Congressional Rearguard Actions

No army likes to retreat; countries rarely honor a retreating general.

Yet there are times when a defeated army has decisively lost the battle, but is still not entirely useless: they can attempt to retreat in an organized fashion, delaying the advancing enemy while doing so, as Marshal Nye did during Napoleon's retreat from Moscow.  Obviously, in a sense retreat is a sign of failure - if you lost, by definition you're a loser - but it can still be far more effective than simply running away in panic.  At best, it can buy time for other, more effective actions: another army to arrive on the field, or the nation to prepare its defenses for imminent invasion.

Just such a situation has now occurred in the U.S. Senate regarding the $1.9 trillion of borrowed Chinese money that Joe Biden has demanded be stolen from our children and grandchildren to be awarded to his allies in the unions, corrupt blue states - oh, and the odd crumb given to Americans suffering under covid-inspired tyranny.

Is this a disaster for the country?  Of course - but, what do you expect when all three branches of the Federal government are firmly in the control of the extreme Left?

Should the Republicans have worked harder to prevent this?  Absolutely - six months ago.  They, and we all, will be paying for their failures for many years to come.

Those Who Fight, Then Run Away...

It's easy to throw rocks at such a pathetic bunch of misfit losers as our Republican leaders.  With the most conservative president in generations, they were unable to join together to accomplish much at all.  Cast out of power in an election that the majority of their voters believe was stolen, they are expected to perform one job and one only: prevent Joe Biden from accomplishing anything he, or his handlers, want to do.

Obviously, they've failed: the bill passed.  But, is that really fair?  They simply had not the votes to prevent this debauchery of a bill from passing, given that every single Democrat voted for it.  In fairness, every single Republican voted against; what more can they do?

Actually, quite a lot, which in fact they did do.  For all his ills, Mitch McConnell does understand the rules of the Senate very well, and he used them to the full.  He was able to get each and every Democrat Senator on the record as voting for:

• Allowing blue states to lie about their nursing home deaths without penalty.
• Canceling the Keystone XL pipeline, instantly throwing thousands of well-paid union workers onto unemployment.
• Giving stimulus checks, not merely to American taxpayers, but to illegal immigrants.
• Not providing any financial incentives to reopen schools, or any assistance at all to private schools.

Republicans put forward individual amendments to fix each of these obviously evil things; Democrats rejected each and every one of them in a straight party-line vote.

This is even more effective for campaign ads than it might seem: since the Senate is split 50/50, just one single Democrat changing their vote on any of these amendments would have led to it being passed.  So, each and every Democrat Senator is personally responsible for all the evils that ensue.

This won't matter in California or Massachusetts, but there are a fair number of places in the country where the argument that "Senator Joe Dem had the singlehanded ability to stop illegals from being given your tax dollars, but he chose to steal from you and give to them" might very well make a difference in the next election.  In other places, the same argument about nursing home scandals or unfunded schools will hold more sway.  The Senate Republicans accomplished, not one, but a whole long list of these electoral sledgehammers.  Not bad!

...Live To Fight Another Day?

Now, could the Republicans have fought harder?  Maybe... or, maybe not.

Most Americans loathe the idea of their hard-earned dollars being given to illegal invaders of our country.  Republicans possibly could have done more grandstanding about this issue.

But if a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, does it make a sound?  The media and the Tech Lords have already decided that Americans don't need to hear about this; there probably wasn't any way to make it known to Americans in time to make a difference right now.

Election Day is almost two years away, though; as we've seen with the Hunter Biden laptop, even all the censorship power of the Democrat elites cannot forever prevent the truth from getting out.

And, just as the amendment votes can damn every single Democrat, they also compliment every single Republican - yes, even generally-useless squishes like Mitt Romney stood up to be counted for the side of good.  If we can revile them when they stray, we should also thank and appreciate Republicans when they stand together and do what is right.

Who knows - it might even be habit-forming!