Boehner ready to let funding lapse for Homeland Security Agency

[Marthe48]

Source: Reuters

John Boehner, the Republican House of Representatives speaker, said he is willing to let funding for the Department of Homeland Security lapse as part of a Republican push to roll back President Barack Obama's executive actions on immigration.

With a Feb. 27 deadline looming for funding the department, Senate Democrats three times this month blocked consideration of the Homeland Security appropriations bill, which has already been approved by the House.

Arizona Senator John McCain, a leading Republican voice on national security matters, told NBC's "Meet the Press" of his alarm at the situation.

"The American people did not give us majority to have a fight between House and Senate Republicans," McCain said, referring to Republicans taking control of both the House and Senate after November's congressional elections. "They want things done. You cannot cut funding from the Department of Homeland Security. We need to sit down and work this thing out."

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/boehner-says-hes-prepared-let-u-homeland-security-142317458--business.html

---

Just so adult and mature.

[RKP5637]

1. Children in positions of power they should be nowhere near! n/t

[Cryptoad]

2. all I got to say is,,,,

slow ass learners.....geez!

[dhill926]

3. Seems intent on being the worst…

Speaker ever.

[Ineeda]

4. Funny how it works, huh John? n/t

[Marthe48]

5. One trick ponies

According to Tom Rooney R-Fla., it doesn't have a thing to do with what is good or right for this country. It is "Stop Obama" and "nothing is going to change until we get a new president.'

Here is the actual quote from http://www.breitbart.com/news/frustrated-republicans-taste-limits-of-majority-control/ :

“Now we have the Senate and so our constituents think ‘now you can stop Obama’. Well we don’t have 60,” said Rep. Tom Rooney, R-Fla. “Honestly it’s going to continue to frustrate not only our side but the people who elected us that nothing is going to change until we get a new president.”

[Beartracks]

28. "Stop Obama" is all they ran on. They don't have a skillset for actual governance. n/t

[Thinkingabout]

54. I wish I could say you are wrong but you are exactly right. They dont know how.

[blkmusclmachine]

47. "nothing is going to change until we get a new president"

[Beartracks]

58. Let's all make sure the new President they seek... is a Democrat! n/t

[DeSwiss]

6. K&R

[onecaliberal]

7. Whenever any of these people try to claim they

Care about the security of America this episode should be rubbed in their face.
It's a straightforward demonstration that republicans don't care about the security of America if we are going to let brown folks receive citizenship. I hope the Mexican people are paying attention to the lengths republicans are willing to go to support their hate.

[Marthe48]

9. Well said!

n/t

[onecaliberal]

10. Thanks!

[SmittynMo]

8. So let's put this country at risk

just to appease the GOP's hatred for Obama? You've got to be kidding me.

Kick these bums out of office, immediately!!!

And "we the people" put these losers in office, to not protect "we the people? Something is seriously wrong here. The Koch brothers and the GOP are crooked bastards, crying because they can't get their way again? I don't know how we can continue to operate this way. Failure is obvious in the near future.

[Fred Sanders]

11. American Security Threatened by GOP Civil War, News at Never o'clock.

[paleotn]

12. Letting funding lapse in a huff. Good idea....

...that's worked so well for them in the past.

[Arkansas Granny]

13. I rather doubt their constituents had this in mind last November.

How do these guys keep getting elected?

[Iliyah]

30. Their constituents are clueless,

and of course GOPers will put the blame on the other group . Its never them because they are the chosen ones from GAWD. Corporate media will follow suit with the propaganda, and their constituents will believe it.

From history re: WW2, the same happened with a country and the old world suffered.

[blkmusclmachine]

48. How do these guys keep getting elected?

I don't know. Let's ask Die Bold.

[Marthe48]

55. Die Bold

and Gerry Mander

[CountAllVotes]

14. Even a broken clock is right twice a day ...

Drink up Bonehead!!!

& recommend.

[yallerdawg]

15. The House and Senate could fix immigration issues...

without poison pill riders on Homeland Security.

