National emergency?
As expected, President Trump signed the budget bill and declared a national emergency in order to move additional funds towards the task of building a wall.
(And I have some outside obligations for the next few hours, so I may take this up again in the late afternoon or early evening.)
But here’s my quick take—
I’m not sure why Trump signed a budget bill that so many people seem to think contains poison pills, except that he wanted to avert another shutdown crisis. I’ve long thought that the Democratic Congress held the winning hand on that because all shutdowns are automatically blamed—with a huge assist from the MSM—on the GOP, whether it’s the GOP controlling the House or the GOP controlling the executive branch. The rule is that it’s always the GOP at fault no matter which part of the government, and therefore which side of the argument, they represent.
And I’m also not sure why, having signed the bill, Trump’s going the national emergency route if—as many have previously suggested—he has other ways to move the money into wall-building. The national emergency route is the one I see as most fraught with political and constitutional peril. No doubt some of Trump’s legal advisors have said it will work out. But I think it gives the Democrats in Congress and elsewhere much ammunition to declare him a tyrant who must be stopped, and it does this at a time when the Democrats were busily engaged in sinking themselves in so many ways. This allows them to change the emphasis entirely.
Then again, no matter what Trump did about this issue (except, perhaps, for caving entirely), the Democrats would say he was being a tyrant.
Also, if the shoe were on the other foot, I have no doubt that the Democrats would defend a Democratic president who did the equivalent of what he’s doing (it wouldn’t be to build a wall, of course, but to some other purpose) and declare it perfectly fine.
And yes, national emergencies are declared all the time and we don’t notice. That’s because they are on relatively minor issues and involve relatively minor things. This involves the clash of two large principles—Congress’s power to pass a budget, and the presidential power to protect our borders.
The underlying problem is even bigger than that—it’s the breakdown of government into warring factions that have stripped away all pretense of comity and cooperation, all sense of “we’re in this together.” I used to think [see *NOTE below] that we had that general sense, and that it was not an illusion.
And the loss of that is the real national emergency.
*NOTE: I’m adding this note because I realize that the phrase “I used to think” needs clarification, although I hadn’t thought it did when I wrote it.
I don’t mean that “I used to think” we had a spirit of cooperation until last week. I don’t mean I used to think it until last month, or last year, or even last decade. When did I first realize it was gone? Perhaps during the 1990s or perhaps even earlier. I’m not sure, and there was no “aha!” moment when it struck me. It was a slowly growing perception that developed over several decades, and there were many elements and events and reactions to those events that fed into it.
So, when was it that I had thought that most of the nation felt that we’re in this together and needed to cooperate, at least on the really big things? I suppose I felt it very much when I was a child, during the 50s and then the early 60s. The disruption in this feeling began in the late 60s, of course, in dramatic fashion, but it still seemed (to me, at least) to recover somewhat during the 70s and 80s.
Perhaps that was an illusion. I also know I wasn’t paying close attention during those in-between years, when I was a young adult raising a child. It was during the 90s when I felt something was beginning to be very very wrong again. Then there was a brief period of togetherness (illusory togetherness, as it turns out) for a short while after 9/11, except for the vocal left. The more basic disunity problem came not too long after 9/11, and it has been growing and growing ever since.
Now it has reached a fever pitch, but by no means has it topped out.
One can get a sense of “we’re all in this together” if one shares fundamental ideas about government, about one citizen’s relationship to another and to his government. I don’t share a single principal in those areas with the Democratic Party and the left. How does one reach comity with those whose idea of society is authoritarian, collectivist and racist/tribalist?
Your second-last paragraph is an interesting one. In some respects, I think there was comity… when the left got its way. Bipartisan has never seemed to be a thing where the left actually gives something up. Now that there’s some pushback, the masks are off.
But I think there is more comity within the Congress now than it appears. Look how many Chamber of Commerce Republicans joined together with the Dems on this bill that has ugly implications for immigration policies. There’s lot of bluster, but in the end, they’re both putting their interests and those of their donor bases above the interests of the citizens of the United States. The UniParty.
Now Trump on the other hand, he’s the monkey wrench in the gears.
Interesting saga to watch play out.
IMHO of course – it’s not that we’re splitting apart NOW. We’ve been splitting apart for decades now… with the Frankfurt School’s infiltration and the Gramscian “Long March”. We’re just finally SEEING it now, openly exposed.
