Trump 39: The Return of the Wall

[onekidanddone]

Okay then there is this:

Trump’s national emergency will only underscore his raging, delusional impotence

Quote

President Trump first said he might declare a national emergency on the grounds that we need a border wall to save our country from sliding into chaos over a month ago. This emergency was so urgent that he acted on this threat of a declaration promptly thereafter.

Oh, wait, that’s not what happened at all. Trump dragged out his first government shutdown in hopes of getting his wall, but that failed, and he caved, agreeing to reopen the government for three weeks, while a conference committee tried to work out a long-term funding deal. That went on for two weeks, until Republicans reached a deal in which they effectively told Trump the jig is up and it’s time to surrender. Trump seemed inclined to sign that and even suggested he’d just keep on saying the wall was getting built and that he was winning.

But then right-wing media called him weak, and Trump apparently realized he could no longer paper over his humiliating loss with lies. Which is why Trump will now finally make good on his threat:

President Trump is prepared to sign a massive spending and border security deal, while at the same time declaring a national emergency to get more money to build his border wall, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Thursday.

McConnell made the announcement on the Senate floor, and told senators to prepare to vote shortly on the legislation that would stave off a government shutdown Friday at midnight.

“The president will sign the bill. We’ll be voting on it shortly,” McConnell said.

McConnell also said he’d told the president he would support the emergency declaration, which would allow the president to circumvent Congress and use the military to build his wall. McConnell has voiced opposition for weeks to the idea of Trump declaring a national emergency.

The White House, in a statement, confirmed that Trump will sign the new government funding bill. Trump will then “take other executive action — including a national emergency — to ensure we stop the national security and humanitarian crisis at the border,” said press secretary Sarah Sanders, lying in the face of America about the nonexistent national security “crisis.”

McConnell’s declaration that he will support the president’s national emergency is remarkable in its cravenness, since it comes after McConnell and Senate Republicans warned Trump for weeks against it. But this also provides a big opening for House Democrats.

It goes like this: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi can hold a vote passing a resolution terminating Trump’s national emergency, and that will initiate a process that, under the National Emergencies Act, will compel a vote on the resolution by the GOP-controlled Senate. One expert recently told this blog that under the law, such a vote would end up taking place within around five weeks.

At a presser just now, Pelosi said that she might take this route. My presumption is that this hedge is largely because Trump has not actually declared the emergency yet. But regardless, there is a very strong case for Pelosi doing this. Now that McConnell has confirmed that he will back Trump, this means that most Senate Republicans will all but certainly do the same. But Pelosi should do all she can to force every Senate Republican to go on record on this matter.

Trump’s national emergency will face obstacles

Trump plainly believes declaring a national emergency will make him look like he’s acting decisively and taking control of events in the eyes of his base. But peel back the layers, and it’s clear that he’ll still face many obstacles.

First, there will be court challenges to the national emergency itself, and as Elizabeth Goetein has shown, the mere fact that Trump has delayed so long will undermine his legal argument, because it undercuts the notion that there actually is an emergency (which there isn’t).

Trump’s hesitation “belies his claim that there is an emergency at the border,” Goetein writes. “Presidents don’t dawdle in the face of real emergencies.” Now look again at the timeline I laid out above: Trump has “dawdled” for well over a month.

What’s more, by agreeing to allow conference negotiations to proceed to a deal, Trump may have further undermined his political and possibly his legal case. The more times that Congress “votes against providing the funding the president has asked for,” Goetein notes, “the clearer it becomes that an emergency declaration in this case would be designed as an end run around the Constitution.” Now it will come after a bipartisan conference committee denied Trump his wall funding, and after Congress passed that funding, which is still expected.

On top of that, even if Trump does prevail in the courts, he will then face still more litigation from landowners, as Charlie Savage recently detailed. One expert told Savage that all these legal battles won’t be resolved until 2020 at the earliest, and if Trump loses reelection, a new Democratic president can halt the project before it really starts.

And even if he were to win on all those fronts, it’s still not clear how much money Trump could round up. It’s likely that all that would result is some more of the same bollard fencing that’s been built for years, in targeted areas, since that’s what Customs and Border Protection has declared is its preferred form of barrier. It’s simply amazing that Trump is willing to put the country through all of this just for that rinky-dink outcome, which won’t look anything like his wall even if it does happen, solely because he worries about how his base perceives him.

