A border bill so bad even Mitch McConnell is now against it

The bipartisan Senate border bill is, in the words of House Speaker Mike Johnson, “dead on arrival.”

And that’s a good thing, given that it largely institutionalizes Joe Biden’s open-borders status quo, supposedly with a few more deportations of military-aged single young men coming en masse from more than 100 countries.

It’s not tough on migrants, just American citizens, who get more of what we are already getting, even if the migrant quotas are followed, meaning, the border never closes, as some have said. But even if it were as tough as they say it is, we already know that Biden won’t enforce its provisions, and can restore order at the border any time he likes without Congress, just by ending his executive orders destroying President Trump’s effective measures to control illegal crossings. He won’t. He basically just wants more money for “processing” illegal invaders who say the password “asylum,” handing himself a 4,999 illegal crossings quota amounting to more than a million illegals a year, and taking the asylum process away from immigration judges and placing it likely in the hands of NGOs in what will now be called “asylum officers.” Money for NGOs who enable cartels and encourage illegal border crossers of course, will flow.

Yet it’s garbage. And congressmember after congressmember has said he or she won’t support it — Rand Paul, Marjorie Taylor Greene, John Barrasso, Steve Daines, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Steve Salise, Bob Menendez, Marsha Blackburn, Tom Cotton, Rick Scott, Tim Scott, J.D. Vance, even far-left Alex Padilla, the box-checking appointed Senator from California.

That left Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in some kind of bind as the bill, set for a vote on Wednesday required 60 votes to pass just the Senate and 22 senators had already come out against it.

So, McConnell went from loudly praising the measure yesterday, to suddenly saying he was against it, too:

According to the Associated Press:

In a dramatic turnaround, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell recommended to GOP senators in a closed-door meeting that they vote against the first procedural vote Wednesday, according to two people familiar with the meeting who were not authorized to talk publicly about it and spoke anonymously.

It came just hours after the Kentucky Republican had urged colleagues on the Senate floor that “it’s now time for Congress to take action.” But McConnell has struggled to marshal his conference to support the package of $118 billion package of border enforcement policy and funding for Ukraine, Israel and other U.S. allies.

 Axios blamed President Trump for the turnaround, claiming that Trump had “activated” his MAGA caucus in both houses like he was some magician, and the facts of the bill didn’t mean a thing.

That ascribes a lot of magical powers to Trump. More likely, calls were going out to replace McConnell as of Sunday, which seems to have concentrated the old turtle’s mind on the matter. 

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) called for Sen. Mitch McConnell (Ky.) to be replaced as Senate Republican leader Sunday, denouncing the new border security deal McConnell supports as “an unmitigated disaster.”

“This feels like an elaborate practical joke. But it’s not funny. Not one bit,” Lee wrote on social media when the details of the bill were made public.

“I cannot understand how any Republican would think this was a good idea – or anything other than an unmitigated disaster. WE NEED NEW LEADERSHIP — NOW,” he posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Lee’s harsh criticism of McConnell’s leadership of the Senate GOP conference is nothing new; he supported Sen. Rick Scott’s (R-Fla.) unsuccessful bid to topple the long-serving Senate Republican leader after the 2022 midterm election.

So many Senators and congress members were opposed to the Give-Joe-Biden-More-Power on the border bill that it was sure to go down in defeat, and he was about to be one of the last left holding the bag.

As for his catspaw on this, Sen. Jim Lankford of Oklahoma, who crafted the overly compromised bill and sought its passage, well, Mitch didn’t have a problem leaving him hung out to dry all by his lonesome.

Which is kind of sad for Lankford, who arguably was inexperienced as a bargainer up against a practiced shark like Sen. Chuck Schumer who knows every dirty arm-twisting trick and sleight of hand in the books.

But Mitch thinks about Mitch, so with calls going out for his head about this, he came around and said it was a bad bill, too.

That settles it, but as for McConnell, the facts remain out there like a beached shark starting to stink: It’s time for new leadership in the Senate.

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