Stop the Amnesty bill. Again.

NumbersUSA sent out an alert (and I’ve cut out the sections asking for contributions); should you want to explore their website, click here.  Here's an edited message:

House Passes Amnesty for More than One Million Illegal Aliens

The House of Representatives last week passed a massive, new amnesty for well over a million illegal aliens. That's bad news, no matter how you spin it. But there is some good news: Our members and allies made enough of an uproar about it that we minimized Republican support for the bill. We may have changed Republican leaders' minds about passing it.

We're not surprised we couldn't outright defeat the bill in the Democrat-controlled House. And It had been shocking to see dozens of Republicans falling over themselves to support this bill. Some people thought up to HALF of House Republicans -- maybe even Donald Trump -- would support the bill. The following quote was typical of a certain kind of Republican Representative:

"This [Ag Jobs bill] is exactly the kind of 'merit-based' immigration reform President Trump has been calling for.

"I spoke directly with President Trump about the Farm Workforce Modernization Act and the need for a solution for our farmers. He agreed: We must provide relief now."

-- U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse, Yakima Herald, Dec 8, 2019

. . .

[NumbersUSA supporters] clobbered the Washington phone lines, and just about everyone who hadn't already voiced support for the bill backed away, Republican leaders "whipped" their members for "no" votes, and even a few co-sponsors changed their minds.

I want to be clear what just happened here: We've sapped much of the energy out of Republican supporters of this amnesty. But while NumbersUSA and its members threw a punch, it was NOT a knock-out blow for this bill. It may take another huge round of activism to finally put this bill to rest.

We made headlines that this is an amnesty... and THAT was crucial.

. . .

We have strong hopes that this bill will not be brought up for a vote if we push hard enough against it. But your Senators need to hear from you. . .

* * *

Here are details for Ohio's Senators:

Sen. Rob Portman:  Ohio toll free 1-800-205-6446 or by email here

Sen. Sherrod Brown: (202) 224-2315 (DC) or (216) 522 7272 (Cleveland)

# # #

Sen. Portman votes to obstruct again

cartoon by Michael Ramirez

  

Sean Moran at Breitbart reports:

Senate Passes Democrat Motion
to End Border Wall National Emergency

Senate Democrats passed Wednesday a motion to end President Donald Trump’s national emergency declaration to build a wall along the southern border.

The Senate passed S.J. Res. 54, 54-41, which would terminate President Trump’s national emergency declaration on the southern border. The resolution was created by Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM) and co-sponsored by Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Susan Collins (R-ME).

Sen. Collins said the bill is not about “whether you’re for or against a border wall.” The Maine senator, who is up for a tough reelection fight in 2020, claimed that she has “consistently supported” funding for physical barriers on the southern border.

However, Congress has failed to provide significant funding to help secure America’s southern border by building a border wall. With Congress’ failure to provide funding, President Trump declared a national emergency to build the border wall, which diverted military funding so that the president can build a wall along the southern border.

The Republicans that voted for the resolution to end the national emergency to build a border wall are Sens. Collins, Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Pat Toomey (R-PA), Mitt Romney (R-UT), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Mike Lee (R-UT), Rob Portman (R-OH).

. . .

Congressional Democrats failed to pass the resolution to override Trump’s national emergency in March, which failed to override the president’s veto.

This latest attempt will probably also fail despite the RINOs and the media’s best efforts.

# # #

Those phone calls = “public pressure”

Good news. Breitbart reports:

Six Republican Senators have failed to develop a coalition for their plan that exchanges a fifth of border wall funding for an amnesty for illegal aliens and increased immigration.

The plan, described to Breitbart News, was a creation of Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Susan Collins (R-ME), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Rob Portman (R-OH), and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and would have tied $5.7 billion in funding for President Trump’s proposed border wall to an amnesty for illegal aliens enrolled and eligible in President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

Sen. Rob Portman is always a squish, but I had thought that Sen. Lindsay Graham was finally growing a spine. But you knew he was playing both ends against the middle on border security when he encouraged Pres. Trump the other day to declare an emergency and build The Wall. At least now he is backing off the DACA amnesty: “I see no path forward...”

More here.  

# # #

What’s wrong with Rob Portman?

cartoon credit: Walt Handelsman

via US News and World Report / The New Orleans Advocate

Scott McKay at The American Spectator asks:

Do Lisa Murkowski, Rob Portman, and Shelley Moore Capito expect to ever get votes from Republican voters again?

Here’s a question: How long have Republicans been running for federal office on repealing Obamacare, in Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s terminology, “Root and branch”?

Answer: since 2010.

. . .

You would figure that with Donald Trump in the White House and Republican majorities in the House and Senate, repealing Obamacare would be a no-brainer.

OK, the repeal-and-replace angle could be harder to pull off. That’s understandable. There are lots of different kinds of Republicans, and it might be hard to get all of them to coalesce behind a single federal healthcare policy to replace it. Those of us whose studies of the American public sector have led to an understanding that the less federal healthcare policy there is the healthier the healthcare industry will be have a far simpler solution to that problem, but we are unfortunately not the majority — in the House, Senate or public. That’s a shame, and it’s a symptom of a larger civic disease, but that’s for another column in this space. There will be a replacement for Obamacare, and we can hope it’s less awful than what it stands in for.

But when the Senate version of an Obamacare replacement foundered and McConnell announced the next step would be, early next week, an up-or-down vote for an Obamacare repeal now and the crafting of a replacement as a consensus for one emerges, that’s something an entire GOP caucus can vote for.

Minus Susan Collins, of course; Maine’s quote-unquote Republican Senator wouldn’t vote to repeal Obamacare back in 2015 when McConnell’s majority sent a bill doing just that to then-President Obama’s desk to die. But outside of Collins and Mark Kirk of Illinois, who is no longer in the Senate, the rest of the caucus was on board with the repeal.

And yet Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, West Virginia’s Shelley Moore Capito, and Ohio’s Rob Portman have now joined Collins in announcing they won’t support a repeal when the vote comes up next week.

What is wrong with these people?

Capito laced her announcement with a special bit of arsenic for Republican voters. “I didn’t come to Washington to hurt people,” she said.

No, Senator, apparently you came to Washington to lie to people.

. . .

What’s wrong with these people? My guess in one word: Uniparty. And the rest of Scott McKay's article is here.