FReepers, Let's GIT_R_DONE!
Posted on 02/26/2015 9:08:22 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Thursday vowed to block any effort by House Republicans to amend a clean Department of Homeland Security funding bill.
Standing next to House Democratic Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) in a rare joint press conference, Reid blasted any plan by House Republicans to force negotiations over homeland security funding as a “waste of time” and said Senate Democrats would block a conference committee from forming on a DHS funding bill.
We’ve heard all kinds of rumors that the House is going to take our fully funded bill and send it back with a number of riders on it. It is a waste of time. We will not allow a conference to take place, it won’t happen,” he said.
The Senate appears poised to approve a clean bill funding Homeland Security on Thursday, but it is unclear whether the House will pick it up.
Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who spoke an hour after Reid, wouldn’t commit Thursday to bringing the Senate bill to the House floor.
Pelosi urged House Republicans to accept the clean bill and let the courts settle questions of constitutionality surrounding President Obama’s executive actions shielding millions of illegal immigrants from deportation.
“The gamesmanship should end. The Texas case, the court —I disagree with the court decision — gave them a face-saving way to just end this,” she said.
She read off a list of statistics outlining the scope of the fallout if DHS runs out of funding at 12:01 am Saturday.
She noted 170,000 DHS employees made up primarily of frontline security personnel will have to come to work without pay. That number includes 40,000 border patrol personnel, 50,000 Transportation Security Administration workers, 13,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, and 40,000 active-duty Coast Guard personnel.
House Republicans are mulling adding a rider to the Senate bill that would reverse the 2014 executive order protecting up to 5 million immigrants from deportation. They may also instead pass a short-term stopgap funding measure that would give them more time to formulate a response.
“If they send over a bill with all the riders in it, they’ve shut down the government. We’re not going to play games,” Reid said, adding that the Senate would debate legislation to halt Obama’s 2014 executive order after the homeland security department is funded.
“We’re not going to allow a conference to take place and if they want to debate immigration, when this is all over with, we’re happy to do it,” he said.
Pelosi said a homeland security shutdown will block $600 million for an urban security initiative and freeze Federal Emergency Management Agency grants.
Passing a clean bill decides it for the courts. They will be giving their approval and funding for the executive order. True, they might have already done that, but this cements it.
I don’t think they are actually stupid. To the contrary, I think they are devious, deceitful, dissembling cowards who have smarts, but use them to fool supporters and real working Americans they actually really give a sh!t about making good on the promises that got them elected.
They are more concerned on how DC and national MSM media portray them, how many DC parties they get invited to, how many lobbyist and special interest groups they can get to fund their activities, how big of a Senate pension they can get, what kind of K-street job they can get when they retire, what can they stuff in that Cayman Island bank account, what kind and how many Dachas they can own to be concerned about effing ‘promises’...those are just a bother. They’ll go home and lie about how “they tried.”
So let funding lapse and let essential DHS employees report without pay. Then pass a separate bill providing salaries, nothing more, for the essential employees. When the dems block that, campaign long, loud, and hard about how democrats are blocking pay for hard working frontline folks.
It is my hope that this is the plan... hope...
If they do this at the last minute then the bill will be on 0bama's desk for veto or sig. He'll very clearly be the one choosing to not fund DHS.
I really, really hope this is planned - or something like this - that they're playing possum. I HOPE.
I see what you did there....
Yes...a good tactic, but they really aren’t ‘frontline’...they are all about promotion and ‘after-the-fact’.
Reid is still the Majority Leader for all intents and purposes.
As it is, if Congress approves funding, they approve the executive action.
Rather than trying to win a PR war that they NEVER win; the GOP needs to focus on maintaining what little power Congress has left. The Democrats are intent on creating a system where the party controls the government.
Yes. True. Besides, non of them will apparently be enforcing ‘border-anything’ anyway.
If they fund it all, it actually codifies 0bama's EA and then the 26 state lawsuit would be immediately mute.
This is why they are saying to go ahead and fund it. I MUST believe that the Rs know this.
The House of Representatives has already passed its bill. They have no need to do anything further.
One Eye Reid has more walnuts than all the Republicans put together on the hill ....I hate all of them!!!!!!! Including Mia Love for not booting out Bonehead!!
How many votes does the Senate require to establish a conference committee for this?
Sorry to say McConnell couldn't pour pi$$ from a boot if the directions were written on the heel.
Not only would it make it legal, but it will lend credence to ANY executive action that this jerk takes. The House needs to take a stand NOW!
I'd say "if things don't change they'll stay the same."
Meanwhile, Mitch “beta male” McConnell scurries back to his office to retrieve his white flag.
Why, Kentucky... we could’ve tolerated Alison Grimes in the minority.
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