Trump to declare national emergency for border wall after signing spending bill

[enhanced_deficit]

Bit surprsied there has been almost no backlash against Coulter or Rogers after their public insults of MAGA and leader McConnell... what is going on with GOP base lately?


https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...er/2890714002/

Rright wing conservative Coulter croses the line again.
h/t danno:

Coulter crosses the line, says 'The only national emergency is that the president is an idiot'

Former House Intel chair: McConnell eating 'manure sandwich' with Trump's national emergency

Ann Coulter: National Emergency Designed ‘for Trump to Scam the Stupidest People in His Base’

Conservative provocateur Ann Coulter fired shots at Trump on Friday for saying he’ll sign a bill that would avert another government shutdown and instead declaring a national emergency to build his Mexico border wall. Replying to a tweet that claimed “the goal of a national emergency is to end illegal immigration and cartel smuggling,” Coulter wrote that “no, the goal of a national emergency is for Trump to scam the stupidest people in his base for 2 more years.” In a subsequent tweet, she added that “The goal is to get Trump’s stupidest voters to say ‘HE’S FIGHTING!’ No he’s not. If he signs this bill, it’s over.” A former Trump ally, Coulter has soured on the president in recent months in the midst of the shutdown debates, claiming to The Daily Caller that the president will “have no legacy whatsoever” without a border wall.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/ann-co...le-in-his-base





Related

Ann Coulter: 'Lunatic' Trump could be challenged in 2020 — from the right

Ann Coulter once called Trump a ‘god.’ Now she says he’s ‘gutless’

[Zippyjuan]

https://www.vox.com/2019/2/17/182283...hanahan-review

The acting Pentagon chief has yet to say whether Trump’s border wall is militarily necessary

Patrick Shanahan has the final say on where the Pentagon will find the money.

Acting US Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan says he has yet to determine how much money the Pentagon should reallocate to finance President Donald Trump’s border wall — or whether it’s even necessary at all.

Shanahan has the unenviable task of charting out how to turn Trump’s border wall promise into a reality, after the president this week declared a national emergency in a maneuver to circumvent Congress. Trump agreed this week to lawmakers’ plan to allocate $1.375 billion to border security — a sum far lower than his $5.7 billion asking price, and even less than what was offered in previous deals. In turn, Trump says he can use his executive powers to redirect line items in the military budget to dredge up money for his wall.

Shanahan ultimately has a final say on how the funds are reallocated, but first he’s required by law to decide whether the move is actually militarily necessary.

”I think I have a lot of discretion,” Shanahan told reporters while traveling abroad on Saturday. “You can trust the numbers in terms of the potential. Then you gotta marry it up with where the money would be spent.”

The White House has already laid out a general framework of how the funds would be redirected. About $600 million would come from the Treasury Forfeiture Fund, which is money seized from people suspected of crimes; $2.5 billion from the military’s narcotics funding, along with an additional $3.6 billion from the DOD construction accounts.

Irony- taking money allocated to fight drug traffic to build a wall allegedly to fight drug traffic because you weren't given enough money to fight drug traffic.

[PAF]

Some parts appear good, others are horrendous. I haven’t read the whole spending bill yet but here’s a few sections:


Page 188
8 (h) REFUGEE ASSISTANCE IN NORTH AFRICA.-Not
9 later than 45 days after enactment of this Act, the Secretary of State, after consultation with the United Nations
11 High Commissioner for Refugees and the Executive Direc-
12 tor of the World Food Programme, shall submit a report
13 to the Committees on Appropriations describing steps
14 taken to strengthen monitoring of the delivery of humani-
15 tarian assistance provided for refugees in North Africa,
16 including any steps taken to ensure that all vulnerable ref-
17 ugees are receiving such assistance.


Page 255
12 (k) TRANSFER OF FUNDS.-Of the funds appro-
13 priated by this Act under the heading "Economic Support
14 Fund", $25,000,000 shall be transferred to, and merged
15 with, funds appropriated under the heading "International
16 Organizations and Programs", of which $23,000,000 shall
17 be for a contribution to support the United Nations resi-
18 dent coordinator system and $2,000,000 shall be for a
19 contribution to the Montreal Protocol Multilateral Fund.