Bill M… I agree. They’re two diametrically opposed doctrines. Conflict is inevitable.
“we’re in this together.” I used to think that we had that general sense, and that it was not an illusion.
There were times in my lifetime when that was true, and the Dem party had fiscal conservatives too. Those are days gone by.
Breitbart has what appears to be a nice summary of the landmines in the spending bill and the duplicity or incompetence of the GOP leadership. This is why I would not give a [expletive] nickel to Mitch McConnell or the RNSC.
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This involves the clash of two large principles—Congress’s power to pass a budget, and the presidential power to protect our borders.
My understanding is that the President’s power to spend, at least modest sums, on national security emergencies always supersedes Congressional authority. I think that is the point of declaring the emergency. Congress cannot write legislation to override the Constitutional powers. Well, in this case they can write it, but it can’t hold up in court.
The principles may be large, but the money and actions involved is not that big. Obama’s transfer of cash to Iran was comparable in size if you include the funds released to Iran from banks. How many US and Brit soldiers can you dismember with IEDs for $1.7B or $6.7B? Did the Senate pass a treaty in that case?
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Then again, no matter what Trump did about this issue (except, perhaps, for caving entirely), the Democrats would say he was being a tyrant.
When have they not called him a tyrant? Oh that’s right, when they are calling him incompetent and senile. Rod Rosenstein to the rescue!
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday issued a warning to Republicans poised to support President Trump’s decision to declare a national emergency at the southern border: the next Democratic president, she said, could do the same on guns.
“A Democratic president can declare emergencies, as well,” Pelosi told reporters in the Capitol. “So the precedent that the president is setting here is something that should be met with great unease and dismay by the Republicans.”
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/430098-pelosi-warns-gop-next-president-could-declare-national-emergency-on-guns
This seems inevitable. And not a good thing.
I agree with Dave, and the UniParty comment.
I’m tempted to call the news coming out of congress a bunch of Kabuki Theater HS, but the consequences are large.
I’m similarly tempted to call the Chamber of Commerce evil, but I think that some of those folks think that immigration of all types helps counteract our zero or slightly negative replacement birth rate. And cheapens low end laborers.
This is where Tucker Carlson once again comes in for some reluctant praise from me, for “breaking ranks” (Athough he is from California originally and lived in D.C., not New York) and forthrightly stating the obvious. Paraphrase: “They despise you for who and what you are.”
The actual comity, not just an illusion of it, been gone for years, what there was of it. If it ever existed. And reading history, I’m not sure that it ever did. (Cite the “federalist” attitude) My reply then is a shrug. Why pretend?
For a long time, speaking in generalities. the middle of the country was simply not aware of the depth of the contempt and hostility of the progressive east coast. The South knew it, but the Midwest did not. And at certain points in our political development that hostility simply did not matter as much, as the country was decentralized enough so that one vision of the future was not able to use political means to subvert and sabotage any alternative route to economic success or cut off all independent means of escape or development.
It was probably impossible in the 1960’s for automotive engineers and executives in Detroit and Grosse Pointe, or machine tool executives in Milwaukee or Cincinnati, or aerospace employees in Missouri to appreciate how much they were held in contempt by people out east, even as they were needed for some purposes.
But they were, and I saw some of it first hand years ago myself as I entered the business some decades later. I was simply baffled by the smug and pompous attitude of people who did not realize their own limitations. Though I will say that at the middle class level, it improved markedly during some rough times when people engaged in manufacturing came to realize that whether they were in Bridgeport Ct, or Rockford Ill, their interests and ultimately their values, were largely aligned.
But the political class? Naw …
“Bill M on February 15, 2019 at 12:10 pm at 12:10 pm said:
When I started commenting on the Internet with regard to the RKBA debate, well before the SC settled it in our favor with Heller, I seemed to be the only one (in my small circle) asking that question. I thought my insight that democracy is good at settling questions over bridge funding and levels of national defense, but not so good at settling disputes over existential and life-way questions was one that need to be thrust in the faces of naive conservatives who could not see that questions of basic life values were not amenable to compromise, and that the left not only knew and accepted it but openly proclaimed it. “Why do you think they are calling you “Neanderthals”?
Now , a generation of smart and on-the-ball young men have faced up to that issue. They realize that the left has no intention of compromising; they recognize the left accepts no limits to their conceit of being in charge of a universally reaching directed social evolution program. The younger libertarians and conservatives squarely face the fact that the American left thinks that “Boundaries” are for the superstitious; that they will be gods, or die trying. And that if they kill you, well it’s just what they see as part of the price of human progress.
