A good news/bad news proposition, I'm afraid:
The....U.S. House voted Wednesday to overturn President Barack Obama's key immigration policies, approving legislation that would eliminate new deportation protections for millions and expose hundreds of thousands of younger immigrants to expulsion.
The 236-191 vote came on a broad bill that would provide nearly $40 billion to finance the Homeland Security [Commissariat] through the rest of the budget year.....
House Republicans, in a determined assault on one of Obama's top domestic priorities, accused him of reckless unconstitutional actions on immigration that must be stopped.
"This executive overreach is an affront to the rule of law and to the Constitution itself," said House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio-8. "The people made clear that they wanted more accountability from this president, and by our votes here today we will heed their will and we will keep our oath to protect and defend the Constitution."
Why they couldn't have done this a month ago when they had 3-1 public-backed government shutdown leverage is anybody's guess, but that ground has been plowed all the way down to Middle Earth. All we can say now is, better late than never. Heck, the bill even repeals Barack Obama's unlawful 2012 DACA (i.e. DREAM Act) decree.
That's the good news.
The bad news? C'mon, you can see this coming, can't you?:
Democrats accused Republicans of playing politics with national security at a time of heightened threats....
That's actually humorous. Hysterically hilarious, even. Not to mention bitterly ironic.
....and Obama has threatened to veto the legislation.
So that he won't actually have to. Thus....
Prospects in the Senate look tough, too....
Some House Republicans acknowledged that the Senate was likely to reject their approach, perhaps forcing them in the end to pass a Homeland Security funding bill stripped of controversial provisions on immigration.
"They're not going to pass this bill," said Representative Charlie Dent, R-PA15.
Even with an eight-seat majority in that same U.S. Senate? How can this be, my Tea Party friends are probably asking? Well, actually, they're probably preparing another "RINO" hunt as we speak, but that's beside the point.
There are aspects about owning the majority in the Senate with which conservatives are going to have to reacquaint themselves. Such as the filibuster being used against us, versus our using it against the Dems. As the GOP is half a dozen votes shy of a filibuster-proof majority, the Donk minority can easily block any Republican legislation they don't like. And the House DHS funding bill will definitely qualify.
But the factor that will be the rudest re-awakening is that now, RINOs actually matter again.
When the GOP is in the minority, we know who they are - McCain, Graham, Susan Collins, Mark Kirk, etc. - but they've got no fratricidal leverage, other perhaps than making it more difficult to sustain a filibuster of Donk legislation. And then it's usually in their better interest to close ranks in the interests of party amity, the better to have a chance at regaining the majority. Once that majority is regained, RINOs are empowered, because they are the margin of that majority. It's the very factor that prevented then-Majority Leader Bill Frist from "going nuclear" on confirmation filibusters back in 2005 when seven of the 55 Republican Senators defected and joined the Democrats on that "Gang of 14" "Memo of Understanding" caper.
In this instance, you can so easily see the four GOP members of the "Gang of Eight" amnesty bill cabalists (McCain, Graham, Flake, and Rubio) taking a walk, and even if a Democrat filibuster of the DHS funding bill wasn't mounted, it would fall to Slow Joe Biden's deciding vote. Or outright if another RINOs joined them.
As always, this showdown will be about collective will and party unity. Will Democrats hang together and threaten to expose the country even more nakedly to jihadist attack to protect their demigod's unlawful Executive power grabs? Quite likely. Will Republicans hang together and point this out to a public that backs them on the issue by a three or four to one margin, or will they fold like multiple rows of K-Mart deck chairs and yet again sent The One a "clean" DHS appropriation, even when this would not lead to a government shutdown?
In politics, as in life, victory is not guaranteed. Sometimes you have to fight for it. And now the GOP has the numbers, and is correspondingly without any excuses.
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