OK -- aside from how one personally feels about all the policy alternatives and debates on immigration, the real point is that we have a President, a vice-President and a bevy of White House flunkies who manage to contradict themselves and each other repeatedly over the course of a few hours. And yet somehow the Democrats are to blame for all of the chaos?
Somebody needs to say it. This is reality. Not a reality show. Nor do campaign slogans or political rally one-offs constitute a sound basis for actual policy. Somehow, I suspect that most Trump supporters have never gotten their heads around those distinctions.
4
“'It’s very difficult when we’re dealing with people who do not want to budge at all with their positions, and that’s the president and Speaker Pelosi,' Senator Susan Collins of Maine said. 'They’re each very dug in on their position, and that’s made this very difficult to resolve.'”
Please, citizens of Maine: dispense with Susan Collins in 2020. That "moderate" act was never real, and it has completely worn out besides. We all know where her true loyalties lie.
4
The lives of other people mean nothing to Trump. He is totally without empathy, completely without belief in the human contract. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"? He has no concept of what that means, except that it could be some ancient campaign slogan.
There is no emergency on our border with Mexico. The real emergency here is how to get this person out of office as quickly as possible. It is outrageous to allow him to continuing playing these blatantly self-centered, childish games.
3
Soooo...I can add a very sad side note to the rural Michigan thing--our family has a teenage boy adopted from Central America. Both parents are Caucasian. I have two lives--my 'white' life as a professional middle age woman who I guess, everyone assumes must be 'one of them'. When my son is with me, the nastiness begins. Ever since he was old enough to walk, adult men and women would stare at him, walk by us and "Hmmph!", give snarky grins...you name it. It is constant now, worsening over the past few years.
We do know others who do not support The Fool In Office, as I refer to him and some are very mobilized, while many just
'talk amongst ourselves'.
While I honestly can't believe what has happened to this area and much of our state, our family just returned from Iowa and I believe it is worse there. Even relatives support his policies, beliefs and actions. Of course, our son doesn't 'count' because he's white by proximity apparently. Really, really awful.
4
Which wall design is the best? How much? Have they cleared all rights to build the wall on private property? Who are these contractors who have already been given millions to repair the wall? How much will Trump personally make from kickbacks? We all know he always needs money. Is this wall just another way to create a stream of income for his family business? Why does this who project stink of corruption without a need for it to exist? Why is America being held hostage for a scheme that has not followed protocol for as a legitimate project for the common good?
1
So now the President writes legislation, not the Congress?
Arrests for illegal border crossings are the lowest since 1971, so how exactly is that worse than the natural disasters that hit Puerto Rico, Florida, Texas, and California?
A President may declare a National Emergency because the sun rose in the morning, but that does not make it a National Emergency.
Congress can overturn it, and more likely the Courts will fight the legality of it.
Let's face it. As Trump realizes the walls are literally closing in on him, shutting down the government wheels for any reason whatsoever helps weaken the nation, cause chaos, and impede his own investigation.
Putin installed Trump to do exactly what he is doing. American patriots cannot let them get away with it.
10
Seemingly the goal of this style of governance is to inflict pain on as many people as possible regardless of their relationship to the problem or its solution. And through their position of power keep themselves insulated from their own actions.
How is this representative government [aka Democracy]?
5
Please Moderate Republicans, join together and negotiate with Democrats to provide a veto proof bill to override this shut down.
I think the people of America, as well as your constituents will approve of your actions.
And, if things keep going as they are, you will be seen as a voice of reason with the Republican party.
4
Moderate Republicans? All Republicans are called upon to save their countr, to save their fellow citizens, to save their souls. There is an emergency, The emergency is the people who are affected by the shut down. Not a wall.
2
Take from the victims of disasters! Way to go Trump! Not even the autocrats he seems to adore would do that! The man has no compassion for anyone but himself. Of course, his history of stiffing people who did work in his “golden” edifices supports his self centeredness.
When are the GOP Senators, Representatives, and yes, Fox going to stop supporting the President? He has become so erratic and prone to off the cuff pronouncements with no inkling of their unintended consequences. Not even his advisors or Vice-President have a clue what he will declare, as his policies are constantly shifting. They can’t even catch up as they defend his previous statements, as he does a 180 degree turn almost immediately.
Even middle school children, hey! even toddlers have more sense.
3
Perhaps what we need is a wall on the border between the US and Puerto Rico. Sad to say, it wouldn't surprise me if Trump didn't get what I mean by this.
Anyway, the way things are going, we'll wind up needing walls to keep people from leaving the US.
3
There is no National Emergency.
Past declarations under the National Emergencies Act give meaning to the term; not one involved a situation where a President got stalemated in a policy area and chose to take by fiat what he could not obtain through the Constitutional process of legislation. What Trump has floated as possible action by declaration would be the act of a monarch -- we fought a revolution to get rid of that system of government. What he is expected to do by declaration will likely circumvent the Constitutional appropriations process. What he is expected to do by declaration is (in short) illegal. And Congress has the means to stop it -- by legislation.
Notably Trump, for all his talk, hasn't done anything (yet). So far, all he's done is to affirm his character as a bully and a coward who also happens to be ignorant or indifferent to law.
2
Let me get this straight:
“You’ll have crime in Iowa, you’ll have crime in New Hampshire, you’ll have crime in New York” without a wall, he warned.
“We could stop that cold,” he added.
So the wall stops crime cold in these states?
Good to know.
4
Senator Susan Collins of Maine already has a sizeable campaign fund - FOR HER OPPONENT - in the next election. Suggesting that this wall debacle is Speaker Pelosi's fault is political suicide on her part.
Good.
3
After reading a lot of comments, think what is needed is a new broom. Run candidates who are not career politicians, vote out ll incumbents. This means democrats or republican incumbents and start all over again with clean blood. and do the same I the next electon starting with president.
Interesting that having said he wanted $5 Billion to "finish" the wall,on top of the allotted billions authorized but unspent after 2 years, we are now hearing numbers like $14billion...
"... the White House has directed the Army Corps of Engineers to determine whether it can divert for wall construction $13.9 billion allocated last year after devastating hurricanes and wildfires."
1
What is apparent amongst Trump's immediate circle of advisors is they are truly inexperienced, nor are there any legal minds possessing real litigation experience or a fundamental grasp on the basics of government fiscal law.
Collectively Trump's posse of ill advisors cannot negate the US Constitutional reality, Congress holds absolute power of the purse, absolutely. Sure declare an emergency and piddle around with other government agency accounts but an injunction would be both immediate and fatal.
Trump solely seeks to prolong this funding drama apparently in a warped view that his actions will negate his criminal activity. Meanwhile the adverse system dynamics of over 800,000 furloughed government workers and the people they serve is rapidly ripping through our economy and the real lives of all. Urge Senator McConnell to carry out his duties and put the veto proof bill that has already been passed by both houses.
The fact that the funding bill is veto proof means that McConnell and Republicans all share with Trump the blame for creating and sustaining this chaos. Truly pathetic.
2
Take it from California. Didn’t Brown leave them with a surplus?
1
This is insane. It's stealing money needed to help American citizens - that came from taxpayer dollars.
McConnell has shown that he will not step up. He puts party first and country is a distant second. He's not willing to manage a co-equal branch of government.
This needs for Nancy and Chuck to take the initiative - offer to negotiate if the administration can present a comprehensive border security plan, not just a demand for $$ for a wall. If it includes some $$ for barrier repair or extension where it makes sense,, Trump gets to claim his wall, and they can claim that they held the administration accountable. No plan, no $$. Taxpayers money should not be squandered on a vanity project. Maybe Trump should get a say in how taxpayer money gets spent when he actually PAYS some taxes.
2
I say furlough Mnuchin, Conway and - yes! - Sanders. Let's see how long the shutdown lasts with Trump's mouthpieces out of work.
3
Whether the wall is concrete or steel
Doesn’t change how indifferent I feel
In fact now its function
At least at this junction
Is that it’s now Trump’s achilles’ heel
Mr. Trump claims that undocumented immigrants "steal American jobs", yet he is effectively stealing the jobs of 800,000 American workers by continuing his border wall induced temper tantrum.
4
Isn't Storm Aid supposed to address American's suffering setbacks via...storms??? Assuming they actually do it, and given the ill-conceived notion of such an overt fiscal mismanagement I wouldn't bet against it, the excuse they employ apart from the obvious, that this is solely to service Trump's ego for an enduring legacy, should be...humorous.
8
This policy decision to divert funds for disaster relief to construct his Wall under the guise of a national emergency would be detestable and inhumane but typical of Trump and his corrupt administration.
I am frankly tired of his prevaricating act and inflammatory rhetoric. It takes a lot of nerve to hold the government and its workers hostage to force an unwise and imprudent decision on the American public. It is time for McConnell to show some rare patriotism and leadership and vote to reopen the government. If the Republicans want the Wall, campaign on it as a central issue in the 2020 and try to persuade the voters once again that Mexico will pay for it. The Republican Party and their President are truly ridiculous but their policies are harming the American people; hopefully they will suffer the political consequences and be thrown out of office for a very long time!
16
@IN
"It is time for McConnell to show some rare patriotism..."
I agree with what you say, but expecting patriotism from Mitch is not realistic, given his behavior to date.
1
Huh? Since Trump has been most reluctant to give out money for disaster relief how much in real dollars can they squeeze of the aid funds to put toward his beloved "wall"? Moreover, Trump regards the U.S. as sort of his business enterprise and being notoriously stingy in the latter he is naturally a miser in the former. Lindsay Graham and Mike Pence a haven't shown any leadership in the shutdown crisis. Graham is merely chanelling various pronouncements from Trump. When he deems it appropriate to play to the crowd, he rolls his eyeballs upwards as if he were chastising his master. Pence, that poor unfortunate soul caught betwixt his president and his wife, rushes about as though he is carrying very important news about the shutdown but we know, and most importantly he knows, that Trump can simply reel him in by his leash at any moment that he chooses. This is no government of the people, by the people, for the people. It is the governance of, by and for the foolish.
9
Do not be surprised if emergency funds from Blue states are what gets diverted. The Divider-in-chief is almost certain to make this into yet more of a play for his base.
13
So you’re saying Trump’s supporters are OK with this? Can they think through the implications just a little bit?
11
1) The Donny's main campaign promise was not only "the wall" but that Mexico was going to pay for it, repeated over & over & over (see YouTube) ....2) during his nationally televised (and archived) chat with Madame Speaker & Mr Schumer, The Donny said flatly "I will be proud to shut down the government" (key word: "I") ....and 3) the despicable GOP had 2 full years to get all the funding they wanted for The Donny's wall, but did not decide it was important until AFTER the DEMs took the House back ....???!!??!!!????????? 1) + 2) + 3) = 100% in the GOP court ....end of story folks !!!
10
Senate Republicans are just as responsible for this shutdown as as Trump is -- especially Mitch McConnell, who refuses to bring to the Senate floor any measure that's supported by Democrats and which proposes to re-open the government, for the sole reason that he knows Trump wouldn't approve it. Republican Senators like McConnell are failing to uphold their oath to provide a check on trump's out-of-control presidency. Start calling the Senate switchboard at (202) 224-3121 to demand that Mitch McConnell bring back to the floor the bill that the Senate passed unanimously on December 18 that funded the government without funding a wall. Phone numbers for Mitch McConnell's other offices are as follows:
Washington, DC Phone: (202) 224-2541 Louisville, KY Phone: (502) 582-6304 Lexington, KY 40503 Phone: (859) 224-8286 Fort Wright, KY 41011 Phone: (859) 578-0188 London, KY 40741 Phone: (606) 864-2026
14
Too Bad, I'm sure they were anxiously awaiting the president's return to Puerto Rico to throw out more free paper towels.
11
When viewed as the Anti-Christ, Trump's maneuvers are true to form. Anything he desires is in direct opposition to what is right and fair. When you expect that everything he says and does is in line with evil, it makes some level of sense. Sad for us.
12
The solution for Trump is blindingly simple: declare that the wall is there.
1) His base believes everything he says, independent of reality, so they should be satisfied
2) It doesn't cost any money
3) He can then declare victory, claim credit for breaking the funding deadlock and sign off on the bills for reopening the government.
4) The people who think Trump is a clueless goof will not change their opinion, so that's a wash
This is the route to a big Trump win. Biggest ever. Other presidents will be envious that they didn't think of this.
21
So sad to see two Texas Senators, Cornyn and Cruz, prop up the president’s lies about the Texas border at the expense of their own state. It’s an absolute shame!
14
I don't favor impeachment but in the case of trump and pence, I'd recommend impeaching them both along with McConnell and any other Republican that supports trump and pence.
This is one of the most corrupt administrations ever. McConnell and his Republican cohorts are just as corrupt.
Let's get them out of office.
19
President Pelosi sounds pretty good... certainly better than President Pence.
10
Despite the fact that they have no plan, no budget, no timetable, and no environmental impact reports, how quickly the spendthrift Republicans are to pick Uncle Sam’s pockets when they want something. Shouldn’t they be seeking private funding for this?
12
Breaking News,... Donald Trump just said many people who have experienced disasters are more than happy to give up their relief money to pay for his wall. Well not really, but in todays political climate such a statement is almost expected.
9
When Trump and his hand picked miscreants and thieves have determined that they have been able to steal as much as they can, then, they'll cut and run.
In the meantime, the country suffers. They can't be allowed to resign and leave.
Jail time. Jail time. Jail time.
