There are a lot of horrible people in the Republican Party, but on Thursday, freshman representatives Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene made the case that they are the absolute worst. But wait, you say, how could these two possibly top what we already know about them, which is that Boebert is a QAnon–spouting gun nut who, hours after the Colorado supermarket shooting, sent a fundraising email warning that Joe Biden is going to take away people’s guns, and, in the case of Greene, that she’s a batshit crazy conspiracy theorist who has called mass shootings a hoax, harassed a survivor of a school shooting, suggested trans people are pedophiles, and suggested that Muslims shouldn’t be allowed to serve in government? And the answer is that this week, Boebert and Greene decided to come out against cancer patients.
Yes, on Thursday the duo were the only members of the House of Representatives to vote against a bill that would reauthorize the National Marrow Donor Program, which helps match bone marrow donors and cord blood units with people who have leukemia and other diseases. The bill, called the TRANSPLANT Act, was sponsored by California representative Doris Matsui, who explained its importance in a statement this week, saying, “Every three minutes, someone is diagnosed with a blood cancer. For patients and families facing these fatal diseases, a bone marrow or cord blood transplant may be the best treatment or only potential for a cure. For the 1.3 million Americans suffering from blood cancer and bone marrow disorders, we must continue to make investments in these programs that have saved tens of thousands of lives.”
Far from being the type of bill to narrowly make it out the chamber on partisan lines, the TRANSPLANT Act passed by 415–2. In other words, about 200 of Boebert and Greene’s GOP colleagues voted for it, making them the lone assholes. (Twelve lawmakers did not vote on the bill.)
What were their reasons for literally making life more difficult for people with life-threatening diseases, including children, and potentially sending them to an early death? In a statement to CNN, Boebert claimed that saving people’s lives is not worth adding to the national debt. “This bill added hundreds of millions of dollars to the national debt, while not receiving a CBO score or going through the committee process,” she said. (She did not mention the fact that she is all for adding to the national debt when it comes to corporate tax cuts.) For her part, Greene’s spokesman claimed that “Nothing in this bill prevents the funding of aborted fetal tissue by taxpayers,” and on Friday she tweeted, “The Fake News Media is attacking me for being TOO PRO-LIFE (100%).” Yes, she’s 100% PRO-LIFE except in the case of the lives of people dying of cancer, in which case her official policy is “fuck ’em.” (She’s also not too concerned about the lives of victims of mass shootings, or the police for that matter.)
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