Congress returns to Washington Dec. 1, just 10 days before government funding is set to expire, and Boehner and incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) say they are intent on avoiding a government shutdown. Obama’s executive action has inflamed conservatives, who believe he has overstepped his constitutional authority. Some hard-line GOP lawmakers are calling for a showdown with Obama, but Boehner and McConnell have no desire to relive the October 2013 government shutdown. McConnell, Boehner and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said that the Republican-controlled Capitol Hill would stop governing by crisis. Boehner last week, however, said that he has plenty of energy to fight Obama.
Some conservatives have called on Congress to choke off funding for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, but those employees are funded by fees, not congressional appropriations.
GOP aides and lawmakers say they expect the leadership to consider additional legislation to address the executive order, but there have been no decisions made on what those bills would look like. There are lots of ideas: Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has signaled he would hold up some of Obama’s executive branch nominees, others privately have been musing about shutting the government down, refusing to invite the president to give his State of the Union address or censuring the president. Many in congressional leadership think these ideas are nonsensical, since it will not serve any practical purpose.
To recap, Republicans in Congress are so utterly petty and hateful that they're falling all over themselves to see who can be the biggest asshole to President Obama. That's what they are worried about right now.
And that's all that matters.
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1 comment:
Perhaps universal surveillance video isn't completely bad. At least it makes it harder for the shooter to tell an uncontradicted version of the events. Kind of like the 12-year old boy who was shot because he was playing with a toy gun: the police said the boy had ignored repeated orders to put the gun down - the video showed the boy was killed within seconds after the police pulled up (too close to do anything other than shoot had the weapon been real).
It's also noteworthy that nobody seems to be mentioning the open carry folks in this context. It used to be that the police could reasonably assume that folks they approached were unarmed. Now, the police can reasonably think that everyone's armed - which makes them far more likely to shoot first (and be the only one capable of answering questions afterward).
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