This must embolden Democrats

And on that score, if Trump does go through with this, taking to new levels his bad faith, lying and seething contempt for our institutions and for his own institutional obligations to genuinely act in the national interest, it will become harder for House Democrats to adopt a cautious approach to things like getting Trump’s tax returns. The Democratic base and activist groups will renew the pressure on lawmakers to move on that, and they’ll have a pretty good argument, too, given that Trump’s degradations are escalating.

In the background is the fact that, with the House under Democratic control, Trump is facing mounting investigations into his corruption and misconduct, even as special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s probe appears to be advancing into late stages. The walls of accountability are closing in, which means he needs (or thinks he needs) his wall more than ever to keep his base energized behind him as the going gets tougher.

Yet the reality that he won’t realize his wall is becoming too overwhelmingly obvious to make disappear in his usual fog of bluster and lies. And as Trump’s misconduct mounts, this time in service of the wall that will never happen, it will only make the wheels of accountability turn faster and the reckoning grow nearer.

It all makes sense, and I'm trying to let this sink in. I'm still afraid though and I really really miss my dad right now. He has been gone since 2006, but I just wish I could hear his voice.

Mr OneKid is about four blocks away.

Update: It looks like he is going to the grocery store.  Well he had better bring me a treat. 

I am going to have to get up now if I like it or not.  My 55 year old bladder (yes TMI) isn't so patient.

Peed and took my Ativan. Wondering what the hell we needed at the Giant, it couldn't wait.

[formergothardite]

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/12/politics/trump-national-emergency-gop/index.html

This is going to put the GOP in a very, very bad spot. 

Spoiler

Many Capitol Hill Republicans would balk at assenting to a new norm on national emergencies, and worry about setting a precedent that future Democratic presidents could use to push a left-wing agenda item.

Two GOP sources cited Texas Sen. John Cornyn's public opposition to the move as a clear attempt to send that message to Trump.

"The whole idea that presidents -- whether it's President Trump, President Warren or President Sanders -- can declare an emergency and somehow usurp the separation of powers and get into the business of appropriating money for specific projects without Congress being involved, is a serious constitutional question," Cornyn told CNN on Feb. 4.

Constitutional issues aside, congressional appropriators in both parties guard their power closely, and an emergency declaration that redirected billions of taxpayer dollars would be seen as a clear theat. "Taken to an extreme, it would render the appropriations process meaningless," Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine told CNN.

Spoiler

t that point, though, Trump and plenty of members of his own party will have found themselves at odds with each other on the very issue Trump's has staked his presidency on. Avoiding such a scenario, then, would be a top political priority for Republican lawmakers. Otherwise, Hill Republicans will be stuck between a President determined to get his wall and newly empowered House Democrats determined to deny it to him.

 

[onekidanddone]

15 minutes ago, formergothardite said:

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/12/politics/trump-national-emergency-gop/index.html

This is going to put the GOP in a very, very bad spot. 

  Reveal hidden contents

Many Capitol Hill Republicans would balk at assenting to a new norm on national emergencies, and worry about setting a precedent that future Democratic presidents could use to push a left-wing agenda item.

Two GOP sources cited Texas Sen. John Cornyn's public opposition to the move as a clear attempt to send that message to Trump.

"The whole idea that presidents -- whether it's President Trump, President Warren or President Sanders -- can declare an emergency and somehow usurp the separation of powers and get into the business of appropriating money for specific projects without Congress being involved, is a serious constitutional question," Cornyn told CNN on Feb. 4.

Constitutional issues aside, congressional appropriators in both parties guard their power closely, and an emergency declaration that redirected billions of taxpayer dollars would be seen as a clear theat. "Taken to an extreme, it would render the appropriations process meaningless," Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine told CNN.

  Reveal hidden contents

t that point, though, Trump and plenty of members of his own party will have found themselves at odds with each other on the very issue Trump's has staked his presidency on. Avoiding such a scenario, then, would be a top political priority for Republican lawmakers. Otherwise, Hill Republicans will be stuck between a President determined to get his wall and newly empowered House Democrats determined to deny it to him.

 

Yes I agree this put them in a really bad place. Why then is McFuckFace going along with it? What the fuck is he thinking, that he goes along with this he will be given a seat at Trumps right hand when in 2020 Trump declares himself king and cancels the elections?

[formergothardite]

6 minutes ago, onekidanddone said:

Why then is McFuckFace going along with it?

They have something over him that he is more scared of than his fear of putting the GOP in a bad spot? They have dumped enough money on him that he stopped giving any fucks? 

[onekidanddone]

Feeling a little calmer now. Ativan, husband getting home and FJ helped.

