Politico's Partisan Irony

Politico screams this warning on the front page today, above the fold: Congress Inches Closer to DHS Cliff!!

The exclamation points are mine.

For those not paying attention, including readers of Politico, the House passed a funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security that fully funded the agency save for a small number of components that will carry out President Obama’s unilateral immigration amnesty.

All of the important components of DHS are funded by the House. All of the components that will implement lawlessness are defunded. That’s how the Constitution was designed to work.

The “cliff” that Politico warns against is not millions of illegal aliens staying in the United States.  The “cliff” the nation is about to plunge over is a federal agency possibly closing down for a few days.

The only reason this could happen is because Senate Democrats (and Senate Republicans who went along with them) place greater importance on importing millions of foreigners into the United States and making sure people who should be working to deport them are paid for not deporting them.  Thus, the House and Senate are liable to disagree.

The cliff the nation is about to plunge over is bureaucrats not being paid immediately.  We know, of course, they will all eventually be given backpay, as all federal employees are after every shut down.  It’s a vacation without having to ask for a vacation.  Where do I sign up?

Back to Politico’s front page alarmism.  Cliffs imply catastrophe.  Think Thelma and Louise.  Unless the guy driving the bread truck in Peoria gives more money to the beltway lawyer who should be deporting an illegal alien, the nation will go over the cliff.

Only in Washington would that nonsense fly.

But down lower on the front page of Politico, we find this piece headlined “Reality Check on Net Neutrality.”

There Alex Byers lectures us:

The escalating fight over the Federal Communications Commission’s net neutrality rules is sprouting a classic feature of Washington political battles — bombastic rhetoric designed to stir up partisan passions. Both supporters and opponents of Chairman Tom Wheeler’s proposal have turned to dramatic language to shape the debate, painting ominous pictures about the future of the Internet and turning a wonky regulatory issue into a full-blown D.C. brawl.

Alex Byers