this is not a drill

the world is at GQ and the House went home

I would like to say something profound and optimistic today but I am out of energy after a week where the world is at General Quarters: on the precipice of real conflict. The problem is that much conflict is within the loosely-affiliated politicals called Republicans. It would be entertaining if it weren’t so dangerous.

Please don’t get me wrong. The Executive Branch continues carrying out its constitutional obligations, even as we daily step closer to another shutdown. I am sure if we calculated how much of your and my tax dollars went to the preparations for the last one, it would rival the social programs that many are determined to shut down.

The national security community watches Israel and Gaza, Ukraine and Taiwan as carefully as any other day. The Consulates around the world will answer the needs of U.S. citizens in foreign lands, hopefully without facing a major disruption of some sort as the State Department warned about only yesterday. The Social Security Administration will continue preparing the cheques upon which millions of elderly rely monthly. All of that and so many other vital aspects of people’s lives will carry on because the Executive branch is functioning right now.

The Judiciary is also functioning.

The Legislative Branch, a constitutionally co-equal branch with the other two, stopped working in January 2023 because the slightly larger proportion of elected officials in one of its two chambers, is in shreds. Yes, a token number of bills passed that body since the beginning of this session but the paralysis desired by about a dozen insurrectionists—figuratively and seemingly literally several years back—is in full force. This will please some voters to no end because it will allegedly illustrate why Government does not work.

No, the House of Representatives does not work under the current cast of Republican characters. They have now recessed three straight weekends with no advance in determining a Speaker of the House. The Republicans are a joke the world finds so humourous because our lecturing on democracy—the basis to so much of our foreign policy after 9/11 as we sacrificed trillions of dollars and thousands of lives in Afghanistan and Iraq—is demonstrably hollow and specious.

I can imagine Putin’s or Xi’s talking points the next time we pontificate about democracy as a better system than their own dictatorships.

Yet, my friends, 95% of those who are playing this game will be reelected. We have only ourselves to blame. While I would love to blame someone else, I am truly the ultimate realistic analyst. A majority of this country elected these clowns by voting against ideas.

The voters never bothered to ask why the grand condemnations of the ‘anti’ candidates would lead to anything positive. They never even thought about what they wanted. They just did not want ‘the dehumanised’ others to be successful. Chaos is now the objective and chaos is where we stand.

If you or I behaved like these clowns, we would not get paid nor would we be returned Monday to work, much less for a term in office and, in most cases, a career of decades’ duration in that beautiful domed building. And yet we continue the madness.

No wonder people feel alienated. We are barely on Argentina’s level as a functioining regime. We are showing a definitely pitiful performance on the part of the country so many inside and abroad used to turn to as the last greatest hope.

Not so much now. Not at all.

I wish you a weekend with sanity. We all need that right now. October 2023 has been a doozy and we have another 11 days ahead. Oh, my.

It was cloudy this morning but I still love this view and this country. The afternoon skies were lighter which I welcomed.

Thank you for continuing to read Actions Create Consequences. If you think this is worth sharing with someone else, I encourage you to do so.

Be safe and be well. I wish I could say the same for the states of our governing body. As Scarlett O’Hara says, ‘tomorrow is another day’. FIN