By the author of Be Ready for Anything and the online course Bloom Where You’re Planted
Everyone likes to blame the Democrats for gun control, but here’s a news flash: those of us who fervently believe in the Second Amendment are actually being betrayed by members of the Republican party who are in Congress right now. The budget bill on the table right now would gut the right to bear arms for millions of Americans, it’s already passed the House and Senate, and the Congress is controlled by Republicans.
UPDATE: President Trump, a Republican, has signed the bill which has no funding for his beloved border wall, reduces gun rights, and fully funds Planned Parenthood. Whatever your beliefs on those things, it’s pretty clear that it is not a conservative-friendly bill.
The spending bill that Congress hopes to pass is more than 2200 pages, according to Senator Rand Paul, who was outraged at being given less than a day to read the entire bill. Senator Paul live-tweeted his reading of the bill last night, and it’s a pretty safe bet that nobody else in Congress spent the evening reading it before they voted.
Shame, shame. A pox on both Houses – and parties. $1.3 trillion. Busts budget caps. 2200 pages, with just hours to try to read it.
— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) March 22, 2018
Well here it is, all 2,232 budget-busting pages. The House already started votes on it. The Senate is expected to soon. No one has read it. Congress is broken… pic.twitter.com/izvJlUEgUM
— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) March 22, 2018
How the spending bill affects our Second Amendment rights
In this budget bill are some insidious things that affect our Second Amendment rights.
The bill revives an Obama-era restriction on firearms for senior citizens.
Just before President Obama left office, his administration finalized new regulations banning Social Security recipients from buying a gun if they have trouble managing their finances.
About 10 percent of all people 65 and older risked being classified as “financially incompetent” – about 4.2 million in all.Using the Congressional Review Act, Republicans and two Democrats passed a bill overturning the regulation. But the bill did more than that. It also prevents any future president from reinstituting the ban without new legislative authorization from Congress.
Unfortunately, the spending bill passed Thursday allows the ban to be reinstituted because it reauthorizes the 2007 National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) Improvement Amendments Act. This act allowed government agencies, not just the courts, to determine if someone is mentally incompetent to buy or possess a gun.
House Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions, R-Texas, said during testimony late Wednesday that he was “disturbed” that the bill would undo part of Republicans’ good work. But by Thursday morning, the House leadership had decided to go ahead with the measure. (source)
And that’s not all.
The bill funnels $50 million dollars into strict anti-gun organizations, namely the STOP School Violence Act, designed by the Sandy Hook Promise, which advocates extreme gun control.
At the same time, the bill forbids the use of federal money for arming and training school staff. That’s right – our tax dollars will be put to work against us. And representatives that are supposed to be pro-gun are allowing it to happen.
Finally, the bill will authorize the CDC to research “gun violence.” But the CDC has been allowed to research this for years, despite what you see to the contrary from the MSM. In 1996, the Dickey provision prohibited the CDC from using government funds to advocate or promote gun control.” There is no such provision in the current bill.
It isn’t just Democrats who are passing this bill.
This bill has passed the House by a vote of 256-167. The breakdown in the House of Representatives is 238 Republicans and 192 Democrats. If the Republicans were truly looking after our gun rights, as they like to advertise, this bill wouldn’t have passed the House.
In the wee hours, it went before the Senate, where 60 votes were needed to pass it. The Senate has 51 Republicans and 47 Democrats, and the bill was passed by a vote of 65-32.
In short, the “pro-gun” Republicans have betrayed their constituents yet again. Way to go, Republicans.
The President will most likely sign it according to White House budget director Mick Mulvaney.
“In order to get the defense spending primarily, (and) all the rest of our priorities funded, we had to give away a lot of stuff that we didn’t want to give away,” Mulvaney said. (source)
And that’s not all.
The spending in this bill is truly obscene. You’d think an American budget would be focused on American interests, right?
