Given his extreme, ignorant, foolish stances on basically every issue, I had essentially no hope that Rep. Ben Cline (R-VA06) would be any less godawful than his predecessor, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (or as I call him, BADlatte). And so far, Cline has been living down to BADlatte’s low, low standards, voting 94.1% with Trump, similar to BADlatte’s 95.8%. Heck, Cline even managed to vote with Vladimir Putin and against NATO! When he’s not voting, Cline has also been busy ranting and raving on far-right talk radio about the usual Trumpster obsessions — the “liberal, fake media,” the “far-left,” “voter fraud,” Nancy Pelosi, etc, etc. And now…just today, Cline hit what is perhaps a new low for him in his brief, pathetic career as a member of Congress.
House Republicans on Wednesday quietly tried to repeal a major provision in the Violence Against Women Act that helps tribes respond to horrific levels of violence directed at Native American women by non-Native men on tribal lands.
During a House Judiciary Committee markup on the 2019 bill to reauthorize the law, Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) offered an amendment to repeal provisions in the 2013 law that give tribes jurisdiction over non-Native people who commit crimes of domestic violence, dating violence or who violate a protection order against a victim on tribal land.
[…]
The committee ultimately rejected Sensenbrenner’s amendment along party lines, in a 9-16 vote. Republicans who voted for it were Reps. Doug Collins (Ga.), Ken Buck (Colo.), Mike Johnson (La.), Tom McClintock (Calif.), Ben Cline (Va.), Greg Steube (Fla.), Jim Jordan (Ohio), Andy Biggs (Ariz.) and Sensenbrenner.
Absolutely appalling, but not surprising I suppose, given that one of BADlatte’s last acts in *his* horrendous career was this.
The dude is basically singlehandedly blocking a totally non-controversial bill called “Savanna’s Act,” which passed the U.S. Senate UNANIMOUSLY on December 7, for absolutely no reason that he or his staff have explained. Why does this matter? As the Minneapolis Star-Tribune explains, this bill is needed by Native American women “to help in fight to stem the violence they face.” The bill is named after Savanna Greywind, “the vibrant young woman who died a horrific death when a Fargo, N.D., neighbor cut open her womb and stole her unborn baby in August 2017.”
Yet BADlatte is blocking the bill to “help other American Indian women from becoming victims of violence”…
Remind me again, why did VA06 voters elect Cline over the infinitely superior Jennifer Lewis (D)? Oh yeah, because they’ll apparently vote for literally *anyone* with an “R” by their name. Even someone as demonstrably horrible as Cline, who in turn appears to be following in his predecessor’s really, really BAD footsteps.
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