The Adventures of The Policy Rider!

If you turned on the T.V. or radio today, I'm sure you heard about the Incredible Policy Riders and a possible government shutdown.  If you're like me, you probably had images in your head of masked men on horseback storming the Capitol and racing off with sacks full of treasury notes.  When you finished giggling, you then probably realized you missed what the story was actually about.  The long and the short of it, as far as I can tell, is that the Republicans put together a spending bill demanding that funding for Planned Parenthood be cut, and the Democrats don't like it.  Democrats say it is a policy issue that has no business in the debate over the budget, and Republicans say it has everything to do with it because it is funding that can be cut. Hard to argue that point, actually, but here we are.  Liberals are incensed that the Evil Republicans want to cut funding for "Women's Health," and Republicans are insistent that government funding of abortion be stopped.  Don't you just love that?  If you're a liberal, you are a pro-choice defender of women's health issues.  Words can be funny... like "kumquat."  That's a funny word.  Words mean things, though, and just as a kumquat is a fruit-bearing tree, a pro-choice defender of women's health issues is a person who defends a woman's right too have her baby murdered, before that baby is born, by the doctor of her choice.  I know, I know- mammograms.  Don't start with me, Lefty, I'm on a roll.  See, on the other side, we've been fighting this whole "Roe v. Wade" thing for as long as I can remember, so if we can't nix it this time, then move on and get a budget together that works so we don't have to turn off all of the lights.  Everybody cool with that?  The big issue, the whole reason Republicans took the House last November, is the fact that we are broke.  As a nation, we have no cash.  We can't just go to the ATM, Lefty, you got it?  The money aint there.  Now we have to decide how we're going to pay for everything for the next fiscal year, and if we have to cut a few things like shoe shines in the lobby for congressmen, or tours of the White House,  or...I don't know...abortion?  Well, that's what we have to do.  But we CAN'T stop paying our Marines, our soldiers, our sailors, or our airmen.  That pisses me off with a capital  P .  Bold and italicized, buddy.  Fix it. I can still mail a letter?  Awesome.  The national parks will be protected?  Cool.  I can't ride the D.C. Metro 24-7?  I'll get over it.  But our frikkin' troops?  C'mon, man, that's low.  What will happen next?  Stay tuned.