since the shock from the chutzpah is just way too much.

I guess it boils down to the way HillbillyBob put it, short, sweet and in a single phrase: Republicans only have two kinds of sex, both of which are illegal...

Giggles aside, my mind is still resounding with the single syllable "GAWD!" in shock and amazement. But looking at the crew of desperate bozos behind the bill, it shouldn't be a surprise. Vitter, Craig, Roberts, Inhofe, Brownback, Allard, Thune and Shelby represent exactly the Nut Caucus in Congress; the one possessed of two brain cells between the lot. And yesterday, even those two weren't in the same orbit.

So we've got NRA-ILA hooting over a "victory" for gun-owners whilst every other "inalienable" right has been removed from the Constitution, and now these aforementioned clowns trying to remove rights that haven't even been equally extended. The only up-side I can see, as a gun owner (in the country, one needs varmint-getters to protect our service doggies who can't protect themselves -- I have no other reason to have them), is that the government might rightly fear an armed populace. This was Jefferson's thought on the matter and I grudgingly begin to agree. I do believe that Jefferson is rightly whirling in his hallowed grave.

Even that, though, I believe to be a micrometer-deep fool's trade, like $23 and a string of beads for all of Manhattan. "We'll let you keep your little varmint-rifles, but we've stolen more than enough from the taxpayer's bounty in the treasury to buy or swipe enough nukes to keep you in line. Pop-gun THAT, mf'ers." Yes, Virginia, those "missing" nukes are still missing and I'd bet anything that Cheneyburton has them JIC of insurrection.

Years back, when I first came aboard KA, I wrote that December 2000 was the day that America died. This spring, I thought I'd shaken that malaise off and began to have hope that we might reclaim her for the Founders, Framers and Patriots who breathed the fire of dignity and individual liberty into a nation, codified in a Constitution like no other. Given the events of this week, the grief that I felt in December of 2000 is just as raw and salt is steadily being poured into the wound with the bully's taunt of "now, do something about it!"

I just want to scream. I want to sit Reid and Hoyer down and say, "now, loooook...", take a breath and launch in. And like my mom used to do to my brother and me, end up with, "...now I want to know (and you better have a good answer), just what the HELL were you THINKING? Or were you THINKING?"

That question used to scare me more than any other. The point was, mom wanted us to consider consequences before tearassing off into some misadventure that might have lifelong repercussions.

It doesn't seem to bother the Congresscritters in the least. That leads me to wonder if they bother to measure consequences at all.

Some days I'm ready to walk to Washington to give That Talk that my mom used to shame me for doing something truly stupid, so I'd learn to use the brain that G'd graced me with, so not to repeat stupidity. Other days, I just sit and stare at a wall, grieving in shame at the great opportunity in liberty and dignity we seem to have let go of. Some days, I just garden and put it out of my mind. Some days, I use the talent for language that G'd graced me with to let them hold it or to try to rally my fellows who may be in that grieving place.

Today, past the astonishment at the mix of chutzpah and cowardice displayed in Congress JUST this week, I'm taking one breath at a time, one issue at a time, and damned if I will live on my knees, just because some mental midget who doesn't know me or know a thing about me says I must. It's a pity that they don't know the peace, respect, love and friendship that lives in the house that HillbillyBob and I call home.

Take one foot, lift it up, set it down a pace ahead. Take the other foot, lift it up, set that one down a pace ahead. While G'd gives me strength, lather, rinse, repeat.

Bill