It's time to take back our country.
9
“It was among the bewildering statements that underscored his often contradictory attempts to force Democrats to capitulate.”
Everything this president says or does is bewildering and is precisely why the Democrats can not trust him enough to negotiate on any level. He changes his mind continually and lies as a matter of course.
The shutdown, and his refusal to stop it, will be Trump’s lasting legacy.
6
When is there going to be an investigation into the crimes and misdemeanors of Mitch McConnell.
Who does this little man work for?
The American people, Donald Trump, or the Russians.
We need to find out, soon.
13
As an aside, I notice in a photograph on the Reuters web site of President Trump's meeting today with state and local leaders about the border issue, that the gentleman immediately to the President's left is wearing a cowboy hat. I consider this to be disrespectful to the office of the Presidency, although I think Trump's personal performance is abominable and worthy of impeachment. Yet the howls over Rep. Omar of Minnesota wearing a headdress on the floor of Congress continue unabated. There is a tragic disconnect and hypocrisy at work here.
6
A wall would be a terrible humanitarian disaster!
We know that global warming is happening and it will affect the poorest nations the most - like South America.
We will have to absorb many, many people from the South into our country in the future - and I don't care if they come across the border illegally! We just simply have to help them.
A much better approach would be to finally modernize our immigration system and make it much easier for people who want to come and work here to enter the United States.
5
If Donald Trump is convicted and goes to prison, please, someone tell me, that he loses his Secret Service protection.
And further more, can Vladimir Putin, pardon him? Think about that.
I guess the gig would be up then, right?
5
The House passed a bill today requiring that all government workers receive retroactive pay after the partial shutdown ends. The Senate approved the bill unanimously and the president is expected to sign the legislation.
Given the payments will be made retroactively, what is the rational for continued shutdown? Does McConnel has any moral ground on why he is still blocking bills for opening the respective agencies that have nothing to do with wall funding. This seems mostly theatrics now.
6
Every time you think this president has hit absolute rock-bottom, he manages to go even lower. Swindling money from hurricane and wildfire survivors who lost their homes, businesses, schools, and hospitals. How do you get lower than that...
15
I'm totally fine with this as long as Trump says Mexico will pay for the next massive hurricane or fire cleanup!
2
Nothing like taking money where it's critically needed and wasting it on a vanity project that simply will not work.
over 63 million of our fellow Americans actually voted for this extreme level of incompetence.
6
Putin's agenda incrementally advanced again by agent orange as one part of our government after the next slows and then stops functioning.
4
I read that the president said that building his wall would reduce crime in New York (and Iowa!) to "zero." How stupid we have all been not to realize that ALL crime is committed by illegal immigrants! A grateful nation turns its eyes to the very stable genius whose wisdom our Republican representatives saw first and whose imperial power is the only thing that can save us from the consequences of our ignorance. Right?
5
@Religionistherootofallevil
Or, if Trump is to be believed, that all crime in NY and Iowa is committed by illegal immigrants who illegally enter by walking across the US-Mexico border.
1
Pelosi is not going anywhere soon and she sure is not going to give a single dollar to this silly idea. She’s got nothing to lose. She has not been around all these decades for nothing. Hence his desperate plan-B to declare national emergency. Can’t wait to see the courts turn that one down! Or hold the case in limbo through 2020. Calls himself a deal maker. Sad!
6
The awesome sauce will be when the next Democratic president declares healthcare a national emergency and grabs the money to fully fund a single payer solution.
You go Donny!
6
The democratically elected president wants to do a reasonable thing, but the Decomracts are blocking. They will loose with this.
Without the wall, further migrant caravans will be come, and many people will die on the way. The chaos will just get larger at the border, which is not good for anybody, expcept for criminals.
2
We did not elect a king. The House of Representatives appropriates money. For the past two years, the Republican Party has the means to “do the right thing,” as you say, but chose to focus on their real crisis: the ultra rich paying taxes.
3
All this is desperation from a man who has cornered himself with promises of a wall and now knows his time is up with his base if he wants to be re-elected. Sad!
4
Everyone should be suspicious of Trump wanting to build the wall. This is the same Trump that employs illegals and is a known Con Man.
4
Well, I guess we could hold yard sales to raise $ after the next big storm wreaks havoc here in the Sunshine State.
5
Pence has taken the bait and is forever stuck in the Trump trap. He’s branded as a Trump stooge forever.
6
"White House considers..." then fill in the blank with something that's never going to happen. That's our Executive Branch today.
350 mass shootings last year -- where's the national emergency on that??
6
Trump,
Show your work, how is this Mexico paying for the wall?
5
Let's be clear. Trump is a $3 million trust fund baby born with a gold spoon in his mouth. His father continuously subsidized him with millions more every time he failed, throughout his "business career''. He has no idea of what life is like for the the 320 million of the rest of us.
Now, Trump, who trembles before his right wing news anchors and conspiracy, fabricating wonks, instead of all of the people, wants to steal our tax money dedicated for rehabilitation for storm and fire damaged property of millions throughout the US including Puerto Rico, to build a wall for his media "bosses" and his "fictitious" dangers.
Trump's shutdown is endangering the lives of millions of people in the US, and not just government workers. They can't make do like Trump says they can.
If he does this along with everything else that he is alleged to have done, we, the people, will not reelect Trump in 2020, despite external influences.
13
@Quandry - NOT RE-ELECT? We need to lock him up!
5
$3 million?
Try $412 million, plus much more in tax relief, bailouts, and dubious loans from crooks.
3
Trump counts on the fact that most of his followers, a number of mainstream Republicans, and as Paul Krugman pointed out, Libertarians, despise the idea of a federal government and its agencies, which they would like to abolish or privatize. Many blame FEMA itself for the mismanagement of the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, rather than the indifference and hostility of Trump toward that Island Commonwealth. Thus, they welcome the idea of drawing money from it,, including for relief after fires in California, knowing that Congress will always appropriate funds after each new natural disaster.
4
What I wonder is: months after the CA fires, and much longer after the disasters in Puerto Rico, Florida and Texas, why haven’t all those billions been spent when there are so many people still suffering?
13
Golly, where are the senate Republicans? Did they slip across the border?
We know they don't care a whit about Puerto Rico, but Florida? Houston?
The Republican cowards in the Senate have let this monster get what he wants, so they could pass items in their agenda, but now his madness is truly upon us, and they are MIA.
Will these Senators not stop this madman in his tracks, and let him know he won't get another bill passed for the next two years if he pulls this horrifying stunt of calling an emergency?
Do they really think our nation's governance is such a game that they can keep, and go along with, a shuttered government justified only by the fear of hungry, eager to work, desperately pursued refugees at our borders to motivate them? Do they not think that we noticed their cowardice.
Trump is a fool, and the democrats are simply pointing out that a madman's plans are madness to follow (this isn't about some political stunt: this is about a president having an immanently bad and dangerous idea, and getting stopped before the damages is done).
The Republican's in the Senate have abdicated their responsibilities as a governing body (as they had done under Obama, when all they did was obstruct).
Shame on them for letting the president move forward with a plan to save his ego that will hurt yet more people. Hey Florida and Texas: Rise up--your interests are being undercut by your Senators: Cruz, Cornyn, Scott and Rubio.
7
I believe that the vast majority of Mr. Trump's supporters would nominally describe themselves as fundamentalist or evangelical Christians. How do these people consider oppressing asylum seekers and depriving federal employees and contractors of income Christ-like? I ask this question as a Christian.
9
Since Trump and the GOP are the ones who called for the shutdown and are unwilling to make any move resolve it, Republicans could just possibly do what Bush Jr almost did...collapse the economy.
What were those fateful words?...."Mission Accomplished"?
9
For the last 40 years every Republican administration has tanked the economy.
8
The red staters who voted for this clown better take heed if
Trump uses Emergency FEMA funds...
Remember the Mississippi River floods?
The next Dem President will too.
5
Air traffic controllers....walk out at midnight. TSA. Walk out at midnight. All military commands stand down. Shut down the Russian President trump.
9
The GOP seems ether unfazed or oblivious to the Blue Wave in November. Regardless there is Blue Tidal Wave headed their way in 2020.
How does one explain their compliance in their own destruction? You can’t , and only accept it with joy and relief.
There is neither a second chance nor second act awaiting Trump and his corrupt party. Only justice.
4
Do not use and Emergency Declaration. It will come back to you.
3
Israelite slaves, when forced into hard labor while in captivity, were forced by the Pharaoh to make bricks without straw. (Exodus 5:12)
This is the closest Biblical analogy I can find for referencing the funding of a wall when aid money is being removed from other accounts.
7
But of course... I mean anybody would prefer living behind the fence to living under a roof, right?
3
I have reached a level of disgust that I thought I would never feel in my lifetime. And to take money from storm victims and other Americans who need assistance is simply despicable. These are not war times, and yet we have a President that acts like it is, all for a vanity project that he wants done. I simply do not understand why Americans are not out in mass, in the streets, protesting this craziness. Who I feel the most sorry for are the people who are suffering from the lack of services that they need and which are provided for by the Federal government. And then we have Mike Pence supporting this craziness. I guess that he forgot what the Bible taught him.
11
Trump and the GOP fiddle while the world burns (literally).
7
The party of small government and limited spending, gives us a huge deficit and wants the so called 'President' to circumvent Congress and the Constitution. Had President Obama done this, they'd be looking for a horse, a tree and a rope. Wonder if they'll start liking Russia when they learn the details of what Trump is actually involved in. What are the Dems waiting for? It's impeachment time NOW.
9
The transcript of the conversation between Trump and Pena Nieto in January of 2017: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Trump_Pe%C3%B1a_Nieto_transcript
It contains a number of "interesting" statements by Trump and, of course, they discussed the wall. This is my personal favorite: "It is you and I against the world, Enrique, do not forget.""
5
It is mind boggling to comprehend how little 45 cares for the American people.
13
It is mind boggling how Barry Obama wrote off a huge chunk of the entire country as fanatics, gun nuts, and bible thumpers. Most of us were none of these things. We just vehemently opposed his ideology. Written off like we didn't count. 1st time I've seen that happen. And you wonder why Trump was elected.
Is there any thought to checking to see if the Catholic Church is helping Latinos at any border location? The wealthiest church could be rich in food, clothing, medical needs, shelter, safety, and protection.
5
Having a two party system that represents the will of the people and allows for opposing ideas to be debated is crucial to our democracy. Nether party should be allowed declare national emergencies or hold the American people hostage as a means to achieve what they could not get done through the legislative process.
We cannot normalize or accept this kind of behavior because you don't have to look very far down the road to see where this will lead us if we do not stand up and stop it now.
12
The Democrats still don't understand that they lost in 2016 because they appear to favor illegal immigrants over American citizens, and they continue to offend voters by refusing to take border security seriously. They should give Trump his five billion, with the proviso that it not be spent on an expensive and environmentally destructive wall, but rather on electronic surveillance measures along the border, helicopter-borne agents to interdict trespassers, judicial infrastructure to promptly review asylum claims, and expeditious deportation when economic migrants are turned down.
The border situation will never change as long as Central Americans and Mexicans know that getting in is easy, and that once in, they are here for good. While Dems may celebrate this situation, they cannot win a national election by, dare I say it, stonewalling.
2
@Jeremy Bounce Rumblethud
And their claimed "popular vote victory" is more than fully accounted for by their landslide win in California, the land of the sanctuary state, where almost anyone can register to vote by self certifying that they are eligible.
3
And you attest to this because you have lived and worked here in the state govt? From Vermont?
2
@Jeremy Bounce Rumblethud Democrats have already offered funding for much of what you've proposed. Republicans and trump were about to agree to the deal... until Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh bullied trump into holding the government hostage for ideological purposes. This falls squarely on the shoulders of trump and his Republican lackeys. No one else.
7
So we have a national emergency. Hordes of brown people are headed our way. A new caravan is forming to invade our country. We need an immediate action... the answer? A wall that will take years to build!!!
The only emergency is our need to swiftly get rid of this “president”.
21
Please, let this insanity end.
Invoke the 25th Amendment.
Vote out ALL Republicans in 2020.
16
Haven't you figured it out yet? El Chapo will pay for the wall in return for a pardon from Trump. A simple transaction.
12
What this sorry excuse for a President has done to countless innocent families should be punished by life in solitary confinement. Mocking the disabled; kidnapping children and confining them in cages (while your third wife sports an "I don't care" jacket;) selling out your country in countless ways for money; and now robbing disaster victims to build an inane tribute to his pathology ..... how much longer does America have to
countenance this? Are we all brain dead?
12
So irresponsible! And talk about keeping everyone safe! TSA, air traffic controllers not getting paid! Taking money from disaster aid, and their all smiles, disgusting rhetoric!!
10
That's how a crooked dictator does it.
8
It is a loose-loose situation for Trump. If he declares emergency, it will sure end up in courts. It will drag on for months. Even if courts rule in favor of Trump, it takes a decade to build that wall. If it is national emergency, how can we wait for a decade? That in itself says there is no national emergency. If he doesn’t declare national emergency, what is the purpose of shutdown? It doesn’t matter what he does, he is not going to win this one nor the the re-election in 2020. He is just a sour looser.
8
@Kodali
So what do you suggest. Machine gun emplacements? The sooner a stronger border initiative is begun, the sooner it will be in place.
so what's the emergency? that immigration through the southern border is declining? stupid.
1
When was the last time you visited the border and witnessed anything remotely close to a crisis? From Vermont?
