DHS FUNDING: PUNT FOR THREE WEEKS, KICK THE CAN

http://blogs.rollcall.com/218/house-republicans-prepare-dhs-gambit-with-little-margin-of-error/?dcz=

House GOP Faces Another Whip Test on DHS Punt

By Matt Fuller and Emma DumainPosted at 9:34 p.m. on Feb. 26

(Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call File Photo)

When in doubt, punt. That’s the latest plan from House Republicans, but even trying to pass a tried-and-true congressional maneuver might be a tall order for the GOP’s fractured conference.

They met again in the Capitol basement Thursday night and settled on a game plan: a three-week continuing resolution stripped of all provisions blocking President Barack Obama’s immigration action, as well as a separate motion to go to conference with the Senate.

It’s not a plan for victory, per se, but it keeps the game going — and it’s a chance to save face somewhere down the line.

But with House Democratic leaders planning to whip against it, Republican leaders will have to get their team to march in the same direction, and that’s never been an easy feat.

In a sudden, but expected shift from his long-stated opinion, Speaker John A. Boehner advocated for the short-term plan, telling his House colleagues that with the Texas court injunction in place blocking the president’s executive action, legislation wasn’t needed to stop it.

Instead, the argument is that a three-week CR would be long enough so the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals could uphold the injunction, potentially allowing Congress to then vote on a long-term Homeland Security funding bill. The House and Senate could go then to conference on that longer-term bill.

The speaker’s idea, “and I think it’s the correct one,” Rep. Richard Nugent said, is the regular order is to go to conference.

“When you have two competing bills from both houses, the bicameral way to do it is by conference,” the Florida Republican said.

“Our concern,” Nugent continued, “is whether or not the Senate will sit down and do that.”

Indeed, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has warned there will be no conference, period.

And with a vote to go to conference requiring 60 votes in the Senate, there’s no reason to believe one would take place.

Still, as Nugent argued, if Senate Democrats refuse to go to conference, maybe they would be blamed for an eventual Department of Homeland Security shut down.

“If you’re not willing to be part of that process, then who’s fault is it?” Nugent asked.

Republicans generally seemed warm to the plan.

“We in the House are basically stuck with two options here,” Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart said Thursday night. “We either do nothing, in which case Homeland Security shuts down, or we extend it for three weeks.”

“Shutting down Homeland Security just isn’t a viable option,” he said.

Asked whether he thought a clean CR had the votes, Diaz-Balart said, “I don’t know. I have no idea. I would imagine so,” citing an imminent shutdown threat and a pending court ruling that could be in the GOP’s favor.

On Thursday night, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said the House intended to act on Friday. Seemingly, the plan is to send the Senate the three-week CR and leave town, sticking Senate Democrats with the rhetorical option of shutting down DHS over a disagreement over a duration of funding.

But that plan banks on a number of things going right, and perhaps the first problem is that Democrats seemed cold to the idea.

“The House Democratic leadership is whipping against this bill,” a House Democratic leadership aide said in a statement late Thursday. “If House Republicans want to end up with another manufactured crisis that risks our national security in a matter of days, they can do it with 218 votes of their own.”

If Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., truly locks down on her caucus, it will be difficult, though not impossible, for Republicans to send a three-week DHS bill over to the Senate.

Pelosi told reporters Thursday she wouldn’t support a short-term CR, so the opposition of House Democrats shouldn’t come as a surprise.

During the last full government shutdown in 2013, House Republicans engaged in an exercise where they put a series of bills on the floor to reopen parts of government that were non-controversial — the National Parks, for instance — and most Democrats rebuffed them, arguing that the GOP was holding other federal operations hostage. Still, over a dozen, more moderate Democrats in vulnerable districts consistently joined with Republicans in voting “yes” on those piecemeal government funding bills.

Rep. Steve Stivers, R-Ohio, told CQ Roll Call late Thursday night that he imagined between 10 to 15 Democrats would vote for the CR. “I wouldn’t count on any,” he said.

And yet he was optimistic that the bill could pass.