Let them shut it down, Democrats!

Boehner is working on being the worst Speaker in history. Speaking of legacies.

[Marthe48]

16. Repugs don't want to fix anything

They want to control, but this is how it'll be if they get all the reins.

[Fred Sanders]

17. They want chaos, the media attempt to demonize Obama is failing, chaos is all they have left.

They do want to wait two years for a new President. If only the economy was not so good and Obama so obviously not a demon.

It is The Christofascist's Last Stand. And it is not going as planned.

[Beartracks]

59. They want chaos so they can "prove" that "government is the problem."

I always say there's nothing wrong with government that getting Republicans out of it can't fix.

======================

[paleotn]

18. Considering some of his predecessors...

that's quite an accomplishment.

[BrotherIvan]

19. Why has everyone decided that defunding Homeland Security means the

"security of the United States is threatened?" That seems like some Fox News line. I for one thing we should defund that agency. I think we will find it will be like the NYC cops who no longer arrest people for bullshit reasons. What, exactly, does DHS do besides rough people up at airports and try to bludgeon protestors? I assume all that money would be better spend on education and social programs.

The Republicans, on the other hand, still are a bunch of bumbling fucking idiots.

[Fred Sanders]

21. You forgot the sarcasm Emoticon after the first paragraph?

[BrotherIvan]

23. No, I didn't

DHS is a Bushishm, created in response to 9/11. They are a money pit and have been completely unsuccessful in thwarting attacks. They are an MIC wet dream.

[CountAllVotes]

26. +1,000

Agree!!!!

[Iliyah]

32. Its Cheney's baby and he with this cronies

won't let it fall . . .

[Newest Reality]

35. + 1,000

[candelista]

25. +1.

Don't pay any attention to Fred's RW comments. He likes a police-state and would like to run one himself.

[Carolina]

63. K&R, I agree, Brother Ivan!!

It's a bloated agency, sucking up dollars.

If the agencies already in existence pre-9/11 had worked cooperatively and especially if the FBI and its then chief Louis Freeh had been less focused on Clinton's pants and more on the alerts about people seeking flying lessons but not wanting to learn how to take off and land, 9/11 may have been averted.

Then, too, think back to the US embassy bombings in Africa (Kenya and Tanzania) in 1998. No one in the repuke Congress gave a damn because most of the people killed were Africans (black Africans!). Then, in 2000, there was the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen (don't forget a 9/11 hijacker was from Yemen, too), but nothing was done because it was in October, election season. Clinton would have been ridiculed had he tried to do anything and again, the repuke Congress didn't care!

When Bush was installed by SCOTUS, the outgoing Clinton administration folks warned about terror based on the attacks I have cited above and more, but the Bushies didn't care. They were fixated on their PNAC plan. They ignored warnings (recall the August 6th memo) and even before then, the fact that the airspace around the site of the G-8 Summit in Genoa, Italy in July 2001 was closed because of the threat of airplanes being used as missiles against the buildings housing world leaders in attendance.

Then 9/11 happened (or was allowed to happen) because it served the PNACers' purposes, one of which was invading Iraq! It also enabled creation of a new and redundant agency that takes money from social programs, lines the pockets of security corporations and their CEOS (e.g Michael Chertoff) and really does little that the DOJ, DOD and FBI weren't already doing. Are we better off because of the Dept. of Homeland (how Nazi-esque) Security or is travel just much more onerous.

[BrotherIvan]

65. Thanks!

And thanks for the history lesson, I always love learning more. I can't believe the security/intelligence state is so normalized that "left-leaning" folks are thinking our country is doomed without it. Fox and it's media machine has done a wonderful job creeping into the collective consciousness of this country, even if you aren't directly consuming their lies. Worked in Britain too. The rest of the world, not as much.

[lark]

20. Gerrymandering gave them the win.

2 million more folks voted Democrat than voted Repug. Too many idiots in too many gerrymandered districts gave them the win, they didn't earn it, they virtually stole it. Same as always, they can't win with their policies so they win by twisting the rules. Sad that Repugs are now John Birchers, and are too stupid to even realize the difference. Course the 1%ers know and approve of the change that their ilk have brought on the country, to our woe.

