Mitch McConnell is the problem

If you are a fiscal conservative like me I’m sure you share my frustration with the latest budget that was passed by a Republican Congress and signed by a Republican president. Not to give President Trump too much of a pass, but he was obviously frustrated when he signed it. He did so, he says, because the six-month budget gets much-needed funding to the military.

What’s disturbing is the glee which Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi took in voting for the bill. Any time those two are happy it’s a sure bet it’s a bad deal for America. But just who is to blame?

Many point to Speaker Paul Ryan who reached across the aisle to pass a bipartisan piece of legislation. Bipartisan sounds nice and fuzzy but it’s code for capitulation. The Republicans were sent to Washington to drain the swamp and stop the reckless spending. They failed miserably. And there’s one reason why. Mitch McConnell.

The senate majority leader has refused to kill the ridiculous filibuster rule. This is the arcane senate rule that allows the majority to threaten a filibuster and it takes sixty votes to override it. The minority never really has to actually filibuster. They just have to threaten to. Proponents of this insane rule claim that if the Democrats take control of the Senate they’ll dispense of it to pass their agenda if the Republicans do it to them. Fox News Alert: They’re going to ditch that rule the first time it gets in their way no matter what the Republicans do now.

Despite the spin from both parties, the filibuster super majority is not constitutional. The Constitution only requires a senate super majority when voting on impeachment, expelling a member of Congress, overriding a presidential veto, ratifying treaties, and proposing constitutional amendments. Requiring a three-fifths vote to stop a filibuster was a rule change in 1806, and even then was infrequently used until 1970. That’s when the Senate adopted the so-called “two-track” procedure intended to keep the filibuster from derailing all Senate business. It didn’t take too long before the actual filibuster itself became a mere formality and the Senate became a 60-vote institution.

McConnell and the Republicans changed the rule to exclude Supreme Court nominations. That’s after Harry Reid and the Democrats changed the rule to eliminate the filibuster on executive branch and judicial nominees. So it can be eliminated. McConnell just doesn’t want to.

Why?

My suspicion is McConnell actually wants a lot of the spending the Democrats want. Remember, McConnell is part of the swamp. This guy has become filthy rich thanks to the communist Chinese. As Peter Schweizer chronicles in his new book, Secret Empires, McConnell’s in-laws have deep financial ties to the Chinese government. China’s largest defense contractor set Elaine Chao’s family up in the shipping business. Elaine Chao is McConnell’s wife. She’s also the transportation secretary. Schweizer says McConnell’s father-in-law became filthy rich and gifted the senator between five and twenty-five million dollars.

Sounds rather swampish, doesn’t it?

What do you want to bet that an ordinary citizen like you or me wouldn’t get that sort of sweetheart deal from the Chinese government?

Trump’s tariffs on China are bound to be driving McConnell’s Chinese handlers crazy. Neither McConnell nor his wife seem to have any sway over the president on that issue. The Democrats focus on Russia but there is no doubt that China is the most dangerous country on Earth. And they have made our Senate Majority leader a multimillionaire. Can you say conflict of interest?

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

Why the Schumer Shutdown backfired

We all know how the government shutdowns usually go. Democrats demand something unreasonable. Republicans awkwardly try to push their agenda forward. The left-wing media act as the PR firm for the Democrats. The Republicans get blamed. The government shutdown is over. Not this time.

What was different? Several things. First of all, trying to tie the DACA demands to a continuing resolution to keep the government functioning was transparent. DACA doesn’t expire until March 5. There was no need to throw it in the mix of a spending bill. Times past, however, the Democrats would’ve gotten away with it. They didn’t this time.

One of the reasons is the brilliant framing of the argument by President Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget. Mick Mulvaney so cleverly labeled this particular government shutdown ‘The Schumer Shutdown.’ The alliteration was irresistible to even the left-wing media who picked up the phrase and ran with it.

There was also President Trump himself. Nancy Pelosi cackled that the president had nothing to do with the negotiations. He had everything to do with them. Speaker Paul Ryan said as much himself. He said they were passing a bill that Trump would sign. In reality, the person who had nothing to do with the negotiations was Pelosi.

After the Schumer Shutdown took hold in the minds of the American people it was simply a matter of time. The longer the government stayed closed, the worse it became for the Democrats. They were stunned. They’ve never lost one of these. No matter the outcome, they were always able to pin it on the Republicans. This time they couldn’t.

Had we had any other president it might have been business as usual. If Trump knows one thing it’s how to negotiate. What the Democrats failed to recognize is he doesn’t have to have DACA. To Trump, it’s a bargaining chip. To the Democrats it’s everything. What they don’t know is they already have it.

The one thing the Senate Republicans did screw up was pushing the continuing budget resolution down the road only three weeks. That pushes it up near the deadline for DACA and Democrats will surely try to tie the two together again. That’s why having Trump involved is so important.

Remember where this whole Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals thing started. It was a ploy by President Obama to put a different face on illegal immigration. He could find some girl who was dragged over here at six months old who spoke perfect English and was the valedictorian of her school. That was supposed to erase the image of the tattooed MS-13 gang member who was butchering people in the streets for kicks.

The DACA folks (and they’re not kids any longer) were never in danger of being deported. Think about it. The only person who could’ve deported them was Obama. And he issued an order to protect them. From whom? Himself? No, it was all a publicity stunt to get the American people to believe they were in imminent danger of being deported. The Democrats have told that lie so long they now believe it.

So, Trump wants the wall. He wants an end to chain migration. He wants an end to the lottery visa. In order to get it he’s willing to give the Democrats something they already have. As I’ve said, it’s like selling New York the Brooklyn Bridge. They already own it.

The cards have already been dealt to give Trump what he wants. The House and Senate Republicans have to just not screw it up.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.