House Democrats are scheduled to meet behind closed doors Friday morning, which will give leadership a sense of whether members are prepared to stand together in opposition.

(One thing to watch for: Democrats voting yes only after Republicans show they have the votes).

Some conservatives seem unlikely to support any bill that doesn’t block Obama’s executive action, no matter how short it funds DHS and no matter how badly Republicans need them. GOP leaderships could need some Democrats to pass the bill, meaning Boehner might end up having to make a phone call to Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md.

Conservatives in the House Freedom Caucus were meeting Thursday night to discuss their response to the plan, while moderates in the GOP are frustrated by the prospect of keeping the drama alive.

“What’s the point?” asked Rep. Charlie Dent. The Pennsylvania Republican said he voiced his concerns in the GOP conference meeting. “Bad tactics yield bad outcomes,” he said. “Self-delusion yields self-destruction. We have been engaged to this point in tactical malpractice and at some point we are going to vote on the negotiated homeland security appropriations bill.”

“Some folks just have a harder time facing political reality than others,” Dent continued. “I just understand where this is heading. I think some people want to be able to save face, they want to get something from the Senate. But just like the government shutdown in 2013 … [Senate Democrats] are in a stronger political position.”

Rep. Peter T. King, R-N.Y., was also frustrated with his conservative colleagues.

“It says a lot about the party,” King said. “It means trouble. How many times can we go over the cliff and survive?”

“I’ve had it with this self-righteous delusional wing of the party, which leads us over the cliff,” he said. “They’ve turned this into the Charge of the Light Brigade.”

Humberto Sanchez, Niels Lesniewski and Sarah Chacko contributed to this report.

The 114th: CQ Roll Call’s Guide to the New Congress

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DHS to intensify attacks on freedom oriented citizens

http://www.examiner.com/article/dhs-to-intensify-attacks-on-freedom-oriented-citizens

DHS to intensify attacks on freedom oriented citizens

Within the last two weeks several tips came into the Examiner indicating pending dangers to certain groups of citizens. These tips led to a source who, speaking on condition of anonymity, alleges that just after the election a major initiative will be launched against citizens whose values are diametrically opposite to that of Barack Obama and the current Washington elitist leadership in Congress. According to the source, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will greatly intensify its attacks on freedom oriented citizens.

The source indicated that the those within DHS and the rest of the Obama Administration who support a massive crackdown on the liberties of citizens are ready to make a dramatic move once the midterm elections in November are over. These particular government employees, particularly those at the top levels, believe that Christians, Tea Party participants, and those who support the Constitution and oppose Obama and his "progressive" agenda are dangerous and need to be subjected to a purge.

This purge would be in the form of prosecution through the courts. The objective would be to silence their voices and remove them from society by tossing them into prison where they could spend years and a ton of money attempting to get out of jail and defend their reputations. The "progressives" in the administration and Congress believe that the lame duck period just after the November midterm elections is the time to move swiftly to get these things done. Obama doesn't have to face reelection. And if the internal polling being done by both Democrats and Republicans is true, the Democrats will be forced into minority status in the Senate in addition to the House. Thus, in the two months after the election prior to the time when the new Congress is sworn in in January of 2015, a golden opportunity exists for the "progressive" elitist tyrants to make their move. After all, they have nothing to lose.

Although the tip concerning this information came within the last two weeks, the publication of it was on hold until more verification could be received. That verification came today in an article written by colleague David Codrea, who is the National Gun Rights Examiner.

Shortly after the election of Barack Obama, it became all too clear that DHS intended to lay the foundation for a massive purge of Christians and liberty oriented citizens. Internal memos were discovered that referred to these citizens as "potential homegrown terrorists." The objective was to crank up the propaganda machine in an effort to malign, demonize, and ruin the reputations of otherwise good citizens so that eventually it would be easier to persecute and prosecute them without running too far afield of public opinion.

In 2012 the Examiner received at least one document from DHS that listed the various categories of citizens that would be deemed as "potential homegrown terrorists." This document is one of the most important, but as you will see, it has been revised to include an apologetic to counteract the heavy criticism the report received. DHS used this report to compile its policy on "potential homegrown terrorists."

