“Let’s shake up the Senate.” With those words, Cory Gardner (R-INO CO) promised to be a difference maker if Colorado voters elected him as Senator instead of re-electing Democrat Mark Udall. Unfortunately for those of us who voted for this pathetic excuse of a Republican, we found out that Cory had no intention of shaking things up. Instead, he quickly embraced the Washington establishment and the cojones-less leadership of Mitch McConnell.
Heck, he didn’t even wait until he was officially sworn in to show his spinelessness.
When Obama was about to announce his unconstitutional executive amnesty in December 2014, Gardner appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe and was asked about using budget reconciliation—a manuever Mitch “Lyin’ Eyes” McConnell promised to use during his re-election but reneged after he won—as a means to bypass possible filibusters by Democrats on key Obama policies, such as the immigration situation. With a perfect opportunity to let his constituents in Colorado know that he was going to be different than Udall—the guy who voted with Obama 99% of the time—Gardner passed:
“There’s no time, place or purpose of a government shutdown or default. That’s simply ridiculous and something that a mature governing body doesn’t even contemplate.”
Besides the oxymoronic nature of his use of the word “mature” when describing government, we have already learned that there is no way for the government to default unless it chooses to. Not only that, but government shutdowns and the issue of default are not the same thing.
Still, when he was given the chance, Gardner confirmed his forked-tongue campaign promises. He cemented his establishment-Republican credentials by falling in line on the Department of Homeland Security funding bill, which fully funded Obama’s executive amnesty, even though there was ZERO threat to Homeland Security if the funding wasn’t approved.
Next up for Cory and the RINO club is raising the debt ceiling, something that is apparently not all that important, since the Republican leadership voted to not even have a debt ceiling last year. Still, Mitch McConnell is already on the record with his “we won’t have a shutdown or a default” surrender talking points.
And to make sure he has the cover necessary when he plays the same coward card on the debt ceiling vote he used on the DHS bill, Gardner is proposing making it illegal for others to do the job he’s unwilling to do.
In partnership with Colorado’s other Senator, Michael Bennett (D-CO)—which tells you all need to know about how this is probably a bad idea—Gardner wants to pass a bill that make it possible to arrest Senators in the event of a shutdown through the use of a series of procedural rules. Gardner summed up his idea like this:
“I don’t think anybody wants a headline back home saying that ‘Senator so-and-so had to be escorted by the sergeant-at-arms to do their job.’ “
Talk about Washington RINO doublespeak. A lawmaker who does their job and uses the power of the purse provided under the Constitution should be subject to arrest by a lawmaker who’s willing to surrender that power? Wouldn’t the coward who surrendered their power be the real culprit in the “didn’t do their job” category?
The Constitution assigns to Congress the role of final arbiter of the use of public funds. The source of Congress’s power to spend derives from Article I, Section 8, Clause 1. Yet according to Cory Gardner, if a lawmaker exercises that authority, and if a standoff with the Executive Branch results in a shutdown as a result, cowards like him who failed to do their job should be protected.
What a disgrace!
