'Also, there's a spider in my office. Huge thing, this big. We can't go in there anymore.'
Having decided to do nothing on immigration reform this year, House Republicans are now in the position of having to explain that position in a manner that might sound plausible to people. Or at least plausible to their base, which you have to admit is a much easier proposition—those people will buy anything.
And so we get things like Majority Leader Eric Cantor explaining that the big problem is, um, Obamacare. Via HuffPo:
"The news of this week, unfortunately, has been many, many Americans very unhappy with the work product coming out of this town as far as health care is concerned," Cantor said. "I would posit to the gentleman that a bill like Obamacare or a bill like the Senate immigration bill produces the kinds of impact and effect that we're seeing this week and last week and the prior. We don't want to commit that same mistake."
Wait, did we say Obamacare? We meant because Obama, period. He's outta control, we tells ya:
Republicans are skeptical of Obama's commitment to enforcing immigration law and protecting the border -- despite record deportation numbers and high border patrol spending -- and argue they can't be sure he'd actually follow the law.
Rep. Tom Cole may be on to something with his theory that immigration reform can't happen primarily because his caucus is made up of incompetent bumblefucks:
[Cole] said it was unrealistic to expect the House to be able to tackle what he called the "divisive and difficult issue" of immigration when it can barely handle the most basic task of keeping the government's lights on.
"We're not sure we can chew gum, let alone walk and chew gum, so let’s just chew gum for a while," Cole said.
Ooh, that's a good one. I'm gonna go with that one. I would also accept "frothing Republican base would not put up with doing humane things on behalf of any immigrants, ever"; see the collective oeuvre of Rep. Steve King for that one.
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