Zugzwang

By Bill Maher

If you're slightly smarter than a fighting fish, or you're not Facebook friends with Bristol Palin, it's pretty easy to understand what's going on with Republicans and immigration: their base won't let them debate any bill that doesn't involve death camps. Short of that, there's no possible move they can make that won't piss off the Tea Party. German chess players have a word for not wanting to move, even though it's your turn, because all possible moves are worse than doing nothing. The word is "zugzwang."  

The job of Congress is to legislate, but they must not legislate. Zugzwang.

The GOP think they've found a way around that: They don't have to move - oh, they'd love to, of course - because they can't trust Obama to take his turn. 

John Boehner: "Frankly one of the biggest obstacles we face is trust. The American people and including many of my members don't trust that the reform we're talking about will be implemented as it was intended to be. The President seemed to change the health care law on a whim whenever he likes... And he's feeding more distrust about whether he's committed to the rule of law."  

Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio and Eric Cantor have - this is so weird! - all said pretty much the same thing: We understand that the rule book says it's our turn, but you're a poopy pants, so we'll pass. German chess players call this "acting like a two-year-old."