Sen. John Cornyn (R, TX) last night put it bluntly:
“The senator from Kentucky by objecting to the unanimous consent requests will effectively shut down the federal government, for no real reason,”
He was referring to Sen. Rand Paul, a self-proclaimed Libertarian like his daddy, Ron Paul. For those who may not know, libertarians occupy the extreme clown end of the political spectrum like the Constitution Party. They are all hard core ideologues who have no clue how to pick their battles, and mostly like grand standing on the themes that "taxes are theft" and "no deficit is good enough to tolerate."
Cornyn went on to add that Paul’s actions were “grossly irresponsible” and said he would not make concessions to the Kentucky Republican. “Why reward bad behavior?” asked Cornyn.
Why indeed? Fortunately for all concerned Paul's mini-shutdown ended early this morning, approved by a bipartisan Senate majority of 71-28. Make no mistake this is a rare episode given the nation's extreme polarization. But bottom line, the Dems had no stomach for another shutdown - even to defend the Dreamers. Their own camp being split - with the centrists in Trump states refusing to come aboard - they chose discretion over valor, especially with the midterm elections 10 months away.
After the bill made it to the House, the latter eventually voted to approve it at 5.30am by a margin of 240 to 186. There were 73 Democrats who voted for the legislation and 67 Republicans who voted against. Of course, the top House Repuke- Paul Ryan - had his whine all ready with the aim to blame the Dems for so much more spending, e.g.
"Without more Republicans in Congress, we were forced to increase spending on things we do not like or want in order to finally, after many years of depletion, take care of our Military"
Aw, boo hoo hoo. They had to "take care of the military". The same military that now enjoys more gov't spending than the next twelve nations combined, including China and Russia. Cry me a river, do. But we all know the Repukes' deficit game and have since the Reagan era: run up all the deficits you can on "defense" and then if and when Dems get into power, cry and whine 'Deficits!' if they try to increase domestic spending.
Anyway, Trump subsequently signed the two-year spending bill into law around 8.40 a.m. tweeting:
“Our military will now be stronger than ever before. We love and need our military and gave them everything – and more. First time this has happened in a long time.”
This from "President Bone Spur" who used the physical "disability" of bone spurs in his foot to grab five deferments to avoid military service in the Vietnam era. This same bone spur victim who now fancies having a Mussolini- North Korea- Nazi style military parade - complete with tanks, missiles and tens of thousands of marching grunts - on July 4th. Word out of D.C is that even the brass at the Pentagon are doing double eye rolls.
Back to Rand Paul. We know his late night grandstanding effort did little other than postpone the inevitable and prove Paul is a hypocrite on exploding deficits. After all, where was his Libbie conscience and religion when the Treasury busting tax cuts were passed? Why wasn't he doing his best to stop that, given we're looking at $1.5 trillion in added deficits?
All Rand Paul did is demonstrate why no Libertarian politician will ever be elected President. They are too absolutist, too ideological and colossal hypocrites besides.
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