This Shutdown in stupid.

So yea in case you have been living under a rock, 1 week ago the US federal government has shut down and ceased many operations. Luckily for all my fans out there this blog isnt federally funded and neither is stupidity. Which means I am able to bring you some of the stupidest things said during the shutdown thus far: 

Now very early on in the shutdown one of the major stories was about a group of WWII vets who came to Washington to see the WWII memorial, which they found closed due to the shutdown. So they kicked the gates in and stormed and took over the memorial. As an accidental side effect they also opened a Pandora's box of stupid.

WWII Memorial.

First up Senator Rand Paul, who when asked about the monument closing said this:

"Some idiot in the government sent goons out there to set up barricades so they couldn't see the monument. People had to spend hours setting up barricades where there are never barricades, to prevent people from seeing the World War II monument, because they're trying to play a charade."

Actually to be honest, Senator Paul is actually 100% correct here. In fact the only reason he made this list is because of a total lack of self awareness.

See the reason the barricades were set up is because the National Park Service doesnt have any money, so has to close, because some people in the government, including Senator Paul voted against funding the government, which includes the National Park Service.

In otherwords to paraphrase Obi Wan Kenobi, Senator Paul "you are the idiot you are looking for".

Following in Senators Pauls footsteps Rep. Steven Palazzo (R of Mississippi), who said this "Regardless of the shutdown, it makes no sense, Why close an open air monument?"

OOO! OOO! PICK ME! PICK ME! I KNOW! I KNOW!.....Maintenance. You dont think the grass cuts itself do you? And I'm pretty sure that fountain cant switch itself on and off or clean itself, And you know, we do have water bills that you made sure the park service couldnt pay. Oh but most importantly of all, someones definitely going to need to clean that place. I mean just imagine what that fountain will look like after weeks of people throwing things (like pennies) in it and they arnt cleaned out, whole damn system will clog. And I mean what if it rains again and people track mud all over the area? or even worse maybe, and litter everywhere?

Yea see thats the thing congressman, just because something is outside doesnt mean its self sustaining.

Next up, Congressmen Doc Hastings (R of Washington) Rob Bishop (R of Utah), and Darrell Issa (R of Cali), Natural Resources Committee Chairman, Public Lands and Environmental Regulation Subcommittee Chairman, and House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman respectfully, and who are considering launching a congressional investigation into why the memorials are closed and who sent a letter to the the head of the park service asking him “ to take steps as necessary to keep and not destroy documents related to the decision this week to restrict public access.”
Given that the document that lead to that decision is the vote on a Continuing Resolution made by those 3 gentlemen, youd think they'd already have the information they need.

Or maybe what they are saying is that, despite two of them sitting on the committee that oversees the park service, they are all too damn stupid to realize the park service is part of the federal government.

Or maybe they are just saying they are illiterate. After all, here are shutdown contingency plans released by the park service in the days leading up to the shutdown. In otherwords all these guys had to do was read the briefing they would have been handed at their committee meetings and they would have known in advance what was going to happen.

I mean damn you chair a committee and have no idea what it does? just saying that takes a special kind of stupid.

And lastly for our World War II memorial section, Congressman Randy Neugebauer (R of Texas), seen here screaming at a Park Ranger and telling her she should be ashamed for turning people away from the National Parks....as in the same national parks that are closed because of the votes Rep Neuegbauer made.

I havent yet decided if your going to win the week in stupid yet congressman, but your a shoo-in for this week in being a massive dick.

Now of course after the republicans finally realized Obamacare was actually IN affect (sometime around day 3 of the shutdown) they realized they no longer had their demand for what they wanted to reopen the government. After all you cant stop something that already happened.

So they tried to come up with a few new demands, and like their original demand, it didnt go so well.

In fact this one quote from Congressman Marlin Stutzman kinda sums it up:

"We're not going to be disrespected, We have to get something out of this. And I don't know what that even is."

