Monday Reading - Carrying The Fight To The Republican Vandals

A couple of good reads on the struggle between the Republican vandals and people who want government to work (as usual, please read the entire pieces).

Charles Blow on why government is "broken" and who's breaking it:

Congressional Republicans have been sent to Washington with a mandate not so much to conduct business but rather to collect a bounty, to do what they promised and what their supporters expect: Stop Obama at any cost and at every turn, to erase his name or at least put an asterisk by it.

Blow concludes with this observation about the Republican/ plutocrat master plan:

Liberal ideology depends on a productive federal government; conservatism rises when that government is crippled. 

Republicans, in all their cynicism, are increasing their efforts to break the government. 

Isn’t America great?

E.J. Dionne, Jr., on the Democratic push-back that's already started on net neutrality, climate change and immigration:

Republicans did a brilliant job in the campaign playing on the idea that Obama is weak, passive and without a game plan. That was the not-so-hidden meaning of all their television ads about the Islamic State, Ebola and immigration. So Obama has made clear that he won’t be weak and passive and that he has a game plan. 

But what of the hand-wringing by the usual suspects to this continuing "partisanship"? Dionne:

Yes, Washington may again be engulfed in partisan warfare. But at least this time, it will be over things that are actually happening.  (our emphasis) 

And, we might add, things that are actually worth fighting for.