But not once was Islamic extremists mentioned. Those whom DHS mentioned specifically is very telling -- Ron Paul supporters, gun owners and gun rights activists, those who promote the Constitution as the final rule of law, U.S. war veterans returning home from overseas, those who support the right of Israel to exist, evangelical Christians and others who are pro-life and who believe the Bible and take it seriously, Tea Party activists, conservative voters who take to the streets to march or to demonstrate in opposition to high taxes, runaway government spending, Obamacare, and other programs of the "progressives" in the current administration. Michelle Malkin provided this report on the issue at the time.

So controversial were these DHS pronouncements that angry citizens began calling their elected representatives. When it became clear that this mindset at DHS may become a political liability for Democrats seeking election or reelection, the agency backed off its public statements concerning "potential homegrown terrorists." It did not help matters for the elitists that a series of high profile terrorist actions, conducted by Islamic extremists, made the news and only confirmed in the minds of most Americans that DHS had its eye on all of the wrong people. While they were watching us "conservative Christians clinging to our guns and Bibles," the Islamo-fascists were busy at work behind the scenes planning a resurgence. And now, at least half of what our men and women in the military fought for, and gave their lives for, have fallen back into the hands of Islamic extremists who behead their opposition. Not only does this denote a failed Obama foreign policy but it clearly demonstrates that the current administration does not care about the spread of extremist Islam. They had rather go after ordinary citizens who disagree with their warped view of the world.

Against that backdrop, David Codrea reports that DHS issued a report Friday that once again places the spotlight on an odd group of people to be tracking -- ordinary U.S. citizens who once again are being tarred and feathered verbally as "potential homegrown terrorists." This time, however, their specific target is U.S. gun owners, 99 percent of whom never use their firearms to commit crimes.

DHS tipped its hand when it cited as a basis for its report the discredited and dangerous Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which never saw a gun owner it did not hate nor a conservative Christian it did not view as deranged. This organization is a million times worse than anything Joe McCarthy did in the Senate in the 1950s when he warned that Communists had infiltrated the U.S. government. They had. And his charges were confirmed when the old KGB was forced to open its books after the demise of the old Soviet Union, and the new Russian president Boris Yeltsin ordered that those secret records be made public. It turns out that McCarthy was 95 percent correct. But the SPLC can claim no such accuracy. They have maligned and falsely charged a plethora of individuals as "racists" or "anti-government extremists" with absolutely no basis upon which to issue such a charge.

Codrea notes that one of the incidents that SPLC is now using to malign gun owners is the standoff at the Bundy Ranch. Not only did SPLC get many of its facts wrong but it claims that supporters of Bundy prove that they are dangerous homegrown extremists who wish to attack the government. Many gun owners went to the Bundy Ranch to provide protection for Bundy as dozens of government snipers took aim at the Bundy family, ready to blow them all away. Thus, they were there to protect a fellow citizen from government snipers who apparently were ready to initiate another Ruby Ridge or Waco.

Apparently SPLC is oblivious to the possibility that citizens can support the right of a fellow citizen to keep and bear arms and have control over his property without supporting all of that citizen's political views. Bundy's views may be problematic for many gun owners, but that does not prevent us from protecting his right to be on that property and to keep and bear arms.

In spite of its dubious agenda, SPLC was used as an important source for Friday's report issued by DHS. This does not bode well for the next step. If the anonymous source mentioned above is correct, this is all a precursor to massive government action to silence all of the administration's most effective critics.

You may also be interested in the following:

My personal blog at The Liberty Sphere.

My popular series, Musings After Midnight.

My ministry site at Martin Christian Ministries.

DHS: KILL THE WHITE PEOPLE ON YOUR OFF HOURS

Read the article if you can stomach it...

http://patdollard.com/2013/08/homeland-security-employee-preparing-for-coming-race-war-advocates-mass-murder-of-whites/

‘Homeland Security’ Employee Preparing For Coming Race War, Advocates Mass Murder Of Whites