I will never break out the long knives for my own party, my Tea Party friends, and neither should you, although I know you'll never take my sage, mature advice. It is unhelpful and counterproductive to the cause we all share. The Republican Party is the vehicle that will take us back to the "promised land" or it isn't - and it sure as shinola can't be if TPers burn it down in fratricidal rage before we can even turn the proverbial crank.
The latest blithering ragefest is over something that we already knew about before the election: the inexplicable inclination on the part of House GOP leadership to pass a year-long continuing resolution, string-free, thus preempting half of the budgetary and fiscal prerogatives of the unified GOP 114th Congress that was just elected a month ago, in the lame duck session. Something that is both horrible policy and politically addled, as it turns a big, fat tin ear to the conservative grassroots that just gave them back control the Senate that those grassroots are going to predictably interpret as a big, fat middle finger, setting off the GOP Civil War anew.
Not for the first time am I reminded of what it was like to be a parent to two bickering little children.
What makes it even more seemingly inexplicable is that this blanket CR is going to include funding for the implementation of the illegal amnesty decree that The One shoved down our throats two weeks ago. If there was any move that was more guaranteed to make Tea Partiers "see red," it would be paying lip service to fighting Red Barry on his latest tyrannical usurpation of Article I, Section 1, and then turn around and give him all the funding he needs to carry it out - a process whose principle goal is to flood the country with wave after wave of illegals, all of whom will also be amnestied in turn, all of whom are going to be registered as Democrat voters, and deployed around the country to every remaining "red" state and enclave, to swamp American voters and entrench the Democrat Party in power forever and finish "fundamentally transforming" Obamerikastan into a one-party communist state.
However, there is a reason why I said "seemingly inexplicable" above. Because there is an explanation for why Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, et al are moving in the direction they are, and it isn't that they're "caving on immigration". The reason is simple: They are all absolutely and utterly terrified of another government shutdown showdown.
Hey, I didn't say it was a good reason; just that it wasn't a "cave on immigration". In fact, it's an awful reason, and shows that they learned all the wrong lessons from the last government shutdown showdown a year ago. In that instance, the problem wasn't the shutdown, but its timing; thanks to Senator Ted Cruz's obnoxious, ill-advised grandstanding over ObamaCare defunding, which alienated even House Tea Partiers, Speaker Boehner had little choice but to reluctantly undertake the confrontation with the White House and the Donk Senate. It lasted a few weeks, then inevitably fizzled, because Obama and Harry (G)Reid were holding all the trump cards and everybody knew it. And the reason they had the upper hand is because the subject of the confrontation - ObamaCare - had not been implemented yet, and therefore while the public hated it in an abstract sense, they hadn't experienced the kitchen-table reality that would have been necessary for a GOP shutdown showdown over O-Care defunding to attract the necessary public support and accompanying traction. Had House Republicans passed a short-term CR, waited a month or two, and made the debt ceiling the setting for the O-Care defunding showdown, the PR battlefield would have been much more favorable, and a shutdown showdown could have gotten somewhere.
But the House GOP leadership didn't learn that; the "lesson" they "learned" is the same "lesson" that battered wives "learn": That fighting, defending yourself, standing up for yourself, is "bad," and to therefore never do anything that might make your abusive "husband" angrier at you than he already gets. They're convinced that they cannot and will never win any government shutdown confrontation with the White House, no matter the issue or the circumstances. And so they will not do anything that might run the risk of triggering one - including the effective, and multifaceted, short-term AND long-term political suicide of funding Barack Obama's unlawful amnesty decree, and the compounding folly of holding a symbolic vote on it believing that that will somehow serve as an effective CYA with the conservative grassroots.
It's so unnecessary, such a horrific unforced error; the GOP has just won its biggest Senate victory since 1980, and its biggest House majority since 1928, due in large part to the public's vehement opposition to illegal immigration in general and O's unlawful amnesty decree in particular. Fighting the White House on this imperial diktat is to a significant degree what expanded Republican majorities were sent to Washington to do. A shutdown showdown would be a death knell for the Democrats (if not the White House itself, which after all has all the power and doesn't need to care about public opinion, and has never cared about it in any case), it would be a huge boost to framing the 2016 political landscape in our favor, it would keep the momentum of a month ago going. There will never be such a confrontation that would happen on more favorable PR ground.
And the House GOP leadership is just throwing it away, because they just assume that they'll lose - thus making defeat a self-fulfilling prophecy. And they comfort themselves with the notion that they'll be able to do something about it....eventually. Sometime. In the future. Down the line. Somehow.
Meanwhile, the Emperor isn't wasting any time:
The Obama administration is planning to create a new facility in Northern Virginia that will be staffed with about 1,000 new federal workers, all of whom will be tasked with implementing President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced its plans for the new facility in a Monday notice. Obama The implementation of President Barack Obama’s immigration action will require 1,000 new officials, and the government is hiring. “USCIS is taking steps to open a new operational center in Crystal City, a neighborhood in Arlington, Virginia, to accommodate about 1,000 full-time, permanent federal and contract employees in a variety of positions and grade levels,” the agency said. “The initial workload will include cases filed as a result of the executive actions on immigration announced on November 20th, 2014,” it said. “Many job opportunities at the operational center will be announced in the coming days and please continue to monitor USAJOBS if you are interested.” The notice announced the creation of several senior-level positions at the new facility. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) blasted these plans as evidence of Obama’s “defiance of the American people, their laws, and their Constitution.”
Barack Obama knows what he wants, and he's going for it, full-throttle. GOP leaders know what they want, but are scared to death to do anything about it for fear it might anger his imperial majesty.
A year ago I flayed Ted Cruz alive for his utter lack of a viable strategy in his "Defundageddon" windmill-tilting. Today it's the GOP "establishment" that can't strategize its way out of a douchebag by recognizing the constitutional powers they possess (the power of the purse), that they are supposed to be the preeminent branch of the federal government (hence, why Congress is enumerated in Article I) and are thus under absolutely no obligation to facilitate presidential imperialism, and the "home field advantage" they would have in forcing The One's hand on this that would exceed what the Champs enjoy at Century Link Field.
I'm not going to call Boehner and McCarthy, et al names, and engage in puerile, futile posturing like I'm sure most or all of you are already doing. When my team blows a game, I can and do grind my teeth about it, but they are still my team. But I will lament the fact that the party that is America's only hope for resurrection evidently can't even muster the will to preserve its own existence, and is thus hastening its own demise in a fusillade of unfriendly and friendly fire.
Makes me wistful for a "burning bed".
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