Emergency declaration shows weakness

[struggle4progress]

By Josh Chafetz and Douglas L. Kriner
February 16 at 6:00 AM

From the moment he announced his campaign for the presidency, Donald Trump has provoked concerns of an authoritarian turn in American politics. The president’s declaration Friday of a national emergency so he can order construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border would seem to confirm the suspicions of his most ardent critics that Trump’s uniquely authoritarian brand of politics threatens the very fabric of constitutional governance ...

... Trump’s unilateral gambit is more a sign of his political weakness than strength ...

Trump does seem to wish he could govern as an authoritarian, and the emergency declaration is just the latest example of this inclination. From his boast upon accepting the nomination that “I alone can fix” the American political system, to his disdain for many of the norms that have long characterized U.S. politics, to his avowed admiration for autocrats the world over, he has never had much use for mechanisms of democratic governance that would prevent the immediate fulfillment of his desires ...

... Trump is losing the war for the hearts and minds of the American public. His approval rating is low and has been underwater since the second week of his presidency. (Of the post-World War II presidents, only Ronald Reagan had a lower net approval rating at this point of his first term.) The border wall has long been unpopular, and declaring an emergency to build it without congressional approval is even less popular, with only about a third of Americans in favor. Trump’s position seems designed to ensure that his most die-hard supporters don’t desert him — a rear-guard action better calculated to stave off impeachment than to build the sort of coalition necessary for reelection ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/02/16/trumps-emergency-declaration-doesnt-show-his-power-it-shows-his-weakness/?utm_term=.742647596d4d

[struggle4progress]

1. Declaration faces challenges

By Damian Paletta, Mike DeBonis, John Wagner and Amy B Wang
February 16 at 8:55 AM

... Trump’s announcement capped a frenetic two-month period that included the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, at 35 days; the reemergence of Democrats as a political force; and a Republican Party caught between taking signals from Trump and bucking his unconventional impulses. It also begins a new phase of his presidency that will test the separation of powers, as he sidesteps Congress despite Republicans urging restraint.

During a 50-minute, meandering Rose Garden news conference, Trump offered little empirical evidence to back up his assertion that there was a crisis on the border requiring an extraordinary response. Instead, he invoked hyperbolic, campaign-style rhetoric about lawlessness that he said only walls could suitably address ...

Democrats and the American Civil Liberties Union mapped out the ways they would try to block Trump’s wall. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said he would summon White House counsel Pat Cipollone to Capitol Hill to explain the White House’s rationale.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, a Democrat, said he planned to work with other states to take legal action against the White House. The ACLU said it was preparing a lawsuit of its own, arguing that Trump cannot legally redirect taxpayer money during an “emergency” unless it’s for military construction projects that support the armed forces. Friday afternoon, the advocacy group Public Citizen filed a suit in U.S. District Court in Washington, seeking to block Trump’s declaration on behalf of Texas landowners and an environmental group ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/02/16/trumps-declaration-national-emergency-faces-political-legal-challenges/?utm_term=.f9d007add849

[Achilleaze]

2. SNL will have a Fiesta tonight with this stupid republican fake shit

Americans have had it with republican lies and chicanery, and treasonous collusion.

[struggle4progress]

3. Sets Up Legal Fight Over Spending Authority

February 16, 2019 7:00 AM ET
Nina Totenberg


... Here's the central question: Is it constitutional for the president to ignore Congress's decision not to give him all the money he wants for a Southern border wall — and instead, get it through a declaration of a national emergency? ...

Since it is not yet entirely clear what precise provisions the president is relying on, it is unclear exactly where the legal battle lines will be drawn.

But some basics are clear. First, Trump will have to prove there is a national emergency. And he has already said things that will provide problems for government lawyers in court ...

"There are a number of very important military projects, Army Corps of Engineer projects, that would be robbed of money to continue to move forward with these projects that would impact California," Becerra said. "It looks like he's going to take money away from drug interdiction, which would harm California if drugs were allowed to infiltrate our state. He probably will undermine our men and women in uniform who are living in California with their families if they can't have the types of resources at the military installations where they're located. I could go on and on" ...

https://www.npr.org/2019/02/16/695321387/trumps-national-emergency-sets-up-legal-fight-over-spending-authority

[struggle4progress]

4. Republicans divided going into 2020

David Jackson, USA TODAY
Published 6:00 a.m. ET Feb. 16, 2019
Updated 10:22 a.m. ET Feb. 16, 2019

... “I wish he wouldn’t have done it,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, echoing comments by GOP colleagues.

Republican misgivings about Trump's order range from the moderate Susan Collins of Maine – "a mistake" – to the more libertarian Rand Paul of Kentucky, who tweeted that "extraconstitutional executive actions are wrong, no matter which party does them."

For his part, Trump said congressional Republicans have moved too slowly on wall funding. Still, he predicted that most will stick with him as things move forward, even as he appeared to blame the Republicans for what he considered a lack of funding for border security.

"People that should've stepped up did not step up," Trump said during a White House announcement Friday ...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/02/16/national-emergency-donald-trump-republicans-divided-going-into-2020/2879232002/

[struggle4progress]

5. Undermined his case

Matt Kwong · CBC News
Posted: Feb 16, 2019 4:00 AM ET
Last Updated: an hour ago

... "Just think of the kinds of issues where a future Democratic president might say, 'Well, if the wall was an emergency, how about this one?'" Howard said. "The case for an emergency is actually stronger for gun control than the case for the wall, in that the number of people who die every day over guns is quite real, whereas the danger over the border is not so certain" ...

"He's broken the seal," Goitein said. "It would be tremendously corrosive for our democracy if presidents can subvert the will of Congress by declaring emergencies that don't exist, just willy-nilly" ...

"It's one thing to declare a national emergency if you think there are foreign troops at the frontier. Of course the courts would be deferential to that," said James Thurber, director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University.

"But this is the tail end of an extended set of arguments between Congress and the president as to how much money can be spent, and the president is declaring a national emergency and spending money anyway, which flies in the face of the Constitution" ...

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-national-emergency-border-wall-republicans-worry-1.5022053

[guillaumeb]

6. The GOP shows no sign of abandoning Trump.

He incites the racist GOP base, and without them, they cannot cheat enough to win.