On Tuesday, the Senate voted down the Green New Deal, with Republicans offering more auspicious climate change-combating proposals like “get married and have some kids” and embrace death.
The vote was a farce from the jump, brought by Mitch McConnell who—despite reporting pretty much hourly on impending planetary devastation—held no hearings on the proposal and knew the Republican-controlled Senate would reject it. To counter some of McConnell’s strategic fuckery, 43 Democrats voted “PRESENT” instead of voting for or against the bill, with the final vote coming out to 57-0.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who introduced the bill back in February, faced similar mockery during a Monday hearing of the House Financial Services Committee when Wisconsin Republican Sean Duffy, a Real World alum and all in all terrible shit, called the Green New Deal a policy designed for a “rich liberal.”
“This is not an elitist issue,” she said in a video clip from that hearing that went viral on Tuesday night. “This is a quality of life issue. You want to tell people that their concern and their desire for clean air and clean water is elitist?”
She added, “This is about American lives. And it should not be partisan. Science should not be partisan. We are facing a national crisis.”
The clip is pretty fucking good:
Unfortunately, elected officials on both sides of the aisle seem more enamored with oil money than they are determined to stop Miami from sinking to the bottom of the ocean. At least all the marriages and babies we’re being implored to have will distract us from some of that unpleasantness, plus you can probably buy gas masks in bulk as wedding favors.