Insanity Rules

Cross-posted to: lefttake.com

And it is insane that 60 or so people can hold an entire country hostage.
 Yes, this is the situation that we are facing.  The Tea Party is playing childish games, holding their breath, to get what they want.
And what they want is to end all government aid to the old, the disabled, and the poor.  They want 'smaller government'.
But, what they don't want is to end the subsidies to the rich, the financial sector, and the corporations.
Their 'smaller government' means more money for the rich, the financial sector and corporations, and less regulation and oversight.  Their 'smaller government' means that old people and children suffer so that the almighty corporations can profit and grow to the full limits of corporatocracy.  So that the average man, woman, and child in this country, and the world over, can live out their lives in poverty, as virtual slaves to the corporate good.  Their 'smaller government' means the further destruction and desecration of our environment.
But they cloud that goal with rhetoric and fear mongering.  They hide behind pretty faces, the flag, and God.
The Tea Party may have started out as a grassroots movement, but it has been turned to Astroturf, and I think it should be clear who is pulling the strings now.
Obama has offered several deals.  He has spent many hours trying to negotiate a compromise.
He hasn't done what he should do, namely ending the Bush tax cuts and other subsidies to the rich and corporate elite.
Saner members of the Republican party have tried to appease these spoiled, bratty lap dogs of the Radical Right.
And still they refuse to deal...
In an article over on CNN:

3 ways Obama could bypass Congress

 The commentator:   Jack M. Balkin

States: 

Section 4 requires the president not to put the validity of the public debt into question. If the debt ceiling is not raised in time, there will not be enough incoming revenues to pay for all of the government's bills as they come due. Therefore he has a constitutional obligation to prioritize incoming revenues to pay the public debt: interest on government bonds and any other "vested" obligations.

The members of the Tea Party have threatened to start impeachment proceedings
if Obama uses the 14th Amendment to by pass their little games.  While they are bound by the same amendment not to question the validity of the public debt.
So who, exactly, should we be impeaching?
A man who walked into office and inherited an economy sucked dry and lifeless by corporate greed and years of damaging tax breaks for the wealthy.
Or the 60 or so members who want to extend the sucking into perpetuity?