Page 314
6 UNITED NATIONS POPULATION FUND
7 SEC. 7072. (a) CONTRIBUTION.-Of the funds made
8 available under the heading "International Organizations
9 and Programs" in this Act for fiscal year 2019,
10 $32,500,000 shall be made available for the United Na-
11 tions Population Fund (UNFP A).
12 (b) AVAILABILITY OF FUNDS.-Funds appropriated
13 by this Act for UNFPA, that are not made available for
14 UNFP A because of the operation of any provision of law,
15 shall be transferred to the "Global Health Programs" ac-
16 count and shall be made available for family planning, ma-
17 ternal, and reproductive health activities, subject to the
18 regular notification procedures of the Committees on Ap-
19 propriations.


https://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek...T-116hrpt9.pdf

[Anti Federalist]

Port of Entry facility, El Paso TX 17 Feb 2019

[dannno]

Snopes rates this image as "true"



https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/pr...rm=Read%20more

[Superfluous Man]

Snopes rates this image as "true"

I don't think anybody ever claimed that a president declaring an emergency was unprecedented. I think the claim is that resorting to this just to fund something with more money than Congress chose to allocate to it is unprecedented.

[dannno]

I don't think anybody ever claimed that a president declaring an emergency was unprecedented. I think the claim is that resorting to this just to fund something with more money than Congress chose to allocate to it is unprecedented.

Ya, but if you consider that Trump has only ordered 3 national emergencies, and other Presidents do it at least double the rate, then what were the other Presidents doing??

[Superfluous Man]

Ya, but if you consider that Trump has only ordered 3 national emergencies, and other Presidents do it at least double the rate, then what were the other Presidents doing??

I think they generally were things the government shouldn't have done. But I don't think any were things Congress had already considered and refused to fund at the level the president wanted, and the president then used the emergency declaration as a means of doing what Congress expressly refused to authorize. I'm not sure if any were for things that the president had any reason to believe Congress wouldn't have funded if given the opportunity to vote on it.

[Swordsmyth]

I don't think anybody ever claimed that a president declaring an emergency was unprecedented. I think the claim is that resorting to this just to fund something with more money than Congress chose to allocate to it is unprecedented.

That is not the only claim and all emergencies that involve the allocation of emergency funds is funding something with more money than Congress chose to allocate to it.

[Superfluous Man]

That is not the only claim and all emergencies that involve the allocation of emergency funds is funding something with more money than Congress chose to allocate to it.

I don't believe this is true. Source?

[Superfluous Man]

Here's a good example of an article asserting the unprecedentedness of Trump's emergency delcaration.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/15/u...emergency.html

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Friday pointed to nearly five dozen previous instances in which presidents of both parties have declared emergencies as justification for his invocation of extraordinary powers to build his border wall. But there is no precedent for what he has just done.

None of the times emergency powers have been invoked since 1976, the year Congress enacted the National Emergencies Act, involved a president making an end run around lawmakers to spend money on a project they had decided against funding. Mr. Trump, by contrast, is challenging the bedrock principle that the legislative branch controls the government’s purse.

“On the surface, this ‘Oh, other presidents do this, too’ line seems logical,” said Chris Edelson, an American University government professor and author of a 2013 book, “Emergency Presidential Power: From the Drafting of the Constitution to the War on Terror.” “But there is no example where a president asked for funding for something from Congress, Congress said, ‘No,’ and the president said, ‘I’ll use emergency powers to do it anyway.’”

....

The article goes on from there with discussion of the history of emergency declarations.

Is the part I quoted not accurate?

[Swordsmyth]

I don't believe this is true. Source?

Which part?

I have seen many claims by the liberal media that this emergency declaration is a "step towards dictatorship" and other outrageous nonsense but I didn't waste my time on them or keep links to them but we even have politicians saying that they will use this "new precedent" to take our guns by declaring an emergency etc.
The money is a simple fact, if you spend emergency funds on an emergency then you are spending money that was allocated for "emergencies" rather than for that specific issue in addition to whatever money Congress allocated for that issue.