So yea I'm not entirely sure what Rep. Stutzman is talking about when he says they were disrespected, but it seems he means the fact they didnt win the last election/no one likes their polices is "disrespect".

Which means his demand is basically "give me something/ANYTHING because everyone hates us"

So yea basically he's claiming the reason the government was shut down is because everyone hates republicans and they are tired of being picked on.

So yea, shutting down the government should really make more people like you *sarcasm*  And of course changing your social policies to be more popular would be unreasonable.

And Tea Party Express chairwoman Amy Kremer also showed the difficulties of the lack of a reason for the Shutdown, when asked why the House wouldnt just pass the clean Continuing Resolution passed by the Senate. She said

"President Obama keeps saying bring a CR — bring a clean CR to the floor let them vote on it,” Kremer said. “Well, my question is, why doesn’t [Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid bring the clean defund Obamacare [bill] to the floor and let the Senate vote on it? Why doesn’t he bring the clean delay Obamacare bill to the floor and let them vote on that?”

Yea see heres the thing, you keep saying the word clean and well.....

See "clean" in the sense of a clean bill means a bill that has no amendments attached and is the same as what was originally introduced, which in the case of a CR is just a date the budget is extended too. So yea no matter if you like or hate the houses version of the bill, it is by its very definition NOT clean. A clean bill to repeal Obamacare is possible, in fact House republicans have voted on it 41 times, because all 41 times it was stand alone legislation.

So yea, keep in mind this woman runs the group that financially supports a lot of the tea party congresspeople.....guess we know why they dont know anything, they are just following her lead...

And its not just the republican rank and file who are having problems explaining why the shutdown was needed or the effects from it. The two architects of the shut down, Senators Mike Lee and Ted Cruz have also had some issues.

See many politicians, noting the bad image they are getting for getting paid while the rest of the government employees arnt, have decided to donate their pay for a cause. Some havnt. Only one has lied about it. That would be Senator Mike Lee.

See he had an interview with a Las Vegas radio interview where he appeared to say he was keeping his salary because he was still working.

His office denied it and said the radio station edited his remarks and claimed Lee was really donating his salary to charity. And then the radio station released the full uncut interview:

Reporter: Do you have any plans to do something like that?

Mike Lee: I don’t.

Reporter: So you will continue to be paid, right?

Mike Lee: I’m working, I’ll continue to be paid.

So not only are you stupid enough to think you can get away with lying about something you KNOW is recorded, you lied about giving money to charity. I think your giving Rep Neugebauer a run for his money as Asshole of the week.

Next up, the other leader of the shutdown movement, Senator Ted Cruz, who said this recently on the senate floor in reference to things affect by the government shutdown:

"If the Senate cooperates, we could get this passed by the end of the day. We could respond to the national security threat these two gentlemens [sic] have laid out. The only impediment to doing so is the prospects that Majority Leader Harry Reid would object to doing so. If, God forbid, we see an attack on the United States because the intelligence community was not adequately funded, every member of the committee would be horrified. So I hope issues of partisan politics can be set aside and we can all come together and pass, right now by the end of the day, a continuing resolution to fully fund the Department of Defense and intelligence community."

So yea, like Rand Paul earlier, the problem Cruz is bitching about is his fault. I mean think about it, the guy who pretended to lead a 21 hour filibuster in order to shut the government down is now worried about the impact of the government being shut down.

So I just want to know Senator Cruz, were you too stupid to know what happened in a government shutdown and pushing for one anyways? or were you just lying and trying to get attention by calling for a government shutdown and never really wanted one but cant admit you conned people? which is it?

After all of those comments (and others) kept floating around, the Republicans desperately needed a new reason to have actually shut the government down, so they settled on the Debt Ceiling. Now the Debt Ceiling hasnt happened yet, we will hit it approximately October 17th. But see they shut down the government in advance so as to force Obama to negotiate on the Debt Ceiling even though Speaker Boehner already admitted he wont allow a default. Or something, I honestly dont understand the republican strategy here myself.

