.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office ran the numbers and calculated the impact this emergency measure would have on government spending: “No effect.”

Five minutes after acting on this budgetary emergency, House Republicans voted to continue the war in Afghanistan — which costs about $10 billion. Per month. They then flew home for a vacation. (Complete article is here.)

The deputy sheriffs, the soldiers, the governors get paid
And the marshals and cops get the same
But the poor white man’s used in the hands of them all like a tool
He’s taught in his school
From the start by the rule
That the laws are with him
To protect his white skin
To keep up his hate
So he never thinks straight
’Bout the shape that he’s in
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game...

c- 1963, Bob Dylan