The new guys get it.
“…as the country was decentralized enough so that one vision of the future was not able to use political means to subvert and sabotage any alternative route to economic success or cut off all independent means of escape or development.”
This is key.
I wrote in a comment elsewhere, that the 17th Amendment in 1913 moved the trend toward centralization along, inasmuch as:
The 17th Amendment had much to do with the general destruction of the original design of the checks and balances BETWEEN the two houses of congress as well as between the legislative and the executive branches.
When the 17A made election to the senate a popular vote instead of state appointment, it duplicated (and intensified) the incentive for passage of laws that appeal to the individual voters who want (as an economist might say) “…concentrated benefits and dispersed costs,” as a means of attracting election and re-election votes.
It also destroyed the several states’ check on laws that they judge to be detrimental to and/or destructive of their sovereignty. Remember that the federal government was a compact among the sovereign states (actually, the People as expressed through the states); it was not an overlord except in very strictly restrained matters deemed of joint national importance and best handled at that level.
Re. locus of sovereignty: ” (actually, the People as expressed through the states);
I’ll be damned, you must have read Dicey.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/dicey-introduction-to-the-study-of-the-law-of-the-constitution-lf-ed
“I’ll be damned, you must have read Dicey.”
Sorry, since there’s no “tone” on the ‘net — I’m not sure whether you’re being snarky? I’ve never heard of Dicey…. I was just trying to be accurate in my writing.
I’m not sure why Trump signed a budget bill
Rush Limbaugh just said what I have been wondering about, He has not seen any report that Trump signed the CR,
My opinion.
I’m not sure why Trump signed a budget bill that so many people seem to think contains poison pills, except that he wanted to avert another shutdown crisis.
I think Trump is actually deferential to the legislature. Like if something actually passes the House and Senate, especially with significant margins, he feels that it should be signed. He has 0 vetoes so far. It’s like he does not see vetoes as a strategic tool, unlike most political commentators or strategists.
Now, maybe things would be different if the Democrats controlled both the House and the Senate.
From the already mentioned “poison pill” provisions in this bill, Trump would be a fool to sign it, because it would put so many restrictions on his ability to act, so many roadblocks in the way of any actions Trump might take to build the Wall–for instance, allowing challenges to building the Wall by the mayors of cities on the border, etc.–that it would make it impossible for him to do so.
Why declare a National Emergency, and then sign a bill that would block you from taking actions to stop that National Emergency from occurring?
Since “warring factions” and a lack of comity and cooperation is a topic here, I thought I’d bring up an amazing book I’ve about finished called “America’s First Great Depression …” (2012) by Alasdair Roberts. The author’s motivation for writing it was the credit/banking bust of 2008 and history rhyming with itself. The story begins just before the banking panic of 1837 and ends around 1844 as the French revolution is heating up.
Roberts is a “good government” Democrat and something of an apologist for the terrible mistakes of Andrew Jackson and Van Buren, but his coverage of the history is very solid. Things that happened or were created during this depression were:
Closure of the Fed. gov. bank and disbursement of Fed. monies to banks in the states.
Nine states defaulting on their bond debt.
The creation of property taxes and state gov. balanced budget amendments.
An armed coup de tat of the state gov. in Rhode Island, later put down.
Thousands of armed rioters in Philadelphia including canon fired by rioters.
The creation of modern police forces as a result of the above.
It seems to me that the advantage of the bill is that it formally acknowledges in law that Congress approves the extension/expansion of a barrier (by whatever description it may go), as well as the acknowledgement that other & additional security measures are necessary along the southern border. Pelosi can no longer declare its immorality, or whatever other specious arguments against that overall issue she might make.
If Trump can find funds already in the bank account to pay for however much more of that barrier he can, the prerequisite acknowledgement by Congress of its usefulness is already there. Sure, the devil is in the details, but the concept is already accepted.
We should expect to see some interesting politicking and court activity coming up, I suspect.
In any case, Trump needed to get unstuck from this contretemps that he cannot win without the 100% support of Republicans in Congress.
