Yesterday we learned that the Republican Senators, having lost their effort to deny unemployment insurance compensation payments to millions of long-term unemployed Americans, engaged in parliamentary tactics to delay the bill for 30-hours. Yep, delay the inevitable for 30-hours, Out of pique, they added a full additional day to the time that worthy (formerly employed) out-of-work Americans will go without money to pay rent, hunt for jobs, buy groceries, make mortgage or car payments, or take care of a pressing health need--or just simply get by!
What is with these people? you must wonder. Well, if you remember former Texas Governor, the late Ann Richards' description of George Bush as a man born on third base bragging to the world that he had hit a triple, you will have some clue.
I have written before of this insane sense of "entitlement" felt by Republicans. They are "entitled" to be in charge, they are "entitled" to have things their way, and they are "entitled" to tell the rest of us to toe the line, or else! Or so they think.
Hell, they start early and they really are not all that hard to spot from playschool on: "Teacher, Teacher, Johnny is not coloring inside the lines, see how pretty mine is" = Republican. Or in grade school, out on the playground, "I want to be pitcher, and if I can't be pitcher, I'll throw the ball over the fence!" = Republican Or more simply, "I'm going to tell on you" = Republican.
What about in junior high? Weren't they the little punks whose hands would pop up to remind the teacher, "Weren't we supposed to have a test today?" And, in high school, weren't they the ones that got placed in the college prep classes regardless of their being dumber than a wet sack of Brazos River sand? And the rest of us? well' that's what shop, auto mechanics and cosmetology classes are for, regardless of how bright we might be.
By college they'd developed significant social skills such as the "I am soooo superior" sniff, or the condescending nod to obvious subordinates, and my all time favorite, the assumption that the way is being paved for them and if they just play the game there will be BIG payouts awaiting them, which they will gladly trickle down to the "little people" who behave properly.
And somewhere along the way they all pick up this sense of being victimized. Oh yeah, despite controlling most of the wealth, having access to the best educations, investment opportunities, finest homes and neighborhoods and memberships to the best golf courses, they feel somehow deprived if any of the rest of us happen to acquire a higher standard of life...somehow, they must think, that would deprive them of something!
They become peevish and worried, much in the same way fundamentalist Christians fret that someone somewhere is enjoying life, and do their utmost to stymie, stall or impede anyone else trying to advance in life.
So we need not be surprised at the latest peevish ploy of the Senate Republicans. They have always been nasty little buggers; but now, they are just older, richer and more powerful versions of that little jerk in seventh grade algebra who invariably raised his hand on Friday to remind the teacher, "Weren't we supposed to have a test today?"
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