Tag Archives: border security

‘Emergency’ plays second fiddle to golf at Mar-a-Lago

I admit readily that I am a bit slow on the uptake at times.

Such as when the president of the United States declares a “national emergency” and then jets off to Florida for a weekend of fun in the sun and a round or three of golf at his posh Mar-a-Lago resort.

What am I missing? I cannot grasp what he’s doing here.

When a president declares a “national emergency,” doesn’t he remain on his watch, pouring all his energy into solving the problem that causes the emergency? Yeah, I know I’ve declared my lack of angst over all the golf that Donald Trump plays; he’s always on the clock. It’s just that he said he wouldn’t “have time” for golf once he took office as president.

So he says our southern border has become a “point of entry” for hordes of drug dealers, human traffickers, killers, rapists and assorted international terrorists. His response was to declare the “national emergency” that in fact doesn’t exist.

The president betrayed the urgency of the declaration, I am going to presume, when he boarded Air Force One and headed to South Florida for the weekend.

I always have considered “national emergencies” to be, by definition, events that require the president’s undivided attention. President Carter declared such an emergency when the Iranian terrorists took our embassy personnel in 1979. If memory serves, the president acted the way one in his position must act.

Donald John Trump Sr.? He has fabricated a “national emergency” where no such thing exists.

National emergency? What national emergency?

Robert Reich is a vocal critic of the president of the United States. I mean, he served as labor secretary in the Clinton administration. His progressive credentials are established.

He wrote this on Facebook today in response to Donald Trump’s declaration of a phony “national emergency”:

Just hours after Trump declared a national emergency to secure funding for his nonsensical border wall without congressional approval, he jetted off to Mar-a-Lago for a weekend of golf and relaxation. Excuse me, but shouldn’t the president be in the White House during a national emergency?

The truth is there is no emergency. Border crossings are at historic lows, immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than native-born Americans, and a wall would do little to curb the flow of illegal drugs. This entire crisis is designed solely to score points with Trump’s political base and consolidate his own power.

What Reich neglected to mention in this message — although I am certain it wasn’t lost on him — was that Trump himself actually dismissed the “national emergency” in a rambling, incoherent “press availability” on the White House lawn.

Trump knows there’s no “emergency” on the border. He made the declaration, it seems to me, because he wanted to create a pretext to erect something to which he can attach his name.

OK, then. Let’s call it The Trump Wall.

It’s all his. He can have it.

Trump raid on military projects produces bipartisan ire

So, the president of the United States has done it.

Donald Trump declared a national emergency where none actually exists. He wants to build The Wall. He is intent on erecting that structure along our southern border to, as he said, stem the flow of human traffickers, drug dealers, murderers, terrorists and assorted riff raff he insists are “pouring” across the border.

That isn’t happening, no matter what the says.

There’s more, though. He wants to pilfer money already appropriated for defense projects to pay for construction of The Wall. That move has produced criticism from unlikely sources, such as from Republican U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry, the Texas Panhandle congressman who once chaired the House Armed Services Committee. Thornberry, now the ranking member of Armed Services, says wall construction is not part of the military mission. Thornberry, who isn’t prone to criticize the president, opposes this initiative.

Congressional Democrats are going to contest the emergency declaration. Of course they oppose Trump’s decision.

The president, though, appears to be miffed that members of Congress who should have stepped up didn’t do as he wished. So he’s conducted this end-around.

The current chairman of the House Armed Services panel, Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., said this: “It is utterly disrespectful of U.S. national security and the needs of our men and women in uniform, and it further undermines his credibility in requesting the upcoming defense budget.”

That’s the president’s modus operandi. He says he “loves” the military and the men and women who defend the country. However, he is quite willing to undercut their work so he can build The Wall.

How long will this border budget deal last?

I am trying to ascertain an element of the budget deal that “solves” the border security matter that has gone largely unreported by any media, print or broadcast.

