Note to Obama and Johnson - Protecting America Is More Than Telling Them to be Careful in Shopping Malls

There is the possibility of a partial shutdown of non-essential Department of Homeland Security activities at the end of February because of a dispute over the President's illegal immigrant executive orders. Most of the department's 230,000 employees would be required to keep working after the February 27 deadline, but they would not receive pay until Congress passes the DHS budget. In raising this issue today, President Obama told the nation's governors : "They all work in your states. These are folks who, if they don't have a paycheck, they are not going to be able to spend that money in your states." As early as Sunday, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson warned that the possible DHS shutdown threatens to interfere with the US response to terrorist threats and warnings, such as the one late Saturday in which Al-Shabaab told the West that major shopping malls in Canada, the UK and the Mall of America in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington could be attacked. ~~~~~ A disagreement is holding up the Senate approval of the DHS budget that has already been passed by the House and sent to the Senate. The House bill contains the $40 billion DHS budget, as well as clauses that cut out of the DHS budget money to implement President Obama's executive orders protecting 5 million illegal immigrants from deportation, as well as making work permits available to them. GOP congressional leaders argue that stopping what they see as Obama's unconstitutional 'executive order power grab' may be as important as resolving the funding dispute. ~~~~~ For this reason, some governors are urging the GOP-majority Senate leaders to be tough and refuse to cave in to Senate Democrats who refuse to permit the DHS budget bill to come to the Senate floor for debate and a vote. Sixty votes are required under Senate rules to take a bill out of committee onto the floor, and this requires that five Democrats vote with the GOP majority. Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell has thus far refused to change Senate rules that have been in effect for a hundred years to permit bills so that he can take bills to the floor with 51 'yes' votes. This rules change is in McConnell's power, but he was very angry when the Democrat Senate leader, Harry Reid, changed Senate rules in order to bring to the Senate floor for a vote the names of nominees for federal judgeships that the then-minority GOP believed so leftist as to damage federal court decisionmaking. ~~~~~ So, the congressional Republican majority is faced with an extremely difficult decision -- (1) change Senate rules to pass a DHS budget with illegal immigrant defunding that would then be vetoed by President Obama, or (2) strip the defunding clauses out of the DHS budget bill and damage GOP credibility with the American majority who do not want the Obama illegal immigrant executive orders to be implemented, or (3) allow the DHS budget bill to stay in committee, ensuring a partial DHS shutdown that recent polls show would result in 55% of Americans blaming the GOP for another unpopular shutdown. ~~~~~ Some GOP Senators are asking the House to send to the Senate a DHS budget bill without defunding provisions. On Sunday, Senator Lindsey Graham said : "...our best bet is to challenge this in court...if we don't fund the Department of Homeland Security, we'll get blamed as a party." But House Republicans say they have no interest in revisiting the issue after passing a $39.7 billion bill last month that funds DHS through September 30, the end of the budget year, while also undoing Obama's actions on immigration. Instead, they insisted that the Senate must act because a federal judge's ruling shows that they are right. ~~~~~ Now, shutting down some DHS functions may seem excessive when what seems at stake is the continued presence in the US of illegal immigrants who have already been here for many years. But, the issue is one that far exceeds the question of these illegals. In fact, 26 states objected to the Obama executive orders on illegal immigrants because the orders are just the latest in President Obama's effort to make law himself, without Congress agreeing, whereas the Constitution puts law-making 100 percent in the hands of Congress. The states claim that Obama has over-reached his constitutional limits, abusing executive authority. US District Judge Andrew S. Hanen agreed, granting an injunction to prevent the President and DHS from implementing the illegal immigrant executive orders until the legal challenges are resolved, adding that without the injunction, the damage would be irreparable because illegals would receive their documentation. Obama has ordered the Department of Justice to file an appeal of Hanen's temporary injunction, and today tbe DOJ asked Judge Hanen to put his ruling on hold, and also filed a notice of appeal of his ruling to the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. ~~~~~ Thus, we now have a situation in which the GOP majority in Congress is trying to protect its constitutional law-making power from being stolen by President Obama, and the 26 governors are helping Congress by filing their lawsuit. Judge Hanen wrote in his temporary restraining order that "the states have clearly proven a likelihood of success on the merits" of the case. He also wrote that it was "disingenuous" for the administration to maintain that Obama's action merely "supplements and amends" current policy, writing : "It represents a massive change in immigration practice, and will have a significant effect on, not only illegally present immigrants, but also the nation's entire immigration scheme and the states who must bear the lion's share of its consequences." Republicans argue that Obama often has overstepped his presidential authority in other areas, including US-Cuba policy and changes in his signature healthcare law. ~~~~~ So, dear readers, you may appreciate my disgust with President Obama today when he tried, in effect, to make this fundamentally critical constitutional question sound like it is merely a matter of how much money DHS employees spend in some states : "They all work in your states. These are folks who, if they don't have a paycheck, they are not going to be able to spend that money in your states." Equally disgusting was the comment Sunday and today of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, warning that the possible DHS shutdown threatens to interfere with the US response to terrorist threats of Al-Shabaab, who have warned that they might attack the Mall of America in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington. Secretary Johnson's advice is that Americans should be "cautious" in shopping malls -- as if this were normal advice from the US government to its citizens. We have to wonder if President Obama and Secretary Johnson have any notion about what their proper functions are. Obama, as President, has sworn to protect and defend the Constitution, not ignore and circumvent it. And, together with his Secretary of Homeland Security, President Obama is responsible for the safety of all Americans. This responsibility is not fulfilled when his DHS Secretary tells Americans to be cautious in malls because terrorists might be lurking there, ready to maim or kill them. Obama's responsibility is to keep America free of terrorists. And, if that means sending troops to the Middle East and Africa to eliminate the terrorists, then so be it. If it requires facing down the Iranian nuclear threat, get on with it. And, if it requires telling five Democrat Senators to vote with the GOP, saying that there will be no veto, so that DHS gets its funding, then do it. But, in no case is it acceptable for a President and his DHS Secretary to discharge their duty to protect Americans by telling them to be cautious in shopping malls. Do your duty, President Obama. Or get out of the way and let someone who understands the concept of duty protect America.