Please, NY Times, do not quote Trump without fact-checking him. Quoting him without context and fact-checking just makes the NY Times a mouthpiece for Trump’s propaganda.
As reported numerous times in NYT and elsewhere, immigrants have a lower crime rate than other Americans.
Yet in this story, reporters quote Trump charging that Democrats’ “opposition to a wall was responsible for brutal crime and violence. ‘You’ll have crime in Iowa, you’ll have crime in New Hampshire, you’ll have crime in New York’ without a wall, he warned.”
4
I'm watching C-SPAN and wondering why they don't turn off the heat, lock the restrooms & shut down the cafeteria in the Senate building. If the Senators got cold, hungry & had to take a leak; I bet they would figure things out.................oh, & give up their paychecks during the shutdown & health benefits..........what a
disgrace
11
Pelosi and the Dems are "dug in" because the wall is a boondoggle. It's just flushing billions of dollars down the toilet. There are better ways to improve border security.
14
Trump labels illegal immigrants as criminals, etc. Yet he is one of those that employs them, hypocritical Con Man
9
Mr. Meuller please save us !
10
This is evil. This is the actions of a narcissistic, megalomaniac. I believe Trump has been waiting for an opportunity for his big power grab and this is it. This cannot stand, it is so wrong. Trump knows the big showdown is coming with the Mueller investigation and he knows it is bad, very bad. He is pulling this before it comes out. He is holding the American government hostage. It doesn't belong to him, and he needs to be stopped before its too late, What he is doing to American citizens is disgusting, it is illegal. He says he is protecting Americans? What? How is that correct when he is putting people's lives in danger who are flying? Food inspection is critical and is being affected. Is that protecting American citizens? He took an oath to protect and defend America. Well, there is more than one way of doing this other than building a huge wall on the border. In fact that oath covers many, many facets of American life that affect the citizenry. It takes a balanced, skilled leader to handle that. Clearly, America doesn't have that now. Neither in the White House, or in the Senate!
7
Trump is going to bankrupt this country, like everyone one of his businesses. Tariffs that start depressions, billions for walls to nowhere. This is a slow motion national catastrophe. He is Pearl Harbor, 911 and Ted Bundy combined. I kind of see how it must have felt to be Jewish in Germany, in 1938. You see where things are headed, but powerless to do anything about it. All around you is lunacy.
7
@Fausto Alarcón
Bankrupt the country? Compared to what was spent on Iraq and Afghanistan, the wall money is pocket change.
Hey Florida and Texas, how's that loyalty thing going? Given this kick in the head you are now facing, you may as well have voted democratic like California and Puerto Rico. If you had this "trumped up" fake national emergency would not have ginned up to satisfy his racist followers. Maybe it's time to start thinking about your state's self interest again.
8
McConnell should be driven out from the Senate and, for that matter, the country. He and his ilk are acting like sociopaths/psychopaths who could care less about the American public.
12
I sure hope his usual supporters recognize the stupidity and waste of such a wall, that Trump's talk of 'crime and chaos' is laughable, and that they are speaking out and being very vocal. We simply cannot allow this nutjob to bully us into accepting a wall. And all the while, the country has to come to a halt, because of his pig-headedness?
4
Let's all remember that it is McConnell whose holding up the funding, giving trump plenty of rope to hang 800,000 federal workers and the national economy.
Proof that the Republican party doesn't give a damn about their constituents or the nation. Too bad. Sad.
The bill passed by the Republican Senate and sent to the Republican House and defeated by Coulter and Limbaugh in December, was passed by the Democratic House and returned to the Republican Senate in January.
McConnell refused to bring it to the floor. Why?
McConnell does not want HIS Senate to override a presidential veto.
Saving trump's face is more important to McConnell (and trump) than the US economy and markets, 800,000 workers, the farmers, we tax payers, or anyone else.
Just like our US policy, Democrats cannot barter with hostage takers because it sets the precedent: each budget cycle, just shut the government down until they - which ever party is in power - give.
This is not what our legislators are elected to do. They are elected to govern and budget. McConnell fails on both counts.
15
Why is McConnell not forcing a veto proof vote to get the government back to work TODAY ... why is the American public not demanding more from the people we pay to get things done for US and not for their party or Trump?
Stop blaming "the Democrats" or "the Republicans" for a problem that TWO people, McConnell and Trump, are currently responsible for?
14
"time is of the essence"...NOT
Emergencies are recognized by all to need prompt action to minimize damages and help people involved, and to not have to wait for the legislative branch to process a bill for executive branch approval before proceeding. The border situation does not pass the "duck" test of an emergency requiring immediate action. It has been going on for years and will continue to go on for a long time before any approved wall is completed. And the wall alone would not eliminate the stated problem.
Checks and Balances
The Constitution establishes a system of checks and balances in the operation of our government. The fact that the Congress will not give the President authority to build a wall is the definition of such check & balances. This is basic Constitution 101. Why are we even talking about bypassing Congress, using emergency funds, etc. Only because Trump has demonstrated many times he does not understand the Constitution.
6
Don is a longtime believer in a system of checks and balances - he bounces all his checks and pockets all the balances.
2
Trump doesn’t care about a wall. He had two years with a Republican-led Congress to get the funding for a wall. He doesn’t care about immigration. He didn’t think about it until he was told to during his campaign. What he does care about is being told no. What started as him trying to divert attention from other things that made him look bad, now has turned into a battle of wills because he can’t tolerate anyone telling he can’t have something. I don’t understand how this man continues to hold his job.
12
I am wondering if the wall is so important and urgent that is worth taking money away from people in dire need why didn’t it happen January of 2016?
7
I meant 2017
5
Mr. Trump might be more inspirational, if instead of groveling for a wall, if he released his tax statements, created jobs by concentrating on fixing our roads, restoring our bridges and making America the most beautiful Nation in the world.
He can cut the salary of those helping him in The White House, and place himself on an austerity budget. Secure our borders by establishing a base of immigrant officer housing, and make our troops willing and fit to serve our Country in the right way.
Give a raise to our finest, our police and firemen across the States, with emergency relief funds for those of us, victims of mass fires and floods, the havoc and destruction of Mother Nature. Keep our well-being and economy healthy.
America is a melting-pot, unique among all Nations, where some of us came to make a better life for ourselves; some persecuted for religious beliefs; some dying of famine, or in flight from terrorists. A national emergency is War, facing our Country.
Mr. Trump to lean on the positives, and as president, he has the privilege of enhancing our Country according to our Constitution, an oath he promised to uphold on taking office.
Our children will remember and the future belongs to them.
2
Transferring funds from inadequate funding for disaster recoveries to a project that won't fix anything or be finished in at least ten years?
This seems to encapsulate the problems trump's incompetence brings to government.
8
Why is McConnell singularly refusing to hold a Senate vote on the bill passed by the House, a bill that mirrors the one passed in the Senate last month by a veto-proof unanimous vote? (Hardly a useless ‘show vote’ he claims it would be, unlike his 70 actually useless show votes to repeal ACA while Obama presided.)
The real reason is that he’s up for re-election in Kentucky in 2020, where he’s become deeply unpopular, polling a miserable 33% approval/52% disapproval, and this in a state Trump won by 30 points.
Mitch is selfishly driving 25% of our government and its workers into a ditch all for his vainglorious pitch to Trump’s base to save his own skin.
Let’s hope Kentuckians make his 2020 campaign a pointless show vote.
6
A picture says a thousand words. V.P Pence has always been stoic, expressionless, and silent as a cactus. In this article's top photo, he is smiling - BIG time.
Pence gets his paycheck. Trump gets his paycheck. And the rest of the "government" we depend upon has to go to work unpaid, while our Nation's infrastructure falls apart.
Hurry, 2020, that we may Vote these greedy, short-sighted, uncaring creeps out of Office.
5
From my view, I fully endorse hearings on the impeachment of this corrupt dictator. Failure to act sets a new low standard for federal government behavior. It set the same type of governmental behavior that governs the maintenance of NYC's subways. I recommended recently that the NY state governor and NYC mayor should be indicted for malfeasance and jailed for a substantial period of time.
3
Susan Collins makes a blatant false equivalence when she mentions Trump and Pelosi in the same sentence. Pelosi is correct to not want to waste taxpayers' hard earned money on trump's vanity wall -- an impractical and ineffective approach to a complex problem. Democrats have shown flexibility in their proposals to fund border security, and have offered deals that Republicans had initially agreed to, yet which trump and McConnell now adamantly oppose. This shutdown lies squarely on the shoulders of Trump and his Republican lackeys in the Senate...no one else.
7
This president is an empty shell with no empathy for anyone. Perhaps we could find a way for him to switch places with some one who actually has to work for a living a la the movie Trading Places. To say nothing of those who’ve suffered in Puerto Rico.
2
It's quite clear that the Republican Party has signed a pact wtih the devil and only pledge their allegience to Trump and money, not to America or the Constitution despite their lip service.
3
So lets see if I have this right. Trump is going to divert funds from hurricane relief in Puerto Rico. Florida, Texas and Calif. so that he can start his wall. Don't worry, those poor people in Mexico Beach Florida have all their basic needs met already. They have tents to live in and Red Cross is there to provide meals and toilets, and a hot meal every so often. I wonder if they are the people that Trump so casually says support his wall. The man has no conscience . None whatsoever.
5
It is a great idea to divert funds that Congress authorized for a specific reason, one that did not include building a wall. If a president can do this, then who needs Congress. Who needs a budget. Just delete the portion in the Constitution about Congress appropriating funds. What a laugh. Pitiful. And naturally once the WALL is built, then we don't have to worry about all these illegal immigrants coming in, and we don't need as many border security people, so fire them, and spend the money on cleaning up America, those areas devastated by natural disasters. Trump and Congress is pitiful.
3
When I am President, I am going to make a speech from the Oval Office pointing out the thousands of Americans who are killed every year with guns, and I will declare it a National Emergency.
To underscore the rightness of my self-professed genius, I will leap up onto the Resolute Desk, and screech,"NATIONAL EMERGENCY!"
Then I will declare that all guns must be turned in within 48 hours or you will all face the righteous wrath of my newly formed Presidential Death Squads.
Hey, it's not unconstitutional! It's a National Emergency!
(After that, I will declare all cheesecake to endanger the heart health of Americans...)
5
Trump the grifter at work again, and part of this is a threat to steal fire relief funds to punish California for being California.
The Dems should be talking about one thing only: impeachment and removal.
Too bad Mike Pence is just as bad, only in different ways.
What happened to our democracy?
2
Perfect expression of Trump Republican philosophy: Take from Americans suffering devastation from floods, fire and other disasters. Invest that boodle in a useless monument to President Pathological's exploding ego. Reverse Robin Hood at its most evil.
14
President Obama didn't shut down the government when McConnell refused to allow Merrick Garland's nomination to proceed.
18
No, he just pouted.
2
Among other issues with the shutdown, it would be exciting if Collins would represent something other than blaming Trump and Pelosi.
5
Regardless of how this works out, it is a losing proposition for the American people, including me.
If Trump declares a national emergency and it is upheld by the courts, that means every future president could use this tactic to circumvent Congress, the justice system, and the will of the vast majority of citizens. Those future declarations could be may more impactful and consequential than a border wall. There will be no more checks and balances of power.
If Trump declares a national emergency and it is NOT upheld by the courts, the effort would a disastrous and costly waste of time that had a major negative impact on our national economy and Americans hurt by his policy decisions. All the resulting hardship, including bankruptcies, mortgage payment defaults, loan defaults, lapsed health insurance, stock drops, etc. would have been inflicted just to satisfy Trump's ego and his conservative far right wing base.
If Republican members of Congress do not agree on a budget plan before Trump declares a national emergency, it demonstrates that members of Congress - in this case Republicans - are not upholding their oath of office in which they vowed to pass legislation for the benefit of the American people, and NOT just the president and his sycophants. I don't care what Mitch McConnell says. HE, Mitch, needs to do his job as Senate Majority leader rather than sit back like a coward and wait to see who other than him will be held accountable for his failure to act.
12
McConnell is truly a craven coward who should be censured for insisting that protecting a president's political future is his job and more important than working for 800,000 families and the remainder of the 310,000,000 Americans and the Constitution he swore an oath to uphold.
5
Executive overreach like an emergency declaration when no emergency exists to access funds set aside for other purposes seems to rise to the level of "high crimes and other misdemeanors". Senators who know that should not be egging him on to such a precipice lest they join him for conspiracy to commit high crimes and other misdemeanors. Certainly I would lobby for such a charge to be lain and prosecuted via impeachment.
There is no out; there is no easy, spineless out. This is a bridge too far. It is time for the congress to fund the government and let the toddler tyrant stew in his own juices.
10
At the risk of sounding rather pedantic, storm aid is for storms, not for building silly walls like we live 1000 years ago.
Nor are migrants "storming" our country. (Sorry, couldn't help it.)
Rather we are seeing migrants waiting in disgusting conditions for a chance to legally enter our country and ask for asylum. We should be giving them aid, rather than taking funds from future aid.
Meanwhile, Trump has cut off funds to aid fire victims in California. Where is the logic here?
I can't help but think taking those funds would be illegal anyway. Either way, the intransigence is coming from the White House, which refuses to budge even one dollar on the wall. Nor will it agree to a study to make sure a wall is the best way to go.
7
While Trump advisors search for a legal way of funding that wall without Congressional approval. Members of Congress should explore legal ways of opening the government thorugh other means beyond Presidential approval.
