Pirate's Cove

This is a hoot. First it’s an attempt to manufacture a reason to blamestorm Republicans. Second, it’s almost always Democrats who offer bad faith on illegal immigration

Shutdown’s Crux: Democrats’ Deep-Rooted Distrust of G.O.P. on Immigration

At the heart of the confrontation that led to a government shutdown lie two weeks of mixed messaging by the president — and two decades of deep-seated acrimony and suspicion between Democrats and Republicans on immigration.

“The Dems just want illegal immigrants to pour into our nation unchecked,” President Trump tweeted Sunday. Senator Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican and majority leader, said his Democratic counterpart, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, was “playing with all of those lives over the issue of illegal immigration.” A Trump campaign official, Michael Glassner, lauded the president for keeping Americans safe from “evil, illegal immigrants who commit violent crimes against lawful U.S. citizens.”

Those derisive statements and others help explain why Democrats entered into the politically perilous fight. After several fruitless efforts at overhauling the nation’s immigration laws, Democrats simply do not trust Republicans, who control Congress and the White House, to follow through on pledges to protect hundreds of thousands of young undocumented immigrants from deportation unless forced to do so.

Yes, this does belong in the opinion section. And this continues on and on, forgetting to mention the number of times Democrats have offered legislation and ideas whereby a “pathway to citizenship” would be given now for a “promise” of border security later, all while lying that that security will be done first. Look at the current situation

(Breitbart) Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” while discussing the government shutdown, White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) offer on the border wall was only to “authorize” funding, not “appropriating” the money.

Mulvaney said, “The president is absolutely interested and wants to get DACA fixed but what with you’ve just read really bears a close read which is what the Senate minority leader said was to authorize $20 billion. I know it’s getting real deep down in the weeds. You can authorize left and right but it’s appropriating the money that makes the difference. He wants to authorize the wall to be built but doesn’t want to spend the money to get it built. There was money authorized in 2006 that Mr. Schumer voted for for a wall that still hasn’t been built because that money hasn’t been spent.”

These are the types of games that Democrats play. They want all the legalization, with the right to vote, for as many millions of illegal aliens as they can get while giving up almost nothing.

Back to the NY Times

In recent months, Republicans suggested that they would hold a strong hand in any funding showdown because Democrats would be reluctant to force a government shutdown over undocumented immigrants. If Democrats did, Republicans figured they would have a strong message to counter with by attacking Democrats as willing to shortchange Americans to help those who entered the country illegally.

They are now aggressively pressing that line of assault. But the message is also provoking new doubts about the sincerity of Republican determination to help Dreamers, muddying an immigration debate that is at the center of the conflict and has confounded Washington for almost 20 years.

Here’s what they are also really, really upset about: Republicans holding strong and firing back. Democrats and their Leftist media expect Republicans to wilt, and they usually do. They aren’t this time. And their message is that Democrats are picking illegal aliens over American citizens, including our military.

Read: NY Times: Shutdown Is Based On Dems Distrust Of GOP On Illegal Immigration »

Quite frankly, so am I. Usually, they start melting like jello, as there are a lot of squishy Republicans in Congress. There are always those who want to score points with the news media. Those who want to “reach across the aisle” and give up everything to Democrats in exchange for a pittance. Of course, we’re only in day two, so, we’ll see if this lasts

House Republicans showing an unusually united front

One by one, the rank-and-file House Republicans exited their closed-door huddle Saturday morning and stuck to the same script: Their position was strong, and the Senate minority leader was to blame for the government shutdown.

“This is a Chuck Schumer shutdown, case closed,” Rep. Billy Long (R-Mo.), a staunch conservative on immigration issues, told reporters.

A few minutes later, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who supports the effort to reach a bipartisan plan to benefit young undocumented immigrants, blamed Schumer (D-N.Y.) for trying to force the issue into federal budget talks when the immigration deadline was six weeks away.

“This particular shutdown, by Schumer, is trying to move the timeline up, trying to cram it,” Issa said.

Obviously, this article is about House Republicans staying strong, but, so far, Senate Republicans seem to be staying strong, as well.

In other eras, this would be normal behavior — members of the same party reading from the same talking points.

This is not normal behavior for House Republicans. They have fought bitterly among themselves ever since winning the majority in 2010, perhaps never more so than in the fall of 2013. That’s when a small but influential faction of conservatives caused the last federal government shutdown, over a bid to force then-President Obama to zero out funding for the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.

First, this behavior hasn’t been normal since the beginning of this century. There have been plenty of the squishes, and even leadership weenies, who cause a united front to collapse. Give it to Democrats, they stay strong and show that united front almost always.

Just because one side gets most of the blame when agencies go into partial shutdown and furlough hundreds of thousands of federal workers is no guarantee that side will pay a political price in the next set of elections. House Republicans, after all, retained their majority after they drove the unpopular 1996 shutdown and increased their majority in 2014.

Perhaps Republicans realize that, regardless of whether they get the bulk of the blame or not, the Democrats position on shutting down the federal government, such as it is, in order to give illegal aliens some sort of legal status over the needs of the American citizens will not play well come the mid-terms. You can bet this will be used in campaign ads, and you can be certain that President Trump will broadcast this loudly and often. Like him or loathe him, Trump has given the GOP a backbone with his bombastic manner. Democrats have long had that bombast, the GOP never seemed to match it. Now they do.

This is what Democrats are about

Dems vow to block latest GOP plan to end shutdown

A Senate showdown vote on a Republican plan for ending the federal shutdown is on track to occur by early Monday. Democrats say they have the votes to block it.

It will be interesting to see if more Democrats, those who could be in vulnerable positions, being Senators from states Trump won, will cross over to vote “yea”, as a few did the other day. This shutdown is all on Democrats, who put illegal aliens over American citizens.

Read: Washington Post Seems Surprised Republicans Are Showing United Front »