So Here's Some Stupid Shit (Shockingly, Congress is Involved)

[extreme bad language warning throughout]

There's a lot of conflict in American politics right now, but I think there is one thing that Americans of every political stripe can agree upon, and that one thing is: "shit is fucked."  Regardless of what shit you think is fucked, odds are overwhelmingly good that you have a list of fucked shit, and you are probably angry about this.  I am angry too, which is why I had to put a bad language warning up front.  

So okay, shit is fucked, and since Congress has the primary power to unfuck some shit - any shit - I think we can further agree that Congress should stop dicking around and address some of the stuff that has the most overlap on various constituencies' Shit is Fucked lists.  

Here is the Congressional calendar for the last two months of this year.

Blue = House recess; Yellow = Senate recess

By my count, there are seventeen legislative days left in the Congressional session.  [NB: "A Congress" lasts for a period of two years, starts on January 3rd of the odd-numbered year following an election year, and is broken up into two sessions.  This is the 112th Congress and we're just finishing up the first session.]  Rep. Eric Cantor just released the Legislative Calendar for the second session, and would you like to know how many days are on the calendar?

ONE HUNDRED AND FUCKING NINE.

I'd just like to take a moment to say, "Eric Cantor, you are a gigantic fucking asshole.  Beyond being a shitty enough person to stand up and say 'oh no, I'm not taking any disaster relief funds unless they're offset with budget cuts' with a hurricane bearing down on your district, you are also too much of a pathetic, yellow-bellied dickbag to take your medicine from your own fucking constituents at your Town Halls.  Do you know what the point of keeping disaster funding fluid is, Mr. Cantor?  IT IS BECAUSE DISASTERS ARE DISASTERS.  Amazingly enough, they do not give you multiple months' notice.  THAT'S WHAT MAKES THEM DISASTERS.  And frankly given the fact that your negotiating style is of the fucking sandbox variety, i.e. sitting down crosslegged and pouting while saying "NO!" to everything everyone suggests, I'd appreciate it if you don't try to blow smoke up my ass about how in the face of disaster all y'all are going to be able to quickly and efficiently settle on some spending cuts, because motherfucker, I know your ass is attaching policy riders to that shit and that ain't gonna fly.  While most of this is more irritating than setting 109 workdays for people who make $174k annually in the midst of some of the biggest shit that we have faced as a nation, I'm certainly willing to take this opportunity to point out that you are a spineless sack of shit who shouldn't be dogcatcher in East Jesus Nowhere, VA, and to commend your district on what is clearly a thriving underground drug market since that's the only way I can imagine a majority of anyone who isn't in a persistent vegetative state voting to send your snivelling ass to Congress."

In any case, it's not just about Eric Cantor being a shiftless douchebag, it's about the fact that we have real shit to deal with and Congress will only be working 126 days between now and the end of 2012.  Before I get to why this is extra obnoxious, let me state for the record that the next time some Congressional asshole has the absolute gall to stand up and suggest that teachers don't really work hard because they have summers off, I am literally going to shit in a box and mail it to their office.  No.  I will find their home address and send it there, because poop-bombing the interns isn't really acceptable. Anyway.  I'm sure you're thinking to yourself, "but Josie, I'm sure that Congress is doing a lot of really important and significant stuff to fix the fucked shit during those 126 days!"  You are correct!  Let's take a look at what they are doing today.

Oh, they're voting on a non-binding resolution that "reaffirms 'In God We Trust' as the official motto of the United States and supports and encourages the public display of the national motto in all public buildings, public schools, and other government institutions."

Now see, this is interesting to me, because when Republicans took the House in 2010, one of the first things - the first things! - they did was to put some new rules in place basically saying that symbolic resolutions were a waste of everyone's time.  This was a good call!  In fact, Virginia's own Eric Cantor referred to these rules when he insisted that Congress could not pass a symbolic resolution noting the assassination of Osama bin Laden, in whose pursuit we have waged a ten year war.  That's a pretty big deal, no?  I mean, if you're going to skip a resolution like that, you must be extremely fucking serious about this rule.  

Oh wait, we can vote on this to push our Bible-thumping bullshit, claw at the separation of church and state AND shame President Obama about biffing a reference to the motto by saying it was "e pluribus unum," which was the motto up until America threw its little Commie fit and made "In God We Trust" the motto in 1956 and in fact still appears on the Great Seal of the United States?  

Well then by all means, let's piss away a day voting on this useless, pathetic rule while Americans starve and sleep in the cold.