Night all.

[GreyhoundFan]

"McCabe says he quickly opened FBI investigation of Trump for fear of being fired"

Spoiler

Former acting FBI director Andrew McCabe said in an interview that aired Thursday that he authorized an investigation into President Trump’s ties to Russia a day after meeting with him in May 2017 out of fear that he could soon be fired.

“I was very concerned that I was able to put the Russia case on absolutely solid ground in an indelible fashion that were I removed quickly or reassigned or fired that the case could not be closed or vanish in the night without a trace,” McCabe told CBS.

His comments were the first time McCabe has publicly addressed why he opened an investigation into Trump following the firing of former FBI director James B. Comey, whose post McCabe took over.

CBS aired a portion of an interview scheduled to air in full on “60 Minutes” on Sunday.

“I was speaking to the man who had just run for the presidency, and won the election for the presidency, and who might have done so with the aid of the government of Russia, our most formidable adversary on the world stage, and that was something that troubled me greatly,” McCabe said, recalling his first meeting with Trump.

In the clip that aired, McCabe did not address specific evidence that led him to believe Trump should be investigated personally.

It has been previously reported that the FBI began to explore at that point whether Trump was trying to obstruct justice, in part by firing Comey, and whether he personally was of concern from a counterintelligence perspective.

McCabe opened the case so quickly that some at the Justice Department were concerned that he might have acted too hastily because of Comey’s removal, people familiar with the matter have said.

In a statement to CBS, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said that McCabe had “opened a completely baseless investigation into the president.”

In the interview, McCabe also apparently addresses allegations he made in memos documenting discussions with Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein.

It has been reported previously that McCabe alleged in the memos that Rosenstein suggested wearing a wire to surreptitiously record the president and that Cabinet members considered invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office.

During an appearance on “CBS This Morning,” Scott Pelley, the correspondent who interviewed McCabe, described the discussions of the 25th Amendment as “counting noses” — or speculating on where various Cabinet members might stand on the question.

Pelley said McCabe disputes the assertion, advanced by defenders of Rosenstein, that the deputy attorney general was not serious about wearing a wire. Pelley said McCabe took the idea to FBI lawyers for a discussion afterward.

That, too, has been previously reported, though McCabe has never before publicly described his allegations.

McCabe sat for the interview as part of an effort to promote a new book, which is scheduled to be published next week.

As the interview clip aired, the Atlantic published an excerpt of McCabe’s book, in which he describes his interactions with the president after Comey’s firing.

In one encounter that he seems to view as particularly troubling, McCabe wrote that Trump pressed in an Oval Office meeting to visit the FBI, even though he had just fired its well-liked leader.

In McCabe’s view, Trump was trying to enlist McCabe in a plan to send a sinister message to employees.

“In this moment, I felt the way I’d felt in 1998, in a case involving the Russian Mafia, when I sent a man I’ll call Big Felix in to meet with a Mafia boss named Dimitri Gufield,” McCabe wrote. “The same kind of thing was happening here, in the Oval Office. Dimitri had wanted Felix to endorse his protection scheme. This is a dangerous business, and it’s a bad neighborhood, and you know, if you want, I can protect you from that. If you want my protection. I can protect you. Do you want my protection? The president and his men were trying to work me the way a criminal brigade would operate.”

A frequent punching bag for President Trump, McCabe was fired from the bureau in March just 26 hours before he could retire, after the inspector general presented Justice Department leadership with allegations that McCabe had authorized a disclosure to the media and then lied repeatedly to investigators about it.

McCabe alleged his termination was politically motivated and meant to discredit the bureau and the ongoing Russia probe.

 

[Dandruff]

A few thoughts:

- If they're trying to better control who comes into the US they'd also be gaining more info on who's leaving the US (harder to jump the border).  Is there a reason why this might matter now or at some foreseeable point?

- Could there be another reason why the government might want to acquire the land?  What other value might it have?

- The timing strikes me as especially bad for Trump's approval rating.  The people who are currently doing their taxes and not seeing their expected credit can - without too much effort (one would think) - envision where the $$s may be going.  Some of these folks were just recently put out of work over the same so-called emergency.

- Is Trump just "pounding his chest" know that this approach is (also) a loser?

[Ozlsn]

9 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

 

He does realise that affecting flight paths is likely to be a bad thing, right? 

Who am I kidding, in his fantasy world there are no logical consequences.

2 hours ago, Ais said:

Anyway, I'm glad you have your stalking to keep you focused, it helps a little.

