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‘Y’all are so f**king unserious’: Americans blast Congress for prioritizing bill to make bald eagle the national bird

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The Daily Dot 

Members of Congress are congratulating themselves after passing legislation that will finally recognize the bald eagle as the national bird, but Americans aren't quite so thrilled.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) kicked off the backlash when she posted to social media celebrating the passage of the bill, which she and several other senators introduced this summer.

"My bipartisan legislation to recognize the Bald Eagle as the national bird just passed Congress and is now heading to the President's desk to be signed into law!" she wrote.

The bill making this possible was passed by unanimous vote in the Senate in July and finally made it to the House of Representatives this week, where it also passed. As Klobuchar said, all that's left now is for President Joe Biden to drop his signature and make everything official.

Is the bald eagle America's national bird?

If you're thinking to yourself, "Gosh, I thought the bald eagle was already the United States national bird," welcome to the club.

Even the National Eagle Center was under the impression that the bald eagle was the nation's official bird.

Images of these creatures have long been prominent when it comes to both official and unofficial representations of American patriotism. This dates back to the bird's inclusion on the Great Seal of the United States back in 1782. Since then, this image or similar has appeared on currency, military insignia, passports, and much, much more. It's also famously illegal to hunt eagles or even possess the feather of one in most instances.

But apparently, none of this has anything to do with the bald eagle being the official bird of the United States, because the country does not have an official bird. It never has.

Why is this happening?

Perhaps more confounding than the realization that the bald eagle has never received an official designation representing the U.S. is the fact that legislators are spending time on something like this.

"This rocks because what i'm looking for in this political moment is politicians doing completely symbolic things that i thought had already been done," reads one sarcastic viral post on Bluesky.

https://bsky.app/profile/notalawyer.bsky.social/post/3ldi5rkihgs23

Prioritizing and propping up this legislation would likely already be at least a vague annoyance among the general public at any other time. It's been clear in recent years that Americans overwhelmingly believe members of Congress have not been doing their jobs and passing laws that will better the lives of the people. And while there are many factors contributing to that, it does feel a bit frivolous to throw the focus on bird legislation.

But this is particularly true now, with less than a month before Donald Trump is inaugurated as President once again and Republicans gain control of the House and maintain their majority in the Senate. Democrat voters and anti-Trump Republicans have begged politicians to use what little time they have left with any semblance to do what they can to try to mitigate what damage a Trump-led government might do this time around.

Instead, we're getting a bird.

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The post ‘Y’all are so f**king unserious’: Americans blast Congress for prioritizing bill to make bald eagle the national bird appeared first on The Daily Dot.