Senator Paul tweeted these highlights lowlights.
o $5m for Vietnam Education Foundation Grants
o $2.579m for Commission on Security and Co-operation in Europe
o $15m to USAID for promoting international higher education between universities
o $2.696bn for International Disaster Assistance— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) March 22, 2018
o $1m for the World Meteorological Organization
o $218m for Promoting Democracy Development in Europe (yep..the birthplace of democracy needs promoting)
o $25m for International Religious Freedom
o $10m for disadvantaged Egyptian Students— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) March 22, 2018
o $12m for Scholarships for Lebanon
o $20m for Middle East Partnership Initiative Scholarship Program
o $12m in military funding for Vietnam
o $3.5m in nutrition assistance to Laos
o $15m in Developmental assistance to China
o $10m for Women LEOs in Afghanistan— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) March 22, 2018
Seriously.
Here are the Republican representatives who voted against this bill. If your representatives are not on this list, you’ve been betrayed by someone promising to represent you who voted for laws he or she probably didn’t even read:
- Rep. Ralph Abraham
- Rep. Rick W. Allen
- Rep. Justin Amash
- Rep. Brian Babin
- Rep. Joe Barton
- Rep. Jack Bergman
- Rep. Andy Biggs
- Rep. Rob Bishop
- Rep. Diane Black
- Rep. Marsha Blackburn
- Rep. Rod Blum
- Rep. Dave Brat
- Rep. Mo Brooks
- Rep. Ken Buck
- Rep. Ted Budd
- Rep. Mike Coffman
- Rep. James Comer
- Rep. Carlos Curbelo
- Rep. John Curtis
- Rep. Warren Davidson
- Rep. Jeff Denham
- Rep. Ron DeSantis
- Rep. Scott DesJarlais
- Rep. Jeff Duncan
- Rep. John Duncan
- Rep. Tom Emmer
- Rep. Blake Farenthold
- Rep. Matthew Gaetz
- Rep. Tom Garret
- Rep. Greg Gianforte
- Rep. Louie Gohmert
- Rep. Paul Gosar
- Rep. Garret Graves
- Rep. Morgan Griffith
- Rep. Glen Grothman
- Rep. Andy Harris
- Rep. Jody B. Hice
- Rep. Clay Higgins
- Rep. George Holding
- Rep. Trey Hollingsworth
- Rep. Mike Johnson
- Rep. Jim Jordan
- Rep. Trent Kelly
- Rep. Mike Kelly
- Rep. Steve King
- Rep. Congressman Raúl Labrador
- Rep. Darin LaHood
- Rep. Doug LaMalfa
- Rep. Bob Latta
- Rep. Billy Long
- Rep. Barry Loudermilk
- Rep. Mia Love
- Rep. Thomas Massie
- Rep. Brian Mast
- Rep. Tom McClintock
- Rep. Mark Meadows
- Rep. Alex Mooney
- Rep. Markwayne Mullin
- Rep. Dan Newhouse
- Rep. Kristi Noem
- Rep. Ralph Norman
- Rep. Gary Palmer
- Rep. Steve Pearce
- Rep. Scott Perry
- Rep. Ted Poe
- Rep. Bill Posey
- Rep. John Ratcliffe
- Rep. Tom Reed
- Rep. Jim Renacci
- Rep. Tom Rice
- Rep. Dana Rohrabacher
- Rep. Todd Rokita
- Rep.Ileana Ros-Lehtinen
- Rep. Keith Rothfus
- Rep. David Rouzer
- Rep. Steve Russell
- Rep. Mark Sanford
- Rep. David S. Schweikert
- Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner
- Rep. Jason Smith
- Rep. Lloyd Smucker
- Rep. Chris Stewart
- Rep. Mark Walker
- Rep. Randy Weber
- Rep. Daniel Webster
- Rep. Bruce Websterman
- Rep. Roger Williams
- Rep. Ted Yoho
- Rep. Lee Zeldin
I’ll update with the Senators when I can find the list.
If you voted Republican to protect your 2A rights, you were betrayed.
The long and the short of this?
- Who you vote for doesn’t matter.
