These guys suck. A lot.

These guys suck. A lot.

Exactly how much did the Republican House suck in 2012? Unfortunately, the math does not yet exist—but don't worry, the gay wizards are working on it!—to calculate a number that huge. This is no easy task, considering just how hard House Republicans worked at sucking. Well, on those occasional days they bothered to show up for work.

Such calculations are especially difficult when you have to factor in that, despite the Sternly Worded Letter to which a whopping 10 Republicans bravely signed their names, the House allowed the 18-year-old Violence Against Women Act to expire because, as Steve Benen writes at Maddowblog, "House Republicans insist the bill is too supportive of immigrants, the LGBT community, and Native Americans -- and they'd rather let the law expire than approve a slightly expanded proposal."

Yup. Republicans wanted to help victims of domestic violence—but only the straight, white, born-in-'Merica kind. So while the Senate easily approved renewal of VAWA last spring, with a 68 to 31 vote, those wacky House Republicans showed they'd rather abandon all victims of domestic violence than have to provide protection to Native Americans, immigrants and lesbians. Because values and freedoms and stuff.

Democratic Sen. Patty Murray, who had the thankless task of begging and pleading with the House to put on their Big Legislator pants and actually pass what has never before been considered controversial legislation, released this statement:



The House Republican leadership's failure to take up and pass the Senate's bipartisan and inclusive VAWA bill is inexcusable. This is a bill that passed with 68 votes in the Senate and that extends the bill's protections to 30 million more women. But this seems to be how House Republican leadership operates. No matter how broad the bipartisan support, no matter who gets hurt in the process, the politics of the right wing of their party always comes first.

Oh well. Maybe the House and Senate can start all over again in the next session. And maybe next time, Republicans will think twice about obstructing aid to battered women, especially since their War on Women didn't exactly help them in the polls in 2012. But considering the way the House Republicans seem determined to prove they're as crazy as ever, haven't learned a single lesson, and are still dead set on nihilism in the name of liberty, don't hold your breath.