THE PATRICK BATEMAN PARTY

You may have already read that Ted Cruz has gone beyond provocatively extremist ideological posturing and is now just being a dick:

In an unusual move, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) objected last week to a routine Senate resolution commemorating Multiple Sclerosis Awareness Week.

Congress passes hundreds of resolutions, meant to commemorate everything from a special awareness week or Little League champions. The resolutions lack any real power of law and are predominantly ceremonial....

In order to keep business moving and not clog the Senate floor, they are normally passed in bulk through a "unanimous consent agreement"....

But last week, Cruz objected to including the MS Awareness resolution. He was unhappy with a clause in the resolution describing the purpose of the Multiple Sclerosis Coalition, according to a Democratic staffer.

Cruz’s staff said the problem was timing.

"The Senator, like many of his colleagues, will not grant consent to call up and pass a resolution or bill at the last minute without time for review," spokesman Sean Rushton said in a statement....

Did he really object to the clause describing the Multiple Sclerosis Coalition? You mean this?

Whereas the Multiple Sclerosis Coalition's mission is to increase opportunities for cooperation and provide greater opportunity to leverage the effective use of resources for the benefit of the multiple sclerosis community

I assume that's what it was -- that's from the House version of the bill. I couldn't find the Senate version, but I assume it's identical, because why would you want to have wording differences in House and Senate versions of a bill that PASSES WITHOUT OBJECTION EVERY FREAKING YEAR?

Well, it was that or not getting to read the bill -- which, by the way, is a whopping 579 words, including the word "RESOLUTION" at the top. Still, it should have been treated just the wauy the Obamacare bill should have been treated! Seventy-two hours to READ THE BILL! (That allows a reading speed of approximately eight words an hour, or one word every seven and a half minutes.)

When I read American Psycho twenty years ago, it seemed to me that the pointwas "How blatant and outrageous do the crimes of Patrick Bateman before a numbed-out society will actually notice that he's committing them?" Tha's how the GOP appears to operate, at least at the Ted Cruz extremes. It's as if the ones in deep-red districts and states know that they can get away with anything, and not only will they delight their base, they'll never alienate enough voters in their district or outside to do serious harm to the conservative movement.

And given how much power the GOP still has, in D.C. and in the states, I'd say Bateman is still getting away with murder.