10 Ways of Saying Republicans Have Gone Nuts

<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Phodopus_sungorus_-_Hamsterkraftwerk.jpg">Mylius</a>/Wikimedia Commons

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“How many different ways are there to say that the Tea Party Republicans are both crazy and stupid?” wonders The American Prospect‘s Paul Waldman as the defund-Obamacare-or-shut-down-the-government showdown approaches. Answering that may be like counting how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, but here are 10 colorful ways of filling in the sentence “Congressional Republicans are like…”

• “…a bunch of 3-year-olds playing with matches.”

• “…skillful mechanics riding a runaway freight train with no one in the locomotive.”

• “…a schoolyard bully who realizes that the kid he’s picking on is smarter than he is and just humiliated him in front of the entire student body.”

• “…a colony of termites, voraciously nibbling away at the foundations of Obamacare.”

• “…the bride who has jilted all her previous grooms but has the audacity to be angry at the boyfriend who refuses to propose.”

• “…Cousin Eddie from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.”

• “…the fellow who bellies up to the bar, asking for just one more round of tax breaks for his buddies, while declaring, ‘Put it on my tab.'”

• “…children, taking everything personally.”

• “…Charlie Brown kicking the football.”

• “…a hamster on a treadmill, just keep doing the same thing over and over.”

Honorable mention: “John Boehner is like a preschool teacher who can’t control his class, so he’s letting the class eat Play-Doh, despite the fact that eating Play-Doh is going to make them sick, and he can’t do anything about it.”

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We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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