- Having more Republicans than Democrats in Congress doesn’t matter.
- Our system is broken, and what you think about it doesn’t matter.
As long as our government passes bills with thousands of pages instead of single item bills, the public will continue to be betrayed and deceived. Those who believe that voting Republican will ensure their continued right to protect themselves have been deceived and until we refuse to keep putting these people in office who are there to serve themselves, not their constituencies, we will continue losing our rights as guaranteed by the Constitution.
How is voting for the “lesser of two evils” working out for you?
What if we opted not to put any kind of evil in office, not just the lesser one? What if we opted to put the best of our country in positions of power, not just the less horrible of our country?
When are we going to say that we’ve had enough? At the rate we’re going, probably when it’s already too late and our corrupt system has enslaved us to the point that rebellion is futile.
The mainstream media is acting like Senator Rand Paul is a lunatic who is determined to shut down the government, but in reality, Senator Paul seems to be one of the only people in Washington DC who performing his due diligence.
Write to your local Senators and call their offices. (Find the contact info here.) Demand that they vote no on this spending bill. We have to stop passing policies that haven’t even been read by those voting on them. Lawmaking should not be a game of “Let’s Make a Deal.”
Government shutdowns have happened before and they’re mostly theater. We’ve been perfectly fine without them.
Daisy, once again you have hit the nail squarely on its head. Big government just keeps getting bigger and will continue to do so as that is what the powers that be want. I thought we had a chance to reverse this crapola when we elected Trump and gave the Repubs control of both houses but it has become obvious that nothing will change until we vote in Libertarians who truly believe in reducing the size and scope of government.
ray jones
The TREASON is coming from ALL sides. IT IS TIME AMERICA!!! IT IS TIME TO GO TO WASHINGTON AND REMOVE THEM ALL!!!!
THE CONSTITUTION SAYS WE CAN AND THE POLICE AND MILITARY BETTER STEP ASIDE!!!!
And I thought Trump was draining the swamp of these criminals? Haha. Guess that was a campaign promise to be taken with a grain of salt as usual.
Very sad day for those who trusted him to keep his word, Instead of draining the cesspool swamp he decides to slither in with them?
As usual another good article. You provide a quality service, thanks
This is no surprise to me, I have seen this for over 50 years, when I tell the sheeple, they say I am not an American. The sheeple can call, write, talk to the elected people and the elected people will listen and go do what they are told to do and how to vote. Once elected, they do not care about those who elected. After all, when was the last time you gave a congress person $100,000.
Those bstrds did the same thing to Congress they did with Obama Care. We cannot allow this to continue. There is no way in hell our representatives can read this bill within the time allow before a supposed needed vote, and if those asswipes vote on it while having not having read it, should be thrown out of congress. PERIOD !!!
We are outraged over this scam being perpetrated upon Congress…. Do you people out there in La La Land know how long it takes to put together a spending bill with 2200 pages? Months and months and then they present it at the last moment when NOBODY WILL HAVE TIME TO READ IT, LET ALONE PERUSE ALL THOSE PAGES.
THIS HAS TO STOP, EVEN IF IT MEANS SHUTTING DOWN THE GOVERNMENT UNTIL THEY CAN GET THEIR ACT TOGETHER !!!
Libertarians are not the answer. We must have leaders (if we truly need any) who know the Constitution inside and out and FOLLOW it! Most if not all of this spending is un-Constitutional to begin with and should never even be given light of day!
Funding for Sanctuary Cities and Planned Parenthood are also included in this monstrosity! Things that Trump pledged as campaign promises to STOP! Guess he lied yet again but what did we really expect from him?
I voted for him hoping a non-politician would change things even knowing how totally corrupt the fed is. Trump promised to drain the swamp too and I don’t see that truly happening either 🙁
I think Libertarians are much closer to the Constitution than any of these people I referred to in today’s article.
Any differences between Demopublicans and Republicrats is merely window dressing.
