Will BUrrDD join Tilli$$ in backing Senate GOP amnesty sellout?

Posted on by

That’s a big question in the minds of many a North Carolina conservative sick of watching their junior US senator follow their senior weasel cash-whore of a US senator around like a puppy:

Lead Republican negotiator Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) said GOP Senate leadership will only support a Democrat-backed border-management bill if half of its 49-member caucus supports the deal, Politico reported Friday.

The statement is important because it ensures the bloc of swing-voting GOP Senators in the middle of the party — not just the pro-migration establishment wing — will determine the party’s direction under the glare of an angry GOP base and aggressive outlets such as Breitbart News.

Politico reported:

Senate Republicans don’t control the floor, but Lankford outlined his thinking in an interview. If he can get 25 or more of the 49 GOP senators to sign onto something, he’s betting that it might be enough to get Speaker Mike Johnson to take up a big emergency spending bill with Ukraine aid – without losing the gavel to a conservative rebellion.

When Lankford met with House Republicans on Wednesday, he told them that he doesn’t plan to back a border deal that barely skirts the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster. Lankford explained that he doesn’t want to win “51 Democrats and 10 Republicans. … That is not what this is. This is not just trying to barely squeak it over to them.”

“Let’s be real: [Lankford’s half-the-caucus] goal is incredibly challenging,” Politico added.

Lankford’s half-the-caucus rule means that the Democrats cannot squeeze the giveaway bill through with just the 1o-15 most pro-migration, pro-business Republicans.

The in-the-bag yes votes likely include Sens. Thom Tillis (R-NC), Mitt Romney (R-UT), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Mike Rounds (R-SD), and Susan Collins (R-ME).[…]

MORE:

[…]The hell-no bloc has roughly ten Senators. The group includes Sens. J.D. Vance (R-OH), Josh Hawley (R-MO), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Chuck Grassley (R-IA).

So the Lankford plan means the Democrats must win roughly 15 votes from the approximately 30-member bloc of Republican Senators who swing between the pro-migration establishment wing and the pro-American populist wing.

That will be difficult because few Senators want to display their support for Biden’s unpopular migration — especially if the giveaway bill will die in the House

“I don’t think there are 25 [Republican] votes there,” said Chris Chmielenski, president of the Immigration Accountability Project, “unless those Republican senators want to vote … alongside Biden and [border chief Alejandro] Mayorkas.”

Even Tillis suggested in a floor speech on January 10 that less than half of the GOP caucus would back the bill:

I think we’ll probably have 25 or 30 members in this body that won’t vote for it. Some will be because it didn’t go too far [sic]; others it didn’t go far enough … But we need about 70 votes [including 20 GOP votes] coming out of this chamber to create the momentum to get it done in the House. And I’m going to be one of those 70 votes.

The swing Republicans needed by Tillis and Lankford include Sens.  John Barrasso (R-WY), Todd Young (R-IN), Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), Steve Daines (R-MT), Jodi Ernst (R-IA), Katie Britt (R-AL), John Kennedy (R-LA), and Bill Cassidy (R-LA). […]

All of those so-called “swing” senators ought to be easy GETS for señor Thom and his vats.

Not a peep from senator BUrrDD – fresh off his latest round of even more money for Ukraine AND Israel.  You can’t stay below radar FOREVER.

We’re stuck with Thom Tilli$$ — barring an indictment — until 2026. (He’s pathetic and hopeless.) It would be nice if we had ONE senator who actually gave a damn about what the regular folks back home think.  Just ONE. (How about it, Ted?)