Tag Archives: national emergency

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. 

Here is your ‘national emergency,’ Mr. President

Donald Trump keeps yapping and yammering about the “national emergency” he insists is occurring on our nation’s southern border.

I continue to doubt that such an emergency actually exists. I do know of an actual emergency that the president and his fellow Republicans keep ignoring.

It involves climate change, the meteorological condition known formerly as global warming. That emergency is real. It’s occurring 24/7. It is bringing harm to Earth, the only planet we are able to inhabit.

Here is a bit of good news. The Democratically controlled U.S. House of Representatives today had an actual hearing to discuss climate change. It was the first such hearing in about eight years. The GOP has controlled the House and it decided that climate change was a phony issue. It’s a “hoax,” as Donald Trump prefers to call it.

It’s not a hoax. It’s real. It is posing an existential threat to our coastal regions. It is putting our polar wildlife in dire peril. Polar ice caps are melting, creating a significant loss of hunting habitat in the Arctic for polar bears.

The hearings in Congress, which must continue, are meant to expose further the cause for this changing climate. Scientists from across the spectrum are arguing that human beings are a primary cause for the changing climate on Earth. Those carbon emissions are depleting oxygen, causing the atmosphere to warm at dangerous levels.

I know that’s at times a tough thing to swallow during winter months. The Upper Midwest is enduring frigid temperatures, causing climate change deniers to say, “See? We told you that climate change is ‘fake news.’ It’s phony. It ain’t happening.”

Except that it is happening.

Can we stop it? Slow it? Can we prevent Earth from suffering irreparable damage? Those, folks, are the questions we need to explore. I am glad to know that a change in the congressional command structure in one legislative chamber is going to elevate this discussion to where it belongs.

Where is the ’emergency,’ Mr. POTUS?

So help me, Mr. President, I am having a devil of a time trying to pinpoint where the “national emergency” is occurring on our nation’s southern border.

Is it along the Rio Grande River, which separates Texas from Mexico? I keep reading how safe El Paso has become sitting across the river from Juarez. Is it at Nogales or Yuma in Arizona, or at San Diego?

We keep hearing this stuff about how “illegal” crossings have declined. There’s also the number of immigrants we are deporting back to the countries of their origin.

You keep harping about a national emergency occurring on our border. You keep insisting you have the power to declare such an emergency and that you just might do so if congressional Democrats don’t fork over the billions of bucks you want to build The Wall.

Oh, but what the heck. You know that already.

What I and I’ll presume millions of other Americans want to know is this: How do you define an emergency and what evidence can you present that demonstrates that an emergency actually exists?

Look, Mr. President, I’m with you on the issue of border security. I want a secure border just as much as you do. Maybe more so, given that I live in a border state. You can scurry off to Florida or to New Jersey or New York City when you’re not holed up in the “dump” — aka the White House.

The Wall, though, is too expensive, it is too cumbersome, it is too fraught with legal complexities relating to eminent domain and Fifth Amendment guarantees of “just compensation” for property the government will have to seize from private owners.

Just settle on legislation that allows the expenditure of more money on technology we’re already using to secure our southern border, Mr. President.

I believe House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is good with that. So, let’s get it done. Do not declare an emergency, Mr. President, because I believe there is no emergency to declare!

Shutdown produced no good result; nor will another one

Susan Collins is a Maine Republican U.S. senator who — it’s safe to assume — is no friend of Donald J. Trump.

So she said today that the partial government shutdown that the president said he would be proud to own produced “absolutely nothing.” Collins is as correct as she possibly can be.

The only thing it produced was heartache and hassle among many of the hundreds of thousands of federal employees who were furloughed or forced to work without pay for 35 days.

The shutdown ended with no money for The Wall that Trump wants to build. It reopened the entire government for three weeks. Both sides have until Feb. 15 to work out a longer-term budget deal that contains money for “border security.” Democrats don’t want The Wall. Trump insists on it. He might declare a national emergency if the deal lacks money to build it along our southern border.

There had better not be another shutdown. The longest such idiocy produced nothing of substance, as Sen. Collins has noted. Neither would the next one.

This is no way in the world to make America great again. It instead has made us an international laughingstock.

Is it really a ‘national emergency’ on the border?

I cannot possibly profess to know all there is to know, but one current issue has me baffled in the extreme.

I am unable to discern where along our nation’s southern border we are experiencing a “national emergency.” Donald Trump is now threatening to declare that such an emergency exists if he doesn’t persuade Congress to appropriate $5.7 billion to build The Wall.

The president has just backed down from a standoff he engaged in with congressional Democrats. The partial government shutdown was called off. Trump didn’t get any money for The Wall. He said he would keep the government shuttered for as long as it takes until he got money for The Wall. Then he caved, blinked, backpedaled, retreated . . . whatever you want to call it.

Now comes the threat to declare a national emergency. What does it mean? It means that Trump can deploy military personnel to build The Wall and move money appropriated for other projects to finance its construction. Former U.S. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry, a Texas Panhandle Republican, has said such a move runs counter to Pentagon policy and that the military mission should not include wall construction.

