House Republicans decide the Department of Homeland Security isn't important

Works just fine if you're big enough.

 

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Well you had better hope that is the case. Should a terrorist decide to strike during a DHS shut down, well it wouldn't go over well. Not even Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and gerrymandered districts will be able to save Republicans from the anger of Americans.

 

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sure because disgruntling large numbers of security personal will have zero effect on their work production. its an attack on these peoples families its going to have an effect. who knew you were such a neocon.

 

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Boehner is reported to have a solution for the DHS spending bill. It should be revealed later today. It should be interesting.

 

It will certainly have an effect on them. They just do almost nothing to improve our actual security, so our security won't be jeopardized. (We should keep paying them though for their sakes.)

 

They "prepared" by putting the burden of establishing one's harmlessness on the individual passenger. Gall's Law: Systems grow; and as they grow, they encroach.

They banned nail clippers in carryons. They threw people off planes and detained them in interrogation rooms for having names similar to the names of falsely suspected terrorists. The intensively searched and questioned randomly selected little old ladies flying to visit their grandchildren on their AARP credit card miles, anyone with brown skin and a possibly Muslim name, and anyone who worked for a publication harshly critical of the W administration and the Iraq War. They had women walking through machines that could see through their clothing monitored by the guys who stock the warehouse shelves at the auto parts dealers. They banned foreign scholars, journalists, scientists, musicians, and poets, with the wrong political affiliations at home. They impeded air travel so much the resultant increase in highway deaths was statistically measurable. Their "no fly" list had typos. Their hugely expensive computer system underwent at least three fundamental reworkings and still does not function properly. And after ten years of this bs they still did not have a "fly list" - there was no way in on this earth to obtain a certification or credential in advance clearing one of terrorism affiliations, and entitling one to board an airplane unmolested with one's traveling essentials in a bag ready to hand.

Meanwhile, I know of two men easily capable of doing harm to an airplane or its passengers, knowledgable in such fields as electronics and hydraulics, big and strong, who have boarded and flown across country with Leatherman utility tools forgotten on their belts (http://www.leatherman.com/multi-too...y&prefn2=trades&prefv2=true&prefv1=Heavy-Duty) and in one case industrial explosives in their checked baggage. And the Saudis who fly into the Mayo Clinic, some of them blood relatives of Osama Bin Laden and possibly of one or more the 15 Saudi 9/11 hijackers, suffer no such indignities and delays.

Americans will have their anger directed to "both sides", including the entire Congress except for their local Republican representation.

 

Yep. DHS is largely window dressing. For example, in many airports across the US it is perfectly possible to use a fake passport or driver's license to get into the gate area, allowing anyone to buy a ticket without a background check and fly.

 

Republicans have caved on the issue. Apparently, Pelosi did cut a deal with Boehner which required him to allow a vote on a clean bill.

 

Latest news: house Republicans gave up the fight and allowed the house to pass a clean extension.

 

The whole premise of this thread is false. House Republicns have NOT said that the Department of Homeland Security isn't important. They PASSED a Homeland Security funding bill. The Democratic minority in the Senate has used procedural maneuvers to prevent that bill from reaching the floor of the Senate for a vot. Why? Because the House bill stripped out funding for Obama's amnesty for illegal aliens. (The immigration people who will be processing it are part of DHS.)

So it would seem that the Democrats are holding passage of a DHS funding bill hostage in order to get the funding they want for their beloved illegals.

The media presents the Democratic intransigence as if it is simply a given, an inviolable law of nature, and then presents the Republicans as the ones who need to back down. If they don't, then the DHS presumably won't be funded, and the mainstream news would doubtless blame any subsequent terrorist attack on the Republicans.

Unfortunately Boehner seems to have bought into that narrative. What he should be saying is that if the DHS is so important, then Democrats need to do their jobs, the Senate needs to vote on the original bill the House sent them, and Obama needs to sign it. The House Republicans need to actually be as hard-line as the media portrays them as being, they need to match the Democrats in playing hard-ball to get what they want.

It's ironic, the federal government harasses people mercilessly at airports but refuses to enforce immigration law, which apparently everyone is free to ignore with as little inconvenience as the government can manage.

Many Hispanics bloc-vote on the issue of illegals, and Hispanics tend to vote Democratic. With the Democrats, national security always takes a back seat to domestic politics.

http://news.yahoo.com/republicans-prepare-pass-homeland-security-funding-080933043--politics.html
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/feb/27/house-rejects-homeland-security-funding/
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/republicans-prepare-pass-homeland-security-funding-29265855

 

Well, Homeland Security wasn’t important enough to keep Republicans from using the threat of a shutdown of Homeland Security to advance their political agenda. So clearly Republicans value their political power more than they value Homeland Security and the people who work there.