Also, as a sidebar: may I do some venting, and add that it annoys me no end (and I heard it again on NPR just this morning) when someone says that the Republicans had control of the executive and both branches of Congress for two years. Well, no. The Repubs had a majority in the Senate – they did not have *control*, and it is even more misleading to say so when there were an absolute 3-5 Republican senators (at either end of the spectrum by the way so you could not satisfy them all) who would bolt on any given issue.
“Why declare a National Emergency, and then sign a bill that would block you from taking actions to stop that National Emergency from occurring?”
Because the Constitution gives the Pres. primary authority to act on national security emergencies. Don’t like it? Pass an amendment.
Andrew C. McCarthy:
Summary of above comments:
Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah.
Something’s got to give.
TommyJay:
I think that Snow on Pine may have been questioning Trump’s signing the bill, considering the poison pill elements, rather than his declaring the National Emergency. At least, that’s the way I interpreted that comment.
To all: Please see the NOTE I added at the end of the post for some clarification about how far back I think the basic problem goes.
coloComment:
I thought of that—that he signed the bill to get Congress’s authorization for a wall, however limited in scope—but there are a couple of problems with that argument. The first is that the poison pill additions severely curtail some of his powers vis a vis the border and deportations. The second is that I believe there already was a bill passed by Congress (I believe it was during the Bush administration, but I don’t have time at the moment to look this up) that authorized a wall, but the funds had never been voted on. So I believe that Congressional authorization for a wall may already have been in place.
I could be wrong about that, though.
By the way, this article (and others) say Trump did sign the budget bill. I suppose the article may be incorrect, though. But it is my assumption that he in fact did sign it, in order to avert another shutdown.
ColoComment:
I agree 100% with your point about whether the Republicans had control of the Senate in the first two years of Trump’s presidency. They did not have it except technically, on paper. In reality there were almost always enough defectors to make control impossible.
I’ve written about this time and time again. The left, Democrats, and the MSM like to mention that the GOP had control in order to fan the flames of the portion of the right who try to blame the entire GOP for not wanting to pass certain legislation that they in fact might want to pass if they had a large enough majority to not worry about a couple of RINOs. And it’s a rather large and vocal element on the right who cooperate fully by spreading the ire and angst at the GOP far and wide. The most basic effect of all of this is that the Democrats get more seats in Congress.
That’s not to say that the Republicans are heroic, principled figures. Many if not most are politicians first and foremost, and often disappoint. But I don’t think they get credit for the difficulties they face when their majority is tiny.
I like that Prez Trump focused his Rose Garden comments today on safety & security – that’s a winning strategy. His pointing out that China executes drug dealers makes what Trump wants to do appear quite civilized & vividly more like the kind of country the USA is all about. All that is good persuasion.
If Prez Trump hadn’t invoked an emergency, that still couldn’t stop a Democrat prez from declaring one for any reason, so the argument over this point is moot, as far as I’m concerned.
Given that Prez Trump believes that the Dems will get a friendly judge within the 9th Circuit’s jurisdiction to lay down a restraining order, I marvel that the White House didn’t have their own friendly judge lined up within a conservative circuit to immediately invoke such an order at the end of his remarks this morning – that would keep the appeal in a more friendly jurisdiction.
There are many factors one can consider regarding signing the bill, but I think the salient feature about the legislation is it is designed to impede the President – and it was crafted by both republicans and democrats. As an aside, I am of the opinion that the number of republicans who actually support the President are a minority and many of those who voted against the bill did so to maintain appearances knowing full well it would pass.
To not have signed the bill would have accomplished nothing – it may actually have closed off the President’s options. I am not totally clear on this point but I believe the elements of the bill have an expiration date so the impact is only temporary until the next funding bill. I think the President is taking that into account. At least signing the bill gives him a starting point (land mines and all) and he can go charging forward – which he surely will.
The thing will ultimately be decided in the courts. Hopefully the issue will get a fair hearing. (But then I used to believe in the Justice Department.)
Just think how sweet and great the victory will be if the President and the Country overcome these circumstances.
If not – well South America will no longer be able to claim exclusive right to the term ”banana republic”.
Neo: I believe you’re right about the earlier authorization, but I don’t have any idea what the terms and conditions of that earlier law might have been. I do recall reading that no funds were appropriated at that time for the purpose.
I also believe that information *was* used by Trump et al. during this last showdown. He and spokespeople said [paraphrased] how could Pelosi call it immoral now, when Congress had approved it some years ago?
If we had a truly unbiased media, maybe that blatant contradiction would have gotten more attention.
