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"  In the rush of holiday preparation, it may have escaped your notice that this is National Sellout Day, when we celebrate the arrival of baby Jesus into this world so that the Magi can show up at the stable, pay him homage, present him with gifts, and then peddle his location to Herod for 25 denarii and a bucket of oats for the camels. The Democratic party certainly has gone to great lengths to remind us what day it is. They have made great preparation. They have cooked the goose (their own, naturellement, and ours) and placed it on the table in the traditional manner, with a knife stuck in its back. They have rehearsed all the traditional holiday songs, including Ploys to the World, Hark the Deceitful Scumbags Sing, and Angles We Have Played on High. They have filled the wassail bowl to overflowing with the customary holiday libation, Hot Mulled Blood of Constituent. And later, we will all gather around the fire while our party elders read the famous story. I particularly like the part at the end when Scrooge realizes that reformation has its limits and sells the Cratchit children into indentured servitude so that the other men of the Exchange won&amp;#039;t think him weak, or mired in the past. Oh, they have made a day of it. First, the pillars of Jell-O in the Senate roll over on the itty-bitty surtax they wanted to lay on the plutocrats to pay for a payroll tax cut for the rest of us. Then, the president announces that he&amp;#039;s not going to veto after all the bill in which 400 years of Western jurisprudence is pretty much torn to ribbons and tossed to the wind, albeit slightly less deeply into the wind than the original monstrosity would have liked. And, finally, Ron Wyden of Oregon steps forward to give cover to zombie-eyed granny-starver Paul Ryan&amp;#039;s latest attempt to &amp;quot;reform&amp;quot; Medicare in the same way that Arthur (Bomber) Harris &amp;quot;reformed&amp;quot; the building codes in Dresden. It&amp;#039;s a Very Special Holiday Episode of the long-running hit comedy, Ah, Who Gives a Fk Anyway? This is an outrage. This is borderline sociopathic. This is so gloriously suicidal that I keep waiting for an angel to come down from heaven to show David Plouffe and Harry Reid what Washington would be like if they&amp;#039;d never been born. (Answer? Not very different at all, although the bill to authorize a statue on the National Mall honoring Mr. Potter passed the House with substantial Democratic support. The president indicated he would sign the bill if the the Republicans would tell him where they hid all his pens. Mitch McConnell decried the president&amp;#039;s obviously divisive rhetoric on the subject of pens. White House sources then said they&amp;#039;d settle for a knitting needle so the president could sign the bill in his own blood. In the New York Times, David Brooks praised the president&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;grown-up&amp;quot; solution to the impasse. In Vermont, Senator Bernie Sanders took another slug of bourbon and considered a career in telemarketing.) It cannot be emphasized enough. Of the three issues under discussion, the polling data on two of them simply could not be clearer. The American people want taxes raised on the very wealthiest among us, and the American people do not want Paul Ryan&amp;#039;s clammy hands anywhere near the Medicare program. Public opinion is (distressingly) ambivalent on the detainee provisions, but it&amp;#039;s not overly popular with the people who have to implement it, and it has retired Marine generals throwing bricks at it, and, dammit, the president taught constitutional law, or so we are told repeatedly. None of these &amp;quot;compromises&amp;quot; will solve a single one of the country&amp;#039;s critical problems. None of these &amp;quot;compromises&amp;quot; will create a single job. All they will do is toss away almost every one of the major political advantages the Democratic party has going into the 2012 elections. My god, six months ago, Paul Ryan was a squawking albatross around his party&amp;#039;s neck. (Remember how he said he&amp;#039;d &amp;quot;given up fear for Lent,&amp;quot; and then proceeded to start charging people a fee to come to his town meetings, and setting the cops on constituents who showed up at his office while he was on vacation? Ah, thim was the days.) The &amp;quot;Ryan Plan&amp;quot; was well on its way to being an anchor. Now, thanks to the Democrats, and to a preposterously compliant elite political press, Ryan&amp;#039;s rehabilitation is nearly complete. Nice work, fellas.  Here&amp;#039;s a tip, gang: The American people are not angry at government because people yell at each other and nothing ever gets done. The American people are angry because people yell at each other and nothing the American people really want ever gets done. They want higher taxes on billionnaires. They want Medicare kept out of the hands of the vandals. If they think about it a little, they even like their jurisprudence with a little habeas corpus sprinkled on top. Instead, they get endless platitudes, and the steady, futile placating of an insatiable political opposition. Jesus wept. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a12071/government-shutdown-6617632/>