Ultimately Republicans did cave and pass a clean Homeland Security funding bill in both houses of congress, but not before a round of brinksmanship with Homeland Security funding.

Actually, the Senate passed a clean Homeland Security bill long before the House. And ultimately the House passed the Senate bill. So obviously, the Democratic minority in the Senate didn’t block the bill from reaching the floor of the Senate as the bill was passed on the floor of the Senate. But when the Senate bill got to the House, House Republicans didn’t immediately bring it to the floor of the House. House Republicans first passed a Homeland Security funding bill that went nowhere in the Senate because it wasn’t a clean funding bill. With the aid of House Democrats, Republican leadership in the House was able to get a one week extension of Homeland Security funding. Days later, with the aid of House Democrats, the Republican leadership in the House passed the original Homeland Security fund bill passed in the Senate weeks earlier.

The Homeland Security bill which failed in the House did strip out funding for Obama’s executive order. But Obama’s executive order doesn’t grant amnesty for illegal aliens. It provides a deportation process. Congress by not funding the deportation of nearly 12 million illegal immigrants has already granted de facto amnesty to the nation’s illegal immigrants. Obama’s executive order induces some order into what has been a very disorderly process. ousH

Except none of that is true for the reasons previously given, contrary to your assertion, the Senate passed a clean DHS funding bill long before Republicans and Democrats did in the House. And in order to get the DHS funding bill passed in the House, Republicans had to once again abandon the Hastert Rule and rely on Democratic votes to get the funding bill passed.

Your premise is wrong. Contrary to your assertion the Senate passed a clean DHS funding bill on first pass. If Republicans don’t to be blamed for shutting down government, then they should stop shutting down government and threatening to shut down government and holding the government hostage if their demands are not met. This is a democracy. Citizens who are not Republicans (about 66% of the population) have a right to voice their opinions and to have a say in their government too.

Except the federal government hasn’t refused to enforce immigration law, immigration enforcement has never been more intense. Illegal immigrant deportations have never been higher. Your premise is wrong again.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/10/02/u-s-deportations-of-immigrants-reach-record-high-in-2013/

 

The Democrats could have accepted HR 240, the Homeland Security funding bill that the House sent them (sans funding for Obama's amnesty). Instead, the Senate amended that bill to reinsert the amnesty funding. (That's what Democrats call a "clean" bill.

The bill was first introduced in the House. They passed their version which fully funded the DHS, minus funding for amnesty, and sent it to the Senate. The Senate could have simply passed it and sent it on to Obama, who would have likely vetoed it (in which case he would have been the one who "decided that DHS isn't important"). Instead the Senate passed an amended version which reintroduced funding for amnesty, and sent it back to the House. That's perfectly within their rights.

The legislative procedure at that point is normally to send the bill to conference committee to find a compromise between the House and Senate texts. The Democrats successfully blocked this compromise process, insisting that the House must only vote on their favored version, the Senate text that funded amnesty for illegals. They were basically playing 'chicken' with the Republicans, daring them to vote 'no'.

http://www.democraticleader.gov/new...-cloture-vote-homeland-security-funding-bill/

The bill the House passed was HR240, which originated in the House. It's true that the text they passed was the Senate-amended version text of the bill the House had originally sent them.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/240/actions

What's clear is that Boehner failed to play the same kind of political hard-ball that the Democrats were playing, holding DHS hostage to get funding for Obama's amnesty. That's why he isn't popular among many of the Republican back-benchers, who think that the Republicans House Speaker needs to play as ruthlessly as Nancy Pelosi does.

 

The Challenge of Dealing With Republican Dishonesty

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Sigh.

Do you really believe those paragraphs, Yazata?

Let us rewind for a moment to November, in the wake of the Republican midterm victory:

John A. Boehner does not want to be remembered as the Shutdown Speaker.

As Congress returns from recess on Monday facing a Dec. 11 deadline for funding the government, Mr. Boehner and his fellow Republican leaders are working to persuade the rank and file — furious over President Obama's executive action on immigration — that engaging in a spending confrontation is the wrong way to counter the White House. That would set the wrong tone, they argue, as Republicans prepare to take over Congress and fulfill promises to govern responsibly.

He made his views clear on Nov. 13, when House Republicans gathered in the Capitol for their first meeting since their emphatic sweep on Election Day. Representative Vicky Hartzler of Missouri posed the question on everyone's mind: How was the leader of the enlarged and emboldened House majority going to respond if Mr. Obama unilaterally eased the threat of deportation for millions of illegal immigrants?

