On March 12, Ayman Ghazali, a naturalized citizen originally from Lebanon, rammed a pickup truck into the synagogue in West Bloomfield, Michigan. More than 100 children were attending school inside with their teachers and synagogue staff. On Monday, the FBI announced that the attack was “a Hezbollah-inspired act of terrorism.” That a terrible massacre did not occur is only because a security guard sprang into action and killed the would-be killer.
There were other incidents of terrorism in March, in New York City and at Old Dominion University in Virginia. As the battle with Iran and its proxies continues, it is reasonable, indeed prudent, to expect more attacks. Iran is the leading sponsor of terrorism around the world. If it has sleeper cells in the United States, expect them to get the signal if and when the shattered regime can find their phone numbers or online contact information.
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But the federal Department of Homeland Security is closed because Democrats refuse to fund it. Airport travelers know the nightmare that many Transportation Security Agency checkpoints have become since Democrats shuttered the agency in mid February. Along with TSA, the Cyber and Infrastructure Security Agency, the Secret Service, the Coast Guard, and many other agencies and bureaus within the department are working only with “essential employees,” and they aren’t getting paid. How absurd. How dangerous.
BYRON YORK: TRUMP NEEDS A SHORT WAR
It is a particularly idiotic political stunt because Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer claims the target of the shutdown is the Immigration and Customs Enforcement. But ICE is already funded, and its employees are being paid, as are those of the Border Patrol. It truly is a dumb exercise in futility, but Schumer seems to specialize in such spectacles. Schumer’s stunts all start out with excited floor speeches, evolve into cringe-inducing rallies, and then just fizzle out. That’s why his colleagues are going to give him the heave-ho sooner rather than later.
In the meantime, though, we are in a deadly serious moment of peril, and DHS is closed because of Democrats. Whatever point they hope to score has been eclipsed by events in the skies over Iran and the countries within range of its missile array.
Whether or not you support the battle and the vast, vast majority of Republicans do, and Democrats don’t, I think it’s a “95-5” issue that our nation’s security forces should be on the job and at full strength.
Democrats are oblivious to the peril to the country and to their own standing if an attack of major consequence occurs that can in any way be traced to the shutdown. Democrats started the shutdown, and they can end it any time they round up seven votes to do the right thing.
Soon, President Donald Trump will submit his budget for next year. The House and Senate GOP have at least one “reconciliation” process left to them in this Congress. (Others argue there are two more such processes, but there is a debate on that. They can be certain, though, that they have at least one.)
When the president’s budget arrives, the House and Senate Budget Committees should convene and stay working until they hammer out the consensus budget on defense spending, spending on the intelligence community and DHS through the end of Trump’s tenure, and get it to the appropriate authorizing committees and then into a second “big, beautiful bill.”
There is no reason it can’t be done before the summer recess, though such speed would be a rarity for Congress.
The danger is, however, very real, and the needs of the military for resupply are acute. Congressional Republicans don’t need to break the filibuster. They just need to break old habits and acknowledge that the Democrats are lost in their hatred of Trump and deathly afraid of their left-wing base.
We can’t wait for an attack to succeed and shock the Congress into both remorse and then action. The country cannot afford to indulge the childishness of the Democrats any longer.
When the budget arrives, the House and Senate GOP must act and act quickly. They cannot expect their voters to ignore lethargy or feigned helplessness when reconciliation has been proven effective within the last year.
JOE CONCHA: DEMOCRATS ARE THE KINGS OF HYPOCRISY
Trump and the Senate GOP have a fundamental disagreement over the filibuster but that need not stop them from agreeing with Speaker Johnson and the House GOP to act as though lives depended on them.
They do.