[Superfluous Man]

Which part?

Your claim that "all emergencies that involve the allocation of emergency funds is funding something with more money than Congress chose to allocate to it."

The money is a simple fact, if you spend emergency funds on an emergency then you are spending money that was allocated for "emergencies" rather than for that specific issue in addition to whatever money Congress allocated for that issue.

But generally this is not for something that Congress puts to a vote and votes against funding.

That's not the same thing as something that Congress never had an opportunity to vote on, and probably would have agreed to fund if they did.

In this case, if I understand correctly, the money Trump's spending is not money that was allocated for generic emergencies either.

I have seen many claims by the liberal media that this emergency declaration is a "step towards dictatorship"

If it really is unprecedented in the way that I just said, which you don't seem able to disprove with any actual examples, then it is indisputably a step towards dictatorship.

Do you want the president to have the power to do that? When a Democrat returns to the WH, do you want Trump, or whatever Republican succeeds him to hand over to them a presidency that has that power?

If the president really has the power to do this, it drastically weakens Congress's power over the purse.

[Swordsmyth]

Your claim that "all emergencies that involve the allocation of emergency funds is funding something with more money than Congress chose to allocate to it."

As I said already but you cut it off:

The money is a simple fact, if you spend emergency funds on an emergency then you are spending money that was allocated for "emergencies" rather than for that specific issue in addition to whatever money Congress allocated for that issue.

Congress allocates $X for issue A and $Y for emergencies, if an emergency is declared about issue A and emergency money is spent then $X+Y will be spent on issue A which is greater than $X.

Congress already passed a law specifically authorizing the fence/wall/barrier/whatever and there is an emergency situation with the invasion and Congress has granted the President power to declare an emergency and spend the emergency money to deal with the emergency.

[Superfluous Man]

As I said already but you cut it off:



Congress allocates $X for issue A and $Y for emergencies, if an emergency is declared about issue A and emergency money is spent then $X+Y will be spent on issue A which is greater than $X.

Congress already passed a law specifically authorizing the fence/wall/barrier/whatever and there is an emergency situation with the invasion and Congress has granted the President power to declare an emergency and spend the emergency money to deal with the emergency.

OK. But here you're just making stuff up about how I guess you think it works.

Can you point to any actual previous examples (i.e. precedent) of Congress voting against funding something a president wanted, and the president responding to that vote by using an emergency declaration to fund that thing?

N.B. Post 310 did say, "Source?"

[acptulsa]

If it really is unprecedented in the way that I just said, which you don't seem able to disprove with any actual examples, then it is indisputably a step towards dictatorship.

Do you want the president to have the power to do that? When a Democrat returns to the WH, do you want Trump, or whatever Republican succeeds him to hand over to them a presidency that has that power?

If the president really has the power to do this, it drastically weakens Congress's power over the purse.

That seems to be a "yes".

[Swordsmyth]

OK. But here you're just making stuff up about how I guess you think it works.

Can you point to any actual previous examples (i.e. precedent) of Congress voting against funding something a president wanted, and the president responding to that vote by using an emergency declaration to fund that thing?

N.B. Post 310 did say, "Source?"

I don't have a specific example but you didn't say anything about Congress voting against funding something:

Originally Posted by Superfluous Man

I don't think anybody ever claimed that a president declaring an emergency was unprecedented. I think the claim is that resorting to this just to fund something with more money than Congress chose to allocate to it is unprecedented.

And they did NOT vote against funding it, they even voted to give him some money for it.

[Swordsmyth]

But generally this is not for something that Congress puts to a vote and votes against funding.

That's not the same thing as something that Congress never had an opportunity to vote on, and probably would have agreed to fund if they did.

They did NOT vote against funding it, they even voted to give him some money for it.

In this case, if I understand correctly, the money Trump's spending is not money that was allocated for generic emergencies either.

Some of it is and some of it is spending that Congress said he could reallocate for generic emergencies.

If it really is unprecedented in the way that I just said, which you don't seem able to disprove with any actual examples, then it is indisputably a step towards dictatorship.