Mr. Boehner, according to those present, promised to fight the president "tooth and nail." But he warned that the party members needed to coalesce around a strategy that gives them a stronger chance of success in combating Mr. Obama. Only Republicans, he said, would be blamed for a shutdown, just as they were last year.

(Hulse and Peters↱)​

There has long been a problem in the question of what lies Americans will accept. But those who take the time to count up campaign promises and then complain that Mr. Obama has not waved a magic wand that makes unusually uncooperative, racist Republican Congressional caucuses disappear have pretty much lost all their standing to complain because, well, what has happened is apparent, and even still this president will emerge as one of the better in our nation's history despite conservative conspiring to injure the nation in order to properly express their outrage that a black man was elected to the White House.

At this point, there really is no other explanation. Well, except for the idea that conservatives are so capitalistic they will say anything to win a vote, and not enough people are paying attention. It's not a pleasant choice; the Republican can defend himself by saying, "I'm not racist, just really, really stupid."

It's almost funny, but mostly sad. Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK04), long a personal friend of Speaker Boehner, explained at the time that, "He's never wanted to just be speaker. He's wanted to be a historically significant speaker."

And it's true, Mr. Boehner is, in fact, historically significant: He is the worst Speaker of the House in the history of this nation.

See, the thing is that when it emerged that Boehner had told the caucus it was a bad idea to stand off over immigration in a funding fight, the Beltway pretty much rolled their eyes and glanced at the calendar to wonder when the Speaker would decide to pretend to do his job and invoke a funding fight in an immigration standoff.

Things moved pretty quickly last week, with Nancy Pelosi bailing out Boehner's ass because he can't lead the House Republican Caucus. But he did lay out the talking points. Steve Benen↱ noted amid it all:

As his weekly press conference was getting underway yesterday, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), before he starting making odd kissing noises, tried to argue that Democrats are responsible for the Homeland Security mess his party created.

"I just think it's outrageous that Senate Democrats are using Homeland Security funding for blackmail to protect the actions of the president," the Speaker argued.

Boehner shouldn't use words if he doesn't know what they mean; it ends up being embarrassing for him and annoying for everyone else. In this case, Republicans are holding DHS funding hostage and Democrats aren't prepared to pay the ransom. In English, that's not what "blackmail" means.

But with 16 hours remaining until Homeland Security funding expires, it seems Boehner doesn't know what "leverage" means, either ....

.... As recently as Wednesday, the Republican Speaker said the House wasn't prepared to do anything until the Senate acted. So, the GOP Senate leadership prepared its own spending bill, which it would pass today and send to the House to avoid a shutdown.

Last night, Boehner decided to ignore what he'd said the day before, and instead prepared a new plan: kicking the can down the road three weeks, guaranteeing we can all experience this same mess in mid-March.

Can't anybody here play this game?

It's true, of course, that a short-term, three-week extension of current funding would prevent a DHS shutdown tonight. If given a choice between kicking the can down the road and nothing, the Senate may feel like it has no choice but to accept this silly solution.

The obvious flaw, however, is that this wouldn't solve the underlying problem, so much as it delays the inevitable for no apparent reason. The less-obvious flaw is that the Speaker's office is effectively abandoning the whole idea of leverage.

From the outset of this mind-numbing fight, the Speaker felt he had the upper hand: he'd hold Homeland Security funding hostage, threatening Democrats with a shutdown unless Congress were permitted to destroy the White House immigration policy. Under the ham-handed plan, Dems wouldn't want a shutdown; they would be convinced that the GOP isn't bluffing; and they'd give in to Republican demands.

Except it was all a sham. Boehner is making it abundantly clear he doesn't want to cut off Homeland Security funding, which means, of course, that Democrats have no incentive to pay the ransom and free the hostage.​

I've seen your routine before, Yazata. Something happens, there is a lot of discussion, and sometime the next week a conservative in one's social circles turns up, pretends it's still the week before, and wants to discuss the situation as if the subsequent reality has not occurred. Quite frankly, it's bullshit.

Let us state certain points clearly:

(1) A "clean bill" would fund DHS without attaching other legislation.

(2) If Republicans intend to play this game, they really ought to deliver; the stupidity of this one was that we already knew Boehner wouldn't pull the trigger, according to his history of bluster and buckle.

(3) If House Republicans are genuinely concerned about the president's executive order, perhaps they should have passed a bill last year, when it was before them.

― Furthermore, it is transparently ridiculous for Speaker Boehner to publicly tell the president, as he did last year, to use his executive authority in immigration matters because the House couldn't pass a bill, and then complain when the president does just that.​

At some point, a variant of Poe's Law kicks in: It is impossible at present to distinguish between Republican politics and Republican conscience. That is to say, the sideshow is so far out of hand that we really don't have much choice but to believe this clodhopping, uneducated shitshow really does represent the intellectual quality and moral character of its participants.

