"Abandoning the pretense of seriousness"

Abandoning the pretense of seriousness

By Steve Benen at MSNBC

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/abandoning-the-pretense-seriousness

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The new House Republican leadership team, facing its first real test yesterday, failed miserably. They backed a bill that ostensibly addresses the humanitarian crisis at the U.S./Mexico border, but the bill died before it even reached the floor. Rank-and-file Republican lawmakers had rejected their own party’s bill.

But instead of leaving town for Congress’ five-week break, GOP lawmakers met this morning to work something out, and by all appearances, Speaker John Boehner and his team effectively told right-wing members, “Tell us what you want and we’ll say yes.” The result is a new bill, set to pass this afternoon.

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The agreement conservative Republicans reached with very conservative Republicans can charitably be described as a bad joke. This legislation wouldn’t address the humanitarian crisis in any meaningful way, and really doesn’t even try.

The Washington Post’s report conceded the legislation “would do little to immediately solve the crisis along the U.S.-Mexico border but would allow [Republican lawmakers] to go home and tell voters that they did what they could.”



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