So House Speaker Paul Ryan started this Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday with this:
Meanwhile, Ryan is refusing to shut out the hard-liners in his conference, and his openly racist president, flirting with a government shutdown.
House Republicans are pressing Ryan for a vote on a partisan immigration bill that has little chance of passing the Senate. They want floor action on legislation by House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), which goes well beyond what the White House has said should be in a deal codifying the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program into law — and which is unlikely to garner a single Democratic vote.
"It's a good bill…I think it's something that bears consideration by the entire House," said Rep. Bill Flores (R-Texas), a former leader of the conservative Republican Study Committee. "If I were the majority leader… I would recommend that we bring it" to the floor.
Ryan and his top lieutenants have not committed to a vote on the Goodlatte bill, which GOP leaders worry could undermine bipartisan negotiations. And they're not even sure the text could garner the 218 GOP votes needed for passage in the House. Still, he's risking a backlash from conservatives if he doesn't put it forward for a vote.
Goodness knows, Ryan doesn't want to risk pissing off the extremists in his conference. Why would he champion the bipartisan agreement worked out in the Senate and avoid a government shutdown? It's not like he's speaker of the House or anything, responsible for governing for the whole nation. The whole multicultural nation that Dr. King fought and died for.
Mr. Ryan, just shut up. Just go play golf with your president or something, the one you're refusing to stand up to, and thus are just standing with.