This will only reduce turnout for republicans in the midterms – I’m certainly not voting for any of them
Apparently Trump was just a chimera designed to rally the left, deceive the right and divide and distract everyone while the true agenda is slotted into place
Interesting that the recording of tbe Austin bomber’ s Google searches and cell geolocation is being played up as a good thing on left and right-wing MSM.
Snowden warned us but don’t even care. By the next presidential election the 1st five amendments will have been gutted.
We are all under attack..thank God for Rand…and trump’s veto today…
Trumps veto?
Apparently it was just a threat – – and not a very credible one, at that. Didn’t happen…welcome to the new era of Republican fiscal responsibility! /s
You did not address the fact that democrat voters WILL vote democrat no matter what, they are the useful idiots. Voting for the lesser of two evils slows down the inevitable allowing some of us time to prepare for the inevitable. At some point, we will be looking at another April 12, 1861. Politics WILL NOT fix the problem, the cancer has progressed too far.
ALL of my state’s Reps. voted against this bill. We only have 2 Senators – one is a traitor, the other voted NO.
I am not at all sure how we can discern who will betray us and who will not when we go to the voting booth. However, I can tell you that my traitor Senator is the one who has been in Congress the longest – like most of his life (he’s 80+). What does that tell you???
Daisy, the catch phrase in this article is “it doesn’t matter”. No matter how we vote, it just doesn’t matter. No matter how many phone calls or letters, it doesn’t matter. The crowd in D.C. will all toe the line and succumb to the dictates of the “Shadow Government” who are really in control. You are correct. The system is broken. We are nothing more than cannon fodder for the trumped up wars on terrorism which keeps our military abroad and exhausted. We are the feed stock that produces money to dump into the tax base. As long as we blindly follow the rules like sheep to the slaughter (or much more poignant, like the Jews to the gas chambers), this trend will continue. I do not advocate overt violence such as you see with groups like BLM and others. But I do advocate individually, simply non-compliance. The depth of your non-compliance is based on your conscience. Anything from refusing to procure a permit to carry a concealed weapon to relocating and going completely off grid and dropping out of sight. Somehow, we are all going to have to make the self imposed aristocrats of Congress and the Federal and State bureaucracy understand that without us they are irrelevant and even with us, they provide nothing of meaningful value. They are nothing more than parasites who feel that the citizens of this country owe them their status.
the left have won every battle since the first communist president FDR. the GOP has lied and faked opposition for 50 years and that includes St Reagan who with his amnesty led to 20 million illegals invading and millions more on the way
Lincoln said it best. “There is a nickels worth of difference between them. They both just want your nickel!” What a betrayal by Repubs.
America has a terminal cancer! It must be removed by drastic means at this late date. Delay or procrastination will see a complete and total collapse of the United States; exactly like the Communists have been working toward for decades. Most Americans will die if this is allowed to happen. CAN WE GET SERIOUS NOW?
Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God. ……which also includes men, republicans, politicians , presidents and the ilk. Sorry to say I never fully trusted Trump, seeing the picture of him in close relationship with the Clinton’s , while he was still only Sir Trump. I even I was lost in the silly hope he might turn out to be a genuine America loving patriot …. trust only in Jesus Christ
Why is everyone whining about “2nd Amendment rights”? There is no such thing. What you do have are the unalienable right to life, liberty, and property. The 2nd amendment is merely a restriction on the government from infringing on a the pre-existing right to self-defense of our lives. The 2nd amendment confers no rights it merely enumerates a pre-exsisting right.
If the 2A was abolished, so what? We still have the pre-existing right of self-defense. Demonstrating that fact to the statists in “government” may be a “sporty event”.
Rand Paul 2020
(One can hope, right?)
Great article, Daisy.
Great Article. I live in Montana and two of my three reps voted AGAINST the Budget. Trump said he would sign it, but didn’t like it. (So why sign it?) He’s thrown his base under the bus and backed over them. We’re p*ssed.
As for me, I live in a well protected state. In fact, I just bought more food, water, and ammo. And I’m cleaning and oiling some tools I may need in the near future.
