Schumer's Shutdown, Polling Problems, Deep State Strikes Again, National Sanctity

Gary Bauer

by Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: Schumer's Shutdown - As you know, the government shut down Friday night. Negotiations over the weekend to open the government went nowhere. An agreement to keep talking was announced this afternoon, and the Senate just voted to reopen the government.

But here's the main point you need to understand: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) shut the government down, further hurting our military and children covered under the federal CHIP program, and inconveniencing millions of American citizens for one reason and one reason only.

He and his party are demanding amnesty for at least 800,000 DACA recipients. I wrote "at least 800,000" because, as USA Today pointed out, not all so-called "Dreamers" are DACA recipients.

At the same time, Schumer refuses to do anything substantive to secure the border in order to ensure that we are not faced with another wave of illegal immigrants rushing to bring their children into America.

Let me say it again: Schumer is putting the interests of illegal immigrants ahead of the interests of every American citizen, including millions of Hispanic citizens.

Why is he doing this? As we saw from a recently leaked memo, the left sees illegal immigrants as the voting bloc that will give it a lock on future elections.

Thankfully, President Trump is pointing this out every day. The president tweeted this morning: "The Democrats are turning down services and security for citizens in favor of services and security for non-citizens. Not good!"

If the truth breaks through the media spin, the left is going to be in big trouble.

Progressives say this is all Donald Trump's fault because Republicans "control everything." That is baloney. Republicans are not responsible for the shutdown.

President Trump supported the government funding bill. The Republican House passed the funding bill. Most importantly, Republicans do not control the Senate in any meaningful definition of the word "control."

On the most important matters, inane Senate rules require 60 votes to conduct business. There are only 51 Republicans. If all the Republicans stuck together, they would still need nine Senate Democrats to vote against Schumer's strategy, which was to filibuster the government funding bill.

How did the parties vote Friday night? Forty-five Republican senators (88%) voted to keep the government open and five voted not to keep it open. Forty-four Senate Democrats (90%) voted to shut down the government and five voted to keep it open. For those doing the math, that's 50-to-49, but still short of 60 votes. (Sen. McCain did not vote.) The resistance movement in the Senate -- a minority -- succeeded in forcing a shutdown Friday night.

By the way, do you remember how Barack Obama weaponized the shutdown in 2013? Government bureaucrats moved immediately to make the shutdown as painful as possible. They even closed open air parks and memorials. But World War II veterans refused to let the bureaucrats ruin their day!

Well, there was none of that nonsense over the weekend. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke was on the National Mall, picking up trash and handing out maps to tourists.

Polling Problems - Don't get too anxious about the polls right now. Democrats were betting the farm on polls that indicated many Americans would blame Republicans for the shutdown because of the "control" narrative. Polling also shows that helping DACA recipients is broadly popular.

But that can change quickly. For example, just weeks before the GOP tax reform plan passed, its approval was as low as 25% according to one survey. Some Democrats were gloating that Republicans had effectively surrendered Congress.

In the weeks since the tax reform law passed, the public's perception of the law has changed significantly for the better. And the GOP's prospects for November are improving as well.

Moreover, polls indicate that the public opposes the Democrats' strategy of shutting down the government in order to achieve an amnesty for illegal immigrants. By a whopping 22-point margin, 56% of Americans say it is more important to avoid a government shutdown than it is to continue the DACA program (34%). Perhaps that explains why Chuck Schumer backed down today.

About That Wall - Sen. Schumer, Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) and other progressives are claiming they told the president that they would "authorize" the border wall but Trump turned them down. They are playing word games, knowing most Americans are not steeped in D.C. jargon.

Authorizing the wall is meaningless unless the money is appropriated. Progressives are essentially saying, "Give us amnesty and you can build the wall IF you get the money later on."

We have authorized border security in the name of "comprehensive immigration reform" many times before. Remember the Secure Fence Act of 2006? Where is that so-called "secure fence"? Schumer is offering another Washington bait and switch, and President Trump isn't falling for it.

Kudos To Cotton & Meadows - There are credible reports that Sen. Tom Cotton and Rep. Mark Meadows were able to get to the president and explain the insider games Democrats are playing. There are also reports that the president has made it known that he won't approve anything without the support of Sen. Cotton and Rep. Meadows.

Schumer and other progressives are furious that Cotton has played such a role, and they have threatened to boycott future talks if he is involved.

Kudos to Sen. Cotton and Rep. Meadows for holding the line.

Deep State Strikes Again - Over the weekend, the FBI notified Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, that text messages between two Trump-hating, Hillary-loving FBI officials were not preserved due to a technical failure. The lost messages were sent during a critical period from late 2016 to May 2017.

That was the period when Gen. Michael Flynn was forced out, when James Comey was leaking memos to a professor, when Jeff Sessions recused himself from the investigation and when Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel.

All of which sounds like the "insurance policy" these two left-wing activists were referring to in the exchanges we do have.

Couple that with the memo from House Intelligence Committee outlining how the nation's security apparatus was weaponized against the Trump campaign, and it seems we are in dangerous uncharted waters.

National Sanctity Of Human Life Day - Today marks the 45th anniversary of the Supreme Court's infamous Roe v. Wade decision effectively legalizing abortion-on-demand in the United States. Roe v. Wade is based on the same misguided philosophy as Dred Scott -- that some humans are not "people" with rights we are obligated to respect.

Our nation was founded on the idea that each one of us was created by God with the "unalienable" right to life. Nearly 60 million deaths, sacrificed at the altar of "privacy," is a betrayal of our founding principles just as slavery violated those principles.

I am pleased to report that President Trump has declared today "National Sanctity of Human Life Day." You can read his proclamation here.
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Gary Bauer is a conservative family values advocate and serves as president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families

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