Losing Points & Missing Sense

It looked like they were about to leave town without doing anything on the matter. After whining and screaming and crying about it for a month, they were about to leave town without bringing a single border bill to the House floor. And of course, House Republican "leaders" were planning to blame President Obama for their own failure to whip their own members into doing their job.

But hey, this has been Republican "leaders'" modus operandi on comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) all along. They've feigned interest in passing some sort of legislation, then pandered to their 21st Century Know Nothing base when they became enraged at the thought of any sort of CIR passing, then abandoned their own "ideas" and while blaming President Obama for their own shortcomings.



But late Thursday night, there was another twist. House Republican "leaders" finally emerged with two bills... That catered to the whims & fancies of their most anti-immigrant members. The first one calls for the fast deportation of #BorderChildren without providing them with their due legal process, while the second one is yet another attempt at deporting all DREAMers. Both only barely passed and did so almost exclusively along party lines. (For the record, Reps. Joe Heck [R-Henderson] & Mark Amodei [R-Carson City] voted for mass deportations of refugee children, but not DREAMers.)

In one fell swoop (and two floor votes), House Republicans gave up any last modicum of "responsible governance" with their pandemonium on the House floor. Instead of doing anything to assist #BorderChildren and alleviate this humanitarian conundrum, they set the wheels in motion for a full crisis to explode by the end of their August recess.

But why? Why would they allow for such an unnecessary crisis? Why would they want these refugee children to suffer? And why are trying to use this as an excuse to deport American kids?

Well, why do they continue taking their marching orders from these fools?



So House Republicans (Joe Heck & Mark Amodei included) vote to sue President Obama for taking executive actions, then urge him to take executive action. They attack the President over their failure to pass CIR, then they attack him when he announces plans to right their wrongs to the greatest legal extent he can. They attack the President because refugee children have arrived at our border, then they attack him because he's reminded them that these children need legal due process (along with some tender loving care).

What does this all mean? Short answer: They're just biding their time until they vote to impeach President Obama. Longer answer: They're so terrified of their own deranged base that they've stopped caring about being consistent or making any sort of sense. And of course, they don't really care about silly things like making sense. They have more important things on their minds, important things like scoring political points. (Just don't tell them they're not even succeeding at that.)