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It is often said politics is the art of compromise.   No one gets everything they want, but everyone gets something.  Unless, of course, one is a member of The Stupid Party.  The Stupid Party, which has been complaining for years about D/S/Cs passing laws without committee hearings, regular order, no amendments and no time to read the laws, has assisted D/S/Cs in passing another law in just that fashion.  This time, they “did something” about school attacks, which amounts to doing nothing to stop school attacks, but does further erode fundamental, Second Amendment, liberties.

Which valiant Republicans wrought this mighty legislative feat?  Townhall.com provides the role of Senate useful idiots:

*Roy Blunt (MO) *Richard Burr (NC) *Shelley Moore Capito (WV)  *Bill Cassidy (LA) *Susan M. Collins (M) *John Cornyn (TX) *Joni Ernst (IA) *Lindsey Graham (SC) *Lisa Murkowski (AK)) *Rob Portman (OH) *Mitt Romney (UT) *Mitch McConnell (KY) *Thom Tillis (NC) *Todd Young (IN)

The worst among them was John Cornyn of Texas, who mocked fellow Republicans asking how long they needed to read an 80-page bill (they had no time at all), and when the bill was passed, laughed with his D/S/C handlers about next passing a total amnesty for illegals.  The Texan backlash against Cornyn, who was recently relected, has been fierce, and Cornyn claimed he was just joking—haha—about the amnesty thing.  Texans are not amused.  Blunt, Burr, Portman and Toomey are retiring at the end of their current terms.  Others of the groups may find themselves retired–surprise!–as well.

The Hill provides the House useful idiots:

*Fred Upton (Mich.) *Mike Turner (Ohio) *Steve Chabot (Ohio) *Anthony Gonzalez (Ohio) *Chris Jacobs (N.Y.) Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.) *Tony Gonzales (Texas) María Elvira Salazar (Fla.) *David Joyce (Ohio) *John Katko (N.Y.) *Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) *Peter Meijer (Mich.) *Tom Rice (S.C.) *Liz Cheney (WY)

Kinzinger, Katko, Upton, Gonzalez and Jacobs are not seeking reelection this year, and Rice just lost his bid for another term.

Cheney, and perhaps others, will be involuntarily retired.

What grand, democracy enhancing, compromise was realized in the “Bipartisan Safer Communities Act?”  What advancement of liberty did our brave Stupid Party legislators obtain?  What cherished goals of the D/S/C Party were they forced to surrender?  Not a damned thing.  The Stupid Party gave up everything and got nothing for America.  Here are a few of the features of the bill (text available here):  

*It establishes a new federal mental health bureaucracy, as well as a variety other federal bureaucracies

*It further cements woke ideologies under Medicaid:

(5) Strategies to promote the delivery of accessible and culturally competent care via telehealth, including addressing the needs of individuals with disabilities, medically underserved urban and rural communities, racial and ethnic minorities such as American Indians and Alaska Natives, individuals with limited English proficiency, and individuals of different age groups including children, young adults, and seniors;

*Engages in massive deficit spending across a variety of programs, including $1,400,000,000 for so-called “State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance,” and $8,000,000,000 for “Health Surveillance and Program Support,” and $1.4 billion to the FBI for “State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance.”

*Allows up to 10 days for records checks of 18-21 year olds before allowing them to buy a firearm.  This section is so vague the right to buy a firearm could be denied for any or no reason.

*Turn anyone selling firearms who will “predominantly earn a profit” into an instant FFL dealer.  If, for example, the son of a deceased father sells his father’s gun collection, he has become a FFL dealer and is subject to all those regulations and laws.  The language is so vague virtually anyone selling a gun could be prosecuted for not getting a FFL.

*Increases the penalties for straw purchases.  As regular readers know, the government very seldom prosecutes these crimes, unless they can be used to run legitimate gun dealers out of business.

*Filling a non-existent “boyfriend loophole.”  Anyone dating someone who is convicted of a misdemeanor charge of “domestic violence,” which is very broadly constructed, will lose the ability to possess firearms for at least five years.  This provision is ripe for abuse through false accusations and political prosecutions.

