Pierce writes: "Thank you all for playing, and for being such incredible suckers, all you people who lined up after the last presidential election and predicted that the Republican party would have to moderate its stand on immigration or else face a demographic cataclysm over the next half-century."



House Speaker John Boehner. (photo: unknown)

The Endless Search for John Boehner's Balls

By Charles Pierce, Esquire

hey're still buried in a Mason jar somewhere on the continent of North America, and only Eric Cantor has the map.

Boehner repeated his long standing opposition to the Senate-passed immigration bill and his pledge the House would never vote on it, but he went a step further, drawing a bright line: "I'll make clear we have no intention ever of going to conference on the Senate bill." Last week the third ranking House Republican, GOP Whip Kevin McCarthy, R-California, told immigration reform advocates that there wasn't enough time left this year for the House to take up immigration reform. The House is in session 15 days between now and the end of the year.

So that's it. Thank you all for playing, and for being such incredible suckers, all you people who lined up after the last presidential election and predicted that the Republican party would have to moderate its stand on immigration or else face a demographic cataclysm over the next half-century. Here is the thing. Modern conservatism cannot exist without a strain of outright bigotry in its general politics, and the modern Republican party cannot exist without modern conservatism, so there we are. Absent that dwindling, but noisy, remnant of race-baiters in the party's base -- a group of people a more sensible party would have told to piss up a rope decades ago -- modern conservatism, and the Republican party that is its vehicle, would dry up and blow away on a gentle breeze. They can no more move on this issue than they can tap-dance on the moon. If you want further evidence, consult the recent impotent blathering from the only guy in the party who sings in a more pleasant soprano than the Speaker -- obvious anagram Reince Priebus, the titular head of the Republican party.

"Something significant is going to happen because obviously mass deportation is not an option. I don't think doing nothing is an option. And I believe most people would agree that something significant needs to take place. Now what that is, I don't get to make that decision," Priebus told Bloomberg's Al Hunt in an interview set to run Friday evening on "Political Capital."

Last March, Priebus was singing in a register so high only dogs could hear him.

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus gave a blistering assessment of the GOP's problems on Monday based on the results of a months-long review, and he called on the party to reinvent itself and officially endorse immigration reform. Referring to the November election, Priebus said at a breakfast meeting: "There's no one reason we lost. Our message was weak; our ground game was insufficient; we weren't inclusive; we were behind in both data and digital; and our primary and debate process needed improvement." "So, there's no one solution," he said. "There's a long list of them." Among the report's 219 prescriptions: a $10 million marketing campaign, aimed in particular at women, minorities and gays; a shorter, more controlled primary season and earlier national convention; and creation of an open data platform and analytics institute to provide research for Republican candidates.

Funniest thing ever.

Charlie has been a working journalist since 1976. He is the author of four books, most recently "Idiot America." He lives near Boston with his wife but no longer his three children.