RUSH: From Breitbart. Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate: “Department of Homeland Security Funding Stuck in the Senate, Up to the House.” Now, if you’ve been following what’s going on with this, you see that headline, then you know that the Republicans are all set to squander it again.
With the version of a bill passed in the House, Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill — and, remember, now, let’s go back to the cromnibus bill back in December, this totally unnecessary Republican agreement with the Democrats to fund the government for the rest of this fiscal year. Giving up their power to shape the budget for the next nine months, they went ahead and gave the Democrats everything they wanted except one thing. They withheld funding for the Department of Homeland Security, the Republicans did.
Now, the reason that they withheld funding for DHS, they told us, was they were gonna make a stand on Obama’s executive amnesty. They were going to eliminate Obama’s ability to do it by denying him the money to implement it. That’s what they told us, and they wanted applause and they wanted kudos and they wanted appreciation from us. But a number of us were suspicious of this, because we had become aware of negotiations between Republicans and the White House to go ahead and make executive amnesty a reality, after going through all of this, this supposed defunding simply as a show to placate us.
So what happened is the House passes a bill that does not authorize funding for the Department of Homeland Security in this budget that is now in place for the next nine months. But that bill has to pass the Senate, and if it does pass the Senate, then Obama doesn’t have the money to implement his executive amnesty, and Mitch McConnell is saying, “Well, we’re kinda stuck here. We’re not gonna be able to pass this bill here in the Senate because the Democrats are continuing to — well, they’re filibustering the thing and they’re obstructing it, and we’re just not gonna be able to get it done.”
And so McConnell has sent word to Boehner that it’s up to you, you bud, you gotta come up with a new version of this bill that the Democrats will support, and there is no such thing. There’s no such thing as a bill that the Democrats are gonna support that does not fund the Department of Homeland Security. McConnell told reporters yesterday, “I think itÂ’s clear we canÂ’t go forward in the Senate, unless you all have heard something I havenÂ’t and so the next move obviously is up to the House. WeÂ’ve had a week on it. WeÂ’ve had three cloture votes, all of which have not succeeded. ItÂ’s clear we canÂ’t get on the bill. We canÂ’t offer amendments to the bill and I think itÂ’d be pretty safe to say weÂ’re stuck because of Democratic obstruction on the Senate side.”
Now, how many weeks did the Senate Democrats spend ramming through Obamacare illegally via budget reconciliation? So how come the Republicans give up so quickly? Why don’t they just use budget reconciliation in this case? I mean, they tell us that they’re serious about opposing Obama’s executive amnesty, but they’re not. See, that’s what it all comes down to. This is the sad thing. I hate saying it, too. They want to stop Obama’s executive amnesty, so that’s why they’re not gonna really work on this.
Another piece, Power Line, the headline is: “Are Senate Republicans Hanging the House Out to Dry? — The House of Representatives has passed legislation that fully funds the Department of Homeland Security, except that it withholds funding to implement President ObamaÂ’s illegal and unconstitutional immigration fiats. Republican leadership in the Senate has tried to bring the House measure up for a vote three times, but each time the Democrats have filibustered it. The department is funded, I believe, through February 27. At that point the money begins to run out.
“The Republicans hold the cards here. It is close to inconceivable that the Democrats would shut down the Department of Homeland Security by continuing to filibuster the departmentÂ’s appropriation. Yet, if this account in the National Journal is correct, Senate Republicans may be preparing to fold a winning hand.” That’s what the previous headline is. “McConnell: DHS Funding Stuck In the Senate, Up To The House.” Even the National Journal, which they’re probably in tears, too, over Jon Stewart leaving, even they say the Republicans have a winning hand that they’re about to squander. The House came up with a good plan. That it’s up to the Senate Republicans to stick to it.
You want to know what’s really happened here? This is gonna make you sick. You want to know what’s really happened here on the Senate side? I’ll tell you exactly what’s happened here. And Ted Cruz, you can find a video by Ted Cruz, and he spells this all out. It was recorded this past weekend, and he says that the cromnibus bill, this lame-duck session thing signed in December, set all of this up.
Here was the idea. The idea was that rather than risk a wider government shutdown over Obama’s amnesty, Republicans would focus on the Department of Homeland Security funding, and they would risk a limited shutdown of that department and that department only if Obama and the Democrats refused to scale back his amnesty intentions. But when it came down to the final counting, the Republicans were never really willing to shut down DHS, either, and they made no secret of the fact.
The Republicans were bluffing, and they admitted they were bluffing! It’s no different than when the Republicans told Obama and the media and everybody else that there would never be any be any impeachment hearings. Well, that’s just a signal to Obama that the Republicans aren’t gonna stop him. They did the same thing here. All along they have led everybody to believe that they’re willing to shut down DHS, not the whole government, but they’re willing to shut down the Department of Homeland Security in order to stop Obama’s executive amnesty. But then they let it be known that they wouldn’t shut down Department of Homeland Security. So the Democrats have no reason to support the Republican bill.
