Republicans are under a lot of pressure these days.
Having the majority in both the House and Senate is so far not proving to be the political nirvana they had expected.
They’ve backed themselves into a corner by holding up the confirmation of a bipartisan-supported nominee for attorney general, the first African American woman ever nominated.
Their proposed budgets have been criticized for some accounting sleight of hand, as well as cuts in domestic programs. The ideological fissures inside the party are growing deeper, as well as the split between defense hawks and fiscal hawks.
And the letter from Senate Republicans to the Iranian leadership undercutting President Obama’s nuclear negotiations was generally seen as politically ham-handed, at best.
Republicans have also a problem with Obama’s executive order last fall that would defer deportations of several million undocumented immigrants. The order is before the courts.
But as the legal process slowly unwinds, they called upon a mermaid ‑ among others – to make their case to a younger audience.
In a press release, the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee arranged a set of compressed images of celebrities – known as GIFs – drawn from movie and TV clips to enhance its critique of the president’s deportation policies.
For instance: above an image of actress Jennifer Lawrence making a comically exaggerated expression of disbelief, the press release says of Obama: “since he’s the boss of federal immigration enforcement officers, he’s told them to stop enforcing our immigration laws.”
All of the celebrities – including Emma Stone, Britney Spears, Steve Carell and Kristen Wiig ‑ are white, although in the case of Princess Ariel, who really knows, her being a mermaid and all?
Ariel, from Disney’s The Little Mermaid, appears in a gushing animated image below this line from the committee press release: “As we move forward to make our immigration system work better, we need innovative solutions that guarantee our immigration laws will be enforced in the future.”
The National Council of La Raza, an Hispanic civil rights and advocacy group, was not amused. It posted a blog headlined: “Has the House Judiciary Committee Majority Lost Its Mind?”
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