Democrat Obstructionism

Extending their perpetuation of the existing partial government shutdown, now the Progressive-Democrats won’t even allow the Senate to function.

Senate Democrats on Tuesday blocked the chamber from considering bipartisan foreign-policy legislation in a bid to pressure Republicans to reopen the government….

This is of a piece with their “rebuttal” of President Donald Trump’s Oval Office speech calling for negotiations on a border wall and border security generally, wherein the Progressive-Democrats reiterated their refusal to negotiate at all, and they denied the facts presented regarding our border situation while cynically declining to present their own facts.

And their Wimpy-esque promise to gladly negotiate the wall later for a government opening today?  Trump tweeted of Wednesday’s abbreviated meeting with Progressive-Democrat and Republican leaders,

I asked what is going to happen in 30 days if I quickly open things up, are you going to approve Border Security which includes a Wall or Steel Barrier? Nancy said, NO.

So much for the believability of Progressive-Democrat commitments.

Remember this in the coming election season.

Political Power

Here come the Progressive-Democrats, and they’ve made their priorities clear in the House with the first things they want to get done.  Here’s some of what’s in their HR1:

  • “campaign-finance reform”—requires some advocacy groups to publicly disclose the names of donors who give more than $10,000, even if the groups aren’t running ads that endorse candidates but merely inform voters about the issues. Except when rich folks like Tom Steyer or Mike Bloomberg are spending on Progressive-Democrats.  Those names aren’t required to be exposed.
  • provisions from the Honest Ads Act—just regulates online political ads the same as broadcast television. Regulation: name those donors, again. Never mind that even nefarious ads intended to “influence” the 2016 elections accounted for all of 0.01%—that’s 1 in 10,000—of all the online ads in that cycle.
  • expanded definition of “electioneering communications” to include communications targeted to any particular constituency. An online ad running only in Texas that mentions a New York politician would be “regulable.”
  • The Federal government would gain control over the means by which States run elections. Because a remote, isolated central government, especially one run by Progressive-Democrats, Knows Better than a local State government how that State should run its elections.

For Progressive-Democrats, it’s all about personal political power.  Remember this in the coming election season.

The California Magnet

Newly sworn-in California governor Gavin Newsom (D) has a plan to expand on the State’s sanctuary “status” and draw even more illegal aliens into the State and into the country:

…an unprecedented new health care agenda for his state, aimed at offering dramatically more benefits to illegal immigrants….

As Newsom noted,

People’s lives, freedom, security, the water we drink, the air we breathe—they all hang in the balance

And Newsom wants to increase that risk by encouraging a flood of illegal aliens to enter the State. It’s true enough that the vast majority of those illegals are harmless beyond the economic burden they’ll inflict in Newsom’s brave new world of hugely expanded, and hugely more expensive, health care for all, citizen and illegal alike.  However, it’s also that the few who are dangerous are capable of inflicting vast damage—as the families of MS-13, et al.; the survivors of 9/11 (which terrorists entered legally, but they’re not the only terrorists entering); the victims and their families of the cartels’ drug epidemic; the families of Kate Steinle, Ronil Singh, Pierce Corcoran, Silvano Torres, and a host of others can attest.

His health care “expansion?”  He intends to implement the erstwhile Obamacare Individual Mandate at the State level.  Everyone will be required to purchase health coverage whether they need it or not, whether they want to or not.  Except those like illegal aliens, who can’t afford it.  Those coverages will be paid for by the State’s citizens and legal residents.  Somehow.  Oh, and “children?” They’ll be allowed, under Medi-Cal, to stay on mumsy’s and pop-pop’s health coverage plans until they’re 26, instead of the current age limit of 19.

Newsom has had no words on how this expansion is to be funded.  Apparently, he’s channeling Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D, NY):

People often say, like, how are you going to pay for it, and I find the question so puzzling because “How do you pay for something that’s more affordable? How do you pay for cheaper rent?” You just pay for it.

Because vastly expanding a program makes it cheaper.  Sure.

But Newsom and his clan of Progressive-Democrats in the State’s legislature don’t care about that.  They only care about the bennies flowing from their expensive, and dangerous, virtue signaling.

A “Caravan” Participant’s Comment

A Fox News piece centered on the refusal of some “caravan” participants’ refusal to leave a closed Tijuana warehouse and go to a better shelter facility—but a few miles farther away from our border—closed with this comment from 40-yr-old Honduran Norma Perez, who traveled with her 5-yr-old child.  She wants President Donald Trump to

personally go to Honduras so he can see with his own eyes that we simply can’t go back, that there are no jobs, no companies, nothing.

Never mind that all the foreign aid we’ve been sending to Honduras to help with precisely those conditions has been going into the pockets of Honduran authorities; very little of it has made it to folks like Perez.  Since she’s never seen any of the money or any of the economic benefits from the money, there’s no reason she would know of it in the first place.

However, it is well-known that the Mexican government has offered all of the “caravan” participants asylum and work permits.  Perhaps Perez should personally go to those Mexican authorities and accept the asylum and work permit offers.  And stop holding her child at risk.

In Which the NLMSM and Politicians

…of both parties jumped the gun in their blind panic to disparage an actual attempt to end a war.  Recall the hooraw over President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw our forces from Syria and from a war with no coherent plan or victory conditions.

Now the facts of the withdrawal start to come out.  National Security Adviser John Bolton made these points in Jerusalem while on a diplomatic trip:

  • the safety of Kurdish allies is being considered as part of its pending withdrawal plan
  • [t]imetables or the timing of the withdrawal occurs as a result of the fulfillment of the conditions and the establishment of the circumstances that we want to see. It’s not the establishment of an arbitrary point for the withdrawal
  • Trump has told Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that withdrawal is pending assurances that Turkey will protect Kurdish fighters who have long provided the US with solid support in the campaign against Islamic State militants
  • [a]ny use of chemical weapons will be met by very strong response, as we have done twice before
  • [t]he US could leave some troops at a key military outpost in southern Syria

Patience, Grasshoppers.