The president's ego will not allow him to compromise at this point. .
5
@Jesse V. The Constitution provides for how Cngress can reopen the government without presidential approval. All they have to do is pass a measure or measures to reopen the government with enough votes to override Trump’s veto.
I’m entirely serious. Senate Republicans are accountable for this shutdown as much as Trump. Especially McConnell, who refuses to bring any measure to the Senate floor that Trump doesn’t approve of, thereby ducking the Senate’s constitutional duty to provide a check/balance on the presidency.
4
We the people choose our government to represent us. If a huge majority are against wasteful spending on an unneccessary wall, our representatives should stop it. Government works for us, not vice versa. Trump needs to remember this. What is he trying to do? Start a civil war?
7
If the Republicans are so intent on spending 6 Billion dollars on an immigration problem I suggest they donate it to NGOs that exist to aid the impoverished Latin American refugees so desperate to enter the U.S. This aid might go a lot further to ending the illegal immigration Trump and Pence are railing against than a wall which will ultimately be equivalent to a block of Swiss Cheese.
5
Instead of ripping off disaster victims, Dems should propose to claw back $5 Billion in tax cuts to the wealthiest to pay for their elitist wall.
California should enact a state of emergency bar any federal taxes collected from its citizens to go to the US treasury and kept in state for its needs - like natural disasters trump wants to steal Federal funding that Californians have already paid for through taxation without real representation.
This government shutdown is a direct result of spite from trump and his malicious cult base.
8
And when California taxpayers get that IRS tax deficiency notice with interest and penalties added, then what will California do?
@Edward
Ignore it. Indeed, who will fear the unpaid IRS agent? Besides, California would sue trump for maliciously redirecting California's tax contributions. California could even secede from the union for being taxed and ripped off without representation.
Time to call out Trump for what he is. Well, just one of many things he Is. In this case the phrase that describes him is one I had never heard until it was invented by his chorus on Fox. Trump is a crisis actor. Not a very convincing one either.
4
Basically, the question is who will blink first.
Both parties are to blame for the brinkmanship, built on the backs of federal workers. What happened to good old compromise?
4
@Kai
Compromise is where both sides meet in the middle. Republicans don't do meet in the middle. They hijack and blackmail.
1
Both parties are NOT to blame. Barely a month ago, the Republicans had both chambers and McConnell couldn’t get the simple majority needed to add funds for this silly wall to any of the bills they pushed through using the questionable reconciliation practice. Now that Democrats have the House, Trump is playing to the far right media and his base for purely political purposes, and Senate Republicans - who ALREADY agreed to a compromise before Trump threatened a veto - caved. They, and they alone, are responsible for the shutdown, and will be responsible should Trump use fake-emergency authority or, my god, divert real-emergency funds from people truly and ALREADY suffering. Twenty Republican senators with a conscience could commit to voting to override a Trump veto of the House bills to end the shutdown. They hold the responsibility in their hands!
2
@Chicago Guy
I thought it was Nancy Reagan who "just said no".
When did we become such a passive, uncaring culture? Why are we not coming to the support of displaced workers and contractors, demanding an end to this travesty with our voices and our feet?
Where is the labor movement? Why can they not catalyze a general strike, by all or us, to demand that the government - us - re-open in service to all of us?
This is Not our proudest moment, Americans.
7
I believe that if Trump declares a national emergency and it goes to the Supreme Court, he will win because the Court is not in a position to substitute its own judgment as to what is a national emergency and what is not. Republicans are worried, however. They’re afraid invoking a national emergency over the wall will establish a precedent for the Democrats to take advantage of. Already we see Kerry talking about climate change as a national emergency. One man’s emergency is another man’s excuse for a power grab. Maybe it’s better not to go there at all.
2
Trump claims the borders aren’t secure, but has only used 20% of the funding Congress has already provided to address problems with border security. The problems at the border stem not from a lack of funding but rather from trump's total incompetence.
3
So now it's GOP voters in Florida who lost their house because of a hurricane who have to give up ever getting a house again and have to start funding a wall instead - even though all national security advisers, including the Generals in Trump's own cabinet, have already explained why a wall is not the most efficient way to protect the southern border ... ?
How will Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh sell that to their listeners ... ?
5
Enough with the chaos - at home and abroad. It's time to find the strength to end this Presidency and lunacy of election politics. With the depth and breadth of education and experience this country has produced, surely we can create and elect a more effective government. Enough with this President! Let's move elected officials, republicans, democrats and whoever else - you may not be totally responsible, but you are all complicit. Shed this President NOW -- or at least shape his chaotic and narcissistic actions to right this ship.
2
Let me say this, thee only chaos exists in the Felon's brain. But here is a more pointed question. Will the federal employees who are presently not being paid for the work performed while the government is shut down receive a paycheck for this time.
If I was them and this includes those federal employees who voted for this goober I would not count on it. Trump and the Republicans hate the middle class. Many of the laws that were passed under the previous Republican presidencies were anti-middle class. The last highly touted tax bill was a disaster for the middle class.
2
I really hate Trump. I hope all those Republicans in the panhandle of Florida who complained that Trump is not hurting the right people celebrate this latest move.
4
keeping us safe from people fleeing violence and poverty! If you listen closely to their rhetoric, what this is about is not having to pay benefits to immigrants in order to keep the massive tax scam legit, because the deficit is soaring!
2
A President on the verge of abusing his power on the backs of those still suffering from natural disasters. I never thought I'd live to see such a thing in this country.
3
Trump is creating a real crisis by diverting disaster relief funds to solve an imaginary crisis at the southern border, just to satisfy his ego and his deplorable base.
3
I recommend that the President uses all legal means to the fullest extent of his authority and discretion to divert funds from the districts of democratic congresspeople and build the Wall. We are unlikely to get another POTUS with steely backbone and fearless chutzpah in our lifetime.
The Wall will survive all these congressional hooligans obstructing justice for the US residents. Go for it, Mr. Trump.
He doesn't have authority. Congress is only branch that does appropriations. Declaring emergency is only for emergencies,not making up one that does not exist. He has had 2 years of republican control of both the House and Senate to get more funding, he got some last Year which has not all been spent, and Republicans in control in December didn't agree, House would not pass lead by Ryan. He did not close govt over this. Only reason he did so now is because Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter said he should. Senate with Republican majority could vote right now to reopen government, but McConnell won't bring to floor for a vote. Seems to me the Republicans in the Senate are not doing their job, they are the obstructionists right now.
Can some of these funds be diverted for impeachment proceedings?
6
Are Trump and his advisors that tone deaf? That clueless? Taking money away from thousands and thousands of Americans who have suffered disasters to fund a non-solution to a non-emergency? Just talking about it is going to further damage them politically with the public. At this rate, we'll next hear how they are looking into cutting veteran benefits to fund the wall.
5
Go ahead and take the storm funds. And good luck getting re-elected without the electoral votes from California and Texas.
2
@Romy G. Well, without Texas. California’s electoral college votes will almost certainly go to the Democratic candidate.
1
Its time to look inside all us include, President Donald Trump . All come from direct shore for many reasons but way people from Mid central America leave there county as Donald Trump mention Gangs, that true but be victims another victims Donald Trump.
As little girl and boy sleep on cold concrete floor Houston Tx. May there pray will be heard as speak to haven to God. I pray my Lord for soul to kept if wake my soul to kept .
Christianity abounds in this administration, I wish I could believe like they do, leave my conscience at the door of the money, where do I get some of that?
1
How many poor and middle class taxpayers realize that due to the Republican tax cuts, the burden of paying for trump's wall will fall regressively on them? Corporations and people like trump, the wealthy 1%, certainly won't be picking up the tab, nor, of course, will Mexico. Democrats should perhaps point this out more forcefully.
23
After the Trump experience, I think it's necessary not only to demand that presidential candidates reveal their tax returns, they should also be required to reveal their college grades and then take an IQ test and make it public. Also, it might be a good idea to limit the amount of bankruptcies a presidential candidate can have before he runs for president. Trump never would have successfully jumped over these hurdles.
19
The only emergency is the one to respond to Tumps unfit to serve status. It's time to invoke the 25th Amendment. He won't talk, so it's an emergency. Is that the actions of a sane person? If the Republicans had a backbone, government workers would be working and be getting paid today.
15
I don't care what the project is. Diverting emergency aid to Puerto Rico, devastated first by a hurricane, then by government neglect and corruption, is insupportable. And the people of California left homeless by wildfires are in desperate need of the help this funding will provide. If this Trumped up crisis at the border is really about protecting Americans, how about protecting people whose lives have been upended by natural disasters rather than punishing working people by delaying/denying their wages & throwing the government into chaos AGAIN?
20
The true emergency would appear to be an abject failure of governance. It would be convenient to completely blame Trump, but it's really the republican party that has displayed breathtaking incompetence and corruption that do not befit a political party with national stature.
Maybe it's time for the kooks--Nunes, Jordan, King, Kennedy, the 'freedom caucus' survivors, etc.--and the corrupt and spineless--McConnell, Graham, Grassley, Hatch, McCarthy--to found their own party with Trump as its figurehead leader. And leave the moderates to rebuild from the wreckage a party still capable of working toward consensus, compromise, shared purpose, while working and living in the 'reality-based community'. But as it exists, there is little left that supports any democratic principles--simply power, 'victory', and the performing of rituals that represent some cartoonish version of democracy.
12
It is called "Robbing Peter to pay Paul". It is also one of the reasons trump landed in bankruptcy so many times.
"All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives." (US Const. Art.I, Sect 7.)
16
@Glackin They all seem to have forgotten these very basic lessons from civics class - along with the one about the legislative branch being able to override a president's veto.
3
Remember, folks, the full price of the Great Wall has been priced in at around $25 billion. I’m assuming that number came from OMB. I don’t think they priced in the protracted legal challenges from Texas farmers and ranchers over imminent domain who really don’t want a wall on their property, but I digress.
Unless Trump finds $25 billion just sloshing around out there in the government hinterlands, we get to do this again.
9
This is extortion! Trump is demanding $5.7 Billion to build something somewhere; and, he is going to call it a wall. If this was a real solution to a real problem those details would have been worked out a long time ago.
The only thing that happens when you give in to extortion, you get more extortion.
22
The Pretend King Trump's sandbox antics will cost those in need from natural disasters, particularly in the Midwest and Southern regions. So Trumpistas are you willing to take the hit of having no relief from devastating hurricanes and flooding for a wall? The answer today is yes, when you need help the answer will be no, but then it will be too late. Already the lawyers in California are lining up to defeat any move to divert allocated funds, it is called misappropriations of funds. State governments have being diverting funds as well. This must stop otherwise we will stop paying taxes since it is obvious these leaders do not want to repair our infrastructure, help us when natural disasters hit or even obey laws we voted on. Go ahead make our day Pretend King Trump and declare your "I can do it act because I can do it". Then watch it all tumble down, the GOP party will go first.
7
If it's one thing in governance that the Republicans CAN do and historically have been successful at, it is shutting down government. But then, this is exactly what they have always wanted to do.
Taking disaster relief funds? How priceless. Accelerate global warming and then deny the effects... because with all the foregone tax money going to those that cause it, why plunge the country further into debt to remediate it! Mo' money, mo' money, mo' money... for the 1%.
8
@live now you'll be a long time dead
They also never obtained anything through a government shutdown ... and will never obtain anything by trying to bypass Congress and harm America's safety.
2
Can't get your agenda through Congress because, you know, votes and so forth? Then rule by fiat--just call it a "national emergency." Why didn't we all think of this before?
So when the next (Democratic) President invokes a "national emergency" to curtail assault weapons --surely 30,000+ gun violence deaths per year is a "national emergency" of equal or greater urgency than immigration--those on the right will be fine with that as well. National Emergency.
Or reimposition of the individual mandate for ACA--that will help fix the health care "national emergency," no?
12
If he can get away with declaring a fake national emergency, what's to stop him from declaring fake martial law when he feels the need to hold onto power against al costs? Can he use it to stop the investigations. DJT's entire focus from here out will be how to use his powers and authority to hold on to his powers to protect himself from all the attempts to check his abuses of power and other criminal acts.
The American people are still asleep at the wheel. That is the real problem.
14
"White House Considers Using Storm Aid Funds as a Way to Pay for the Border Wall"
What is it about the word illegal, that Trump supporters don't understand?
10
Susan Collins is a big part of the problem! If the wall was being in Maine would she even fight for her state against the impulses of this unstable man to prevent it? Collins has sold out the of Maine over and over again to the corporate lobby and the ver wealth at the expense of the average person.
6
@Susan Yes, She needs to be replaced in the next election.
She should be standing on the floor demanding the bills come to the Senate Floor for a vote. If McConnell cared a dime about her, he would listen.
1
Trump wants to re-allocate disaster relief funds to build his wall.
What happens if there is an actual natural disaster? There has been an unusually high number of natural disasters in recent years, and more severe ones as well. We need the money for that.
As for his wall "emergency" that is just more fake news from the original source, Trump himself.
7
The reality is immigration is no more of a threat today than it was 10, 20 or even 50 years ago. On our list of pressing problems, "illegal immigration" is not the dangerous or urgent crisis that trump and people like Stephen Miller would have us believe. Mass shootings, healthcare, the stock market, the toll on Americans by trump's tariffs, infrastructure, falling wages, unaffordable housing, high cost of education, the threat of ISIS, cyber security, protecting our elections, betraying our allies -- these are what warrant urgent attention. It's way easier to convince gullible people that illegal immigrants are an immediate threat than it is to focus on what the real problems are. WAY easier.
