“The Democrats are now executing pages in their playbook that they’ve executed countless times before. Original technique, original strategies? There aren’t any anymore. The Democrats have become the most predictable group that we have.” – Rush Limbaugh, 1/22/2018

FoxNews.com reports that

The Senate on Monday voted 81-18 to break a Democratic filibuster on a stalled government spending bill, clearing the way for Congress to approve the stopgap measure and end the three-day government shutdown.

Democrats effectively backed off their opposition, after being given assurances from majority Republicans.

Before the vote, Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer made clear that Senate Democrats would supply the GOP-controlled Senate with the votes needed, but only in exchange for “fair” and immediate efforts to consider legislation that would protect illegal immigrants brought to the United States as children.

“We will vote today to reopen the government,” Schumer, a New York Democrat, said on the Senate floor. “In a few hours, the government will reopen.”

The 100-member, Republican-controlled chamber will now need only a simple majority to pass the temporary spending bill that would keep the government open until Feb. 8. The House would then have to approve the bill, sending it to President Trump’s desk.

The funding and reopening of the government would allow U.S. military personnel to be paid, end the furlough of nearly 1 million federal workers and resume all federal services and operations.

But congressional lawmakers made clear after the test vote that they’re still faced with challenges, like how to fund hurricane disaster relief and craft a comprehensive immigration reform bill on which both parties can agree.

“We still have a lot more work to do,” said Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa.

After days and weeks of blaming and finger-pointing, a bipartisan group of senators met Sunday and brokered a deal in which rank-and-file members would provide the 60 votes in exchange for Senate leaders’ promise to immediately proceed to immigration reform.

Democrats largely opposed the stopgap spending bill because it did not include provisions to protect the illegal immigrants from deportation under former President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals executive order.

President Trump last year set a deadline of early March to end the protections. The president has indicated that he wants to provide permanent protections for the young illegal immigrants but has insisted that border security, particularly funding for his U.S.-Mexico border wall, be included in any such deal.

Under the apparent deal to end the filibuster, Schumer said Monday they would negotiate on immigration, and immediately consider such legislation if there’s no agreement by Feb. 8.

Schumer lauded the bipartisan group’s weekend efforts and suggested the group could lead efforts to replace DACA with permanent, legislative protections.

However, he also needled Trump, whom he said on Friday rejected his compromise plan that included money for the border wall.

“Today we enter the third day of the Trump shutdown,” Schumer said before saying we would provide the votes to get to the spending bill. Republicans call it the “Schumer Shutdown.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., then thanked Schumer and said: “I think if we’ve learned anything during this process, it’s that a strategy to shut down the government over the issue of illegal immigration is something the American people didn’t understand and would not have understood in the future. So I’m glad we’ve gotten past that.”

With Republicans having just 50 senators available to vote Monday, they needed the support of roughly a dozen Democratic senators to break the filibuster. They got 33, according to the Associated Press.

The 18 senators who didn’t vote to end debate included Republican Sens. Mike Lee, of Utah, and Rand Paul, of Kentucky.

The 15 Democrats in opposition were Sen. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, both of Connecticut; Cory Booker and Bob Menendez, both of New Jersey; Catherine Cortez Masto, of Nevada; Kirsten Gillibrand, of New York; Mazie Hirono, of Hawaii; Patrick Leahy, of Vermont; Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren, both of Massachusetts; Jon Tester, of Montana, Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, both of Oregon; and Kamala Harris and Dianne Feinstein, both of California. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent, also voted in opposition.

Arizona GOP Sen. John McCain did not vote because he’s home fighting cancer.

McConnell on Sunday night indicated a deal was in the works to break the filibuster, in exchange for immediately addressing Democrats’ desire for immigration reform.

“When the Democrat filibuster of the government funding bill ends, the serious, bipartisan negotiations that have been going on for months now to resolve our unfinished business — military spending; disaster relief; health care; immigration and border security — will continue,” he said Sunday in announcing the Monday vote.

“It would be my intention to resolve these issues as quickly as possible … Importantly, when I proceed to the immigration debate, it will have an amendment process that is fair to all sides. But the first step in any of this is re-opening the government and preventing any further delay.”

Early Monday, before the vote, the Trump White House and Capitol Hill Republicans cranked up the pressure on Democrats to abandon their immediate demands for immigration measures and vote in support of the temporary spending bill.

“They shut down the government,” White House counselor Kellyanne Conway told “Fox & Friends” on Monday morning. “The pressure is on them.”

President Trump tweeted that Democrats shut down the government to appease the “far left base” and are now “powerless” to change course.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/955428815777533952

“The Democrats are turning down services and security for citizens in favor of services and security for non-citizens. Not good!” he tweeted.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/955426609326100480

The vote Monday was the GOP-controlled Senate’s second attempt to break the filibuster, after failing to get the required 60 votes Friday. The Friday night vote was 50-49.

So, gentle readers…why did Chuck Schumer and the rest of the Far Left butt-kissing Democrats surrender to President Donald J. Trump and the Republicans?

Of course, you will never hear the word “surrender ” in the Main Stream Media’s accounts of the end of Schumer’s Shutdown, but, that is exactly what happened.

Conservative Political Pundits, including the Maha Rushie himself, stated that the shutdown was cooked up by the Democrats in order to distract from Trump’s Economic Boom, which shows no signs of slowing down any time soon.

This being the case, the Democrats certainly could not admit to it, so, they conjured up a never-ending fountain of crocodile tears for the plight of the “poor Dreamers”, adults who came here illegally as children and have done nothing since then to become legal.

In other words, gentle readers, Dreamers want all of the privilege of being an American Citizen with no personal responsibility attached.

So, with an excuse for shutting down the government fabricated, Chucky and his merry band of Marxists fulfilled their Vision Quest and shut down OUR Federal Government in the name of lawbreakers who should have never been here in the first place.

Brilliant plan, right?

Au contraire, mon frere.

Republicans started getting the attention of average Americans by focusing on the fact that the hard-earned paychecks of our Brightest and Best would not be delivered because of the Democrats placing the welfare of illegal immigrants over that of the sons and daughters of average American Citizens who are serving our country.

There is an old adage in show business stating that if you write a play for the theater or a screenplay for a Hollywood Movie, you had better make sure before you sink money into it that it will “play well in Peoria”, meaning that average Americans would like it and support it.

Unfortunately for the Democrats, and amusingly for the rest of us, the cause du jour which they staked their shutdown on, did NOT “play well in Peoria”.

Judging by how quickly the Dems folded, their internal polling numbers must have resembled the average I.Q. of those kids out there taking the Tide Pod Challenge.

Another factor which went against the Dems’ chance for a victorious outcome to their shutdown, was the fact that we have a sitting American President who is not a professional politician, but rather, a “Citizen Statesman”, who is an expert in negotiation.

He may negotiate…but Trump NEVER backs down.

The last factor which I believe has something to do with the Dems ending the Shutdown, is the fact that Chucky and the Democrats are watching a Political Tsunami building size and momentum offshore, which is heading straight for them, in the form of an investigation into the Deep State Operation against the candidacy of Donald J. Trump, which has been dubbed “Obamagate”.

With a “shocking” 4-page memo detailing covert and treasonous activity designed to usurp the will of the people by the Obama Administration about to be released, Chuck Schumer and the rest of the Democrat Hierarchy realized that they were in an untenable position.

They had to “stop the bleeding” before they “bled out”.

Gentle readers, I cannot remember a time when the Republicans came out on the winning side of a Government Shutdown.

But then again, this is the first time in what seems like forever that they were following the lead of an American President who refused to back down.

Until He Comes,

KJ