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Senate rejects Trump border emergency as Republicans defect

Keridan said:
Let's hold out some hope, please. The GOP may be as overrun with idiots as the opposing party, but there is a difference when voting to override a veto. That one takes extra balls (if you'll excuse the phrase) and I think it's pretty obvious the senate isn't overrun with an abundance of strength.

I grant that it's a slim hope, but there are a couple repubs that I'm surprised voted for Trump this time. Maybe they take the second chance?

I'm also not 100% that Trump takes the chance. The man has shown he can cave when his vanity is at risk. Imagine how he will feel if his veto is shown worthless.
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Well, from your lips to god's ear. Personally, I'm not holding my breath. :)
 
DiAnna said:
Well, from your lips to god's ear. Personally, I'm not holding my breath. :)
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Well, me neither, but I'm trying to hold my hope. If the veto holds, we are looking at a pretty severe hit to the constitution. I'm libertarian, it hurts me deep.
 
JasperL said:
It's not a common tactic, because it's never happened before.

It really is an extraordinary move. Congress debated the issue for MONTHS, weighed Trump's request, the arguments for and against, and came to an agreement to give him $X. It's never happened before that Congress has spoken so clearly on a funding issue, and immediately after Congress spoke, POTUS said - screw you, Congress, I'll just spend what I want and I don't care what you say about funding.

You can support this - whatever - but you can't rewrite history and make up your own facts to claim what he's doing is common. It's just not - it's the opposite of common, which is unprecedented.
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It’s been used at least 60 times in recent history. That’s pretty common. The situation surrounding its usage is irrelevant. Every situation is extraordinary. If it wasn’t, there wouldn’t be a need to declare an emergency.
 
MTAtech said:
I didn't say I was the last word in poll validity but I do believe in statistical analysis and don't dismiss polls because I find the results inconvenient. You instead, suggested the absurd idea that unless everyone is polled, it isn't valid.
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If that's how you took my post, that's on you. Polls are useful, but imo shouldn't be hailed as 'fact'. Especially when it involves the opinions of over 300 million people.
 
JasperL said:
The claim wasn't about your opinion, but about a majority of the country.:confused:
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There are over 300 million people of voting age in the US. While polls are useful, they don't represent what the majority of what those people think on a given day. They can represent only what the majority of the number they polled when the number is that high.
 
MTAtech said:
Next move is D.T. will veto it and it will go to court on the grounds that Congress holds the purse strings and can't abdicate a constitutional power to the Executive.
ludin said:
which is a failed argument. since he isn't spending new money but reallocating already approved money.
the better argument would be to say that this isn't an national emergency as trump stated it wasn't.
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While that other argument will also be made, your argument on appropriations is absurd.

What you are essentially saying is that Congress need not bother to have line items in the budget. It's just $4 trillion to be spent any way the president decides -- which we know not to be the case. You are proposing a line of argument contrary to over 200 years of legal precedent and American history.

Article I, Section 9 of the constitution says: "No money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law;" According to the conservative Heritage Foundation:
Under the Articles of Confederation, under which Congress possessed the power to appropriate, there was no independent executive authority. With the creation of an executive under the Constitution, the Founders decided, in the words of Justice Joseph Story in Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, “to preserve in full vigor the constitutional barrier between each department...that each should possess equally...the means of self-protection.” An important means of self-protection for the legislative department was its ability to restrict the executive’s access to public resources “but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” Justice Story continues:
And the [legislature] has, and must have, a controlling influence over the executive power, since it holds at its own command all the resources by which a chief magistrate could make himself formidable. It possesses the power over the purse of the nation and the property of the people. It can grant or withhold supplies; it can levy or withdraw taxes; it can unnerve the power of the sword by striking down the arm that wields it.
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...
The courts have consistently recognized the primacy given to Congress by the Appropriations Clause in allocating the resources of the Treasury. As the Supreme Court declared in Cincinnati Soap Co. v. United States (1937), the Appropriations Clause “was intended as a restriction upon the disbursing authority of the Executive department.” It means simply that “no money can be paid out of the Treasury unless it has been appropriated by an act of Congress.” In United States v. MacCollom (1976), the Court articulated an “established rule” that “the expenditure of public funds is proper only when authorized by Congress, not that public funds may be expended unless prohibited by Congress.”
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JasperL said:
Was thinking about him today. Says.....something he's stayed in the WH as a loyal soldier. I don't think it's good... :doh
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All the smart and decent people who made the poor decision to work with Trump have all left. The ones who stayed are the worst scum of the Earth. Especially Miller.
 
