GOP Folds In Congressional Game Of "Chicken"

(This cartoon is by Bruce Plante in Tulsa World.)

Democrats stood firm, and won the first big political battle in the 114th Congress. A clean Homeland Security funding bill has been passed by Congress on a 257 to 167 vote (with all Democrats present voting for the bill, and being joined by 75 Republicans). That House vote was to approve the Senate version of the bill, and it now goes to the president for his signature.

The large teabagger faction in the House had thought they could include two provisions in the bill (which would overturn President Obama's executive orders on immigration in 2012 and 2014), and the Democrats would be forced to go along with that. They didn't think Democrats had the backbone to stop the bill, which would put the Homeland Security Department in danger of being shut down for lack of funds.

They were wrong. Senate Democrats filibustered the bill last week, and were successful in getting the offending provisions eliminated. Those teabaggers also thought the American people would be on their side in the event of a shut down. They were wrong on that too. Polls had clealy shown that if that department was shut down, the people would be angry, and most importantly, they would blame the Republicans.

That left the House Republicans with only two choices -- pass a clean bill or anger the public by shutting down the Department of Homeland Security. Speaker Boehner chose the least offensive (to him) of those choices, and allowed the clean Senate bill to come up for a vote, and it passed.

The teabagger politicians are now angry (and 167 of them voted to shut down Homeland Security). They are now talking about unseating Speaker Boehner for allowing the clean funding bill to come up for a vote. I don't think they can or will do that, but even if they did, it wouldn't insure teabagger victories in the future. There will still be enough Democrats in the Senate with enough votes to sustain a filibuster, and a president in the White House who's not afraid to use his veto power.