New York Times congressional correspondent Karoun Demirjian really laid on the hostile labels against Republicans in her Friday condemnation of conservatives who were using a federal budget bill to fight for tougher border security: “Hard Right’s Border Demands Intensify Spending Standoff.”
This story and several she penned in July don’t even try to hide their seething anti-Republican hostility, revealed in her labeling bias:
Hard-right House Republicans are threatening to block a stopgap bill to keep the government funded unless it includes a security crackdown along the U.S.-Mexico border, escalating fears of a shutdown within weeks and injecting the supercharged politics of immigration into an already fraught stalemate over federal spending.
Members of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, whose demands for deep cuts have already stymied agreement on a spending package for the coming year, now say they are unwilling to support even a temporary measure to prevent a lapse in federal funding without a sweeping border measure that has little chance of making it through Congress.
The measure, which would revive policies championed during the Trump administration such as border wall construction, extended detention of asylum seekers and expedited deportation of unaccompanied minors, was so draconian that G.O.P. leaders barely managed in May to scrounge together the Republican votes needed to pass it….
Here's just one of two “far right” descriptors:
Behind the scenes, Mr. McCarthy is toiling to persuade far-right lawmakers to abandon the tactic. He has privately warned them that trying to use the stopgap spending bill to strong-arm a one-sided border bill through a divided Congress risks scuttling the border security investments Republicans are trying to enact through the regular appropriations bills.
And here's some colorful metaphor for a "news" story:
But the conservatives, still simmering with anger at Mr. McCarthy for striking a budget deal with the president that they regard as too spendthrift, are determined to turn the appropriations bills into the next battleground in Congress’s intractable fight over immigration and border security, even if it means holding the government hostage.
Demirjian then changed things up a little, switching her insult to “hard right”:
Under pressure from the hard right, Republicans in the House have sought to fund several agencies below the spending limits agreed to in the debt ceiling deal, while in the Senate, Democrats and Republicans agreed to provide billions more.
In a letter last week, members of the Freedom Caucus said their demand to implement the border bill would apply to any spending measure, including a temporary one.
Democrats previously rallied to help Republican leaders steer around opposition from the hard right and muster the votes to bring the debt limit deal to the House floor. But leading Democrats vow that if G.O.P. leaders accept the Freedom Caucus’s immigration demands, they should expect no help from the minority party on a spending bill.
Demirjian laughably quoted such bipartisan legends as Representative Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, “admonishing Republicans to pass spending bills capable of earning votes from both parties.”
Meanwhile, she accused the "right-wing members" of leading the country off a cliff and "seem[ing] undeterred by the prospect that their demands could prompt the government to shutter".