That may be the only time that sentence has been a positive one.

I notice Jim Wright of Stonekettle Station has also done a "g'waan, call the emergency, dare ya" post - pretty much for all the reasons Republicans fear. Start working on the plans for universal healthcare, reformed taxation, reduction of greenhouse gases etc under the next, lefter leaning President. Interesting times.

 

[AmazonGrace]

4 minutes ago, Dandruff said:

A few thoughts:

- If they're trying to better control who comes into the US they'd also be gaining more info on who's leaving the US (harder to jump the border).  Is there a reason why this might matter now or at some foreseeable point?

- Could there be another reason why the government might want to acquire the land?  What other value might it have?

- The timing strikes me as especially bad for Trump's approval rating.  The people who are currently doing their taxes and not seeing their expected credit can - without too much effort (one would think) - envision where the $$s may be going.  Some of these folks were just recently put out of work over the same so-called emergency.

- Is Trump just "pounding his chest" know that this approach is (also) a loser?

The question is, who's going to get the contracts to build the wall. Trump wants to enrich somebody here, 100%

 

[Dandruff]

6 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

The question is, who's going to get the contracts to build the wall. Trump wants to enrich somebody here, 100%

ITA, but it seems that it'll be tied up for awhile and I'm wondering what else might be playing into this.

[GreyhoundFan]

A couple more tidbits from the McCabe book:

Quote

The FBI was better off when “you all only hired Irishmen,” Sessions said in one diatribe about the bureau’s workforce. “They were drunks but they could be trusted. Not like all those new people with nose rings and tattoos — who knows what they’re doing?”

Quote

McCabe’s disdain for Trump is rivaled only by his contempt for Sessions. He questions the former attorney general’s mental faculties, saying that he had “trouble focusing, particularly when topics of conversation strayed from a small number of issues.”

Logs on the electronic tablets used to deliver the President’s Daily Brief to Sessions came back with no indication he had ever punched in the passcode. The attorney general’s views on race and religion are described as reprehensible.

Sessions “believed that Islam — inherently — advocated extremism” and ceaselessly sought to draw connections between crime and immigration. “Where’s he from?” was his first question about a suspect. The next: “Where are his parents from?”

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[Cartmann99]

I listened to a depressing interview about how Trump's stupid wall will affect the National Butterfly Center in South Texas last night.

https://player.fm/series/the-bradcast-w-brad-friedman/bradcast-2132019-guest-marianna-trevino-wright-of-the-natl-butterfly-center

The interview with Marianna Trevino-Wright begins about halfway through the episode.

My diet has devolved to comfort foods this week. I've made meatloaf and garlic mashed potatoes three times in six days. I'm seriously thinking about buying some Nilla wafers and bananas to make banana pudding like my mom used to make.

I hate this.

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[fraurosena]

Ted Lieu is awesome. 

 

[Threff]

5 hours ago, Cartmann99 said:

I listened to a depressing interview about how Trump's stupid wall will affect the National Butterfly Center in South Texas last night.

https://player.fm/series/the-bradcast-w-brad-friedman/bradcast-2132019-guest-marianna-trevino-wright-of-the-natl-butterfly-center

The interview with Marianna Trevino-Wright begins about halfway through the episode.

My diet has devolved to comfort foods this week. I've made meatloaf and garlic mashed potatoes three times in six days. I'm seriously thinking about buying some Nilla wafers and bananas to make banana pudding like my mom used to make.

I hate this.

There’s a bit of hope. Maybe. https://www.texastribune.org/2019/02/14/government-shutdown-deal-includes-protections-south-texas-landmarks/

[Penny]

So Man baby is going to declare a national emergency. The only national emergency is Trump as president.  Can we all declare that a national emergency?

[GreyhoundFan]

"We have a national emergency, all right. Its name is Donald Trump."

Spoiler

We have a national emergency, all right. Its name is Donald Trump, and it is a force of mindless, pointless disruption.

The president’s decision to officially declare an emergency — to pretend to build an unbuildable border wall — is not only an act of constitutional vandalism. It is also an act of cowardice, a way to avoid the wrath of Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the far-right commentariat.

It is an end run around Congress and, as such, constitutes a violation of his oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” — which gives Congress, not the president, the authority to decide how public money is spent. It does not give Trump the right to fund projects that Congress will not approve. Authoritarian leaders do that sort of thing. The puffed-up wannabe strongman now living in the White House is giving it a try.

