ACHTUNG: The following is a not a “fair and balanced” story. It is an editorial by the editor.

Regardless of whether they are expelled or censured, the Gamrat-Courser fiasco in Lansing demonstrates the continuing collapse of the American two-party system.

Democrats and Republicans for too long have failed to work together on behalf of their constituents to solve problems, and it showed all too painfully again in the State Legislature’s hearings on the fate of State Reps. Cindy Gamrat and Todd Courser. Democrats and Republicans are too interested in making the other party look bad and not interested enough in getting important work done.

Until Thursday, when a special committee recommended both be expelled from office, it appeared Gamrat would only be censured for her role in attempting cover up her extra-marital affair with Courser. But the Republican-dominated Michigan House apparently weren’t having any of that. They wanted her gone.

The GOP isn’t eating its own here. It is purging an avowed Tea Party member who used the Republican Party to get elected and then became a loose cannon in Lansing. The same holds true for Courser, an even more egregious offender.

So the GOP is abandoning Gamrat, as I predicted last May, that she would have a brief and unhappy political career. Republicans were asleep at the switch during the 2014 August primaries, when both Gamrat and Courser won by pluralities, that is less than a majority of the total votes. And once they won the primaries, they were shoo-ins for the general elections in places where A. Hitler, Republican, easily would defeat J. Christ, Democrat, all because of that “R.”

Furthermore, in West Michigan and apparently in the Lapeer area, all you have to do to get elected is to follow six letters of the alphabet — Four Gs, an A and an R.

The Gs stand for God, guns, guts and gays. The A is for abortion. The R is for Republican.

Just about all Republicans march in lockstep on these “issues.” The only differences among GOP primary candidates is in the degree in which they may be Pro-Life or in how low they will go to deny gays the same rights as anyone else. Otherwise, their “debates” are bad jokes, lame chit-chat between tweedle dum and tweedle dee.

I sometimes wonder if these people are cranked out of a factory because they seem to look alike, talk alike, walk alike, they don’t deviate from the common line and always speak glowingly of Saint Ronald Reagan.

“Without deviation, there is no progress.” — Frank Zappa

The Democrats in these parts are irrelevant, and even worse, as the hearings showed Thursday, they too often act just like obstructionist Republican Obama-haters.

The State Legislature has a lot of important work to do, such as fix badly deteriorated roads. These 110 people have failed miserably and 108 of them need to get this sordid saga over with.

Comedian George Carlin warned us almost a decade ago that “the game is rigged” yet “nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care.”

Laws specifically designed to “unrig” this system are sorely needed.