True emergency is attempt to dodge Constitution (StL P-D)

[struggle4progress]

By the Editorial Board 10 hrs ago

The truest words President Donald Trump spoke during his fact-challenged Rose Garden statement Friday were these: “It’s all a big lie, a big con game.” However, they were misdirected. He was referring to Democratic opposition to his agenda, when those words more accurately apply to Trump’s plan to use emergency powers to build his border wall.

Trump’s consistent resort to lies to defend the wall make the case, perhaps better than his opponents could, that there is in fact no “emergency” along the border. His emergency declaration to get funding for his wall is nothing more than an end-run around the Constitution, which gives Congress the exclusive authority to appropriate money.

Republicans should be doubly concerned because of the precedent Trump is setting. He effectively empowers the next Democratic president to use the same tactic to advance whatever political agenda he or she wants. Or the declaration could be invoked for actual emergencies that the GOP refuses to address, like gun violence, health care and climate change ...

Trump is using the declaration to redirect federal funds after Congress has specifically rejected it. That marks a blatant usurping of the Constitution’s Appropriations Clause, which gives Congress exclusive control of the purse strings ...

https://www.stltoday.com/opinion/editorial/editorial-the-true-emergency-is-trump-s-attempt-to-dodge/article_dfd8f3d0-9cdf-5044-a630-d3f18e0cebf0.html

[struggle4progress]

1. What next?

Christal Hayes and John Fritze, USA TODAY
Published 1:05 p.m. ET Feb. 16, 2019
Updated 1:32 p.m. ET Feb. 16, 2019

... California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said he’s coordinating with other attorneys general around the country to read through the emergency declaration and prepare a federal lawsuit. He said the president has not presented a convincing case that the southern border represents a crisis because crossings are at historic lows.

“He has the power to declare a national emergency, but this is not 9-11, this is not the Iran hostage crisis of 1979,” Becerra said. “This is a president showing his disdain for the rule of law and our U.S. Constitution.”

Becerra, like many others, also pointed out Trump's own remarks when he announced the order.

"President Trump got one thing right this morning about his declaration when he said, ‘I didn’t have to do this.’ He’s right, he didn’t have to do this. In fact, he can’t do this because the U.S. Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the power to direct dollars," Becerra said ...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/02/16/donald-trump-national-emergency-border-wall-fight/2876668002/

[struggle4progress]

2. 'National emergency' a dangerous fraud

By Editorial Board

... This is an abuse of his office. Trump is letting the country down — and so are the Republicans in Congress who’ve said they’ll go along ...

... It’s true that many declarations of emergency are currently on the books, but this ignores the central point. The proper use of these measures is to speed the urgent deployment of resources when ordinary budget procedures can’t move quickly enough. It is emphatically not to provide resources for purposes that Congress — granted the power of the purse by the Constitution — has overtly rejected.

This is why Trump’s use of the emergency power is in fact a big deal: It’s an assault on the division of powers ...

The president’s carelessness over constitutional propriety is an insult to history. But so, too, is the failure of Republicans in Congress to discharge their duties under the Constitution — and to defend the prerogatives of their branch of government.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-02-16/trump-national-emergency-is-an-affront-to-constitution

[kwolf68]

3. Another national emergency

Election results don't look right, widespread voter fraud, so election results will be suspended until further notice.

Hello Fascism.

[struggle4progress]

4. Trying to hollow out the system of checks and balances

By PETER M. SHANE
FEB 16, 20194:58 PM

... Trump, as always, is endeavoring to hollow out the constitutional system of checks and balances. There is no national emergency at the border other than the tragedies of his creation. Gangs, sex traffickers, and drug smugglers are not invading the United States. His “crisis” is that Congress has refused to fund a campaign fantasy he promised that Mexico would pay for, and the smell of political defeat is more than he can bear.

... if his declaration could produce the lawful construction of his promised wall, the partial government shutdown—and the pain imposed both on the economy in general and on thousands of American families specifically—was utterly pointless. Even odder is the fact that one of the statutory authorities Trump is expected to set in motion is the Defense Department’s authority to provide assistance to counter drug trafficking and organized crime. That authority, however, is within the department’s regular quiver of statutory powers. If legally available to build the wall, it is no more or less available than it was before the government shutdown or before Trump’s declaration ...

When the president declares a national emergency “that requires use of the armed forces,” the Secretary of Defense is authorized to “undertake military construction projects … that are necessary to support such use of the armed forces.” This immediately raises the question of whether building the wall is a necessary or even lawful use of the military. Moreover, the statute defines “military construction” as construction of a “military installation,” which, in turn, means only “a base, camp, post, station, yard, center, or other activity under the jurisdiction of the Secretary of a military department.” None of this sounds like a border wall.

Playing out these arguments in court will take years—all in addition to the inevitable lawsuits should the government try to condemn through eminent domain the private property it needs to build the wall. And even if the challengers prevail, all of this energy will have been necessary only because of a presidential determination to treat as an “emergency” a set of circumstances that is anything but.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/02/national-emergency-tragedy-trump-wall.html

[struggle4progress]

5. Why does he want the wall so badly?

by David Atkins
February 16, 2019

... My own favored explanation has consistently been that the president is in thrall to the cult of Fox News and the conservative media establishment in general ...

The challenge to that thesis, however, is that these conservative personalities will generally either defend Trump regardless, or present themselves as unhappy regardless ...

Another explanation is that Trump genuinely wants to keep the promise that was central to his campaign ...

... most importantly, rhetoric of resistance notwithstanding, there is almost certainly a deal that Democrats would be willing to accept in exchange for giving Trump funding for the wall. Indeed, Democrats already offered significantly greater wall funding in exchange for permanent protections for DACA recipients. Notably, protecting DACA recipients was also one of Donald Trump’s campaign promises. If all Trump cared about was fulfilling his promises, he could easily have done so. He could still do so, though the price Democrats would exact in exchange would be significantly higher than before the 2018 midterm. Failure to keep his promises, then, amounts to breathtaking political incompetence ...

https://washingtonmonthly.com/2019/02/16/why-does-trump-still-want-the-wall-so-badly/