A few weeks ago, Ravalli County commissioners voted to reject federal Title X funding for reproductive health services, closing their health department’s family planning clinic for the first time in 40 years. That money comes from Obama, and God doesn’t want you to have sex anyway. That’s why he punishes you with children. Anywhom, after various Ravalli residents complained that they couldn’t get screened for ovarian cancer and whatnot, Foss wrote this editorial in the Ravalli Republic explaining her decision. “Water runs downhill, the path of least resistance,” she said. “So too does humankind when enabled.” Not enabling her constituents to access reproductive health services was a religious freedom issue, she argued, and birth control pills give you cancer anyway. It was a less than convincing work of scholarship, and it’s the subject of my latest column in the Missoula Independent. I got kind of angry, but not as angry as the guy who printed up a bunch of “Bitterroot Taliban” flyers with Foss’s picture on them. Now that’s some citizen journalism, right there. We’ll be back tomorrow with Friday links.

 

What a difference a day makes. It seems like only a few minutes before yesterday that the government was on the verge of fiscal catastrophe, mired in stalemate and preparing to default on its most concrete obligations. Then everything was fine. A small group of conservative Republicans stopped doing what they had been doing, and Washington snapped back into function again. “Function” is perhaps an overstatement, but I cannot help but notice that, unlike most historical events, this massive failure of governance had exactly one contributing factor. I’m beginning to think that the loudest corner of American politics is also the least necessary. Today is Friday, leaves drift down in front of my window, and the rakes have been supplanted by the blowers. Won’t you leave a passive-aggressive note for the neighbors with me?

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Our long national nightmare is over: Joe Biden brought muffins to EPA headquarters, and the federal government is open for business again. Congress reached an agreement last night, after conservative Republicans in the House finally agreed to settle for defunding of Obamacare delay of the individual mandate delay of the medical device tax nothing. I’m glad the government is working again. I’m super glad the US didn’t default on its debts and cause Cthulhu to rise from his oceanic trench. And I’m somewhere between those two levels of glad that Tea Party extortion was not rewarded. Threatening to wreck the country does not get you want you want. We proved it. The events of the last three weeks will stand, hopefully, as a lesson to future generations of jerks. The constitutional system is not your weapon. It’s not your hostage. It’s your tool.

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I am not as good as this guy, but I do have a column in the Indy this week, in which I lament that the federal shutdown has caused a political stalemate in my household over my “work” habits. I thought that it had been published just in time, as the House GOP is meeting today to discuss a plan to raise the debt limit through November 22 with no strings attached. But that plan would not do anything about the shutdown, presumably so that the Republican Party can complete its metamorphosis into two beautiful butterflies, each with one wing. We’re not out of the woods yet, dear reader. We’ll be back tomorrow with Friday links.

 

Combat! blog got socked in at Georgetown Lake this morning, which was not a fun euphemism like it sounds. That’s a foot of snow overnight during the last week of September. That’s Montana. You would not approve of the mountain road I drove down in my rear-wheel drive pickup to escape, but it was worth it to bring you today’s extremely half-assed post. Behold! It’s my column in the Missoula Independent, about just what message Rep. Steve Daines tried to send with two purely symbolic votes in the House last week. Hint: he does not like food stamps, and he hates trees. We’ll be back tomorrow with Friday links, somehow alive.