Saturday, February 28, 2015

Homeland Security Funded for One Week

By Douglas V. Gibbs

Democrat Representative Nancy Pelosi accused the Republicans of creating a mess, but in reality it is President Barack Obama that has created the mess, by unlawfully demanding amnesty by executive decree, and expecting his changes to immigration policy to be funded not by an individual bill specifically for his Executive Amnesty, but in a Department of Homeland Security bill that normally includes border patrol funding.  As midnight approached, and the question of whether or not DHS would even be funded, after the Senate refused to approve a bill rejecting amnesty funding, a quick one week funding bill was approved by both Houses, and signed by Obama, to give the debate one more week of life.

The final vote by both Houses of Congress was rapid, and Obama's signature occurred literally a few minutes before the clock tolled midnight.

In response to Pelosi's accusation of creating a mess against the GOP, Representative Peter King of New York tweeted,  "There are terrorist attacks all over world and we're talking about closing down Homeland Security. This is like living in world of crazy people."

The conservatives of the Republican Party, a group that dominates the House of Representatives, have been challenging the largely "establishment" Republicans of the Senate to refuse to include Obama's immigration policy by executive fiat because the President's actions without approval through a legislative process is unconstitutional.  The question over funding is a matter of whether or not they should be condoning lawlessness.  Fully funding Obama's immigration action would be to allow an expansion of executive power into the realm of legislative powers, enabling the President to act as king and decree law at his leisure, without the benefit of the representation of the people.

After the Senate refused the House's original version of the bill 57-42 (three short of the 60 required), of which the "Nuclear Option" in the U.S. Senate would have allowed the original 57-42 vote to pass the bill in the Senate with a simple majority, McConnell's "clean" DHS bill was rejected by the House, and then a three-week funding measure was voted down 224-203, so the Senate presented a one-week alternative, which slid under the wire just before midnight.  The potential of an ugly showdown remains.  Realizing that in the past failing to fund something normally gets dragged through the mud as being the GOP's fault by the media, the Senate figured out the one-week partial save, to keep the agency open for now.  Duties of the Department of Homeland Security includes facing off with terrorism, as well as border security.

While the conservatives of Congress sees the passage of the bill a gift of one week to debate and gain support for their refusal to okay Obama's unconstitutional immigration action by executive fiat, the Democrats believe next week, because of the pressure to fund DHS, this will lead to passage next week of a bill to fund the agency through the September 30, the end of the budget year, with an inclusion of funding for Obamamnesty.

"It does not make any difference whether the funding is for three weeks, three months or a full fiscal year. If it's illegal, it's illegal," said Representative Mo Brooks, R-Alabama, referring to Obama's unconstitutional executive orders demanding allowing illegal aliens to remain in the country without fear of deportation.

The opposition to the one week bill included conservatives like Representative Brooks that were standing behind their belief that Obama's executive amnesty was unconstitutional, and Democrats that preferred to hold out for a bill that funds DHS through September.  The threat against not funding DHS came in the form of furloughs, a claim by Homeland Security officials that said they would have to send 30,000 employees home without pay if some kind of funding did not pass.

The bill the conservatives of Congress are seeking, one that would reject Obama's unlawful changes to immigration policy, is becoming something of a difficult sell, since we've seen with this week's battle that the Senate Democrats have shown they have the ability to block any challenges to Obama's immigration policies, and Obama, with that kind of support from his fellow Democrats, has no problem vetoing any bill that appears on his desk that is not fully to his liking.

When called to compromise, Democrats have shown that even when they are in the congressional minority, they are unwilling to flinch, and are truly the party of "No."

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

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