Eric the S**t-Faced

I was pleased as punch to learn that House Republican leader Eric Cantor of Virginia, widely touted as the next Speaker of the House, went down in flames last night in a primary in his district for actually being too moderate on immigration reform. (By "moderate," that means Cantor actually wanted to do something about it.) I got a strong feeling of deep satisfaction knowing that the chap more responsible for blocking progress in America and taking the country backward than any other figure in Washington won't be back in January and that his absolutist leadership of the House GOP for the rest of this Congress is, ironically, compromised.

And so much for Republican diversity. Cantor's imminent departure likely means that the House Republican caucus, come 2015, won't have at least one Jew in it. Onward, Christian soldiers! 

However, that doesn't change the facts that that House is likely to remain under Republican control for the rest of this decade and possibly the rest of this century, the Senate is all but lost to the GOP at this point, and the progressive agenda is pretty much dead in Washington. If Marianne Williamson had made it to Congress, she and her message of love would have been laughed off Capitol Hill. And while we're laughing at Eric Cantor, the Tea Party will have the last laugh. The dude who beat Cantor, the appropriately named David Brat - an obscure ultra-conservative economics professor (danger, Will Robinson!) from an equally obscure college - is likely to win the general election. Brat's Democratic opponent (I could look up his Democratic opponent's name, but that, like the Democratic Party itself, is unimportant) has no chance of winning in November. 

Cantor's defeat is a treatment of a mere symptom of a larger disease. And since Brat believes in an unbridled free market, has analyzed the moral foundations in the work of Ayn Rand (!), and believes that faith in God "as recognized by our Founding Fathers" is essential to preserve the country's moral fiber (he's Catholic), the cure is worse than the ill.