Let’s be clear: There is no emergency. Arrests for illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border peaked in 2000, nearly two decades ago, at more than 1.5 million a year. They declined sharply under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama and, in 2017, were at their lowest point since 1971. In 2018, apprehensions ticked up slightly — but still barely climbed above 400,000.

There has indeed been an increase in families presenting themselves at legal points of entry to seek asylum — those groups of bedraggled Central Americans that Trump calls “caravans.” Under U.S. and international law, these people have an undisputed right to ask for asylum and have their cases evaluated. Again, they come to legal border crossings to seek admission. Only a handful try to navigate the forbidding rural terrain where Trump says he wants to build a wall.

What the administration really needs to do is expand and improve facilities for processing, caring for and, when necessary, housing these asylum seekers. But Trump doesn’t care about doing the right thing, or even the necessary thing. He cares only about being able to claim he is following through on his vicious anti-immigration rhetoric, which brands Mexican would-be migrants as “rapists” and Central Americans as members of the MS-13 street gang.

Trump had two years in which Republicans controlled both the House and the Senate — and could not persuade Congress to give him funding for a wall. He decided to make it an issue only after Democrats won the power to say no. The president’s negotiating strategy — pitching tantrums, walking away from the table, venting on Twitter, provoking the longest partial government shutdown in history — was never going to work. You might think he would have learned something about how Washington works by now, but you would be wrong.

Because there obviously is no legitimate emergency, Trump’s declaration — and the shifting of resources from duly authorized projects to the wall — will surely be challenged in court. It is possible, if not likely, that any actual construction will be held up indefinitely.

Indeed, legal briefs arguing against Trump’s action practically write themselves. An emergency, by definition, is urgent. The 9/11 terrorist attacks, for example, clearly qualified as a national emergency. But Trump has been talking about issuing an emergency declaration to build the wall for a couple of months. If such action wasn’t necessary in December, some judge will surely ask, then why now?

Money for the wall will have to be taken from other projects, all of which have constituencies in Congress and among the public. Ranchers and others whose land would have to be taken by eminent domain for the wall will be up in arms.

Politically, Trump carelessly put Republican senators in a tough spot. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) may have the House pass a resolution of disapproval, which the Senate would be compelled to take up. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and his caucus would have to decide whether to support a presidential power grab they know is unwise — or oppose Trump and risk the ire of the GOP base.

One of the most strident Republican criticisms of Obama was that he took executive actions that should have been the purview of Congress. But this action by Trump goes much further and sets a dangerous precedent.

What would keep the next Democratic president from declaring an emergency, in the wake of some mass shooting, and imposing a ban on assault weapons? Is that what McConnell wants as his legacy?

Trump cares only that his base is mollified. And that nobody remembers how Mexico was supposed to foot the bill.

 

[apple1]

8 hours ago, Cartmann99 said:

I listened to a depressing interview about how Trump's stupid wall will affect the National Butterfly Center in South Texas last night.

https://player.fm/series/the-bradcast-w-brad-friedman/bradcast-2132019-guest-marianna-trevino-wright-of-the-natl-butterfly-center

The interview with Marianna Trevino-Wright begins about halfway through the episode.

My diet has devolved to comfort foods this week. I've made meatloaf and garlic mashed potatoes three times in six days. I'm seriously thinking about buying some Nilla wafers and bananas to make banana pudding like my mom used to make.

I hate this.

I made meatloaf last night.

I would have made banana pudding, but my family ate the bananas first.

[GreyhoundFan]

"The courts will likely let Trump declare an ‘emergency,’ even if it’s made up"

Spoiler

After toying with the idea for weeks, President Trump is expected to declare a national emergency to deal with what he calls a “national security and humanitarian crisis” at the border with Mexico. The move is a patent abuse of power, and it will generate a raft of legal challenges. But thanks to a lack of checks and balances in our legal system for emergency powers, the success of these challenges is not the foregone conclusion it should be.

Let’s start with the basics: There is no emergency. Fact-checkers have already ripped apart the misleading statistics Trump has presented, and official government data show that illegal border crossings remain near their lowest point in the past four decades. Indeed, the very fact that Trump hesitated for so long before declaring an emergency suggests there is none.

Trump has explained why he waited by saying that he first wanted to give Congress a chance to pass legislation that would fund the border wall. But the purpose of emergency powers is to give the president access to standby authorities, passed by Congress in advance, that can be deployed in cases where Congress has no time to act. If Congress does have time and has refused to give the president the authority he seeks, resorting to emergency powers to get around the objections of lawmakers is not just inappropriate. It’s a brazen attempt to undermine the constitutional balance of powers.