Interesting times for sure. …and now I see that Scotus will take up the census question re: immigration.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/list-31-national-emergencies-effect-years/story?id=60294693
Ample precedent. What’s different now? Trump.
DNW on February 15, 2019 at 1:55 pm at 1:55 pm said:
“The new guys get it.”
They are not the only ones.
There has never been comity as far back as the Revolution. The percentage who fought against the crown was nowhere near a majority. We all should be able to look back and identify the various fragmentation of any sense of comity.
Lots of thoughtful comments above, and probably more to come; but from my POV, the 17th is a good example of what went wrong. However, the most egregious problem is the complete abrogation of the 9th and 10th. DC has long ignored the limitations to their power to enter into societal issues that should be beyond their enumerated powers.
One ring to rule them all and in the darkness and bind them. I was taught, by my parents, to never trust government simply because government is inhabited by easily corruptable human beings, not angels. I have long been an enemy of the deep state, I am a lifetime member of the NRA and numerous 2nd rights organizations. Stand me up on the Capitol steps or before SCOTUS and I will not back down.
Not my usual short comment, but as I have noted before, i knew long ago the left wants me silent, and if not silent, dead, including my family and friends. Each of you are an enemy of the state. Get used to it.
While the invaders from outside are worrisome, the true emergency is the now-confirmed attempted coup by traitors at the highest levels of our government, and whether they will be dealt with appropriately.
Ours is an adversarial system, on purpose. Comity and bipartisanship are the exception, not the rule.
As for signing the bill, I have a question: are so-called signing statements still allowed? Can Trump sign the bill and instruct the executive branch to ignore the bits he doesn’t like? I’ve honestly lost track of whether this particular thing is still possible. Was a big area of criticism when Bush II and Obama were in office.
I think that Neo is right that the were times when our politicians pulled together, but also that it was infrequent even back then. Don’t forget about gov. corruption. Here’s Wikipedia on why we ended up with the terrible 17th Amendment.
_____
One of the things I’m hearing from the talking heads (Adam Lashinsky) about the budget deal and the emergency EO is that the legislature has made a decision on a border wall, and that decision is NO.
Well, that’s not what they said. They said that they want $1.7B worth of border wall or barrier. Is it not an important judicial issue that congress has stated that they are not fundamentally opposed to building a barrier? One could interpret the legislation as declaring “maybe” to the building of the wall, since it requires public and county commentary on the wall. Still, that’s not fundamental opposition. So Trump’s defiance is only, or primarily, on the amounts involved.
Civil War? Military Junta? One way or another, it’s going to come down to armed force.
Simply because ideological fanatics* view “live and let live”, as an anathema. Marxist ideology sees power and control as absolutely necessary to fundamental transformation.
* the democrat party’s leadership are ideological fanatics, demonstrated by their immunity to facts, logic, reason and plain common sense. The only real difference between Pelosi/Schumer and Sanders/AOC is in their view of how quickly “fundamental transformation” can take place and on how honest they should be about their actual goals. But they agree as to the goal.
I have a really discouraging take on the shared comity observation. Republics with rulers chosen by elections work OK when they have obvious and dangerous outside enemies. As one of our founding fathers put it during the revolutionary war (paraphrasing) we must hang together or most assuredly we will all hang separately. Later on the same reasoning applies to the losing side of each successive election in a small republic. The losers can acquiesce in their loss, in return for another chance at winning in the next election, or they can go into rebellion and risk losing forever any chance at future victory when the resulting disunity lets an outside power take over the country.
Next consider what happens when a republic no longer has dangerous outside enemies, like the US after it won the cold war. Now there is really no reason — beyond habit and a lack of imagination — for the losing side in any election to acquiesce in the loss. Why not go into a slow motion rebellion, repeatedly violating the spirit if not the letter of the rules governing the republic? That is exactly the problem that now faces the US. Too many top politicians do not really believe that any other country can seriously threated the world’s first “hyperpower” and blatantly try to see how much bad behavior they can get away with after losing elections.
Several millenia ago Rome faced this same problem when, as a republic, its obvious military superiority made it the acknowledged supreme power in the Mediterranean. The Roman state solved this problem by turning into an empire. Although the forms of the previous republic were kept for a time, everyone knew that the Roman senators always voted the way the emperor, backed by the army, told them to — or else they ended up dead. Maybe republics only work correctly when they are seriously challenged by hostile outside groups, and fall apart — transforming into something else — when these hostile groups are gone and there is no real reason for those who have lost an election to acquiesce in their loss. I now understand something a Soviet spokesman said as the Soviet Union was breaking up at the end of the cold war (again paraphrasing): We are going to deal you [that is, the US] a truly terrible blow by taking away your enemy. Perhaps in this sense the Soviet Union understood us better than we understood ourselves.
