What better way to celebrate the holidays than by holding the government hostage, demanding money for your pet programs, and then shutting federal services down if you don't get your way? It's a brand new Republican Christmas tradition! What a magical time of year.

We have two weeks to go before the money runs out and the federal government has to close up shop. If it seems like we just went through this, you're right: back in September, then-Speaker John Boehner had to deal with whining Tea Party children, so he pushed through a temporary spending solution, and then couldn't get out of town fast enough.

And so now new-Speaker Paul Ryan is stuck with a bunch of insane demands from the right-wing extremists confined to Congress, and from the billionaires who pay for the Republican Party to exist; and we're stuck with a Congress that may once again fail to do the bare minimum of what's needed in order to maintain a functioning democracy.

Naturally, the crazy-town right wing has lots of terrible demands for a spending bill: repeal environmental protections! Repeal Obamacare! No Syrians allowed! And worse.

Oh, so much worse.

I once lived in a building in LA that was just inches away from crumbling into dust. When the landlady gave us the keys, she said, "Now apartment is your problem. Was my problem. Now your problem." (Sure enough, when we complained that the water in the kitchen sink was emitting an electrical charge, she just shrugged.) I wonder if Ryan had a similar experience when Boehner gleefully handed the reins on the House over to him.

"Enjoy all the crazy people!" I imagine Boehner telling Ryan, while wearing a Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses and holding a one-way ticket to the Bahamas. "They're the worst! You'll hate your life! Bye!" I like to imagine Boehner shouting as he ran from the building, a white streak of sunscreen still glistening on his nose.

For reasons that will never be clear to me, the idiots in Congress have been entrusted with $1.1 trillion budget, and of course they're coming up with all kinds of terrible ideas for spending it.

For starters, they want to insert a prohibition on resettling Syrian refugees in the US. Because, yeah, sure, what could be more in keeping with the spirit of the holidays than turning away people in need?

Also on the agenda: defunding Planned Parenthood, and tax breaks for NASCAR and Bacardi. No, I am not even joking.

And of course, Republicans are trying to increase the influence of money on elections. Mitch McConnell is pushing for a rider that would allow the super-rich to spend even more money to elect political puppets. And there's a separate Republican effort to prohibit the IRS from regulating vote-manipulating nonprofits. “What this provision would basically do is turn the party committees into full-time laundering operations,” said one expert, as if the parties are not already that.

If there's any consolation to all this, it's that Paul Ryan is pushing to get rid of the giant all-funding-in-one budget bills altogether. Starting next year, Congress might vote separately on each different spending program. Will that be any better, or will it just mean a thousand little deadlocks instead of one big one? Who knows! The only thing we can count on is a bunch of rich guys making everyone's lives miserable in order to appease the other rich guys who paid for their campaigns. And that's what makes this the greatest country on Earth.