All the Mirthless Laughter in the Multiverse

[Content Note: Immigration; racism.]

I mean.

Hours before Congress broke for the August recess, House Republicans claimed that the President could use executive action to fix the border situation with unaccompanied children fleeing violence in the Central American countries of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala.

In a press statement released Thursday, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and other House Republican leaders indicated that President Obama could address the crisis "without the need for congressional action," a statement tinged with some irony given that just the day before, House Republicans had slammed the President with a lawsuit claiming executive overreach.

Here are the takeaways from that:

1. Congressional Republicans are shameless hypocrites. (And water is wet.)

2. Congressional Republicans are not really concerned about the President's use of executive orders full-stop; they're concerned about the President's use of executive orders to do things with which they disagree. They're essentially arguing for the right to force the President of the United States to do their bidding.

If anyone is overreaching in this scenario. Ahem.

I don't suppose I need to note for the one biebillionth time that it sure is curious how aggressive Congressional Republicans are being about trying to undermine the authority of this particular president, in the specific ways they're doing it.

3. Congressional Republicans want to punt on immigration. They can't "win" on immigration in a way that satisfies their racist base and the increasingly powerful Latin@ voting bloc (which is not in monolithic agreement on undocumented immigration policy, anyway), so they want to not have to take a stand at all, during a major immigration crisis, and leave it to President Obama to unilaterally set policy which they can then criticize no matter what it is.

They are playing a game while people are dying.

The thing about treating politics as a game is that it only seems like a game to the people who are playing it.

The rest of us? Not so much.