When GorT gets fed up he gets fired up, when he gets fired up the laser he gets fired up

GorT is pretty much fed up with the federal government.  Ever since “politician” was viewed as an acceptable answer to “What is your profession?” the American governmental institutions have declined.

GorT is fed up with the talk from the left about how the GOP is “terrorizing” the country by “holding it hostage” over a bill that the SCOTUS affirmed.  GorT is fed up with Obama making speeches about what Congress should do and then he sits back and does little else.  GorT is fed up with the GOP bickering like schoolkids.  GorT is fed up with what passes for debate in this country when most of it boils down to name calling,  poisoning the well, Galileo Arguments, ad homiem attacks, argument by vehemence, causal reductionism, and more fallacious arguments.  GorT is fed up with people who blame the Republicans for this mess when the Senate – currently led by the Democrats – most likely could have avoided this problem by following their Constitutionally mandated job and enacted a federal budget*.  GorT is fed up with those who don’t blame the Republicans because they are part of the problem and withholding funding for the PP-ACA law** is not how to confront unpopular legislation.  GorT is fed up with Obama appointed government workers who make decisions to shut down their offices and departments when the regulations say that they can remain open and operational***.  GorT is fed up with the mass media for its poor coverage of the various failures that led us to this point – the budget failure by the President (delivering it late and then it being so ridiculous that it receives zero votes of support in the Senate) and the Senate (who never took up the budget process.  GorT is pretty fed up.  GorT feels like he’s channeling a bit of a ‘Puter rant just not as creatively or Eleventy!@@!3 as ‘Puter would rant — see, I even have asterisk footnotes.

Simply put, here is my opinion on what the GOP should do at this point: send over a bill that funds the federal government through January 2nd.  Get the country through the holidays while Congress works to correct this problem.  Then, I would publish a list of issues with the PP-ACA that they wish to negotiate and begin drafting and sending over bills regarding them: remove exemptions from the bill for unions, remove the medical device tax, require a re-assessment of the cost of the program to be done annually and publicly reported, etc. Push these issues loudly.  Go on any and all talk shows saying that you’ve compromised and sent forward the budget and now you want honest negotiation by the Democrats.  Point out the failures and delays that the Obama Administration itself has introduced and approved because the “law” wasn’t ready.  Point out the failures and problems in implementation – the 500,000 children that will lose coverage.  Gather information from the country on what they don’t like and bring it forward – hold town halls, gather emails, get hard data on costs and impacts to companies, etc.  Then in February when the President fails to deliver his budget on time for the fourth year in a row, make noise about it.  Point out how we need to stop operating by Continuing Resolutions and need to get our house in order by implementing a true federal budget,  Senate GOP members should have the basis for one ready to go and push for Reid to allow it to move forward.  If not, call him out on it.  Hold their feet to the fire to do their FREAKING job.  And, by the way, do YOURS.  I’m fed up and I’m not answering any soliciting phone calls from GOP funding sources until something along these lines happens.

* We have not had a federal budget enacted since 1997.  Since then the country has lived on omnibus spending bills and continuing resolutions.

** We can debate how the PP-ACA became law (not through standard means) and was affirmed by the SCOTUS and I get that once provisions start for PP-ACA it will be hard to “undo” but I think more creative thinking and strategies are needed here.

*** I am aware of two civilian employees of the federal government who are lawyers and have reviewed the provisions surrounding the shutdown for their respective departments/offices and in both cases the decision was made by a political appointee above them.  All for show.

GorT

GorT is an eight-foot-tall robot from the 51ˢᵗ Century who routinely time-travels to steal expensive technology from the future and return it to the past for retroinvention. The profits from this pay all the Gormogons’ bills, including subsidizing this website. Some of the products he has introduced from the future include oven mitts, the Guinness widget, Oxy-Clean, and Dr. Pepper. Due to his immense cybernetic brain, GorT is able to produce a post in 0.023 seconds and research it in even less time. Only ’Puter spends less time on research. GorT speaks entirely in zeros and ones, but occasionally throws in a ڭ to annoy the Volgi. He is a massive proponent of science, technology, and energy development, and enjoys nothing more than taking the Czar’s more interesting scientific theories, going into the past, publishing them as his own, and then returning to take credit for them. He is the only Gormogon who is capable of doing math. Possessed of incredible strength, he understands the awesome responsibility that follows and only uses it to hurt people.