title:  ARE THEY SERIOUS? Here’s The Insane Thing Republicans Did Instead Of Passing Zika Funding Last Week
text: This week marked a particularly shameful level of the kind of Republican obstruction that has now become the norm. As reports came in that Zika had hit the United States with a vengeance, a crucial spending bill that would have allocated funds to fight the devastating illness was derailed. Having ignored the request by President Obama at the advice of disease scientists for $1.9 billion for research and prevention, Republicans offered first just half of that  then just a third.The sheer heartlessness astounded even some among the Republican Party. Senator Marco Rubio, whose state of Florida is ground zero for the Zika virus, gave a strongly worded condemnation of his colleagues  actions on Capitol Hill. The rest of the country merely braced for what is going to be a very scary summer.But while Republicans once again proved they have absolutely no interest in fulfilling even basic levels of governance, they were busy wasting everyone s time on something else. Given the stakes of the spending bill they didn t pass, what they did do is especially offensive.Just as the House was derailing the Zika funding (and an energy and water bill for that matter), they were drafting up a petition to demand the Library of Congress go back to using the degrading term  Illegal Alien  to refer to undocumented immigrants. That s how they spent their work week.Republicans on a powerful House panel Tuesday narrowly defended a tea party-fueled move to tell the Library of Congress how to label immigrants living in the country illegally.The GOP move is designed to force the Library of Congress to retain the term  illegal alien  for cataloging and search purposes, reversing the library s plan to replace  illegal alien  with less prejudicial terms like  noncitizens  or  unauthorized immigration. The Library of Congress has previously explained to Republicans that using the term  illegal alien  in its records is both offensive and confusing. For one thing, Library employees pointed out, the term  alien  could mean a space alien. Nobody is going to confuse an  unauthorized immigrant  with ET.This year, Congress scheduled itself for the least amount of workdays of any congressional term in modern history. Just 111 days will be spent  legislating  (and let s use that term loosely here). This is partly because Republicans have come to the conclusion that the best way to reduce government is to make it dysfunctional, but the other reason is that Republican leaders have realized that with an election coming up, their fanatical anti-government base will abandon them if they even so much as think about reaching across the aisle. Even for something as important as funding the fight against a virus that causes severe birth defects. So instead they ve taken to sitting on their hands. Cowardly? Craven? Cynical? All of the above?It s comforting to know that in the short time that they do spend on lawmaking, Republicans have their priorities in order. Zika funding? No. Supreme Court confirmation hearings? Nah. Changing the semantics of the cataloging and search functions in the Library of Congress so as to be intentionally derogatory? You better believe it.Featured image via Win McNamee/Getty Images