Does this mean the US republic is doomed? Maybe not, if China can throw a sufficient scare into our corrupt politicians for them once again to start worrying about “hanging separately”…
“ColoComment on February 15, 2019 at 2:13 pm at 2:13 pm said:
No snark whatsoever. Just surprised pleasure in seeing someone who got it right.
You were accurate, and admirably so; paraphrasing in effect, one of the great commentators on constitutional systems in his remarks on the US system in particular.
Then again, no matter what Trump did about this issue (except, perhaps, for caving entirely), the Democrats would say he was being a tyrant.
That’s called FREEDOM!!!
Freedoms just another word for, nothing left to lose… – Janis Jopli – Pearl
I can’t do what ten people tell me to do
So I guess I’ll remain the same – Otis Redding Dock of the Bay
if they are going to treat him as a villain no matter what he does, he certainly has no reason not to be one, or be one, or anything, because once they fire that gun “aint nothing left to fire”. click click your a villain twice over? What happens when they finally see a real wolf? would they know?
The left has no tactic for someone who they have no effect on personally – everything they have done since the fait accompli is try to find more and more pressure to bring to bear, and unending just to get some way to influence the outcomes by other means…
There are always enemies outside the gates, that is a given. It is always the enemies inside within that pose the greatest threat. The left has been unmasked, thanks to the election of that rascal djt. As noted above, the left demands you be silent, and if not silent, dead. You are all enemies that the left demands be silent, or if not silent dead. The only thing you have to do to be safe is give up your liberty. Most will pay that price.
I am beyond sick and tired of the Dems’ automatically being against anything P. Trump proposes. The tone that sets is depressing. No matter if something like the wall makes total sense, they are against it. Why? Because he is for it.
[DNW on February 15, 2019 at 6:50 pm at 6:50 pm]
Aha, then thanks for that!
Sometimes I truly wonder if I’m simply opening my mouth (aka typing on the keyboard) only to prove myself a fool. It’s always lovely to learn that someone agrees with my thoughts on an issue.
(OTOH, I am also always happy to be set straight if I’m in error….)
PS: I have saved that link to read later & give you thanks for that, as well.
And I’m also not sure why, having signed the bill, Trump’s going the national emergency route if—as many have previously suggested—he has other ways to move the money into wall-building.
Well your going to find out soon. during his SOTU he said a blatant shocking thing about the US not being socialist. Nancy and most old timers were smart enough to applaud – even Elizabeth Warren.
An event that may trigger changers just happened!!!
His actually doing what NANCY thinks is unthinkable, got her so riled she exposed herself and a lot more!!!!
“A Democratic president can declare emergencies, as well,” she said
and
“Let’s talk about today: The one-year anniversary of another manifestation of the epidemic of gun violence in America,” Pelosi said. “That’s a national emergency. Why don’t you declare that emergency, Mr. President? I wish you would.
“But a Democratic president can do that.”
Then perfectly on cue without thinking – Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) shared a tweet calling several issues championed by Democrats, such as climate change and income inequality, a “national emergency.”
Gun violence is a national emergency
Climate Change is a national emergency
Income inequality is a national emergency
Access to healthcare is a national emergency
Building a wall on the southern border is not.
Trump is willing to declare an emergency to get action on the border wall, a point of his election platform and what he technically was elected to pursue over hard drive Harriet
How many smart people with any sense are reading the above and realizing, the next president may use their emergency powers to override foundational constitutional rights!!
IF your a democrat and you like hunting, will you think a national emergency on your hobby will let you go unmolested? how about republican? how about independent with their ears perking up?
This is now starting to appear in articles, and someone is going to put it a lot better than i am… however, lets just say they “overplayed their hand”….
nice things about presidential power of emergency…
you can end it as fast as you declared it…
but the dems are now in a double bind… catch 22… etc..
