House Republicans emerged from a closed-door meeting this week united in disarray.
Despite broad agreement within the caucus that comprehensive immigration reform needs to die a slow and painful death—and that Democrats should be blamed for it—members differed over exactly why that is.
While some GOP lawmakers cited Latinos' propensity to vote Democratic, others claimed that the alligatorless legislation passed by the Senate would leave our border vulnerable to creeping paganism and Bill Clinton's penis.
And besides, the Romney/Ryan campaign's growing popularity in Sub-Saharan Africa proves beyond a reasonable doubt that Republicans don't really need to do any
more minority outreach.
Morning lineup:
Meet the Press: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV); Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY); Rep. Tom Cotton (R-AR); Roundtable: Rich Lowry (National Review), Former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D), Neera Tanden (Center for American Progress) and Republican Strategist Steve Schmidt.
Face the Nation: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; Rep. Peter King (R-NY), Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA); Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL); Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL); Roundtable: Peggy Noonan (Wall Street Journal), Bobby Ghosh (TIME), David Sanger (New York Times), John Harris (Politico) and Margaret Brennan (CBS News).
This Week: Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA); Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK); Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT); Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN); Former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D); Roundtable: Paul Gigot (Wall Street Journal), Maggie Haberman (Politico), Mark Leibovich (New York Times) and TV/Radio Host Tavis Smiley.
Fox News Sunday: Rep. Steve King (R-IA); Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY); Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX); Roundtable: Bill Kristol (Weekly Standard), Former Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA), GOP Strategist Karl Rove and Charles Lane (Washington Post).
State of the Union: Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R); Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn (D); Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ); Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-PA); Ben Jealous (NAACP).
Evening lineup:
60 Minutes will feature: an interview with serial killer nurse Charles Cullen, who has confessed to as many as 40 murders, but some believe he killed many, many more patients over a 16-year career (preview); and, rare footage of the plowshare tortoise laying eggs, a species endangered by poaching and habitat loss (preview).
On Comedy Central...
"The Daiy Show" and "The Colbert Report" were in reruns (again) this week, so there are no new videos to share. Instead, here's "Daily Show" correspondent Larry Whitmore's examination of the GOP's minority outreach.
The Daily Show
Monday: Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin
Tuesday: Actress Helen Mirren
Wednesday: Author/Academic Reza Aslan
Thursday: Author Sarah Vowell
And Stephen Colbert's report on the Heritage Foundation's racist immigration study.
The Colbert Report
Monday: Author Jeremy Scahill
Tuesday: Founder of Tumblr David Karp
Wednesday: Comedian Jerry Seinfeld
Thursday: Actor Jeff Bridges
Elsewhere...
Sarah Palin engaged in a battle of wits against Sen. Mark Begich.
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin hit back Thursday against Sen. Mark Begich after the Democratic senator, also from Alaska, argued Palin had lost touch with the values of their state.
"Really, Mark? Really?" she wrote on her Facebook page.
"Margaret Thatcher used to say, 'I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.' So, thank you, Mark Begich, for making me and others exceptionally cheery today," she added.
Meanwhile...
After wishing that he could react to Facebook photos of gay couples with a "vomit" button, televangelist Pat Robertson defended himself against the baseless accusation that he's anti-gay.
"I am very pleased that we have many, many, many homosexuals watching this program, and many of them are looking for love and acceptance and help. And I'm glad to report that we have thousands of these people who are saying, 'yes we want to follow Jesus, we're not happy with the lifestyle we're in and we want to have a better way.' So I think it's wonderful that's happening….
There are a lot of people are into this homosexual thing because they've been abused by a parent, abused by a coach, abused by a sibling, abused by a friend, and they’re little boys and little girls and they don’t know any better, and then they somehow think, 'well I must be gay.' Well they aren’t, they are heterosexual and they just need to come out of that.
There are others, maybe they've got some chromosomal damage that's different from heterosexuals."
And, in other news of non-discrimination...
Geraldo Rivera got dressed up in his best white hoodie.
"I see those six ladies in the jury putting themselves on that rainy night, in that housing complex that has just been burglarized by three or four different groups of black youngsters from the adjacent community. So it's a dark night, a 6-foot-2-inch hoodie-wearing stranger is in the immediate housing complex. How would the ladies of that jury have reacted? I submit that if they were armed, they would have shot and killed Trayvon Martin a lot sooner than George Zimmerman did. This is self-defense."
Just shoot me.
- Trix