The Mango Mussolini finally signed the spending bill, keeping the government open, but he also declared a "national emergency" so that he can divert funds from other programs toward building his Goddam Wall (GDW). It was inevitable that he did this. It's disgusting, illegal, and immoral, so of course it is something he would do.
The saga of the GDW began on the campaign trail, when, in order to give then-candidate TЯUMP a talking point that he could remember, it was suggested that he make a promise to build a wall along the southern border. The New York Times reported that some of his early political advisers (including Roger Stone) came up with the idea of a wall as a mnemonic to remember to talk about immigration (here is another summary from Slate in case you don't subscribe to the NYT).
His rhetoric worked; he was elected by a bunch of people afraid of immigrants. For two years, he had control of both houses of the Legislative Branch and didn't get funding for a wall. He didn't even work very hard for funding for a wall. Few Republicans in Congress, in fact, even wanted to approve the less-than-2-billion that the President* wanted in 2017. For two years, there was no emergency. And there was no emergency declaration.
Once Democrats took control of the House, the GDW turned into an obsession, and one that his base shares. His base includes some nearly-state-run-media figures (are they state-run or is the current administration media-run??): Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, and Rush Limbaugh. So when the new Congress unanimously agreed to pass a spending bill that contained just a fraction of what he wanted for the wall, his media honeys lambasted him for not getting the wall funded and pushed him into the whiny baby government shutdown. And a nation suffered.
I don't have to tell you why the GDW is a stoooopid idea, but in case you've been living in a tree, among other negatives:
- There's no crisis at the border
- It's a simplistic and childish "solution" to the complex issue of immigration and illegal activities at the border
- It's racist
- It's costly -- it would cost much more than the $5.7 billion he wanted
- It would entail thousands of parcels taken by a complex version of eminent domain
- It would be ineffective (he even owned that with his own words! He talked about people in other countries simply going around a wall. This is exactly what is happening in the U.S. Yesterday it was reported that, just 30 miles from here, one of the biggest cocaine busts was made at the Port of Hueneme)
- Immigrants, drugs, and trafficking more often come by ports of entry, by sea, and by air
- Government officials -- many of them Republicans -- in states along the border don't want the wall
- The citizens don't want a wall. Even in conservative Texas, the wall isn't wanted
The talking points about The Goddam Wall have been a moving target. Look at this wonderful word analysis by the New York Times. He first insisted it would be made of concrete, insisted Mexico would pay for it. Then he said it could be made of various materials and be called slats, or fence, or barrier, or "Peaches" and suddenly it's the taxpayers' responsibility. And he shut the government down for 35 days because of it, "proud to own the shutdown" and then blamed the Democrats for the shutdown.
The saga culminated yesterday when he signed the spending bill and declared a national emergency.
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| Steve Sack |
Here is his full speech and press conference. I had difficulty watching it, but I watched it. I did it for you, dear readers; it was my bloggerly duty. It was painful. It's 50 minutes I won't ever get back. But I did it. My advice to you: save your mental health; don't bother.
Instead, read one of the fact-checking articles instead. It will still raise your blood pressure, make you say the F-word, and make your face red, but at least it gives you the comfort that there are rational people finding the facts and looking out for the best interest of our country.
Here are some fact-checking articles. Thank you, First Amendment!
- AP
- Politifact
- CNN
- NBC
- ABC
- WaPo
- NYT
- WaPo Annotated Speech: Click on the highlighted speech to see notes and analysis (some of it funny and snarky)
- Not strictly fact-checking, but here is an excellent analysis by The New York Times' John Cassidy
My observations:
He started by talking about China. Huh?? And spoke for several minutes about foreign policy issues, from Brexit to Syria to North Korea. Then he rambled about the economy (rather, the stock market, which is his only measure of the economy -- he touted the Dow's growth but really it's been overall flat for the last year).
He talked for 15 minutes before he finally got to the GDW and the "national emergency." By way of proof that the GDW is needed, he strived for confirmation that things were better in El Paso after a barrier was built by asking the crowd at his recent rally there. "And I asked them; I said, 'Let me ask you the -- as a crowd, when the wall went up, was it better? You were there, some of you.'" The crowd, made up of his base, apparently confirmed his lies. He seems to be taking part in (pardon the crudeness, but there is nothing about this "presidency" that isn't crude) a circle jerk. He continued with his remarks, making the same mouth mumblings about menacing Mexicans moving in to make white people's lives miserable -- or murder them madly.
He talked about the precedent of emergency declarations by past presidents, but he didn't really seem to understand what they were about. They were NOT about the president's shameless grab of power, going around Congress to usurp spending for a pet project.
He wandered back to the subject of China for a while, and made the case for the death penalty for drug dealers, which is what his good friend President Xi does in China. Yeah, let's look to China for moral and legal guidance. <eye roll>
At about 22:08 in the video above, it got a little weird. He thanked everybody for coming and said almost off-handedly, "We're gonna have a national emergency" with less enthusiasm than he had when he announced HAMBERDERS FOR ALL in the Whitewash House. And then in a sing-songy voice reminiscent of third grade, he recited what would happen next: "And we will have a national emergency, and we will then be sued, and they will sue us in the 9th Circuit, even though it shouldn't be there, and we will possibly get a bad ruling, and then we'll get another bad ruling, and then we'll end up in the Supreme Court, and hopefully we'll get a fair shake and we'll win in the Supreme Court." It's probably the most truthful part of his speech, except the winning in the Supreme Court. The Constitution is clear. The Congress decides on spending. Period. The President cannot do anything he wants. That is not how our government works. We already rebelled against a king who wanted to grab money for spurious reasons, remember?
After his rambling 24 minutes of remarks, he took questions from the press. At about 40:00, he was asked to cite his sources for his statistics and facts about crime at the border, and he got extremely agitated. Once again, facts don't matter. They are inconveniences.
During one answer, he stated, "I could do the wall over a longer period of time, I didn't need to do this, but I'd rather do it much faster. And I don't have to do it for the election; I've already done a lot of wall for the election 2020. And the only reason we're up here talking about this is because of the election, because they want to try and win an election which it looks like they're not going to be able to do." A federal judge in the near future is going to be quite interested in that answer about this "emergency."
Directly after the press conference, he boarded Air Force One and went on vacation to Mar-a-Lago. Some emergency!
So, what's next?
He was right: Lawsuits will be filed. California is planning a lawsuit. The ACLU is planning a lawsuit. Texas landowners are planning a lawsuit with the help of Public Citizen. Democrats in Washington are planning lawsuits or legislation to fight this declaration.
His party is fracturing over the non-emergency.
Ann Coulter still hates him.
And in the meantime....
We do have a legitimate national emergency. It's called Donald Trump.
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| Clay Jones |
Muller's report will show him to be an unwitting Russian asset. He is such a dumdum
ReplyDelete"Directly after the press conference, he boarded Air Force One and went on vacation to Mar-a-Lago. Some emergency!" Might be cool to see what each president did directly after declaring each national emergency.
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