Do you want the president to have the power to do that? When a Democrat returns to the WH, do you want Trump, or whatever Republican succeeds him to hand over to them a presidency that has that power?

If the president really has the power to do this, it drastically weakens Congress's power over the purse.

Then Congress needs to retract the power that it granted to the President.

The other side breaks all the rules to destroy America and liberty, if we don't even use the rules as they are against them we are doomed to fail.

[Superfluous Man]

I don't have a specific example

That's what "unprecedented" means.

[Swordsmyth]

That's what "unprecedented" means.

I didn't say there were no specific examples, I just haven't gone looking for them because it isn't unprecedented as you claimed it was:

They did NOT vote against funding it, they even voted to give him some money for it.

[Stratovarious]

I don't think anybody ever claimed that a president declaring an emergency was unprecedented. I think the claim is that resorting to this just to fund something with more money than Congress chose to allocate to it is unprecedented.

It's an emergency. Wtf is this 'resorting blsht.////

[Superfluous Man]

I didn't say there were no specific examples, I just haven't gone looking for them because it isn't unprecedented as you claimed it was:

If you can't find any such examples, then you are in no position to dispute the claim that it is unprecedented.

Despite your insistence to the contrary, you are effectively conceding the point.

If there were precedent, I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to find. It would be among the talking points defenders of this executive order would be reciting ad nauseam.

[Swordsmyth]

If you can't find any such examples, then you are in no position to dispute the claim that it is unprecedented.

Despite your insistence to the contrary, you are effectively conceding the point.

If there were precedent, I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to find. It would be among the talking points defenders of this executive order would be reciting ad nauseam.

As I have demonstrated every emergency that involved expending emergency funds is a precedent.

They did NOT vote against funding it, they even voted to give him some money for it.

[Superfluous Man]

It's an emergency. Wtf is this 'resorting blsht.////

Right it was not an emergency a month ago. At that time the great negotiator had plenty of time to spend negotiating with Congress over how much funding they would give him for his wall. It only became an emergency when he failed to convince them to give him as much as he wanted. That's when he resorted (yes, I'm pretty sure that's the word here) to this.

See how that makes this different than other previous emergencies?

[Superfluous Man]

As I have demonstrated every emergency that involved expending emergency funds is a precedent.

You haven't demonstrated that. You've only asserted it.

Can you point to a real-life example, not something you made up?

[Stratovarious]

Right it was not an emergency a month ago. At that time the great negotiator had plenty of time to spend negotiating with Congress over how much funding they would give him for his wall. It only became an emergency when he failed to convince them to give him as much as he wanted. That's when he resorted (yes, I'm pretty sure that's the word here) to this.

See how that makes this different than other previous emergencies?

Floods are not declared emergencies while they are flowing, so why are they
later 'suddenly' declared emergencies, Mr Soros.......

[Swordsmyth]

Right it was not an emergency a month ago. At that time the great negotiator had plenty of time to spend negotiating with Congress over how much funding they would give him for his wall. It only became an emergency when he failed to convince them to give him as much as he wanted. That's when he resorted (yes, I'm pretty sure that's the word here) to this.

See how that makes this different than other previous emergencies?

Every month that goes by makes the situation worse, it is an emergency and it was one years ago, Trump delaying the declaration only proves that he was reluctant to use the power Congress gave him because he knew people would complain.

[Swordsmyth]

You haven't demonstrated that. You've only asserted it.

Can you point to a real-life example, not something you made up?

Every emergency that involved expending emergency funds.

[kcchiefs6465]

Every month that goes by make the situation worse, it is an emergency and it was one years ago, Trump delaying the declaration only proves that he was reluctant to use the power Congress gave him because he knew people would complain.

[Superfluous Man]

Floods are not declared emergencies while they are flowing, so why are they
later 'suddenly' declared emergencies, Mr Soros.......

That's another make believe example. Got any real world ones?

I think you are confusing presidential declarations of national emergencies (the subject we're discussing in this thread) with natural disasters, which is a totally different thing.

Here's a list of declared national emergencies to help you find the precedent you're looking for, if it really exists.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._United_States