If they press the tit-for-tat, they can scare their own base who might want lots of things but probably a whole lot dont want to completely lose one right… because the day after? it will be like, that was easy, lets do more…
if they go to the court to bind this up, they bind their future up too.. and they certainly like the small basket of things outside the law from executive orders, emergency powers, signing statements…
now i distinctly remember trying to discuss these odd vehicles and how they were getting more and more important given what they contain going back and just sitting and in how more recent years were a favored way to go…
this goes to other things too… if the president does not have this power to do this this way and so on, then i guess DACA just got more interesting in how it was birthed..
They are tapdancing in a daerah ranjau and don’t know it…
because they don’t know what it looks like to watch themselves…
right now articles are hitting AOC about Amazon leaving Long Island City
when you read them, do note that they do not mention queensbridge housing
The largest single section 8 housing all along the river in the most prime luxury real estate and million dollar views… they could have walked to gantry park and amazon…
they have pie on their face in that they lost 27 billion (ny times) for stopping 3 billion in what was never a pile of cash they could use for other things!!!!!!!!
there isnt going to be 3 billion to use for ravenswood houses or nycha or schools, as they listed… and got people to protest Bezos only owns 16% of shares, over 80% is elsewhere, like city pensions and Vanguard retirement funds… (two examples)…
people only perceive things in a band of time and energy and so forth
outside what they are made to perceive, they perceive nothing…
this is why progressive incrementalism for 130 years or so has worked
but any time they move too fast that people notice and start to look
then things are not so easy
make them expose themselves by their own actions is the only way to win the debate because any verbal argument is a deflection…
they are not at all used to a worthy opponent…
Francesca on February 15, 2019 at 7:11 pm at 7:11 pm said: I am beyond sick and tired of the Dems’ automatically being against anything …………….. No matter if something like the wall makes total sense, they are against it. Why? Because he is for it.
and you missed the video of Professor Waggstaff
Groucho Marx – I’m against it! – Horse Feathers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtMV44yoXZ0
I dont know waht they have to say
It makes no difference any way
whatever it is, im against it
no matter what it is or who commenced it
im against it
He did sign the CR. The only excuse I can think of is that he wants to get the wall authorized, even in such a crippled fashion. Then, if he can win the House back in 2020, the poison pills can be undone with new legislation.
This is all about 2020. If the Democrats can defeat him, it is all over.
After WW II there WAS a lot of country unity, except for those commies and McCarthy’s excessive fear of them, altho the Rosenbergs really were spies.
Thru the 50s – early 60s America was fairly united. But the Dem invasion of Vietnam, supported by Reps, but causing US deaths without victory, was terrible.
The Killing Fields genocide in Cambodia after the Dems in 1975 decided to accept commie victory was worse, but gets almost no publicity.
If the Dem media doesn’t report or talk about a genocide, should people be bothered by it? (I am. )
But the longer term loss of civility really started in 1973 — there is a March for Life each year to protest it. Roe v Wade will destroy America.
It is destroying America.
The 9th & 10th Amendments should have meant that abortion was a states issue, unless there was a new amendment. Too many lawmakers, and voters, were too willing to let the courts decide an essential value of American civilization.
And a huge number of people disagree with that decision. Plus, since those who disagree have more kids than the pro-abortion feminists, the demographics (it’s destiny!) mean an increasing number of kids will be raised in pro-life families.
The split from Vietnam was resolved by the US leaving. Roe v Wade can’t be left behind, and the opposition to it has become more implacable — yet the support for abortion has also become more radical (third trimester fetal humans being killed for the convenience of their mothers is terrible, and terribly sad).
The pro-life people think having an abortion is a sinful act. The pro-abortion people, mostly without any clear God, still think the pro-life people are evil people.
On a Wall vs Open Borders, the Dems today essentially claim that any who support building a Wall, or even enforcing our borders, is evil. They were taught this in the tax-supported indoctrination centers called college and school. The “open secret” discrimination against hiring Rep professors has become a derangement by Dems demonizing Reps as evil.
First discriminate against Reps, accept insulting them, slandering them, falsely accusing them all of any crimes of any, guilt by association. Then demonize them. So as to feel good when fighting, however dirty the fight gets. The dirty Reps deserve it, and worse, according to many leading Dems. And the new leaders are among the most strident in calling Reps evil.
Big feasible step is to stop tax-advantages to edu orgs that don’t hire Reps. Quotas would be fastest. Seems unlikely.
Roe v Wade should be overturned, or partially so, to explicitly allow unborn fetal humans the protection of human rights at some time before birth. 24 weeks? (instead of 36-40). 21 weeks? Totally allow states to make their own decisions?
