Late Tuesday evening Pelosi passed her compromise bill to fund southern border operations— the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for Humanitarian Assistance and Security at the Southern Border Act— 230-195, all but 4 Democrats voting yes and all but 3 Republicans voting no. Oddly, it was relatively, the most left of the Republicans and absolutely the most left of the Democrats who abandoned their party positions. Vulnerable Republicans Brian Fitzpatrick (PA), Chris Smith(NJ) and Will Hurd (TX) voted with the Democrats. Hurd’s district has, by far, the biggest stretch of border with Mexico. The 4 Democrats who voted NO, were AOC (NY), Ilhan Omar (MN), Rashida Tlaib (MI) and Ayanna Pressley (MA).The Four Freshman were on the verge of getting backing from dozens of other progressives when Pelosi headed them off at the pass with an amendment implementing standards for “medical emergencies, nutrition, hygiene and facilities plus personnel training. Pelosi argued that voting against the bill would be a win for Señor Trumpanzee. “Understand what we’re up against in the White House. The president would love for this bill to go down today… A vote against this bill is a vote for Donald Trump and his inhumane, outside-the-circle of civilized attitude toward the children." She also allowed the inclusion of language in the bill to require the Health and Human Services Secretary— the clownish Alex Azar— to submit a plan to ensure translation services are accessible to immigrants and to alert Congress when there is insufficient space at the concentration camps Pelosi got the Democrats to fund.Pelosi doesn’t call the camps she and Trump are responsible for concentration camps. Tuesday morning she told Democrats they had “the opportunity to help the children at the border. This is a very important vote. It is not an immigration bill, so we cannot make any immigration promises in the bill. It is an appropriations bill, saying to the world, these children— they don’t have hygiene, they are not, in many cases, in their parents’ arms. We can make a big difference for them.” No ovens are being built with the Pelosi funds; then they wouldn’t be concentration camps; they would be death camps, which— presumably— even Pelosi and Hoyer might oppose.The asshole of the House Republican body— AKA, Minority Whip Steve Scalise— told the media that “the opportunity to help the children at the border. This is a very important vote. It is not an immigration bill, so we cannot make any immigration promises in the bill. It is an appropriations bill, saying to the world, these children— they don’t have hygiene, they are not, in many cases, in their parents’ arms. We can make a big difference for them.” He then turned around and whipped against the bill and, of course, voted against it as well.Republicans objected to spending money on helping the detainees and only want money spent on building more concentration camps. One of their leading spokesmen on concentration camp building is Chip Roy (TX), likely to be a one-termer. His sick perspective is that “We're going to end up putting gasoline on the fire because you're going to just continue to encourage cartels to bring more people process them quickly, catch and release more, and just make the problem continue to grow.”Ilhan Omar wasn’t taking direction from Pelosi or the Republicans. “Throwing more money at the very organizations committing human rights abuses— and the very Administration directing these human rights abuses— is not a solution. This is a humanitarian crisis— a humanitarian crisis inflicted by our own leadership. It's also a refugee crisis fueled by state violence, corruption, and impunity in the Northern Triangle-- one that this Administration has only fueled through mass deportation and slashing aid.”
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