How long will this deal last? Will we be taken to the precipice yet again when the money runs out? Will there be more threats of more government shutdowns in the near future?

House and Senate negotiators cobbled together a border security deal that provides $1.375 billion for The Wall on our southern border. It kicks in more money for other matters related to border security.

The House and Senate have approved it. Donald Trump will sign it. He’ll likely plan to announce a “national emergency” to provide even more money for The Wall.

But . . . how long does this deal last?

This isn’t “good government” as I have understood the meaning of the concept.

POTUS to declare a made-up ’emergency’?

I am just going to stand with those who believe that there is no “national emergency” occurring on our southern border.

Does that mean that we have no problem with illegal immigration? Of course not! It means that the president of the United States, Donald Trump, is seriously overstating the situation to suit some political agenda he wants to fulfill.

Trump has pledged to build The Wall along our southern border. He cannot persuade Congress to give him all the money he wants to build it. So he now intends to sign a border security agreement while declaring the existence of a phony “national emergency.”

How many times must it be said: There is no national emergency on our nation’s southern border!

But the president will not be dissuaded. He won’t be deterred. He won’t let facts get in the way of his bogus boastfulness about building The Wall.

Don’t misunderstand me. I do not favor “open borders.” I want our borders secured as much as Donald Trump does. Hell, maybe more so! I simply do not believe the president’s ridiculous assertion about the presence of an “emergency” existing on the border.

Trump wants to usurp Congress’s role in appropriating money for government projects. He seems intent on diverting money to build The Wall from other actual emergencies.

The most galling example of that is a report that the president intends to take money earmarked for disaster relief in California and Puerto Rico for construction of The Wall. Hmm. How in the world can this be seen as anything other than political payback for the intense criticism the president has received for his policies in general and for his response to disasters in those two disparate regions?

The “national emergency” on our border with Mexico is a figment of Donald Trump’s fixation with pleasing his political base.

This fixation makes me sick.

Trump ignores advice of his party wise men and women

Hey, I believe I am beginning now — finally! — to grasp why Donald Trump’s political “base” is so devoted to him.

The 38 percent or so of Americans who stand by the president have his back because he chooses to ignore the wise political advice of those who know how it works in Washington, D.C. Trump doesn’t have a clue. Neither do the 38 percent of those who support him. So . . . he speaks their language. He gets it. They get him! They’re made for each other.

See? Even those of us who are slow on the uptake are capable of understanding certain things that defy rational understanding.

Where is the emergency?

The president’s decision to declare a national emergency — where none exists — goes against the advice of congressional Republican leaders. They counseled him against it. They fear that it sets a precedent that Democratic presidents in the future could follow. If Trump declares a national emergency because of a phony crisis on the border, Democrats in the White House might be moved to declare an emergency over, oh let’s see, gun violence in our schools, or climate change, or threats from Russia.

The Wall on the border, though, becomes the crux of the national emergency.

Get it? Trump ignored that advice. He’s going to listen instead to the right-wing blowhards/gasbags/talking heads instead of the men and women who know what the hell they’re doing.

He speaks the angry language of the political base. They have each other’s back!

Trump refusing to think strategically on this emergency matter

Donald John “RINO in Chief” Trump is likely to invite a serious bit of political revenge that could occur not long after he leaves office.

An actual Republican president would understand it, but Trump isn’t anything close to being a doctrinaire GOP politician. He is the nation’s premier Republican In Name Only.

You see, if the president declares a national emergency — where no such thing exists — to institute a money grab to pay for The Wall along on the southern border, he opens the door wide open to a Democratic president down the road.

Trump seeks the money to build The Wall from other appropriated funds. Congress is planning a legal challenge if the president follows through with his reported threat.

But . . . what if the national emergency declaration withstands a court challenge? That could mean a future Democratic president could issue a similarly nonsensical national emergency to push progressive programs forward.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised at this, given Trump’s ignorance about government, politics, public policy or national history.