Are there problems with border security and our immigration system that we need to address? Absolutely. But a wall won't stop the terrorists, drug cartels and crime lords... the actual "bad hombres" that trump refers to. A wall along the southern border isn't even feasible given the logistics of building one.
trump has become increasingly fixated on the wall to appease his base. Meanwhile, trump puts the entire post WWII world order at risk with his actions that are exponentially more dangerous than those who cross the border from Mexico.
12
In two weeks the costs of the government shutdown to the economy will have exceeded the cost of the border fencing.
Give him his fencing dollars and give us the dreamers and then let's all move on.
Nice try, Sen Collins. Equivalency between Trump and Pelosi?? You are just hoping no one shines a light on your utter cowardice and failure to speak up against Trump’s lunacy.
18
If this is such a national "emergency", have Trump explain why he wants a wall that will take 10 years to build. Where is the emergency? Doesn't that require an immediate response?
For this monument to his bloated ego, Trump is taking away the paychecks of 800,000 people. Also, he is thinking of taking away emergency funds from Puerto Rico, Texas, etc. What gives his the right to do this? When is Congress going to stop this maniac? What is taking them so long?
14
Mr. President is very wrong to want to divert disaster funds to the wall. The people that need the funds, and some are his base supporters, are living a life right now no one should have to live.
And why has it jumped from 5+Mill to 13? What the heck is that man thinking?
Oh, he isn't, and that is the entire problem.
6
Here’s the silver lining in this mess. Trump is alienating anyone who identifies as an independent, and he’s hurting his own base through the shutdown and his stupid trade war with China. He’ll never get re-elected. Why? Because people will forget what you did and what you said. They will never forget how you make them feel, especially if you made them suffer.
Trump is causing a lot of needless pain for a very wide swath of the US. They won’t forget. We won’t forget. 2020 can’t get here fast enough.
8
"Political language...is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."
George Orwell, SHOOTING AN ELEPHANT
8
This is on us. It is unconscionable that we have put this obdurate monster in the oval office.
Yes, Trump is awful. He's been *obviously* awful for many years now. During his campaign, he said and did awful things every day -- in fact, all the time. And, now that he is in office, he is exactly who he seemed to be; indeed, who he told us he is.
But clearly awful people have always existed. When and how did we become the kinds of maniacs willing to put such people in positions of unrivaled power, capable of fomenting human misery on a truly massive scale? The collective character of Americans is rightly and forever stained by this. Whatever transpires after this, it will never not have happened. Consequently, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that we are generally bad people, and I feel that I will never -- never EVER -- entirely forgive Americans for this. In fact, I intend not to. And this saddens me.
8
@William
We didn't put Trump in the White House, the Electoral College did. And in doing so, they abdicated their very reason for being, which is to be a bulwark against some unhinged lying racist idiot from assuming command.
So the question is, if it doesn't serve it's function, then why not git rid of it?
4
No; no; no. Trump can not do this. dems and courts will stop him. Ray Sipe
3
Senator Lindsey Graham said “It is time for President Trump to use emergency powers to fund the construction of a border wall/barrier. I hope it works.”
Hope is not a plan. And Senator Graham has lost his spine and common sense, sucking up to Trump ever since Senator John McCain died.
There are at least three key legal issues with Trump’s plan.
First, as a factual matter, there is no emergency allowing for Trump to use the military in this manner.
Second, the relevant emergency construction authority does not allow Trump to build a border wall, because the statute requires that the construction be needed to support the use of armed forces, but in this case it would be the other way around.
Third, the legality of seizing vast swaths of private, state, and tribal land to build a wall along the entire border is highly suspect at best. Will the landowners simply acquiesce?
In short, even if Trump declares a national emergency, he cannot simply use the military to build a wall.
But beyond all of the above, a broader issue is raised by his contemplated action. It is not only illegal and impractical, but 100% at odds with our constitutional structure and values. Trump’s proposal is the type of unilateral action one would expect to find in an authoritarian regime.
The national emergency is not at our Southern border, it lurks in the White House.
12
And trump again uses Americans as hostages threatening the well being of Americans, what next when trump does not get his way and has a temper tantrum, perhaps foreclosing on US Treasures, putting Social Secrity and Medicare into bankruptcy, or perhaps a nuclear attack on the USA with trump who from his bomb shelter tweets, “Honor me as president for life or I will not defend the country!!!
And Giuliani chanting “trump can legally do this!!!!!! ”
And trump tweeting “This is winning!!!!”
4
Marco Rubio, Rick Scott, Vern Buchanan etc are you speaking out against the White House / trump idea to divert hurricane/ wildfire rebuilding money to a physical wall?
7
Is this administration out of control or what? How can they even think of touching the funds earmarked for those communities that are trying to rebuild their lives after the historic natural disaters?
The current occupant of the White House is certainly out of his depth and is incapable of coherent thought. He changes is positions so often, that he can not be trusted to keep his words. He made repeated promise that Mexico will pay for the wall; now the victims of natural disaster will have their earmarked funds snatched away to fulfill a broken promise of a wall - to address an imaginary border emergency.
Yes, we absolutely need to have border security, and prevent non legal residents from either infiltrating illegally, overstaying their visa, and prevent smuggling of drugs and weapons. Will the wall prevent all of these? Only in the minds of a deranged occupant of the White House.
7
How many people is he willing to let suffer and die for this monument to his ego?
10
@Susan Wladaver-Morgan
Everyone but himself.
1
C'mon guys...The president couldn't possibly think about doing this.
This is from The Onion........Right? Right?.....
5
trump is a complete idiot who cares about no-one but himself. McConnell is at fault as are the other complicit Republicans in Congress, including all those Republicans like Paul Ryan and Jeff Flake, who did nothing, nothing to help our country. I am starting to believe McConnell is as guilty as trump in helping to steal the 2016 election from the American people. Where is Mueller? Arrest the autocrat, please.
12
Trump is your worst nightmare come true. In business he didn't pay contractors/workers, or lawyers for that matter. When things got too dicey, he just took bankruptcy. He doesn't care one wit about the American people. All he cares about is keeping a certain percentage of suckers on the hook to do his bidding. GOP members of Congress look and act like his personal lap dogs. They have the look of tortured hostages in pain. Their eyes are dead. Pence looks so hypnotized and frozen that you could push him over with your finger. Trump has got to go before he causes more damage that can't be undone.
12
Disaster relief money approved by Congress for Texas and Puerto Rico can not be used for the wall. There is no crisis at the border. Ray Sipe
8
Taking aid money to pay for Trump's senseless vanity project which he needs solely for political reasons? The Trump maladministration is truly reprehensible and devoid of any scruples.
There is very little that is positive which can be said about any cabinet member. They are an extraordinary combination of the incompetent, the selfish, the unethical, the immoral, the stupid, the ignorant and the bigoted. In sum, a disgrace.
8
They are such odious curs: nothing like taking relief for tax paying and frustrated American citizens and using it (probably) illegally for an inanimate and unnecessary wall!
My god, where is Congress and where are the lawsuits to stop this lunacy?
6
The REAL terrorists out there are watching this nonsense and planning how to take advantage of this pre-occupation with a stupid wall.
They don't need a wall. Disrupt the power grid. Flick a few switches.
No heat, no water, no sewage plants, no AC, no internet. No more phones to diddle. No more FOX news broadcasts.
REAL terrorists must be ROTF laughing their behinds off.
Sheeesh....almost 20 years ago they came by PLANE.
Why does Trump think they are going to crawl over a silly fence? Then what. Hike thousands of miles to some place that will make a difference if they attack?
Cyber Crime is where it's at today.
Not some women with little education and kids climbing over a moronic wall.
7
Boss Putin won't get tired of winning, his prez puppet Trump keeps doing a MAGA great job of destroying the US from within.
9
Why did it take 25 paragraphs before a Democrat was mentioned?
2
Evidently conservatives are opposed to Trump's declaring an emergency because then what would stop a democratic president from declaring one to address climate change; which is ironic considering addressing climate change is necessary avoid ever more severe droughts, flooding, hurricanes and sea level rise, and doubly ironic because Trump would use funds to help people hurt by climate change to build his wall.
14
@Sherry Americans need healthcare too.So National healthcare could also be instituted via national emergency.
You're right, the numbers support climate change being a national emergency, as well as healthcare. But the point is,i it's an abuse of power. CONGRESS is supposed to do their job. Right now, McConnell refuses to do his.
3
Did any of our past presidents get stuck in the specifics of building fighter planes, jets, tanks, drones, missiles, bombs or walls as part of our national security ? Isn’t that the job of experts in those fields? Rather than developing a comprehensive Immigration and Border security policy grounded on data and facts, Trump is obsessed with the specifics of steel slats, concrete slabs, fences, nuts, bolts and as such. Is that what we expect from the President of the USA?
If this is an imminent national security and terrorist threat as he proclaims, is the wall the most effective barrier? It takes several years to build a wall. How does that stop the imminent national security issue that he proclaims ? If 100% enforcement is what Trump wants, for example, landmines work even better than a wall.
There is total absence of debate from security experts in the field on what we really need here for border enforcement. There is no strategy, or a policy document or details on how we see immigration and security as our strengths or weakness, or how implement this and sustain this long-term. Instead, we are bombarded with the supposed competence of Trump in building walls, allocution of politicians, erudition of TV anchors and expertise of radio hosts.
16
Trump apparently believes that his base is comprised entirely of hedge fund managers, neurosurgeons and corporate lawyers — those well-heeled enough to absorb the financial impact of a pesky Cat 5 hurricane, tornado, wildfire or earthquake. To him, it makes all sorts of sense to divert funds earmarked for a calamity in order to fund a monument to his disastrous legacy, otherwise known as 'the wall.' Trump set fire to America on January 20, 2017, and it's been smoldering ever since. The angst is compounded by the day. It's unconscionable.
9
Come to think of it, this campaign promise of Trump's does qualify as a disaster.
8
This is pretty clearly propaganda to discredit the Democratic house (taking a playbook from Reagan, as usual). When a truly stupid idea fails, then it will be their fault and his base, isolated in the Fox News echo chamber, will be reassured that they know the true and enlightened path away from Deep State conspiracies.
As an abstract exercise, I'd suggest building the wall as described - it will take one rainy season's flash flooding to covert it from a laughably bad "people barrier" to the world's worst flood barrier, and something that would embarrass even the Army Corp of Engineers.
There are few politics in the physics of hydrology, though I'm sure the Tin Foil Hat brigade will insist otherwise.
4
Trump has very good experience declaring bankruptcy and cheating people out of money - that is all he is doing here.
Trump is politically bankrupt because he knows Rush and Ann Coulter are about to bail on him. Thus, he has zero political capital.
The "emergency" is his political bankruptcy. So he is going to steal money from US citizens who need the money to rebuild their homes from the hurricanes.
Trump has provided no empirical proof that building the wall will do anything but make his contractor buddies richer. Enriching corporations was part of the swamp that he was supposed to drain; instead, he is merely adding more sewage.
9
Trump is a billionaire. He should use his own money to build the wall.
9
What if Donald paid for it?
After all he is a billionaire.
3
Now that will work. Take funds away from a natural disaster and pay for a wall. Let's lawyer up, time to go to court
7
Good luck in 2020 if they take aid meant for people recovering from disasters in some of the reddest of states to build a wall.
5
How about we do it as originally stated: make Mexico pay for it. Tax money transfers from the States to Mexico might be viable.
Or, if the wall is offensive just let these poor people in so they can have some kind of life hopefully.
4
Trump claims an absolute right to declare an emergency so that he can have the military build his wall (translate "ego"). Some legal observers speculate the Supreme Court will not even bother to consider whether there is a real emergency in upholding Trump's claimed absolute power to make the declaration.
The beauty is that this has such vast implications. Just think. Trump could next call out the Marines to build more Trump hotels around the world. Then he could order the Air Force to bomb nasty competitors. This also would serve to vastly increase his wealth. which, if threatened, might force him to seek other avenues to survive financially, like taking bribes from Russia. We've seen time and again that when Trump's ego is threatened we all are threatened.
9
Let him take disaster relief from TX & FL for his obscenely expensive, guaranteed-to-be- ineffective, wall. Let them know in a big way how much he cares about them. If he hasn't lost 2020 already, he will after the next hurricane season. Just ask Puerto Rico.
6
This is just another reverse Robin Hood move by Donald Trump. Take $5.7 billion from those devastated by fires and hurricanes in desperate need of federal aid to rebuild and give it to yourself for the unneeded wall that's a monument to your narcissistic ego. Now we have four humanitarian crises: (1) at the southern border where children are separated from their parents and placed in inhumane conditions where two have already died, (2) federal workers including the Secret Service and T.S.A. employees protecting you and us from real terrorists going without a paycheck and staging a "sickout," (3) victims of fires in California and hurricanes in Florida, Puerto Rico and Texas who still await and need federal assistance, and (4) in the Oval Office where there is no "heart" and no "soul," but only unfeeling narcissistic greed.
8
There could be bipartisan agreement to end the shutdown if Mr. Trump would simply say, "I previously said we need a wall, but that was a shorthand, and I have learned from experts and now have a better understanding of the complexity of securing our border. My position now is that we need a wall in some areas, but there are other areas where technology is better and yet other areas where border agents are appropriate. We need all three."
He doesn't think he can say that because he is trapped by radio and TV personalities and his rally-goers.