[RationalMan]

22. I do not believe they will let DHS go unfunded.......

I do have confidence this will be resolved but it will be all the way to the deadline. The House will eventually cave and approve some funding for DHS. It may be short-term funding but the DHS will not shut down end of February.

But this is not going to end. The GOP nut cases are nuts. They have said that the will pass the XL Pipeline over and over again, possibly attach it to "must pass" legislation etc. rather than accept the fact the XL pipeline will not get this President's approval and will not go forward at least not until after the next election cycle.

These are children playing a very serious game.

[lark]

31. welcome to DU

There's so much money being made of DHS, I doubt Repugs will let that go away for long. With them it's always about the $$, no matter what else they pretend to care about. As long as the 1%ers are raking it in, which they are off DHS, that honey pot will not just disappear. They think Obama will cave. I certainly hope he and the Dems hang strong and continue to say no.

[lark]

24. On 2nd thought, good.

Maybe some of the privacy violations will decrease with DHS unfunded? Anything based on Nazi Germany language can't be good.

Stand stong, Dems and Obama, don't case in to the Repugs extortion.

[candelista]

29. Yes, I think we could get along fine without DHS.

It's a useless, dangerous nuisance.

[yallerdawg]

27. Of course, Boehner/McConnell will be forced to continue funding DHS.

What part of this agency is not essential to our security?

Sometimes I wonder just who is always getting played here?

Could it be...us?

[freshwest]

33. The Koch brothers are cheering their agenda coming to pass:

BERNIE SANDERS Uncovers 1980 Koch Agenda- "What Do the Koch Brothers Want?"

What else do the Koch brothers want?

In 1980, David Koch ran as the Libertarian Party's vice-presidential candidate in 1980.

Let's take a look at the 1980 Libertarian Party platform.

Here are just a few excerpts of the Libertarian Party platform that David Koch ran on in 1980:

We urge the repeal of federal campaign finance laws, and the immediate abolition of the despotic Federal Election Commission.

We favor the abolition of Medicare and Medicaid programs.

We oppose any compulsory insurance or tax-supported plan to provide health services, including those which finance abortion services.

We also favor the deregulation of the medical insurance industry.

We favor the repeal of the fraudulent, virtually bankrupt, and increasingly oppressive Social Security system. Pending that repeal, participation in Social Security should be made voluntary.

We propose the abolition of the governmental Postal Service. The present system, in addition to being inefficient, encourages governmental surveillance of private correspondence. *Pending abolition, we call for an end to the monopoly system and for allowing free competition in all aspects of postal service.

We oppose all personal and corporate income taxation, including capital gains taxes.
We support the eventual repeal of all taxation.**

As an interim measure, all criminal and civil sanctions against tax evasion should be terminated immediately.

We support repeal of all law which impede the ability of any person to find employment, such as minimum wage laws.

We advocate the complete separation of education and State. Government schools lead to the indoctrination of children and interfere with the free choice of individuals. Government ownership, operation, regulation, and subsidy of schools and colleges should be ended.

We condemn compulsory education laws and we call for the immediate repeal of such laws.

We support the repeal of all taxes on the income or property of private schools, whether profit or non-profit.

We support the abolition of the Environmental Protection Agency.

We support abolition of the Department of Energy.

We call for the dissolution of all government agencies concerned with transportation, including the Department of Transportation.***

We demand the return of America's railroad system to private ownership. We call for the privatization of the public roads and national highway system.***

We specifically oppose laws requiring an individual to buy or use so-called "self-protection" equipment such as safety belts, air bags, or crash helmets.

We advocate the abolition of the Federal Aviation Administration.****

We advocate the abolition of the Food and Drug Administration.

We support an end to all subsidies for child-bearing built into our present laws, including all welfare plans and the provision of tax-supported services for children.