He wants The Wall. He seems to want something that he can claim as a “tribute” to his presidency.

However, there might be a political cost to pay.

It’s a potentially big cost at that!

Trump ‘wins,’ but declares emergency anyway?

What am I missing here?

Donald Trump said that we’re already building The Wall along our southern border. A bipartisan group of senators and House members have worked out a deal to keep the government functioning fully while spending $1.37 billion for more fencing/wall/barriers along our southern border.

The president said he is “unhappy” with the agreement. The Senate has approved it. He said he’ll sign it.

Oh, but then the president reportedly is going to declare a “national emergency” to push ahead with more construction of The Wall.

Holy crap, man! My head is spinning . . . rapidly!

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she might file a legal challenge to the president’s effort to usurp Congress’s budgeting authority; Trump’s declaration would enable him, he says, to divert money from other projects to build The Wall.

The speaker says, in effect, “No can do, Mr. President, and I might take you to court to prove my point.”

McConnell flips on emergency

What puzzles me is that Donald Trump and his allies have declared victory, more or less, because they contend The Wall already is being built. Why, then, declare a national emergency? Indeed, there is no emergency on the border.

I am going to agree with Nancy Pelosi, who said today that the president ought to declare the rash of gun violence in our schools and other public places as a real national emergency. 

Hoping POTUS ignores yammering from the far right

If the speculation that Donald Trump will sign the border security deal hammered out by Congress is true, then I want to offer a preemptive word of praise to the president.

He deserves a good word for resisting the yapping and yammering from the far right wing of his Republican Party who contend that the bipartisan deal is a loser.

Well, if you’ll indulge me for a moment . . .

I have yapped at Trump quite often about his adherence to the likes of Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Tucker Carlson — blah, blah, blah — over their efforts to dictate his legislative agenda.

He listened to ’em once on this border security matter and as a result, we endured a partial government shutdown that stained the president badly.

I don’t like all of the deal, either. It’s better than it could have been had congressional Republicans dug in their heels. Instead, they worked out a $1.37 billion appropriation to build 55 miles of “barrier” along the southern border. It’s not what the right-wing gasbags want, but it keeps the government running.

I hope the president heeds the instinct to ignore them, that he signs the deal, and that we can put this idiocy to rest — at least for now.

‘Unhappy’ Trump should sign off . . . then move on

Donald Trump is far from the first governing executive to be “unhappy” with legislation that comes to his desk.

The president says he is displeased with the bipartisan deal that came out of Congress to enhance border security, keep the government running and allow all sides to get the heck off each other’s backs.

The deal provides about $1.4 billion to build portions of The Wall that Trump wants to erect along our southern border. It is far less than the $5.7 billion that Trump insisted on spending for The Wall.

Let’s get real here.

It’s all about ‘border security’

The president wants ostensibly to tighten border security. His insistence on The Wall is what has stymied progress in unifying the White House with congressional Democrats on the issue. The president keeps insisting that Democrats actually favor “open borders” and by association embrace increases in crime committed by criminals who come into this country illegally.

That is pure nonsense. Demagoguery at among its worst. It is phony, bogus and ridiculous.

Trump has been contending in recent hours that we’re already building The Wall along our border. He even urged rally crowds to change their chants from “Build the wall!” to “Finish the wall!” Clever, yes?

Whatever. Trump’s unhappiness with the deal appears to rest solely on the money it doesn’t contain. Does it boost border security? I believe it does. It allocates money to erect more barriers, but also enables the deployment of more technology, more border personnel.

Isn’t that all aimed at the same thing, to make our country more secure? What in the name of national security is wrong with that?

I’ll say again, Mr. President: Sign off on the deal! Let’s move on to all those other issues that need our government’s attention.

Hey, I’ve got an idea: How about climate change? Or gun violence? Or our electoral integrity? How about all of them . . . and more?