What’s more, if he does declare such an emergency, the president can expect an immediate and ferocious legal challenge from congressional Democrats.

I do not live along the border, but I do live in a border state. Texas shares the longest stretch of any of the four states that border Mexico. The entire Texas-Mexico border is along the Rio Grande River. In some areas along that river, it is virtually impossible for anyone to enter one country from the other.

Back to my point. Is there really and truly an emergency occurring down yonder? I have trouble believing that the illegal immigration situation today is any worse than it has been for decades. Indeed, I keep hearing about surveys that tell us that illegal border crossings have declined in recent years. Border Patrol agents have been arresting and deporting undocumented immigrants for as long as the agency has existed.

Trump has sought to scare the daylights out of Americans by implying that hordes of illegal immigrants are pouring across the border to commit all manner of crimes against unsuspecting Americans. I will admit I haven’t spent a lot of time on the border, but I have been there and have wondered where the hordes of criminals have been hiding.

I am simply not going to accept the president’s assertion about the need to declare an emergency. I really wonder if it really exists.

Now it’s the Freedom Caucus resisting emergency declaration

Donald Trump listens only to his political base. The rest of us can go straight to hell, in Trump’s world.

Get a load of this: The Freedom Caucus, the group of ultraconservative members of the U.S. House of Representatives, is now pushing back on the president’s desire to declare a national emergency so he can obtain money to build The Wall along our southern border. Such a declaration might empower the president take funds earmarked for other projects to pay for The Wall.

No can do, Mr. President. Many of us believe that’s illegal.

The Freedom Caucus speaks out and, guess what, Trump pulls the emergency declaration off the table, at least for the time being.

At issue is government shutdown. It’s about to set a record for longevity. Hundreds of thousands of government workers have been furloughed or are working without pay. They’re mad as hell. They’re griping to their members of Congress. Many of them are starting to hear their constituents’ complaints.

Trump has declared a “crisis” on our southern border. It’s a phony issue. The only crisis is occurring inside the White House and on Capitol Hill. I don’t mean to say we should throw open our borders and let everyone in — legally or illegally.

However, the national emergency won’t do a thing to stem whatever is occurring on the border. Illegal crossings have declined for decades. So have arrests. Trump, though, made a stupid campaign pledge to build The Wall; he said Mexico would pay for it, but now he is trying to foist the cost of The Wall on you and me while denying he ever said Mexico would write “a check.” Well, actually he did say such a thing.

In the meantime, about 800,000 federal employees have been kicked around like a battered football. They are suffering. They need to work. Trump, though, says he can “relate” to their troubles. The truth is he cannot relate at all; no rich kid who inherits millions from his father can “relate” to someone who’s actually must work for a living to feed his or her family and keep a roof over their heads. The president of the United States doesn’t demonstrate empathy for anyone — period!

There must not be a national emergency declaration. The president says the law is “100 percent behind” him. Actually, that’s a highly debatable point and you can bet every nickel in your piggy bank that Democrats are going to take any such declaration to court.

And, yes, the Freedom Caucus just might join them.

Pay attention, Mr. President. Your “base” is cracking.

National emergency draws bipartisan criticism

Donald Trump might declare a national emergency.

His rationale is to spend $5 billion to build The Wall on our border with Mexico. The president cannot get Congress to approve it. So he has shut down part of the government. Now he’s considering whether to invoke some form of executive authority that a number of constitutional scholars believe is illegal.

OK, then. What happens now?

Congressional Democrats — no surprise there — are sounding the alarm. You can’t do that, Mr. President, they say. We’re going to sue. This is a reach way beyond the presidential grasp, they contend.

Oh, but wait! Congressional Republicans are sounding a note of wariness as well. None other than U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry, the former chairman of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee — and a committed Republican — says declaring an emergency and deploying military personnel to build The Wall is not in keeping with the Pentagon’s mission.

Other congressional GOP members want the shutdown to end. They want to reopen the government and they want to then resume negotiations to seek a solution to this border security matter.

The U.S. Constitution gives government funding responsibility to Congress. The president does have executive authority, to be sure. However, it remains an open question whether he can re-direct funds appropriated for defense needs to build The Wall that the president believes is a response to threats to our national security.

Except that there is no national threat occurring on our southern border.

Yes, we need to curb illegal immigration. The number of illegal immigrants crossing the border has decreased over many years. The president would have us believe that criminals are “pouring” into the country. They are posing an immediate threat to our national well-being, he says.

It’s a fantasy. Donald Trump is trying to keep a campaign promise he never should have made in the first place, but he did. Now he’s on the hook. He believes he needs to keep it.

I almost forgot! The most significant part of that pledge to build The Wall was that Mexico was going to pay for it. Mexico won’t pay, but Trump then declared in his 10-minute Oval Office talk Tuesday night that a new trade deal with Mexico is going to pay for The Wall. He didn’t say how that would happen. Hey, who needs details?

Donald Trump is flirting with an actual crisis of an entirely different kind if he declares that national emergency.