We oppose all government welfare, relief projects, and aid to the poor programs. All these government programs are privacy-invading, paternalistic, demeaning, and inefficient. The proper source of help for such persons is the voluntary efforts of private groups and individuals.

We call for the privatization of the inland waterways, and of the distribution system that brings water to industry, agriculture and households.

We call for the repeal of the Occupational Safety and Health Act.

We call for the abolition of the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

We support the repeal of all state usury laws.

http://www.sanders.senate.gov/koch-brothers

http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a7980koch

*Insert NSA furor here. They've about exhausted the meme of 'red and blue dots on rural mail boxes are put there by the USPS so that during the coming martial law PoliceState© they'll kidnap the Patriots© to take them to the FEMA camps. So it's on the Left and Right to destroy the USPS.

**Shutting down DHS, and all those other big government PoliceState© agencies will save billions of dollars in taxes. Leave the Oligarchs alone!

***That will take care of all those rants about bridges, roads, inspections, and check points. The Bundy Patriots will take care of those functions for us. And the night riders, Rand Paul's militias and whoever has the biggest guns and the most ammo. Welcome to Mad Max.

****More rugged individualism in the new America run by Bircher principles. Who is going to complain? Really?

[Newest Reality]

36. Woah!

That should be its own post.

Haven't seen that list before. Thanks.

Basically, it looks like a laundry list to disband the United States and replace it with full control by an oligarchy when you read between ALL those lines.

It seems to border on treason when you sum it up, IMO.

[Iliyah]

37. That is Scott Walker, Paul Ryan and the majority of the GOP party

No more USA of America.

[damyank913]

41. Reads like crap out of an anarchists handbook. As for me...

...call me a city boy but I like streetlights; and fire and police services; and I like the bridges that I use to get an occasional coat of paint. Scary world those guys propose.

[freshwest]

49. It's called feudalism. Where you must pay the baron to use his road and you will bow to your betters

Last edited Mon Feb 16, 2015, 12:14 AM - Edit history (1)

or else be killed by those who directly benefit from strong man rule. Like Rand Paul bragging about his private security that makes him feel safe, surrounded by Second Amendment solution riflemen who want to 'restore' the USA to its rightful rulers. Same thing as the CSA wanted, where only white men will rule.



Where social mobility is a pipe dream, slavery is what some people are born to be in and they deserve it. Historically all caused by reducing government until it is so weak it cannot enforce laws as it was the only force keeping feudalism at bay.

Yes, Grover knew that cutting off funds and denying government taxes was the way and enforced the allegiance of the GOP, as the Koch brothers do now.

Thom Hartmann did a great analysis in this clip, referring to an author who states the case plainly:

This is the era we are living in, so please listen carefully, DU!

[damyank913]

66. For the longest time I thought these clowns where trying to impose...

a pre-civil war, southern style aristocracy. I think now that your assessment is more accurate. The USA is all about commerce at the end of the day.

[AC_Mem]

45. Wow

And they are systematically buying their way through this list.

This is frightening.

[freshwest]

52. The second link shows their method, brainwashing the voters through media to vote their stooges in.

This has been a long term plan but when Koch saw he could not win in 1980, he turned his millions to brainwashing the public. That resulted in what we have seen for the last thirty years in the USA.

Now many on the right and left, believe what the list says and want the government gone. But some have not realized they are supporting feudalism and the government was all they had to stop it, but they grew to hate it completely out of proportion to what it is.

You can often ignore the government, but you cannot ignore those who control the basics of life, land, water, food, energy. That is how oligarchs extort people directly with no one to call them to account and no redress.

[malthaussen]

34. Okay by me.

DHS is a travesty, a betrayal of American principles, and should be disbanded.

-- Mal

[kydo]

38. Let him. I have always hated the whole homeland crap anyway.

The whole homeland defense thing is a bunch of woo created by the bush regime to make us scared while being patriots. Most of the agency were their own agency before 911 and worked just fine before making it the mega agency it is today. Defund it! But Obama's immigration plans should proceed. We need that.