The whole thing is an out-and-out joke, folks. The House passed an amendment to the Department of Homeland Security bill that not only would have blocked Obama’s mega-amnesty, but also the smaller DREAMer amnesty that he imposed in 2012. So what they promised, they promised to use the power of the purse to stop Obama’s executive overreach, and then they also vowed to show American voters looking at 2016 that the Republicans would never shut down the government. They’re hell-bent, as you know, the Republicans, because of polling data and whatever, they want people to know that no matter what, if there’s ever a government shutdown, it isn’t them, they’re not doing it.
So the House passes a bill that would defund the Department of Homeland Security and deny Obama the money to implement executive amnesty. The Senate from day one agreed to go along with it. And then when it came time to actually go along with it, the Senate Republicans said, “Sorry, we can’t get the bill past the Democrats.” Because they had telegraphed to the Democrats that they really weren’t gonna shut down the Department of Homeland Security because they had said, “We don’t ever want to be accused of shutting down the government.”
They don’t want to go into the 2016 presidential campaign year with any government shutdown in anybody’s recent memory. So just like with Obamacare, there’s no real Republican effort to stop Obama’s executive amnesty. And I want you to remember, back in December when they started debating this stupid budget bill, it was a mistake to go ahead and let the Democrats essentially authorize a budget for the balance of this fiscal year, because that gave the Democrats the power to spend the money as they wanted it spent for the next nine months, even though the Republicans are gonna be controlling Congress for those nine months, the Republicans trying to mollify us, “Don’t worry, we’re not gonna fund the Department of Homeland Security. We’re gonna hold out money so Obama can’t do his amnesty.”
So now February as arrived when it’s time to withhold money from DHS, and the Senate Republicans are saying, “Sorry, we can’t do it.” And that’s where we are. The conservative media, conservative blogosphere pulling their hair out trying to figure out what the hell is going on. Why are the Senate Republicans so gonadless? Sadly, it was predictable. But, anyway, that’s it. If you’ve heard about it, you’ve been seeing little bits and pieces about it, that’s what the bottom line is.
As it stands now, there is not gonna be — ’cause the Senate is saying Boehner, it’s up to you to come up with a new bill that the Democrats over here will support. And Boehner is saying, “Sorry, we’ve already done the bill. It’s your turn.” The House Republicans, say what you want about ’em, but they are miffed that the Senate Republicans have not done one thing to help ’em in the past couple years. And the Senate Republicans’ excuse has been Harry Reid wouldn’t let us do anything. But now they run the Senate. They can’t hide behind Harry Reid now, but they’re hiding behind something.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: This is Jake, Salt Lake City, you’re next, sir. I am glad you waited. Hello.
CALLER: Hello, Rush, how are you?
RUSH: Very well. Thank you much.
CALLER: Good. Dittos from sunny Salt Lake City. Thrilled to speak with you. By the way, before I get to my point, I love your commentary from the first hour. I found myself thinking, if I’m a liberal or even a low-information voter listening to your points, I’d find myself shaking my head, like, how can you argue with that? Why is this making so much sense? And people like Olivia, it illustrates a point. But, anyway, my point is, I’m so frustrated with the Republicans because it seems like we’ve given them such a mandate, we the American people, in the midterm elections, and they’re just so afraid.
I know this is a point we’ve talked about before, you brought up before, but in light of your earlier commentary, I wanted to bring it up. Because it feels to me like they are afraid to move forward full steam for they might lose the low-information voter who might be thinking, you know, to come over to the other side, but then again, I’m so frustrated because they have the will of the American people. It’s right here in front of them, and yet they’re afraid to use it ’cause they got their eye on the election, and they don’t want to scare people away. You know what I mean?
RUSH: Yeah. The only thing I would tell you is, I don’t think that it’s fear of the low-information voter per se. That’s where it ends. The fear is of the media. Let’s say they had proceeded here. Let’s say the Senate had gone ahead and let’s say McConnell had really tried as hard as he can to get the House bill that would have defunded Obama’s executive amnesty and Homeland Security passed in the Senate. I mean, really, really tried. Let’s say they’d done it. They are deathly afraid that the media is gonna write of them as racists, anti-Hispanic, you name it. And that they’re gonna be tarred and feathered once again with not liking people of color and only supporting the rich and only caring about the rich and all that, and I don’t know what else it is. Well, I do.
The other possibility is that the people donating money to them don’t want this. The donor class carries much more weight than voters at the moment. I mean, it’s just what it is. The donor class, meaning the Chamber and others raising money who want amnesty to happen. The money talks. And it’s in direct conflict with the election results last November.
So I think it’s a two-pronged effort. The problem is that when they campaign and get those votes, and in this last election in November it was an anti-Obama vote, this makes it even worse. This election did not have a Republican mandate per se, other than stop Obama and the Democrat Party, stop the Democrat Party, stop Obama, that’s what this election and that’s what the one in 2010 meant. And the Republicans purposely did not run with a national agenda or issue platform so they could say that they don’t have an issue mandate, which they think would imprison them. But the mandate they do have is one they’re ignoring, and that is stop Obama. There’s any number of reasons for it, as we’ve discussed.
Related Links