Given these circumstances, it might seem that the courts would put a quick stop to the president’s antics. But the National Emergencies Act, passed by Congress in 1976, will not make things easy for anyone preparing litigation to stop Trump. The law gives the president complete discretion to declare a national emergency; there is no definition of emergency and no criteria that must be met. As a result, most judges would tend to defer to the president’s determination that an emergency does exist, however much of a stretch it might seem.

That doesn’t mean the president has carte blanche to violate the Constitution under the guise of false emergencies. With sufficient evidence that Trump is acting in bad faith — that he is abusing the discretion Congress granted him for the purpose of subverting constitutional constraints, including the prohibition on spending funds that Congress has not appropriated — a judge could still find that the emergency declaration is invalid.

Nor does an emergency declaration give the president unlimited powers. It gives him access to specific authorities contained within 123 laws that Congress has passed over several decades. In this case, the president is relying on laws that allow the secretary of defense, during a national emergency, to move money around within Pentagon’s budget for certain purposes. As multiple legal experts have already pointed out, it’s at best questionable whether these laws would authorize the building of the wall.

Still, the Supreme Court has already shown its willingness to defer to Trump on claims of national security. When he invoked broad immigration powers to ban travel from majority-Muslim countries after revising the ban twice to deal with objections from lower courts, five Supreme Court justices were willing to credit paper-thin national security justifications and ignore obvious signs of an unconstitutional motive. There is a risk that the Supreme Court or other courts could take a similar approach here — and that they could choose to read the emergency powers themselves quite broadly.

And even if the current emergency is struck down by the courts, it could be a short-lived victory. The next time Trump concocts an emergency, he might be less vocal about his intent to circumvent Congress, and the laws he invokes might be a better fit for his goals. Some of these emergency laws confer extraordinary powers that are ripe for abuse, including laws that allow the president to take over or shut down communications facilities and to freeze Americans’ bank accounts. Previous presidents have shown considerable restraint in using them — nearly 70 percent of these laws remain unused decades after the National Emergencies Act was passed — but self-restraint is not one of this president's hallmarks.

Trump’s move shows that it’s long past time for Congress to revisit the National Emergencies Act. While presidents should have significant leeway to decide what is an emergency, that discretion must not be unlimited. Congress should fix its previous omission by setting forth basic criteria for what constitutes an emergency — for instance, the situation must represent a significant departure from the norm and must pose an imminent threat to public safety or other important national interests.

That safeguard won’t be foolproof, so Congress should also enact better ways to deal with emergencies that were improperly declared or that are lasting too long. Currently, the president can renew emergency declarations indefinitely, and Congress can terminate a declaration only by passing a law and sending it to the president for his signature. The president would almost certainly veto it — meaning that Congress would have to muster a veto-proof supermajority to end the state of emergency. Such a vote has never even been attempted.

Congress should replace this weak backstop with the system used by many other countries: The head of state can declare an emergency, but it is strictly time-limited, and only the legislature can renew it. This approach would eliminate the perverse incentives that exist when the government actor who declares the emergency is the same one receiving the enhanced powers. It would ensure that presidents have access to broad emergency powers when they are most needed, while guarding against the type of “permanent emergencies” that characterize many authoritarian regimes.

In ordinary times, it might sometimes seem that we can dispense with these kinds of checks and balances in the name of efficiency. It takes extreme circumstances to remind us that this is a bad bargain — and always was. Whatever ends up happening with the wall, this incident should serve as a wake-up call that Congress must reform our system of emergency powers to include better protections against abuse.

 

[fraurosena]

Holy crap, he's signing it now. What a garbled idiotic speech. There is a wall, not a wall, a wall that was fixed, in some cases, in many cases, and sweet Rufus, again with the taped up women in the back of cars... 

Can somebody please take him away from the mike? 

Anglemoms, dads, angelpeople... what???

I'm turning it off, he's just too weird.

[fraurosena]

If you can stand him, here's video footage of him trying to justify the emergency... and failing miserably.

 

[Audrey2]

3 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

If you can stand him, here's video footage of him trying to justify the emergency... and failing miserably.

 

I was going to give this a WTF until I listened to it. After I listened to it, it sounded like a two or three or four year old's reasoning and speech patterns. It's pretty pathetic when a 72 year old sounds like he's three or four.

[Cartmann99]

Plinko will help us through the rough times:

If anyone needs me,  I'll be in the kitchen:

Spoiler