Chronicles of teh Crazy

The fine Americans in our readership will be pleased to know that the GOP-controlled House of Representatives has taken a break this week from casting pointless votes to overturn Obamacare. Apparently 37 of those were enough. For now.

I NEVER TOSSED OFF!!!

Fortunately, the House has moved on to more important things. Like jobs, growth, national security, civil liberties, and taking another run at making certain types of abortion illegal. In this case virtually all abortions post 20 weeks of fertilization.

That's illogical, you say. There's no way that'll pass the Senate, and even if it does, there's no way President Obama would sign that legislation into law. Silly you, with your common sense and your cute outside-the-Beltway (metaphorically, given the geographic breakdown of our audience) simple little life. This is the United States House of Representatives we're talking about. Very Very Important People with a clear understanding of our nation's most vital priorities.

As we've said before, we're not here to debate a woman's right to choose. Not really this blog's oeuvre. But if we were going to do so, we'd be hard-pressed to find an adequate response to Rep. Michael Burgess' (R-TX) scientifically-reasoned position. According to Burgess, abortion after 15 weeks should be illegal...because fetuses like to jerk off.

“Watch a sonogram of a 15-week baby, and they have movements that are purposeful,” he says. “They stroke their face. If they’re a male baby, they may have their hand between their legs. If they feel pleasure, why is it so hard to believe that they could feel pain?”

Burgess, it should be noted, is an OB/GYN, and should probably be aware of the fact that major medical bodies in most of the developed world have refuted the notion that fetuses feel much of anything before the third trimester. I think Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) puts it better than I could when she says, “Well, I think all the members are cognizant of the fact that this is not a Congress that cares much about science."

I get honest political disagreement. I think it's critical to the function of a democratic society. But I agree with The Washington Post's Ezra Klein, who wrote yesterday, "The GOP’s' problem isn’t that it insults the intelligence of the voters. It’s that it insults its own intelligence."

I know a lot of intelligent Republicans. (Well, I know one. Two, maybe.) I wish their voices were the ones that got heard in Washington.

Instead, we get wankery about babywankery. Poor hairy-palmed little fellas. And that's just the Congressmen.