President Hannity Declares National Emergency, Trump Trumpets More Made Up Excuses
Donald Trump took a few moments away from his am executive time on Friday to announce a national emergency declaration enabling the administration to divert congressionally-mandated funding for construction of a border wall.
Shortly thereafter he boarded a helicopter and left DC for the Mar-a-Lago palace in Florida.
The roll out for this historic moment was typically Trumpian. Sarah Huckabee Sanders sent an announcement composed on the Notes app of an iPhone. Shortly thereafter, he appeared in the Rose Garden (sans teleprompter) to ramble on about whatever crossed his mind.
Trump on people who accurately note that most drugs come through ports of entry, not unwalled areas: "It's just a lie. It's all a lie."
Trump: "I'm going to be signing a national emergency. Annnd: it's been signed many times before...there's rarely been a problem. They sign it, nobody cares."
Trump: more people are trying to illegally immigrate than "probably" ever before.
It’s a waste of time of fact check the man. Suffice it to say roughly 85% of what he claims in these impromptu sessions is based in an alternative reality only he and the faithful can see.
https://twitter.com/TPM/status/1096451750289174529
Since most of the reporting on these events downplays the absurdity of the situation, the main part of the message--drugs, illegals, rape, murder and mayhem can only be solved by he alone--is what gets conveyed to the American people.
The national emergency declaration comes after Fox News’ Sean Hannity said this is what should be done, aided and abetted by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
As Mark Sumner at Daily Kos points out:
It’s been months since McConnell stopped pretending that the Senate was actually part of an independent branch of government and made it clear that it was just a rubber stamp for Trump.
In fact, it’s possible to mark down December 2018—the month in which McConnell openly declared that he would not bring a bill to the floor of the United States Senate without knowing that it had been pre-approved by Trump—as a definitive date for the end of all those things they teach students in American Government class. As it turns out, children, Congress gets one vote, and Donald Trump gets two
Make no mistake about what this means: the President of the United States declared a fictitious national emergency for the sole purpose of giving himself powers Congress explicitly refused to provide.
This is should be considered constitutional crisis. Article I expressly forbids spending money except as appropriated by Congress. Congress had repeatedly refused to provide funds to build the wall.
Emergency powers were designed to give the president access to standby authorities, passed by Congress in advance, in situations where Congress has no time to act. Now the president has access to 123 special provisions of law giving him extraordinary powers, according to the Brennan Center.
https://twitter.com/LorenaSGonzalez/status/1096469679839694848
His exercise of these powers means moneys previously appropriated for drug enforcement will be instead used to build a border wall.
Again, Mark Sumner at Daily Kos:
In order to get money for something that every expert agrees will not halt the flow of drugs into the country, Trump will take $600 million from the Treasury Department drug forfeiture fund, and a whopping $2.5 billion from the Department of Defense’s drug interdiction program. These are programs that genuinely impact the flow of illegal narcotics into America.
No doubt House Leader Nancy Pelosi will use some version of the language provided by Hispanic Caucus Chairman Joaquin Castro to overrule the emergency declaration.
If every Republican who previously said they were concerned about the abuse of executive powers were to vote their conscience, this resolution would sail through both sides of Congress with a veto-proof majority.
The American people think this is a bad idea, as this polling provided by FiveThirtyEight.com clearly shows:
Since Fox News--which has called on Florida Senator Marco Rubio to resign for opposing this executive order--now provides the moral voice for the GOP, a legislative solution is unlikely.
There are groups and officials ranging from Project Democracy to California Attorney General Xavier Becerra ready to file suit to block this emergency declaration. The administration’s lawyers at the Justice Department have questions about the legality of Trump’s action.
With the courts, you never know. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is the best bet for issuing a restraining order, but it’s likely --given the ‘emergency’ word-- the Supreme Court will act expeditiously. And then it’s going to probably be up to a certain justice to decide whether he likes beer or the Constitution more.
Activist organizations are scrambling to respond to the presidential proclamation. Indivisible is urging its followers to flood congressional offices with messages urging opposition. MoveOn and other groups say they’re working on a mobilization for demonstrations nationwide, tentative slated for Monday, February 18th.
The real national emergency, of course, is embodied by the man currently playing the links at Mar-a-Lago. And we may ultimately have to wait until 2020 to fix that problem. In the meantime, every bit of energy expended to slow him down is worthwhile.
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