[Blue Owl]

39. It's threat level orange for DHS

n/t

[Owl]

40. Good one!

[AngryDem001]

42. Congress is doing this for ONE reason.

All the obstruction, the lies, the astounding do-nothingness is for ONE reason and ONE reason only.

The Republicans are willing to let the country slide into disarray simply because they can't STAND the color of our president's skin. That's IT.

[SoapBox]

43. So...is the TSA under the DHS?

...security screening at airports should be shut down and airports closed.

Would that get anyone's attention?

[madville]

61. They are deemed essential

They will still be at work during this "shutdown", along with most of the Secret Service, Border Patrol, ICE, USCG, and FEMA. Something like 20,000 "non-essential" personnel would not be allowed to work but they usually get paid for the days missed after these shutdowns anyway so they basically are paid vacations.

[freebrew]

44. Good!...nt

[tk2kewl]

46. good. put the security industrial complex on autsterity, not the rest of us

[davidpdx]

50. There is nothing to sit down and work out John

Either you fund the fucking Department of Homeland Security or you don't. It's just that easy.

[titaniumsalute]

51. What an asshole..

[Renew Deal]

53. Why are Republicans playing politics with America's security?

[freshwest]

56. Makes me wonder if Boehner has any 'vice' stocks:

Real Homeland Security

by Grier Weeks -
December 10, 2014

Although I don't know the rest of his record, I agree with Congressman John Carter who wants to add $20 million to the DHS budget on child trafficking:

...Carter wants to send not only federal agents after these child predators, but an elite new group of hunters called the H.E.R.O. Child-Rescue Corps. The HERO Corps is a joint program of U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the National Association to Protect Children (PROTECT) and the U.S. Special Operations Command. It recruits elite wounded warriors, trains them as human exploitation rescue operatives (HEROs) and embeds them with law enforcement...*

The Internet has facilitated a flourishing trade in child pornography, bringing together millions of producers, distributors and collectors. Every image and video of child pornography is actually a crime scene recording, showing the rape, sexual abuse and often torture of a child. These are no “baby in the bathtub” photos. They’re not really even “pornography” in the normal sense at all.

Child abuse material depicts the most horrific and brutal moments in a child’s life. Law enforcement reports the victims are typically very young, often infants and toddlers. U.S. law enforcement has identified over 300,000 suspects in the U.S. alone trafficking in images of children being bound, gagged, raped and horribly abused.

The insatiable appetite for these videos and photos can only be supplied one way: through the rape and torture of more children...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014981038#post3

*There have been a number of posts on DU about the sucess of these veterans who use their skills to stop the abuse of children.

Okay then, Boehner, cut the funding and let the abuse continue! It's good for business, huh?**



**No. I am not going to be nice about these neo-feudalists who want to destroy the government and hand all of us over to the Koch brothers...

[bluestateguy]

57. This is not complicated for the president

Just declare a national emergency, issue an executive order keeping the DHS open, and dare them to stop him.

[msanthrope]

60. You present an interesting Constitutional question....but would an EO

keep DHS open? What's your thinking as to constitutional authority?

[struggle4progress]

62. ... The beleaguered Speaker’s feeble talking point is, “The House has acted. We’ve done our job.”

Boehner surely knows his argument is absurd – the lower chamber passed a right-wing bill that House Republicans knew couldn’t pass the Senate and couldn’t earn President Obama’s signature. In other words, the GOP majority “acted” by passing a bill that everyone knew was doomed to fail.

Boehner went on to say the Republican-led House and Republican-led Senate can’t fund Homeland Security because of Democrats “are the ones putting us in this precarious position,” which really is as pitiful as it sounds ...

The funding deadline is next week, which would suggest this week is the critical juncture for real work to get done, but as it turns out, congressional Republicans are taking this week off. You see, lawmakers worked six abbreviated work weeks, punctuated with four- and five-day weekends, in a row. Naturally, it was time for a week off, despite a looming deadline.

