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Bodineism started as a way for me to highlight the nitwittery of the Republicans in the 111th Congress. They say and do really gob smacking things and I post about comparing them to that gormless but loveable hillbilly Jethro Bodine. But I have to wonder if I have actually, through some unintended and accidental sorcery called this disease into reality (I’m probably taking too much on myself with that, still)?
It is one thing to misinterpret the Constitution, it is open for interpretation and people can be honestly wrong, but it is quit another for a Member of Congress in a leadership position to propose action that is completely outside the boundaries of the Constitution. Which is exactly what Eric Cantor is doing.
He is proposing and will force the House to bring to a vote a measure he is calling the “Government Shutdown Prevention Act”. What this Act will say is that if the Senate does not pass a budget measure by April 6th, then HR 1, the Republicans draconian and job slaughtering bill (which, by the way the Senate has already voted down) will become the law of the land.
I hear you all going “But, but, but… Doesn’t the Senate have to pass a bill and the President sign it for it to be law?” Why, yes, yes it does. It seems that the raven haired, square jawed Virginia Republican who is the House Majority Leader does not understand how the body he has been part of for a decade now works.
If there were an “All Time Jethro Bodineism Award” it is certain that Rep. Cantor would be earning himself a place in the nominees. It is easy to dismiss this as insane and a stunt, but I see a bigger picture emerging among Republicans nation wide.
The lawless behavior of Gov. Scott Walker in Wisconsin has shown that he and his Republicans have a shocking disregard for the laws of their state. They have broken and bent the rules to pass their union busting bill and have even defied a court order in the implementation of the law.
In Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder has proposed a law that would allow his office to declare “financial marshal law” and then appoint and unelected business manager to take over a municipality, and go as far as dissolving the elected government of that city or town, all without any input from the voters there in.
Combine this with Rep Eric “Jethro For Life” Cantor’s plan, which he proposes as “getting serious about the budget impasse” and you see something very disturbing; a political party that not only does not understand the Constitution but is actively trying to thwart it at every turn.
It was one of the things that we Liberals warned about in the days of the criminal Bush administration, that if the flagrant disregard for the Constitution of that administration was allowed to continue it would degrade the affects of our founding document beyond just those instances.
The abject failure of the Obama administration to investigate, and where appropriate prosecute the offenders had proven that this slippery slope is indeed real. I completely understand that it would have been and continues to be politically difficult to follow the rule of law in this case; however this failure is not without consequences.
Without the firm backstop of Constitutionality, and the enforcement of laws against heinous crimes like torture and indefinite detention we open ourselves up to debate exactly what every right and responsibility in the Constitution means. The Conservative movement has opened a Pandora’s Box and is more than happy to start taking bed rock assumptions apart now that we do not have clarity on issues as black and white as torture.
From Birth Right Citizenship, to how Senators are elected, to EPA to collective bargaining rights they are ready to ignore centuries of progress and try to take our nation back to a time when we were, frankly less free. It is of course, ironic that these fools wrap themselves in the mantle of the Framers of the Constitution. It is a good thing I don’t believe in an after life, else I would have to endure the image of Franklin, Jefferson and Addams puking their guts out at the mockery these asshats are making of their nation.
One thing that we can do is to start to push the media not to give a platform to the Jethro’s. Rep. Cantor is protected in his right to say any damned fool thing he likes, but that does not mean it should go unchallenged.
Take a couple of minutes to write a letter to your local newspaper about the fact that one of the top Republicans is going to waste the time of the Peoples House to vote on a bill that will never be law and acts like the House has more power than it does.
The floor is yours.