ChezC3 said:
It’s been used at least 60 times in recent history. That’s pretty common. The situation surrounding its usage is irrelevant. Every situation is extraordinary. If it wasn’t, there wouldn’t be a need to declare an emergency.
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It has never been used to manufacture a fake crisis that the President using it even admitted was not a crisis ("I didn't have to do this, I just didn't want to wait") because the requesting President made a promise to his base and could not fulfill it.
 
JasperL said:
Well, the great f'ing salesman had months to make his case to Congress and the public using that argument, and the moron failed. That's the actual problem here - not Congress. Trump had a GOP House and he couldn't get them to agree to his stupid wall, much less the Senate. I don't understand why you don't lay the failure where it belongs, which is at the feet of a disaster of a WH that in two years still couldn't win the funding he wanted for his wall. They had a deal in the Senate - Trump killed it - thanks Stephen Miller - because he thought he could get a better deal. Trump was wrong and Trump ****ed up.
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He had 2 years to make his case to the Republican Congress. He didn't. He continued to screw it up, and he continued to fail and make it worse. You are exactly right - Trump failed.

But Trump's fan base will find a way to conveniently ignore that.

I'm still waiting for Roadvirus to tell us just how many of their constituents had their lives cut short by illegal immigrants. He couldn't have asked that question for hyperbolic reasons....could he?
 
Kobie said:
Well, this is totally not surprising.

You seem to think a president can call a state of national emergency in order to divert previously allocated funds to his vanity project, even though BY HIS OWN ADMISSION he didn't have to do it, he just wanted to move the process along a little faster. This is fine with you. And, according to you, Congress is "feckless" for not letting him do exactly that. What the hell is wrong with you?

You might as well live on another planet if you think this is how government should work.
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Vesper's favorite word these days is "feckless". She has it on a loop. I'm sure she heard it once on Alex Jones' show and liked it.

Vesper's lack of honesty and ignorant post to Jasper is not at all surprising, is it?
 
tres borrachos said:
Just breaking.



WASHINGTON — The Republican-run Senate rejected President Donald Trump's declaration of a national emergency at the southwest border on Thursday, setting up a veto fight and dealing him a conspicuous rebuke as he tested how boldly he could ignore Congress in pursuit of his highest-profile goal.



The Senate voted 59-41 to cancel Trump's February proclamation of a border emergency, which he invoked to spend $3.6 billion more for border barriers than Congress had approved. Twelve Republicans joined Democrats in defying Trump in a showdown many GOP senators had hoped to avoid because he commands die-hard loyalty from millions of conservative voters who could punish defecting lawmakers in next year's elections.

More here:


Senate rejects Trump border emergency as Republicans defect

I am not the least bit surprised. Are you?

Actually I am surprised that 12 Republicans voted for this. That is a huge number. I figured it would be a half dozen.
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Trump doesn't have a political ideology or philosophy. He's only loyal to himself, respects no one but himself. Personally, I don't care one way or the other about the wall. But I have huge problems when any president tries to bypass congress whether it is by declaring a national emergency or using a pen and a phone.

Good for congress. It's about time members of congress start acting like they are members of that institution instead of being members of the administration when they are of the same party of the president.
 
MTAtech said:
Not true at all. No part of the US Code gives the president the right to take appropriations from Congress designated for one purpose and spend that appropriation for a completely different purpose.
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You said " can't abdicate a constitutional power to the Executive." - now you want to move the goalposts?
 
JasperL said:
How do you figure? :confused:
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Because laws constantly "abdicate a constitutional power to the Executive." Many acts are purposefully written in sweeping generalities that delegate many or most of the details of lawmaking to the executive branch to figure out. Or, they may create an administrative agency to delegate their lawmaking power to a bunch of bureaucrats headed by an executive agency appointment, such as the EPA.
 
SIAP. What a bunch of losers those GOPs in the Senate who voted against Trump's border wall ER spending proposal are.

What if there is a crisis at the border with massive illegal border crossings? Just how quickly do you suppose congress would 'hop to' to fix the problem? I count....never. They've always kicked the can down the road on this issue so as to not be on record on the issue to keep their electability for future elections, IMO. What a bunch of 'trust fund babies' with like mentalities. What if there is a crisis at the border? Would the provisions included in congress' border security bill be enough to prevent future mass illegal immigrations? No.

Some dopey GOP Senators who I won't mention :roll:(Romney and Paul, for examples) cite the power of the purse string to prevent the rerouting of money by the executive. Well, what if the crisis demands less time than congress has used to fix this problem (which is forever)?

Term limits for all the bastards.
 
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Taylor said:
You said " can't abdicate a constitutional power to the Executive." - now you want to move the goalposts?
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I don't know what you are thinking that I wrote but my view is consistent: The president can't take money appropriated for one purpose and spend it for an entirely different purpose. The court precedents are very clear on this.
 
holbritter said:
There are over 300 million people of voting age in the US. While polls are useful, they don't represent what the majority of what those people think on a given day. They can represent only what the majority of the number they polled when the number is that high.
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Well, polls are the ONLY way to know anything at all, ANYTHING, about public opinion. So if you reject polls, then you cannot know ANYTHING about pubic opinion on anything, and no one can make ANY legitimate claim about public opinion.