*$750 million in grants to induce states to enact “Red Flag” laws that allow seizure of guns without cause or due process.

*The FBI, the enforcement arm of the D/S/C Party, gets $100 million for “salaries and expenses.”

Here’s an NRA statement on the bill:  

The NRA will support legislation that improves school security, promotes mental health services, and helps reduce violent crime. However, we will oppose this gun control legislation because it falls short at every level. It does little to truly address violent crime while opening the door to unnecessary burdens on the exercise of Second Amendment freedom by law-abiding gun owners.

This legislation can be abused to restrict lawful gun purchases, infringe upon the rights of law-abiding Americans, and use federal dollars to fund gun control measures being adopted by state and local politicians. This bill leaves too much discretion in the hands of government officials and also contains undefined and overbroad provisions – inviting interference with our constitutional freedoms.

What’s going on here?  Republicans have D/S/Cs on the ropes.  All they had to do was not do anything stupid before the mid terms, yet these anti-liberty/America dimwits pull this?  Roger Kimball at American Greatness suggests part of the problem:

[Before] Trump’s victory, the dominant attitude has been that only the Left is allowed to win. Any conservative victory is by definition illegitimate.

Until recently, the Right’s problem was that it was too frightened by the Left to respond effectively. Deep down, many on the Right secretly agreed that only the Left was allowed to win. (This feeling was so secret that many on the Right, though acting on that view, did not even recognize their own impotence and lack of thumos.) In some precincts, anyway, that may be changing Not among the Liz Cheneys and David Frenches of the world, of course. But there are more and more people who don’t mind shouldering the obloquy of the Left and the housebroken Right. And they have just been joined by a majority of the U.S. Supreme Court, which in handing down two major decisions, not just on Roe but also on the Second Amendment, signals that it is sanguine with being deeply unpopular with the regime consensus.

The second thing worth bearing in mind is that this novel exhibition of backbone by the Right is due almost entirely to Donald Trump. The promiscuous desire to be liked is a common character flaw. Donald Trump does not suffer from that disability. What just happened on the Supreme Court would never have happened absent Trump. And indeed the little eruptions of resistance to the Left and emasculated Right are possible only because of his example. This is a reality that many people have yet to take on board. But it is nevertheless an important truth about the political and moral configuration of the United States circa 2022.

Donald Trump’s governing passion can be summed up in one word: winning. Similarly, his path to that goal can be summed up in one word: fighting. He showed the Right that it was OK to win and that the way to win was to stand up for the things you professed to care about. It seemed like a novel idea in 2016. The Left, and the spineless Right, have done everything that could be done to resuscitate that nerveless impotence.

So how do these useful idiots fight? By giving D/S/Cs everything they want and demanding nothing for liberty or fiscal sanity in return.  The despicable Cornyn laughed about another “you need too pass it to find out what’s in it” bill.  Obviously, some of them are retiring, many likely because they know they can’t be reelected.  Others are going to be involuntarily retired, so they’re sticking it to the Deplorables while they can.  But what about the rest?  Do they imagine Normal Americans have no choice but to vote for them because D/S/Cs are so much worse?  Is that what our political system has come to?  Our choices are voting for the least horrible option?  We have no choice but to vote for politicians who will never cease reckless and ruinous deficit spending, and who will pass laws that always restrict liberty and accomplish nothing beyond that?  they actually think D/S/Cs can be trusted?!  This kind of betrayal may well assist D/S/Cs at the midterms as Normal Americans, in disgust, stay away from the polls, keeping more D/S/Cs in office, and limiting Republican gains.

They’ve “done something” indeed, but none of it would have so much as inconvenienced any past school attacker.  It certainly would not have stopped them, and it will not stop any future school attacker.

Once again, Republicans have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory and pissed off their base.  All our noble legislators have succeeded in doing with any degree of certainty is increased the size and power of the federal government, spent additional billions we don’t have, weakened individual liberty, and helped D/S/Cs virtue signal.

The Stupid Party indeed.