But, of course, there is you, the noble conservative who sees everything more clearly than anyone else in the world and therefore should have some sort of credibility when he recites stale, dysfunctional, dishonest talking points. We've seen this routine many times before; I know a Republican advocate who pushes these lines, knows they are false, and still gets genuinely upset if anyone points out the dishonesty.

Still, though, I don't know why you guys keep trying this. It is disrespectful, dishonorable, puerile conduct.

There is a saying in our society that opinions are like assholes insofar as everyone has one. Yet there is also a general belief that we ought to respect one another's opinions. Indeed, this principle is so twisted that we are expected to respect other people's delusions, but that is only relevant here insofar as it might contribute to an increased sense of entitlement among political conservatives that they can say what they want, demand exaggerated respect for falsehood, and have no obligation whatsoever to respect reality or any other person. But it is still a relevant principle: You have recited obsolete talking points. This is not a surprise. But would you please tell us what respect we owe your excremental excuse for an argument?

 

Citations for #33 Above

____________________

Notes:

Hulse, Carl and Jeremy W. Peters. "Boehner Uses New Mandate to Muffle Talk of a Shutdown". The New York Times. 30 November 2014. NYTimes.com. 6 March 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/01/u...-the-first-days-of-new-power-in-congress.html

Benen, Steve. "House Speaker forgets how leverage works". msnbc. 27 February 2015. msnbc.com. 6 March 2015. http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/house-speaker-forgets-how-leverage-works

 

House Republicans could have passed the DHS funding bill without amending it and adding language which Republicans couldn’t get passed through normal order (i.e. clean votes). The Senate passed a clean spending bill. You need to get your facts straight. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/02/25/senate-democrats-clear-the-way-for-vote-on-clean-dhs-funding-bill/
I’d say you have been mistaking Republican entertainment for truth.

The House could have passed a clean funding bill too, but it didn’t. It attempted once again to hold the nation hostage to its political demands. It failed. It included language in the bill it couldn’t get past through normal order of business. If Republicans don't want to get blamed, then they should stop inserting material in theses "must pass" bills which they cannot get passed through regular order.

That is funny if it were not so sad. Republicans could have passed clean bills instead of adding verbiage which is offensive to the 66% of the country who are not Republicans and which Republicans cannot get pass through normal order. If Republicans don’t want to get blamed for holding the nation hostage, they should stop holding the nation hostage to their irrational demands. As long as Republicans continue to hold legislation hostage to their political demands, demands they cannot get passed through normal order, then they shouldn’t be surprised when they get blamed for holding the nation hostage. That works for the ditto head crowd and for the gullible consumers of Republican entertainment, but not so much for the other 66% of the nation who doesn’t fit into those categories.
It’s also funny if not pathetic to hear you and your fellow Republicans complain about Democrats using the same parliamentary rules for which Republicans have used without precedent since President Obama first took the office of POTUS. Republican obstruction long ago reached unprecedented levels. Do you actually think threatening a US debt default not once but twice as Republicans have done was softball? Do you really think the Republican induced government shutdown was softball? Democrats have done none of those things. Republicans have done them repeatedly for more than 6 years now.
If Republicans wanted to seriously negotiate something in conference, they should have begun those negotiations immediately after they passed the funding extension. They didn’t. If Republicans really wanted to negotiate they could have passed another extension. They didn’t, because Republicans had no interest in negotiations. Everything had been negotiated. There was nothing left to negotiate.

Democrats haven’t practiced obstruction the way Republicans have. Now maybe that will change over the course of the next few years. But I haven’t seen any evidence or willingness to do same from the Democrats.

Unfortunately for you Republicans you are still a minority party and you don’t have total control. You are going to have to put up with the 66% of us who are not Republicans.

http://crooksandliars.com/jon-perr/republicans-unprecedented-obstructionism-by-numbers

As has been repeatedly put to you, Obama’s executive order isn’t in any way shape or form amnesty. But hey, you and your fellow Republicans are not ones to let a little truth and honesty get in the way of your demagoguery. Congress, by not funding the exportation of 12 million illegals has granted de facto amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants. If Republicans in Congress were so bent out of shape over Obama’s executive order they could fully fund the deportation of those 12 million illegals. They haven’t and they won’t because it would be holy hell if they did. And even the idiots who lead the Republican Party know that. This illegal immigration stuff is all good read meat for the idiot and gullible factions of the Republican Party, but party leaders are at least smart enough to know it goes no further.