Two days ago, I wrote about a vote in the U.S. Senate on H.R. 240, legislation that would force the federal government to send agents into homes across America, breaking up families and kicking children out of the country. It’s legislation that is literally against family values, and Republican politicians love it.
The method that congressional Republicans have devised for sneaking this anti-family agenda into law is to hide it within larger legislation that funds the Department of Homeland Security. So when Senate Democrats voted again yesterday to protect families across America by blocking H.R. 240 from moving forward, Republicans played the Homeland card.
“What could possibly lead Democrats to filibuster Homeland Security funding?” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell asks, as if he doesn’t know the reason. He warns that the “safety of the country” is at stake.
Actually, that’s not true. 86 percent of Department of Homeland Security employees will continue to report to work even if the appropriations bill is not passed. Only a bureaucratic 14 percent of employees would stay home, rather than going to work at the Homeland.
Besides, though hyperventilating Republicans like to act as if we are constantly only a hair’s width away from a major terrorist attack within the United States, the history of the last decade shows that’s not true. Things like out-of-control cars, pollution from coal-fired power plants, and gullible acceptance of snake oil remedies are killing large numbers of Americans at a steady pace. Terrorism is not.
For me, the decision is clear. If Republicans want to force us to choose between protecting children in America and funding for some programs within the Department of Homeland Security, I say that we choose the children.
Let the Homeland wither, so that the country can flourish.