And it's not just polls, but things like the unemployment rate. That's a "poll" of sorts of a sample of employers, so you must also reject the reported unemployment rate, wages, housing starts, housing prices, and a slew of other economic data that's derived from a sample of country and then extrapolated to the country as a whole.
 
cabse5 said:
SIAP. What a bunch of losers those GOPs in the Senate who voted against Trump's border wall ER spending proposal are.

What if there is a crisis at the border with massive illegal border crossings? Just how quickly do you suppose congress would 'hop to' to fix the problem? I count....never. They've always kicked the can down the road on this issue so as to not be on record on the issue to keep their electability for future elections, IMO. What a bunch of trust fund babies with like mentalities. What if there is a crisis at the border? Do the provisions included in congress' border security bill be enough to prevent future mass illegal immigrations? No.

Some dopey GOP Senators who I won't mention (Romney and Paul, for examples) cite the power of the purse string to prevent the rerouting of money by the executive. Well, what if the crisis demands less time than congress has used to fix this problem (which is forever)?

Term limits for all the bastards.
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So Trust Fund babies are bad people? Can't be trusted? Refuse to be honest?
 
cabse5 said:
SIAP. What a bunch of losers those GOPs in the Senate who voted against Trump's border wall ER spending proposal are.

What if there is a crisis at the border with massive illegal border crossings? Just how quickly do you suppose congress would 'hop to' to fix the problem? I count....never. They've always kicked the can down the road on this issue so as to not be on record on the issue to keep their electability for future elections, IMO. What a bunch of trust fund babies with like mentalities. What if there is a crisis at the border? Do the provisions included in congress' border security bill be enough to prevent future mass illegal immigrations? No.

Some dopey GOP Senators who I won't mention (Romney and Paul, for examples) cite the power of the purse string to prevent the rerouting of money by the executive. Well, what if the crisis demands less time than congress has used to fix this problem (which is forever)?

Term limits for all the bastards.
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Let's say there is a crisis at the border of people trying to get in because there are so many available jobs here for people who just want to work and live a moderate lifestyle.

Building a wall will not make that any less desirable, trust me they do not care about trying to overcome a wall to get here because as a man named Trump once said:




If there was a real emergency about illegal immigration Trump would be actively trying to go after the employers, like his own company, that hire the illegals and give them motivation to get over here even if it means digging a tunnel or finding someone to hold a ladder for them.
 
JasperL said:
Well, polls are the ONLY way to know anything at all, ANYTHING, about public opinion. So if you reject polls, then you cannot know ANYTHING about pubic opinion on anything, and no one can make ANY legitimate claim about public opinion.

And it's not just polls, but things like the unemployment rate. That's a "poll" of sorts of a sample of employers, so you must also reject the reported unemployment rate, wages, housing starts, housing prices, and a slew of other economic data that's derived from a sample of country and then extrapolated to the country as a whole.
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That's actually a great point, Jasper. The BLS does not interview every single adult in the United States to determine the employment/unemployment rate. It can only do a random sampling. It's based on statistics and the law of averages.

If we are not to believe polls, then we can not possibly believe the unemployment rate unless every single person of working age in this country has been asked about his or her status. We also can't believe the touted "rise in consumer confidence" and "rise in wages" that we like to hear about from Trump. Nobody ever called me and asked me about my confidence level. Nobody called me and asked me about my income year over year. Therefore we must absolutely reject those numbers.
 
MTAtech said:
Not true at all. No part of the US Code gives the president the right to take appropriations from Congress designated for one purpose and spend that appropriation for a completely different purpose.
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The emergency powers act....you forget. You don't think it's an emergency. Trump does. Can SCOTUS decide the constitutionality of a presidential veto?

EDIT: The answer is no. SCOTUS cannot override a presidential veto. Only congress can override a veto with 2/3 majority.
 
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cabse5 said:
The emergency powers act....you forget. You don't think it's an emergency. Trump does. Can SCOTUS decide the constitutionality of a presidential veto?
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If he thinks it's an emergency, why did he say he "didn't need to do this"?

You can't have it both ways.
 
tres borrachos said:
If he thinks it's an emergency, why did he say he "didn't need to do this"?

You can't have it both ways.
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He means (are you sitting down?) that congress shouldn't force him to do this, that congress should fix the problem which they haven't. Or is it just not a problem to you, the illegal border crossings?
 
Trumps action goes against everything "conservatives" claim to stand for. this vote should have been 100 to 0.
 
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