Hoping that members of the House of Representatives will start using
facts and coherent logic to advance the nation's interest is still a
fool's errand, but there's one member of Congress, Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA),
who's willing to at least pretend it's possible. Breaking out the
teacher's most potent weapon, a red pen, he marked up Republican House
members' letter to John Boehner forcing asking him to
resist the immigration reform bill that has already passed America's
slightly-less-insane upper chamber. Included in his comments are some
words we haven't seen on a Congressional document in years, like
"evidence," as well as an awesome invitation to "come by my office" if
"you don't understand the bill."
Frankly, my favorite part is
pointing out that given a proper word count, the bill is only 286 pages
long. Why do I like this? Because "it's too long to read" is one of the
GOP's new favorite reasons not to support things, which really does not
help their anti-intellectual image. Obamacare, hate it or tolerate it, had about as many words as Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, not that Congresspeople read at that grade level. Can we at least agree that Congress shouldn't sound so afraid of reading?
Congress is pretty much the least-popular thing in America,
which is impressive in the land of Honey Boo-Boo and Chris Brown. If
there's one kind of person who isn't afraid to do their job in the face
of massive unpopularity, though, it's a high-school teacher.
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