A march on Washington would be futile. We must take control of things at the state and local level. Voting seems to do no good anymore. That tree of Liberty is getting mighty thirsty…
A pox on all of the traitors.
Nothing really surprises me anymore. Anyone who REALLY wants to know whats going on should definitely check this out, its a pretty scary warning from a history and religion professor. Pretty damn eye opening: https://ancientprophecy.weebly.com/
We are being betrayed and have been for over a hundred years. Don’t know what else to tell you. Oh yes I do. 535 Congressmen need to be arrested for betrayal and treason.
But since we never have arrested them for over a hundred years and for committing the HIGHEST TREASON one can think of when they but in the unqualified and illegal foreigner from Kenya to be your ruler.
YOU DID NOTHING! They have NO FEAR of you or your Mr. Donald Trump.
What are the first three words of the Constitution?
“We the People”
What do these words tell us?
They tell us that the authors of The Constitution believed they belonged to a group, a group called `The People’.
They also tell us that the authors believed that they were speaking for this group called The People.
Jumping down to the Second Amendment we find two groups mentioned; the group The Militia and the group The People.
Now the Militia is a subset or sub-group of the group The People. This means that all members of the group the Militia are members of the group The People, but not all members of the group The People are members of the group the Militia.
Our Founding Fathers deliberately, willfully, and purposely re-affirmed the natural born right of the larger group, The People, to Keep and Bear arms.
The Founding Fathers made this very clear when they said `shall not be infringed’. The word infringed (infringe) comes from the Latin `infringere’, dates back to 1525 and means to weaken or break!
The Right of The People to Keep and Bear Arms shall not be weakened!
This mean that any Law that weakens our right to keep and bear arms is UNCONSTITUTIONAL!
The Supreme Court of 1803 declared in Marbury vs Madison;
`Certainly all those who have framed written constitutions contemplate them as forming the fundamental and paramount law of the nation, and consequently, the theory of every such government must be, that an act of the legislature, repugnant to the constitution, is void.’
`So if a law be in opposition to the constitution; if both the law and the constitution apply to a particular case, so that the court must either decide that case conformably to the law, disregarding the constitution; or conformably to the constitution, disregarding the law; the court must determine which of these conflicting rules governs the case. This is of the very essence of judicial duty.’
`If, then, the courts are to regard the constitution, and the constitution is superior to any ordinary act of the legislature, the constitution and not such ordinary act, must govern the case to which they both apply.’
`Thus, the particular phraseology of the constitution of the United States confirms and strengthens the principle, supposed to be essential to all written constitutions, that a law repugnant to the constitution is void; and that courts, as well as other departments, are bound by that instrument.’
Thank you Miss Daisy…Kudos!!!
All of you people voted these treacherous, dangerous fools into office. You get what you voted for… No complaining now.
It wasn’t a “Budget” it was an appropriation spending BILL…
Obama didn’t spend all of the money they appropriated during his 8 years the way congress wanted it spent either, he appropriated funds for his pet projects out if the Omnibus bill….
Now as long as POTUS Trump does what BHO did….he will also have his Border Wall paid for by appropriating some of the funds to pay for it out of the items he wants to de-fund….
Now, just for DJT to do it…
We’ll have to wait and find out how he’s going to play his hand.
Maybe Next time they will Actually make a BUDGET where POTUS has to follow….
Thank you, Daisy, for printing the list of U.S. Congressmen that voted AGAINST The Omnibus Monstrosity!
Thank you for this Daisy! I am beyond disgusted with our so called, representatives. It is all coming down to another CW2 or Revolution 2. This makes me furious:
o $12m for Scholarships for Lebanon
o $20m for Middle East Partnership Initiative Scholarship Program
o $12m in military funding for Vietnam
o $3.5m in nutrition assistance to Laos
o $15m in Developmental assistance to China
o $10m for Women LEOs in Afghanistan
Hello? We have people in this country who need education, scholarships, and various assistances.