America will not be united until we can agree to disagree without violence.
“No matter if something like the wall makes total sense, they are against it. Why? Because he is for it.” Francesca
They’re certainly against anything Trump is for but on certain issues like illegal immigration, they would be against a wall regardless of what Republican was President.
Democrats see illegal immigration as the strategic and tactical key to creating a one party State. That is the most immediate reason why they are for open borders, benefits for illegals and sanctuary cities/counties/states.
Ideologically, they’ve embraced the theory of transnationalism, which posits that cultural and national boundaries are the cause of war.
That simplistic, anti-reality, anti-human nature ‘theory’ proclaims that if we just get rid of national and cultural barriers… Voila! Humanity will finally be free to sit around the campfire singing kumbaya…
One of the major deficiencies of leftists is that they have no grasp of the reality of human nature.
Magnus on February 15, 2019 at 3:42 pm at 3:42 pm said:
…
If Prez Trump hadn’t invoked an emergency, that still couldn’t stop a Democrat prez from declaring one for any reason, so the argument over this point is moot, as far as I’m concerned.
* * *
Indeed.
Artfldgr on February 15, 2019 at 6:54 pm at 6:54 pm said:
…
if they are going to treat him as a villain no matter what he does, he certainly has no reason not to be one, …
The left has no tactic for someone who they have no effect on personally –
Artfldgr on February 15, 2019 at 7:28 pm at 7:28 pm said:
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“But a Democratic president can do that.”
Then perfectly on cue without thinking – Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) shared a tweet calling several issues championed by Democrats, such as climate change and income inequality, a “national emergency.”
Gun violence is a national emergency
Climate Change is a national emergency
Income inequality is a national emergency
Access to healthcare is a national emergency
Building a wall on the southern border is not.
…
How many smart people with any sense are reading the above and realizing, the next president may use their emergency powers to override foundational constitutional rights!!
…
but the dems are now in a double bind… catch 22… etc..
If they press the tit-for-tat, they can scare their own base who might want lots of things but probably a whole lot dont want to completely lose one right… because the day after? it will be like, that was easy, lets do more…
if they go to the court to bind this up, they bind their future up too.. and they certainly like the small basket of things outside the law from executive orders, emergency powers, signing statements…
* * *
Good points.
However, the Left has had considerable success in getting some courts to rule that certain actions are only illegal if done by a Republican.
Talk about decline of comity!
“One of the major deficiencies of leftists is that they have no grasp of the reality of human nature.” Francesca
I see that as half the equation of which the Left’s premises consist.
The other half is that the Left rejects certain key operative principles of the external reality within which we all exist. And if you reject… what is you are disconnected from reality itself, which is why liberalism IS a mental dis-ease.
Operative principles like supply and demand. Operative Principles like Churchill’s “unequal sharing of blessings” an absolutely necessary evolutionary principle that governs the evolutionary process. Without which evolution itself is impossible nor the civilizational progress that arises from individual’s conceptual breakthroughs.
“How many smart people with any sense are reading the above and realizing, the next president may use their emergency powers to override foundational constitutional rights!!” AesopFan
There’s no “may” about it. As soon as they think they can get away with it, they WILL do so. And ultimately, to make it stick, they have to disarm us.
Francesca on February 16, 2019 at 12:20 am at 12:20 am said:
One of the major deficiencies of leftists is that they have no grasp of the reality of human nature.
* * *
Cases In Point:
(the blog post was about the homelessness problem and its consequent ills – sometimes literally, as in typhus in LA)
https://accordingtohoyt.com/2019/02/15/compassion/comment-585938
Christopher M. Chupik | February 15, 2019 at 9:22 pm | Reply
In my hometown right now there’s a big kerfuffle about the crime rate spiking in the vicinity of a “safe injection site” downtown. Many people seem very surprised by this entirely unpredictable turn of events.
RES | February 16, 2019 at 11:15 am | Reply
Overall, the Progressives seem to have a poor grasp of Cause & Effect, often mistaking the latter for the former and routinely confusing correlation for causation.
TXRed | February 16, 2019 at 11:31 am | Reply
IIRC one of the unintended consequences on the West Coast (and probably elsewhere) of getting rid of free plastic grocery bags was the increase in human waste left in the streets. Some of the homeless had done their thing in the bags, then disposed of the results in the garbage. Without that option…