For what it’s worth, while some policy disputes are hard to solve, this one’s easy. Republicans and Democrats, the White House and Congress, all agree on Homeland Security funding levels. All Congress has to do is provide the agency with the agreed upon resources. That’s what the president wants; it’s what the Senate wants; it’s what House Democrats want; and according to at least one House Republican, a bipartisan majority in both chambers could pass a “clean,” straightforward funding bill that would end all of this nonsense ...

Boehner, GOP poised to gut Homeland Security funding
02/16/15 08:00 AM—UPDATED 02/16/15 11:21 AM
By Steve Benen

[Carolina]

64. Dept. of Homeland Security

is a bloated agency, sucking up dollars.

If the agencies already in existence pre-9/11 had worked cooperatively and especially if the FBI and its then chief Louis Freeh had been less focused on Clinton's pants and more on the alerts about people seeking flying lessons but not wanting to learn how to take off and land, 9/11 may have been averted.

Then, too, think back to the US embassy bombings in Africa (Kenya and Tanzania) in 1998. No one in the repuke Congress gave a damn because most of the people killed were Africans (black Africans!). Then, in 2000, there was the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen (don't forget a 9/11 hijacker was from Yemen, too), but nothing was done because it was in October, election season. Clinton would have been ridiculed had he tried to do anything, and again, the repuke Congress didn't care!

When Bush was installed by SCOTUS, the outgoing Clinton administration warned about terror, based on the attacks I have cited above and much more. But the Bushies didn't care; they were fixated on their PNAC plan. They ignored warnings (recall the August 6th memo) and even before then, they ignored the fact that airspace around the site of the G-8 Summit in Genoa, Italy in July 2001 had been closed because of the threat of airplanes being used as missiles against the buildings housing the world leaders in attendance.

Then 9/11 happened (or was allowed to happen) because it served the PNACers' purposes, one of which was invading Iraq! It also enabled creation of a new and redundant agency that takes money from social programs, lines the pockets of security corporations and their CEOS (e.g Michael Chertoff) and really does little that the DOJ, DOD and FBI weren't already doing. Are we better off because of the Dept. of Homeland (how Nazi-esque) Security or is travel just much more onerous.

I loathe repukes, but a broken clock is right twice a day and this seemingly misguided defunding may not be a disaster.

[freshwest]

67. How many people support the destruction of the DHS agency that uses 85% of its funding, FEMA?

Rand Paul and most diehard GOP want FEMA privatized. So shutting down the funding of DHS would be a major win for them, no wonder they are taking a vacation.

They're spending their bonuses from the Koch brothers. Any replacement won't represent the needy, as we've seen from the privatized fire department in TN that let the man's house with his pets inside burn for want of a few bucks.

Their version of emergency service is not universal. Yet people are going to cheer the downfall of FEMA because they've heard it's bad and when it's gone, it's gone.

[Marthe48]

68. Repugs want to privatize depts. services, agencies

And it doesn't work. Neither does cut-gutting the depts., services and agencies I was watching the Huntington WV news station WOWK, and there was a story on about snow removal, that the crews and equipment struggling to keep up with snow removal. People are complaining that the streets aren't getting cleared. Someone in the city government said they could look at getting new equipment and more employees, but the city would have to talk about getting fees increased. You can't have a service like snow removal if you aren't going to fund it. Democrats need to keep pointing out that you can't have departments, services and agencies unless you pay for them. They need to point out that when they are privatized, the price goes up, and there is no end to that. Taxes end up being a lot cheaper than deep pocket free market. I keep wishing the Repugs would all go to Kuribati.

[Myrina]

69. On one hand, I think this is good because I despise Homeland Security's overreach ...

I'd like my pre-9/11 freedoms back, please.

On the other hand, you KNOW once any kind of funding is cut, something's gonna happen and the GOP will go batshit-Benghazi-crazy trying to blame/impeach/indict POTUS and every other Democrat in America, and we'll ultimately end up with an even more invasive agency in it's place.