Which is kinda ironic, because it turns out, many republicans dont understand the debt ceiling.

Leading off this segment once again is Rand Paul (and we can add this to the list of things he doesnt understand):

"If you don't raise the debt ceiling, what that means is you have a balanced budget. It doesn't mean you wouldn't pay your bills. We should pay the interest and we should never scare the markets. So, if I were in-charge, I would say, absolutely, we will never default. I would pass a law saying that the first revenue every month, the first revenue, has to go to pay interest."

Ok 2 things
1) Im not sure Senator Paul actually understands what a balanced budget is either, cause its not the opposite of a debt ceiling. A debt ceiling is an artificial cap on how much money we are allowed to borrow to help pay down out debts. A balanced budget means what we take in in revenue is the same as what we spend.
Its entirely possible that if we dont raise the debt ceiling we could be taking in more money in a month than we spend, or less money than we spend. Neither scenario is actually a balanced budget.....

2)You know why we are hitting the Debt Ceiling on October 17th and not October 1st? turns out not all of our bills are due the same day nor are they due the 1st of the month. Which we better hope Rand Paul is never in charge, because I guess if we have interest on the debt that wont appear until the 17th of the month Rand Paul is just not going to pay it. Oh one other thing, we dont take in all our revenue for the month on the first of the month either. So we are only going to be saving a small fraction of our revenue to pay off some interest on the debt weeks late if Rand Paul is in charge (so lets hope he never is)

Next up on not understanding the Debt Ceiling Representative Joe Barton of Texas who said this:

"We have in my household budget some bills that have to be paid and some bills that are only paid partially. I think paying interest on the debt has to be paid. I think paying Social Security payments have to be paid. I don't think paying the secretary of energy's travel expenses have to be paid 100 cents on the dollar."

Yea um, I have to ask, if we dont pay the Secretary of Energy's Travel Expenses who is? I mean we either pay them directly out of our tax dollars or we take them out of his salary......which comes directly out of our tax dollars. So yea, either way we kinda have to pay them.....unless you think we shouldnt pay for it AT ALL, at which point I suppose instead of pulling it from the Energy department budget we would just pay it straight from the federal governments budget....which comes out of our tax dollars.

You know, I kinda get the impression this idiot might actually think money grows on trees cause he doesnt seem to know where it comes from or how it works.

Next up Representative Justin Amash of Michigan:

"There's always revenue coming into the Treasury, certainly enough revenue to pay interest. Democrats have a different definition of 'default' than what we understand it to be. What I hear from them is, 'If you're not paying everything on time that's a default.' And that's not the traditionally understood definition."

You know what you find if you look up the definition of default in the dictionary?
"a failure to act, esp a failure to meet a financial obligation or to appear in a court of law at a time specified"

Yea turns out the "traditional" (read correct) definition of default is EXACTLY almost word for word what Rep Amash claimed it wasnt. Although I would also like to know what Rep Amash actually THINKS the traditional definition of default is...

Ok so, I thought long and hard about this, and I think this week, with so many candidates I have to declare a three way tie.

So sharing this weeks crown are Senator Rand Paul, for in the course of a single week adding "what the government does", "how the government works" "what the debt ceiling is" and "what a balanced budget" is to the ever growing list of things he doesnt understand, Representative Justin Amash for managing to be precisely 100% wrong, that takes skill, and our first ever two time winner Representative Ted Yoho, who said this in regards to the debt ceiling:

"I think we need to have that moment where we realize [we're] going broke. I think, personally, it would bring stability to the world markets."

Yea I got nothing. Like seriously, your stupidity has actually exceeded my considerable abilities at snark, smartassery and mocking. I mean hell its not even worth asking you how exactly a world in which out currency is the standard reserve currency would feel BETTER if we announced basically our currency isnt worth shit.

So yea, way to go Rep Yoho. You actually rendered me speachless en route to your second time being [one of the] stupidest people of the week......