Mr. Trump, please TRY saying that.
11
The United States has a long and honorable history of refusing to bargain with despots and hostage takers.
Pelosi and Schumer are simply continuing that honorable tradition.
24
Take funds away from very legitimate disaster needs, where people are truly suffering, and devote them to an unnecessary and useless wall? And that’s not to mention the 800,000 unpaid federal workers, their families, and the citizens who count on and need the valuable work they do.
Trump’s evil, stupidity, and hatred know no bounds. We really do have a psychopath at the wheel.
34
So this means that Trump won't be able to go to Puerto Rico to toss out another round of paper towels? Disaster relief for those who've been ravaged by horrific storms just isn't something that much needed when there are such crime-infested hordes storming our southern border, wanting to come here to rape and pillage? We certainly are witnessing just how much he is making America great (not) again. I hope he is getting plenty of KFC!
13
Obama said he opposed same sex marriage and that there would be no individual mandate for hos universal healthcare law, and the media never put those on a list of fact check lies.
Trump's supporters never believed Mexico was going to write a check to pay for the wall, but that they were going to indirectly pay for it by losing some of their advantage that had cost American jobs.
But when Trump says Mexico is going to pay indirectly, it gets scored as a lie. We want the barrier built, although never expected it would be a continuous concrete wall.
Democrats have previously supported a wall, their only objection today is that they fear Republicans will get credit for moving immigration reform, something the Democrats and Obama were incapable of doing despite massive support from the people.
2
@ebmem If by "massive" support you mean much less than 50% of the population supports Trump's version of "immigration reform", then you're right.
And if you still believe that Mexico is going to pay for Trump's wall indirectly or otherwise, then I have a wall I'd like to sell you.
6
@ebmem
"But when Trump says Mexico is going to pay indirectly, it gets scored as a lie."
Because it is and always has been a lie, told by a pathological liar. Whenever Trump is called on his lies, he and his lickspittle supporters respond by telling more lies or by moving the goalposts or by re-inventing language. As a result, nobody believes you or takes your opinions seriously anymore.
3
Trump never said “Mexico is going to pay indirectly.” He said Mexico is going to pay. It WAS a lie, despite the predictable frantic dissembling now. Do you people even hear yourselves?
6
“I hope it works” said Lindsey Graham, the former veterbrate and current republican senator from South Carolina.
10
Surely Pelosi, Durban, and Schumer have an easy cheap alternative to Trump’s plan to secure the border. Pelosi said so but said that it is a secret. What are these top Democrats waiting for? Please tell everyone what your secret plan is. I want to know what way you have come up with that has better benefits at a lower cost.
3
Of the 800.000 govt employees not receiving a paycheck today, how many are Congressional leaders? Which Congressional Leaders have refused to receive a paycheck - choosing to stand with those 800,000 workers not receiving a paycheck today? If it remains true that Trump chose not to take a salary while in office, that would be 1 republican. any others?
2
This is the nature of a Republican held government. At least the senate and presidency.
This is the nature of how a name like Dreamers is as unlike the people who the name quite falsely intends to represent.
2
Trump is becoming more detached from reality as the days go by. Anything Steve Miller (oh I mean trump) can think of that will enrage, is usually illegal, immoral or lacks common sense they will try to throw against the wall to see how much people will tolerate. This entire chaotic, incompetent administration will set a new standard breathtaking ignorance and nastiness! This is not governing it is extortion.
13
If this silly wall is ever built it will be known as the wall of shame, a symbol of broken government and public money's waste. A symbol of the eventual demise of the Republican party.
11
It's almost as if this is a game now, whereby Trump keeps audaciously pushing to see where the boundary is with his Republican lackeys. "Not here? How about THIS?!" How could any senator or congressperson in their right mind not act to stop him from taking federal aid away from disaster victims to allow Trump to fuel his ego with the wall project? The idea is completely unhinged. We say this day after day, week after week. What is it going to finally take to get them to WAKE UP, put him in his place and stop him?!
19
If Mr. Trump declares a state of emergency, or in any way tries to shift money from other priorities to build his wall, a monument to his ego and to stupidity, the congress should immediately begin the process of removing him from office.
8
Ha! Ted Cruz was Trump's prop at the border yesterday, smiling and nodding while Trump recounted his nightmare invasion scenario before liberal media TV cameras.
Since Trump's reneging on funding for Hurricane Harvey victims, is it too late for Houston Republicans to renege on their support for Cruz and vote for Beto instead?
10
If this chimerical monument to bigotry wasn't obviously immoral, taking disaster aid from fire or storm ravaged communities to fund the Bigly Wall should clear that up.
7
January 2017 to December 2018 - GOP majority – Wall is not an emergency
January 2019 Democratic majority in House – Wall is EMERGENCY!!!
Trump/GOP now captivated on holding our Government hostage for his Wall—why?
13
Donald Trump and Mike Pence should take a road trip across this US , by car.
Maybe they can understand that billions on a stupid wall would be better spent on the Interstate roads and bridges, instead of being wasted on nonsense.
Trump promised infrastructure spending in his campaign. He should focus on that instead of wasting time and effort on a wall that most Americans don't want thier tax dollars squandered on.
Put Americans to work so they don't have all day to sit and soak in FOX fairy tales and Windbag lies (Hannity and Windbag make MILLIONS, have ALL their heath and welfare needs paid for for life....while they encourage the dolts in teevee land to support a man that couldn't find the midwest on a map four years ago and who denigrates Obamacare, which is not perfect, but is a start).
Mike Pence have YOU ridden across Indiana lately on the roads in your state? How do Indianan feel about wasting all that money?
Stop along the way in truck stops and ask truckers about the roads in this country.
And Mike Pence by the way.....Why are you and Trump lying to people about Coal making such a comeback when in your state, Indiana, the Utility NiSource is planning to accelerate the closing of FIVE coal fired generating plants?
Take that trip.
10
This is your president, 30 percent or whatever you are now. You own this unfathomable mess.
11
.... and putin laughs!
His puppet is performing as expected.
Soon putin will have no use for DJT. One can only imagine what putin will do when he no longer needs his puppet.
Soon DJT will find out (too late) who he really works for.
His brand gone, the GOP ruined for a generation and once convicted of treason- the worst of all.... he will lose his twitter account!
8
If a foreign enemy of the United States had trained a "sleeper" spy from birth to infiltrate the American government, sabotage its institutions and undermine its morale they could have produced no greater saboteur than Donald J. Trump.
10
First, Trump blames California for wildfires (right; like it's their fault. More fodder for conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones. But, I digress...)
Now, he wants to divert FEMA funds to build that "big, beautiful wall."
This is no longer a mere "signature" campaign promise; it's now fallen something somewhere between an obsession, and a fixation.
Y'wanna know something? Trump msy be POTUS; but he's also what is referred to in some circles as, "that special kind of stupid."
4
This is significant:
"Mr. Trump tweeted Thursday that he would skip a planned trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, slated to begin Jan. 22, because of the impasse." NYT
As we know, Trump fails miserably at international meetings, but attending them is a major part of his job. Hmmm?
10
@Joseph Genualdi- Kansas City
The other people going to Davos must be breathing a sigh of relief. When your president goes to international meetings he tends to insult everybody.
1
@Joseph Genualdi- Kansas City
He doesn't want to be around real business men and real
business leaders, of which he is NOT one.
And they don't want to be around him.
1
The president is harming federal workers and the national economy just to placate his extremist base. I am sure I speak for most Americans when I state that I want my government to reopen, and I don't want my tax money to pay for a stupid and expensive border wall.
8
Is Trump only out to hurt people in need? Keeping refugees from seeking asylum by taking disaster relief from American citizens is a double take on cruelty. What about paying for the wall by using Trump's personal wealth - after all only Trump is neurotically obsessed to build a wall.
In the past, U.S. presidents had good judgment as to cost versus benefit. Trump has lost all perspective and is willing to risk the livelihood of hundreds of thousands Americans just to have a meaningless win for himself. Pathetic!
5
Senator Collins will be defeated in 2020. She's suffering from severe fence sitting sores the pain from which renders her incapable of understanding that Pelosi is arguing against a politically created crisis by her leader-idiot, setting up a false equivalency yet again. Pelosi should stand firm against the insanity and recognize that the majority of Americans are sick of being sick and tired!
6
Can we just build a 100-foot section of the wall, all black glass, slap the name "Trump" on the side of it, give him his photo op, build NO MORE of the wall, and then move on? We can end this idiocy for $200K.
Meanwhile, another chunk of Antarctica probably just broke off into the ocean.
This puerile, empty-headed, racist infant is throwing a tantrum. Throw him a few Cheerios, make him think he's gotten what he wants, and then put him to bed.
I wish that were the only thing that needed reigning in.
5
Of course Donald Trump would divert disaster relief funds from storm and fire ravaged Puerto Rico and California to fund his great big beautiful, but easily penetrable, Vanity Wall monument to himself.
He did the same despicable and illegal thing using his Trump Foundation charity money to buy a portrait of himself for one of his hotels.
That is exactly the kind of sub human this cretin is.
7
Cherry picking funding from very legitimate essential programs in order to fulfill a foolhardy campaign promise for this boondoggle is fully what we expect from this ignorant reality TV narcissist we have in the oval office. I think I am not alone in outrage fatigue, and am just counting the days until the 2020 election just to get this sad chapter in our nations history over. We can never do something this stupid again...
8
Kind of obvious by now that everything this President does weakens America and benefits Russia.
6
When obama declared a crisis at the border, everyone published stories to back him up. What has changed? It's gotten worse. Stop the hypocrisy!
The Washington Post wrote in 2014, “White House requests $3.7 billion in emergency funds for border crisis,” while CNN published a feature, “Daniel's journey: How thousands of children are creating a crisis in America.” It described a problem of "epic proportions."
Around the same time, the Huffington Post declared that “photos of the humanitarian crisis” along the southern border were “shocking,” and ABC News reported that Obama requested “$3.7 billion to cope with the humanitarian crisis on the border and the spike in illegal crossings by unaccompanied minors from Central America.”
The ABC News story, “Obama's Plans for $3.7 Billion Immigration Crisis Funds,” included a photo of detainees sleeping in “holding cells” at an Arizona placement center. In June 2014, NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell said that undocumented children flooding the border were “creating a crisis” for authorities
1
@Katie Yes, there is a humanitarian crisis for which the wall is not a solution...
2
We have a real problem — we have a congress, namely the senate that refused to rein in this guy at all. Take Lindsey Graham, another idiot that only wants to set dangerous precedent by allowing a president to declare a national emergency, thereby setting the stage for any future president, when they don't get their way, to simply declare an emergency, and bypass congress etc. And don't count on the supreme court to step in — they are nothing more than a political puppet for Trump —
There is actually miles of wall that has been in place, and it doesn't work. They dig under it, etc and get through. It is a total waste of money to build more wall. There are alternatives, but like the spoiled child, Trump is belly aching about not getting his way. What a total joke.
8
Before Congress ever approves anything Trump asks for, they must ask themselves one question: Is the president sane?
7
Like the man said during his campaign, he's so popular that he can shoot someone in broad daylight at 5th Ave. and they still vote for him! Also not to mentioned the Federal employees that are not getting paid want him to shut down the government because they support him 100%. So after all the mendacity, I am surprised he did not claimed her has the support of natural disasters victims to use their funds allocated to build the wall because that far outweigh the rebuilding of their homes.
My predication is Trump's next claim will be US will build a supersonic missile to counter Russia's, and Russia will pay.
5
It is time for the Republican Party, which refused to fund Trump's Wall when it had total control of Congress (they could have attached it to their tax cuts for example) to pass a walless budget with enough votes to override Trump's veto.
This thing where Republicans and the media (including the NY Times) are saying that the solution is for Trump to invoke emergency powers by lying, is a direct attack on the Constitution.
The only emergency is that Trump has painted himself into a corner with campaign rhetoric, and so he would have to face the embarrassment of giving in.
That is no reason for anyone that believes in the Constitution to let Trump abuse the office of president by lying to invoke emergency powers.
It Republicans really thought that this was an emergency, they would have passed wall funding when they had the chance.
At a time when the Party of Trump is attacking the Constitution and the institutions created under it, every day, normalizing the abuse of presidential emergency powers puts our very Republic at grave risk.
It must even be that Trump is using this shut down, so that he can test those powers.
Don't help Trump lie to undermine the Constitution!
17
We who have any knowledge of great walls understand that they are not effective in stopping humans from going where they want, they delay but that is all that they do. Either Trump has never heard of the Great Wall of China, the great walls of the Romans, the walls around Constantinople, of the Maginot line, and how all of them were breeched or circumvented by enemies who prevailed over defenders or he’s just lying to support his message with his hard core supporters who are just as oblivious of the truth as his talk seems to indicate. To precipitate a national crisis over funding of a wall that is unlikely to do much that is useful is irrational or just plain nihilistic.
7
The only reason this is "hard to resolve" is the refusal of The White House to negotiate in good faith. For Trump to accuse the democrats of this is ludicrous. When you define negotiation as yielding completely to what someone wants, of course it is hard to resolve. When one party simply walks out without putting forth any alternative consideration, of course it is hard to resolve. For years, I have watched Republicans having it their way or no way. It's about time the other party kicks back. Until Republicans understand what "middle ground" is, and are prepared to offer something close to that, why would anyone expect Democrats to pander to outrageous demands?
13
But the more I think about this, the more I wonder... is this even true ?
