Watch this video, and tell me if Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), the second highest ranking Republican in the House, is not the dumbest member of Congress ever. If you don't agree with me, you are either a) as dumb as he is or b) so extremely partisan that you refuse to acknowledge idiocy on your side.
Cantor claims in the video that the House will be passing a bill called the "Government Shutdown Prevention Act." The bill, he claims, will say that if the Senate does not pass the House budget - HR 1- by the time the next continuning resolution expires (in April) then it will become "the law of the land" without them. That's right, Eric Cantor believes that a bill can become the law of the land simply by passing in one house of Congress and without a Presidential signature. Every seventh grader in America knows this is nonsense, yet no one in the media challenged him on it at the announcement. How can someone be the House Majority Leader of the US Congress and believe this? Lawrence O'Donnell schools Mr. Cantor on the three things that MUST happen in order for a bill to become law in the United States.
I am shocked at just how ignorant Cantor and the House Republicans are for believing what they are saying, but more shocked that no one in the media, except O'Donnell, even noticed. Look, I get it that House Republicans are upset that bills passed in the House aren't getting voted on in the Senate. But, do they even recognize the irony of their whining? From 2009-2010, the Democratically controlled House passed over 400 bills that never got a vote in the Senate due to Republican filibusters and anonymous holds. I didn't recall Cantor and his minions saying, then, that all bills passed in the House are the "law of the land."
Mr. Cantor owes his country and his party an apology for being so ignorant of how the country works. I would have thought that with over a decade in Congress, Cantor might have known how a bill becomes law. I guess I expected too much. Shocking.
2 comments:
Good post! He needs to listen to his House Speaker, who just today said something to the effect that the Republican House cannot impose its will upon the Democratic Senate and the Democratic White House. Without a willingness to meet the other side halfway, they won't get anywhere near where they want to go. Just because they believe they are right doesn't mean they can do whatever they want. Sadly, that seems to be how a lot of Republican pols view the world today.
Snave, you are assuming the "other side" - the teabaggers - actually care about governing. They care about forcing their will and beliefs onto the public whether the public wants it or not. After winning one election cycle (after losing the previous two), conservatives seem to feel they have been given dictatorial power to impose their will on everyone. They are not rational thinkers, have little idea what the Constitution says or means, and have a contempt for democracy.
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