Jigsaw McConnell

Mitch McConnell wasn’t, by himself, the one who forced the government shutdown yesterday, but he was the one who took to Twitter to pose a completely unnecessary and torturous false choice to Democrats:

• “Save” CHIP (the Children’s Health Insurance Program), which expired in September, which the Republicans (who, btw, own the White House, the House of Representatives, and the Senate right now) could have and could still renew at any time if they chose to do so, or
• “Save” the roughly 700,0000 recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy which allows them to legally remain in the United States, the only country they really know since they were brought here as children.

For more information on why this choice was, in addition to being torturous for obvious reasons, completely unnecessary, see Brian Beutler’s article The Shithead Shutdown.