It is such an awful idea that I am almost even wondering if The New York Times made this up.
But it wouldn’t really surprise me, I guess, if I later learned that it really is all quite true.
In that case, as far as Pence and Trump, and the rest of them, we really are talking about the worst of people.
Maybe with the departure of John Kelly, the former White House Chief of Staff, we are finally getting to see how nuts the rest of them all are.
Kelly would have told them, « no, you can’t even suggest such an idea ».
10
@David Martin He WAS telling them that, from the beginning, and it is a large part of why he is now gone. He realized that if he continued to hang around with the President like this, the hanging part just might stick later!
1
Survivors of Paradise are packed into neighbors homes-- sometimes 9 fire refugees sharing modest homes with relatives, friends and their families. And those are the fortunate ones. California, Texas, Puerto Rico, Florida . . . we all have suffered cataclysmic natural disasters and both need and deserve federal support. So long as I am paying taxes and am a US citizen, I expect that our government will be here to support us in times of dire need. This is reprehensible, callous, craven. Honestly, no words really describe the cruelty displayed by the Trump/Pence White House and Mitch McConnell. We will not soon forget.
22
Trump shut down the Government before Nancy Pelosi took office, thus any blame rests squarely on his head, and his and McConnell's alone.
Trying to blame this on the Democrats when he had previously stated that he 'Was Going To' shut down the Govt, and that HE would "Own It".
He is trying his hardest to disavow, retract and dis-own even his own statements, before being forced to walk back to them. He is caged in with his own wall, already having labeled himself the designer of the shutdown with his previous threats and carry-through.
Now he has changing motives as well as looking at what is an obviously illegal, unconstitutional attempt to divert funding from REAL emergencies which have been under funded from the start, to use for a political stunt so as to salve his oh so delicate ego of yellow snow.
It is compounded by the damage being done to those who have considered themselves as his Base, they are starting to realize that he is a lot 'baser' than they had ever guessed, even with Pence backing his Yellow Snowflakiness he has not kept his promises and has made life actually harder on them.
Fool a farmer once; Shame on you.
Fool a farmer Twice; Shame on the Farmer,
Fool a farmer a third time and you are more likely to meet a shotgun instead of a handshake!
They appear to have been fooled at least twice, for some of them, which does not bode well for the Great Yellow Snowflakiness!
5
Why not use the money earmarked for the bailout of soybean farmers in Iowa?
Right. Iowans are white while Puerto Ricans are people of color.
Is Trump a racist or is Trump a racist?
14
The President’s cycle of evil continues to spiral downward. Now he would take badly-needed aid away from disaster victims and use it to build his monument to himself so his supporters and his TV and talk show masters can have a feel-good? No biggie. Of course, we need this aid because of how our storms are increasingly severe due to climate change, which he is in total denial of.
And the list of the wonderful things this wall is magically going to do for us keeps growing. The other night, it was end drug addiction. Now, “You’ll have crime in Iowa, you’ll have crime in New Hampshire, you’ll have crime in New York…we could stop that cold.” Huh? Are his followers so stupid they actually believe this? Maybe, but with this idiocy the President has to be further alienating the swing voters who enabled his narrow election in 2016 and that he desperately needs for any chance at a repeat in 2020.
We thought the Senate Republicans might throw off their chains and join with their Democratic colleagues to form a veto-proof coalition and restore sanity. But the few brave enough to start something like this went whimpering off when they were told “the president would not back such a deal.” Don’t they understand how the Constitution works? That ultimately he isn’t their master, that even if he vetoes their legislation they can override his veto?
But that’s OK, they also have to run for reelection. The people of this country have had it, and the payback’s going to be…well, big.
16
Trump is THE national emergency....pretty much sums everything up.
10
"And some of his more conservative advisers have suggested a national emergency declaration is a form of government overreach that is antithetical to conservative principles."
Principles? Halarious!
9
What a travesty! What has happened to our sense of common decency and common good and helping each other through times of genuine crisis? The United States has always taken care of its own- when did we become so merciless and cruel? Congress needs to step up and stop this nonsense now!
5
To Americans who did not experience a natural disaster in 2018: You are next. If you live in a red state, are you willing to accept the same fate? Yes? Fine! Game on!
4
Taking aid from California? If Nancy Pelosi lived in Timbuktu Trump would take it from there if he could. Trump is killing Obamacare by a thousand cuts because Obama shamed him at the White House Correspondance dinner. Can 2020 come soon enough for us and the World? Cause The Dem's will not play the way Donnie wants to play Donnie will take his ball and go home. Wow!
6
Who profits from the wall?
6
@Marge Likely some New York Building Company with a Russian sounding name.
2
Where are the Peso's we were promised?
5
"Mexico will pay for the wall!" -Trump 9/1/16.
1
And 200-plus times since.
1
No more paper towel rolls for the hurting Americans in Puerto Rico—Delusional Donald needs his useless, wasteful wall. It's anyone's guess what color the sky is in Trump World.
2
First,
The law and government funding are 2 different issues. POTUS is taking hostages of the American People who depend on government and our civil servants. Disgusting.
Second
Where is the Senate, the house and Senate can pass the bills, let POTUS veto them, then you can you can over ride his veto.
That is by definition the American political system.
Third,
His ideas of compromise are OK Steel not Concrete and I'll I give DACA questionable rights I may take away later when I want to punish Democrats.
Forth,
Go ahead take money from Florida and Texas disaster relief. The next person to see a Republican president will be an archaeologist digging up their bones 10,000 years from now.
To the supporters of the Orange Clown: Get a Clue, call your elected officials and tell them you support impeachment.
12
The House must convene an emergency hearing on border security. Bring experts on security and have the testify this week. Let them describe the methods of addressing border security and addressing the asylum seekers with dignity. Do that now. If there is evidence that here and fence improvements are cost effective, put them in a bill, tied to specific improvements in the security issues at the ports of entry and in the broken asylum system. Surely the House can find at least one place on the border where fencing needs fixing. Pass a bill with a DACA fix and send it on.
2
I imagine that if Mar-a-Lago had been affected by a hurricane this crazy thought wouldn’t have seen the light of day.
13
Where are the statesmen? Where are the adults? I see the babies in the corner holding on very tightly to their toys, holding their breath and turning very red.
Perhaps the only saving grace of this tantrum is that maybe American youth observe and realize how grownups shouldn't act.
Reminds me of a quote by Mr. Will Rogers, “A fanatic is always the fellow that is on the opposite side.”
8
Nobody elected Delusional Donnie Dictator for Life.
He seems to think he can get anything he wants, BECAUSE ... just "because."
The "wall" idea was ginned up by two campaign flunkies as a memory device to keep Trump talking about the topic of immigration.
Here is a link to that story:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2019/01/04/where-the-idea-for-donald-trumps-wall-came-from/#2e847d544415
Quote:
Joshua Green had good access to Trump insiders, including Sam Nunberg, who worked with Stone. “Roger Stone and I came up with the idea of ‘the Wall,’ and we talked to Steve [Bannon] about it,” according to Nunberg. “It was to make sure he [Trump] talked about immigration.”
End quote
The whole "wall" thing is nonsense, all made up baloney.
Why should we spend $5.6 BILLION (or even one penny) for a memory device used to try to keep Delusional Donnie on topic at his rallies?
15
It's official: We are living through another Robber Barons Age.
Shameful. Infuriating.
10
Diverting funds from Americans who are still reeling from fires and floods is just plain criminal.
18
Diverting funds from real emergencies to a fake one. What a headline.
12
If the Republicans in Congress and on the courts go along with a phony declaration of emergency they will reveal their evil nature so clearly that even the clueless American public will notice. They will be tossing the Constitution in the garbage.
And if they actually get the money by taking it away from real emergencies?! Prepare the elephant graveyard.
8
If a ruler listens to falsehood, all his officials will be wicked.
Proverbs 29:12
Clearly, the president is wicked, as are many of his sycophants. What, then, must we do? We put our faith and hopes in Mr. Mueller, and do not want to cut short his work, knowing that rooting out evil is more important than our impatience. But, how long, lord, how long?
But this latest evil, with real harm to children and citizens, is so vile in concept, and devastating in impact, with the collusion of Mitch McConnell, that We The People must now cast them aside and act. We must band together, Americans of goodwill of every political persuasion, and march to every Trump facility in the U.S. and beyond, and demand Trump cease his assault on our families.
Just Do It: go to the hotels and resorts and share your pain.
4
The Republican Party of California should just disband now. There will be no chance of a come back after you’ve burned the state to the ground.
7
Yes we have a national emergency. We have a lunatic in the White House. We should build a box, not a wall, and seal into it Trump and family.
13
It only seems fitting (if immoral, though that too is fitting) that *disaster* funds are being considered available for raiding by this *disaster* of a president.
3
Why is nobody reminding him the promise he made, that Mexico would pay for it ???
5
He is now claiming he never said that--despite mountains of proof that he did.
1
They’re now saying (lying) he didn’t really mean it literally. That’s what we are dealing with.
MIllions of wasted words on both the conservative and liberal sites and radio stations and TeeVee stations...
They don't read "ours".....we don't read "thiers"... so mostly these are missives to divert our anger and impotence to do something ( both sides feel this way-otherwise we'd punch the wall or kick the dog)....
What's lost here is:
Trump was allegedly ready to sign the temporary budget (via Pence), and then did not because television entertainment personalities told him not to.
THAT is the problem. All the rest of this is bunk.
We have a President who listens to entertainers to make decisions.
Why is this OKAY with ANYONE?!?!?!???
7
I think it is shameful that Lindsey Graham is encouraging Trump to declare a national emergency over the stupid wall when Trump is the real national emergency. Graham needs to remember that Trump wants to steal Army Corps disaster funds, some of which is to help HIS constituents in SC affected by the hurricane. Shameful.
13
If Trump actually wanted to plug illegal immigration, the GOP could introduce legislation making employing undocumented workers, or renting to them, a felony punishable by very large fines and mandatory jail time for the CEOs of the companies who do it.
The fines could be designated to provide funding for economic and security improvements in the countries that desperate people are fleeing, and/or a legitimate guest worker program that would track economic migrants, ensure their fair treatment and document their return to their home countries.
But the GOP would far, far prefer to shut down the government, punish American workers, waste vast taxpayer funds and vilify migrants than to take the logical step of stopping the exploitation of foreign workers.
After all, Mar-al-Lago needs cheap maids and gardeners.
9
you're correct sir.
2
Paradise, CA is home to many Trump voters. So is Houston. They will no doubt be pleased to have their disaster relief funds diverted to build Trump's vanity wall. Their problems are caused by that mythical 'climate change', while the threat at the border from women and their small children seeking asylum is real.
8
Pelosi and the DP must continue to thwart Trump. He must be made to boil over. Once that happens, Trump will make more impulsive decisions and act even more irresponsibly. At that point, the GOP will understand their need to remove the erratic Trump.
5
The Democrats are making a big mistake in attacking Trump and making fun of him. Schumer is a major problem, but I think Pelosi may know that we have to help this dangerous man save a little face and feel he hasn't been beaten up on -- exactly. Give a little of SOMETHING that he can pretend to boast about as he loses the wall.
We are just getting warmed up. The toddler must do time out.
2
@martha Stephens. No. don't give him anything. Sooner or later he needs to learn how a democracy functions and that he doesn't get his way just because he throws a hissy fit.
He had both the House and the Senate as his lap dogs for two years and didn't get his idiotic wall. It wasn't a national emergency then and it isn't one now.
McConnell and the republican Senate may be ok with abdicating their co equal status and settle for being his lick spittle office boys and girls but the house changed hands to put a check on this imbicile and that's precisely what they should do. Don't give an inch!
When trump grows up and stops holding the country hostage, then you can discuss rational policy.
5
Notice how he's sticking it to American victims? So he can stick it to Central American victims? So he can get what he wants by this tantrum? So he can fulfill the promise he made to his buddies in the construction industry? So THEY can climb over the victims in their quest for personal profits?
Which of you libertarians will be OK with the 'eminent domain' taking of private ranches for the wall? Which of your churches will help those who can't pay for their children's needs? Who among you is right now at the border, rolling up your sleeves to aid BP in this national crisis? It's just cringe-worthy, as you twist and turn to make this American somehow.
I know; that was a lot of question marks....
6
A wall in a desert is a national security issue. Americans made homeless through disaster are worthless. Trump does not have empathy. He is an enemy of the people.
14
The wall will not be built.
Period!
There is no reason for Dems and independents to give in.
It is absolute certainty this wall will not happen.
If they started tonight there is no way this “project” will be completed before DJT’s term is up.
Land rights, lawsuits, construction challenges will all bog this down to a 5 year effort. At least!!
It ain’t gonna happen.
DJT will eventually cave (like his casinos, “university”, foundation all folded) and he will claim some delusional fake victory.
The wall will not happen.
Math and reality are stubborn things...
5
This is fascinating. One by one, Trump and his Republican enablers are doing every thing they criticized Obama for - and doing Obama one better. Evidently, there were no policy reasons for the criticisms. It wasn't even Democrat vs Republican, perhaps. Evidently, it was Obama, period.
Now it is abuse of Presidential power, which McConnell himself excoriated Obama for multiple times. Trump already trumped Obama: as of July 2018, he had signed about 4 EOs a month versus Obama's 3. DACA? An attempted temporary fix to a real problem; Trump is now likely to use extraordinary hoop-jumping means to get around Congress for a problem that doesn't exist as stated by the administration (for The Wall).
