The Next Fight In The Eternal Combat

With the sequestration detonation firmly ruining the economy, the GOP is moving on to the government shutdown fight at the end of the month, and they're playing their cards early.

A group of House Republicans said Tuesday that a bill to fund the federal government should include provisions targeting the contraception mandate in President Obama's healthcare law.

GOP lawmakers reintroduced a bill Tuesday to repeal the contraception mandate. They also pressed their party's leaders to roll back the provision as part of a continuing resolution later this month to keep the federal government operating.

"This attack on religious freedom demands immediate congressional action," the 14 lawmakers wrote. "Nothing short of a full exemption for both nonprofit and for-profit entities will satisfy the demands of the Constitution and common sense."

And nothing short of a repeal of the entire Obama administration and the resignation of all Democrats everywhere will satisfy the demands of the Tea Party nutjobs.   I expect Orange Julius will sweep this under the rug, but the pile he's already got under said rug (fiscal cliff deal, VAWA) may be too high for him to do so.

Besides, Sen. Ted Cruz appears to be willing to shut down the country in order to defund Obamacare anyway, so Boehner may be off the hook.

On the other hand, if the GOP really, reeeeeeeally wants to shut down the government over birth control (because the War on Women worked so very well for them in 2012) then go right ahead, gentlemen.

We could really use that Democratic House in 2014.