Republicans do something Democrats don't, though. At least, McConnell does. He refuses to let the Senate even vote on bills or Democratic nominations for the SC. I thought the process was supposed to be that if Congress agrees to a bill, it gets sent to the President; the President can veto; Congress has a chance to override the veto.
So, I blame the shutdown on Trump and McConnell, 30/70. That's right, 30% on Trump. Because, I have a feeling Congress could find the votes to override Trump if McConnell let some of these bipartisan bills come to a vote. Trump's just being Trump, but McConnell, who knows better and supposedly cares more, is abdicating his responsibility to the republic. No, not abdicating; willfully throwing it under the bus.
14
I find it rather disgusting that Senator Lindsey Graham, who admired and loved John McCain, so easily could do a 180 and suction cup his lips to the backside of Trump. McCain loathed Trump and for good reason. I have no doubt McCain is rolling over in his grave. Graham has lost all credibility as a GOP Senator. The Graham is a follower, not a leader.
And when is stealing aide from Americans who are in dire need, the right thing to do? Never. And denying Americans help, so that Trump can build a border wall that will not solve our immigration or drug problem here in the US.
Why doesn't Trump work on deporting the millions of illegals already in the country? Here in Las Vegas, we have over 70,000 illegals living in our county. Doesn't that deserve some attention from Trump?
Trump would run over his own mother if it meant saving face and advancing his "image and imaginary big dog status". Trump has no moral fiber.
10
Trump is a complete disaster--funds should diverted to commit him.
7
Trump's followers know the wall is completely passe' as a barrier, but they need it as an aggressive symbol of defiance toward the change in this country's racial composition.
6
Senator Collins said, “It’s very difficult when we’re dealing with people who do not want to budge at all with their positions, and that’s the president and Speaker Pelosi,” Senator Susan Collins of Maine said." If the Senator can't tell the difference between a mugger and the people being mugged, she should leave the Senate.
15
The fact that Trump and his congressional allies are unwilling to legislate bills that would support federal employees demonstrates their lack of concern for the American people. Unfortunately, these federal workers, both the furloughed and those without pay, are pawns and are enduring the consequences. The American people should take precedence over this stalemate let alone the costs of constructing an unnecessary wall.
3
So typical of Tantrum Trump to punish California for not voting for him.
8
Didn't Congress appropriate this aid for a specific purpose? Can Trump really just take money that is earmarked for one purpose to use for another? Why isn't Congress going crazy over this proposal - it has huge ramifications for their very existence. And could somebody please explain to Trump that we live in a democracy, not a monarchy?
7
The Trump McConnell shutdown starts with minority public support and a poor factual basis. There's no border crisis. There's no crime wave. Border crossings are at historic lows. Seeking asylum is legal under US law. Drugs mostly come in through the mail and ports of entry. Trump's foundation is based on lies.
The Trump McConnell position also worsens every day. They are causing unnecessary and increasing pain for innocent government workers and their families. The pace of revelations about Trump's criminality and likely conspiracy with Russia to steal his election is accelerating. Mueller isn't done rolling out indictments. We know Putin has had kompromat on Trump, likely explaining his otherwise baffling actions in office.
You can't blame Pelosi for standing firm. It's almost impossible to negotiate with Trump. A supposed deal can vanish in hours. It's not even bait and switch because Trump doesn't know what he'll do next. He never acts in good faith or takes responsibility for his actions. Any concessions during this shutdown will set the stage for repeated presidential and Senate leader misbehavior.
Republicans have a very poor hand but are trying to maximize their leverage. They mostly want to to negate their wipeout in the midterms. Conveniently, they don't much care what harm they cause. Expect things to get worse for Americans before they get better.
3
They go from one bad idea to uneven worse one. This is the most incompetent group of people I've ever seen.
8
So much bombast, so little critical thinking. What an utter failure of a president. Sad.
4
The President’s signature campaign go-to crowd pleaser, the keynote of his appeal to his base — the WALL that changes moment to moment, day to day.
So to Trump’s maniacal pursuit of the Wacky WALL. No fabrication, no subterfuge, no affront to common sense left unturned.
And in the Congress credible immigration reform wanting for decades remains the bridge too far.
If there is a crisis on the southern border, it pales by comparison to Trump’s rank incompetency as POTUS and the utter failure of the national legislature to govern as an independent and co-equal branch of our federal government.
1
Smart! You'll negatively affect far fewer people by using storm aid and, of course, hurt his base far less.
POTUS wants to take money away from people who lost everything in natural disasters to build a wall? For God's sake, what kind of man is this? GOP please explain.
2
This is disgusting! Diverting funds meant to help people recover from natural disasters to pay for a vanity wall. OK Republicans, now is the time to stand up and say NO.
2
All this much ado about nothing has achieved nothing except forcefully once again remind us that we have a tragically unprepared and dangerously unprincipled ‘fake’ president who is an unabashed leech and an unrepentant liar. What a spectacle at just how deeply this so-called “successful businessman” in the oval office is proving terribly unfit for the job, and how spineless and feckless a group of cowards McConnell and the rest of the GOP are in refusing to come to terms with this reality. It’s a shameful national embarrassment now on full display for all the world to see.
5
So let me get this straight...
Trump wants to take money away from agencies that deal with REAL National crisis support and put it towards a manufactured one that he needs to keep his base?
6
Individual-1 never cared about Puerto Rico, and he dislikes California, a place he knows he is not welcome. So why not ignore their needs and focus on his own ego that yearns to accomplish something, anything, even if it is big, dumb, and ineffective. Same way he treated his father, siblings, wives, and business associates, just expanded to fit an entire country.
2
It’s incredulous that Trump is the president of the United States. It’s a reflection of the people who elected him and continue to support Trump, personification of the Ugly American.
3
The knuckle-head who was throwing paper towels at the poor souls in Puerto Rico following their hurricane tragedy is now threatening to take their aid-package away to wipe away his shut-down problem with the wall.
This guy should have a movie name after him called "The Punisher." He's a vindictive bully who only operates in his own interest. And the oath he took?
2
Maybe Trump can build his wall out of rolls of paper towel.
4
It is time for democrats to stop the hate game.
1
The only crime and chaos is in the White House. Maybe Congress can divert its time and funding towards impeachment and indictment.
2
Trump can not take money Congress passed for real disasters and give it to a fake "crisis' Trump made up. Dems will stop him. Ray Sipe
1
McConnell must be censured and fired as Senate majority leader. He is running the Senate as a dictatorship.
3
For his message, Donald should buy air time at the Super Bowl, as Twitter and Tv have not been enough! And - have Mexico pay For it!
1
Fat cats, just pass the hat in DC, make donations for the Wall a tax write-off, eh? Heck Donald could fund the wall by himself, and keep backing himself into a corner...
1
"White House officials considered diverting aid from Puerto Rico, Florida, Texas and California to build a border wall under an emergency declaration."
I'm conflicted! I love to see Trump throws his friends in Texas and Florida under the bus.
But I don't want my friends in Puerto Rico and California to be hurt by Trump's monumental stupidity. That should be reserved for the states who voted for him and whose senators support him.
1
What about Climate change, this wall impacts what's happening...doesn't anyone care about this?
“The Wall” is a trap of Trump’s own making. How did it become an inescapable snare? Slowly, through a long-studied phenomenon that the military calls “mission creep” — like Stalingrad became for Hitler, another authoritarian who styled himself his nation’s savior. Another deeply prejudiced, ignorant man who also believed that deal-making was a zero-sum game and saw himself as a master politican and military strategist who “knew more than all my generals”. Hubris precedes the fall, always.
Hubris helps explain why Trump thinks he can’t give so much as an inch of territory. Compromise is a surrender that will be perceived by others as losing the battle of The Wall. His Wall.
Given the reactionary passions of his supporters that might well be so. Yet he has only himself to blame for his predicament and is already so weakened and exposed by it — his obsession, what His Wall has become — that he can’t win at an acceptable cost and maybe not at all. He now proposes to punish rich, politically strong antagonistic California and poor, politically weak Puerto Rico by robbing them of badly needed disaster relief funds while professing unconcern about the consequences. He doesn’t seem to care, or even be slightly perturbed, by the risks he runs or bothered by its implications; forget the inhumanity.
I think it will ultimately prove to be a major impetus in his undoing when that finally happens. Just another nail in Trump’s coffin pounded into its splintered lid by his own two hands.
2
Lately as everyone, I have been following this crisis surrounding this idiotic Wall. I have come to yet one more reason why this administration is cruel, without empathy and consideration for anyone. Imagine holding hostage to 800,000 workers. And then the audacity to tell us the “love” what is being done. If it were up to me, I would have rallied congress to open government, pay our loyal employees before any negotiation took place with this so-called amateur administration
2
As with most issues surrounding this President, the surface is a rouse. I'm becoming convinced he doesn't actually care if a wall is built or not. If he really wanted a wall he would be willing to negotiate for it, and exactly none of the immigration problems he and harem are citing as justification would be solved by a wall.
No, what T45 actually wants is, as usual, attention from the public and press, and to be seen in a positive light. That's it. In this case, the "positive light" of posing as a fighter for his campaign promises of the past outweighs any possible future government shutdown consequences, of which he has only the vaguest notions and even those are strictly political. The very real financial pain he is causing across the country hasn't even registered with him yet, and it never will.
We should remind ourselves that Trump's one and only actual skill is destroying things and capitalizing on the chaos he creates by doing so.
3
I question the media's suggestion that The Con Don's "base" fully supports him. I don't believe it.
Many of my friends who voted for him now want to see him impeached. My daughter works taking care of an elderly woman and they go to the Senior Center for lunch every Wednesday. She said this week all but two of the attendees (two men) were talking about how much they detest The Con Don.
The media might want to make us believe The Con Don's base is solid so they will have more to report on. Fortunately, I think they are wrong. Most of the men I see supporting him on television look like members of his crime family.
3
Ah, the sage and saintly Susan Collins had spoken:
“It’s very difficult when we’re dealing with people who do not want to budge at all with their positions, and that’s the president and Speaker Pelosi,” Senator Susan Collins of Maine said. “They’re each very dug in on their position, and that’s made this very difficult to resolve.”
Ah, the sage and saintly Susan Collins, laying blame on everyone else - except herself, for checking her brains at the door and voting to support Trump no matter what she is captured on tape as whining about.
Maine, get rid of this embarrassment to common sense in 2020. You owe her nothing for having demonstrated in all these years of Republican legislative hegemony that cravenness Trumps decent behavior.
7
Her game is to pretend to be a swing voter in order to get a sop, the go along with the party line as she always intended to.
1
SENATE REPUBLICANS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE SHUTDOWN!! Teflon Mitch McConnell set the narrative: "it's up to Democrats to negotiate with Trump." No, Mitch, YOU bear the onus, you and your weak Republican colleagues.
Clearly, there's no "crisis" other than the humanitarian one created by Trump's unconscionable policies. Republican senators like Susan Collins know this, even as they play the blame game on Democrats. They didn't support funding for the wall before the changeover in the House, even with majorities in both chambers, because they knew it was a waste of money. Why no longer? There's been no change in the facts around the issue -- only a change in the political landscape.
Republicans are running scared. A loss for Trump puts them in jeopardy on other fronts. So they stand by this lunatic wall agenda even through a shutdown. They sell out the country for sheer self protection.
What they could -- and SHOULD -- do: 20 Republican senators with consciences push McConnell to bring the House's funding bills to a vote BY PUBLICLY COMMITTING TO OVERRIDE A TRUMP VETO!!!
Not doing so makes them complicit with Trump/McConnell in wasting vast amounts of taxpayer monies on a useless (or worse) wall, maybe even letting Trump invoke fake-emergency powers or divert real-emergency aid (!) -- and, in the process, holding the country hostage via government shutdown. Aren't Republicans supposed to be about limiting government spending and abuses of power? That ship sailed long ago.
5
So he wants to divert need aid to ravaged ares in Florida, California, Texas , and Puerto Rico to build this boondoggle? Has any one done a financial study on how much this thing is going, to cost, maintain and how long it will take to build.? I have not seen one. So just because he says he wants, it the Congress is supposed to roll over and do his bidding? I simply cannot believe the the gutless Republican senators are allowing him to hold the federal government hostage along with the associated consequences thereof. Their constituents should be banging on their doors. THEY NEED TO GET RID OF MCCONNELL AND OVERIDED ANY PRESIDENTIAL VETO. I don’t know how much longer the federal employees can go without a paycheck. As the saying goes: In God We Trust but all others pay CASH?
5
McConnel won't bring any bill up for a vote on the floor of the Senate that the leadership doesn't support or can't get passed. Why? One reason is that he is protecting fellow Republicans from casting a vote that may play negatively with some voters in their home states. If this is our new government, then we don't have a government. Why pay our senators if they sit on their hands or just preen in front of TV cameras? Meantime, our government is shut down. Shame. Shame. Shame.
5
Would the Democrats consider funding the wall if Trump resigns?
4
Should trump declare a fake emergency, impeachment proceedings should begin immediately.
5
Great idea, let's do it already!
1
"Illegal exaction" is all I see developing in this mess between the funding of the Wall and the Government Shutdown. A government official cannot take more than what is owed to them. Right now, collection agencies are buying out of answers on why they are taking our tax refunds for fabricated student loan debts. The Wall is supposed to create jobs not put tax payers out of employment and into permanent debt. You laid off the IRS too, are you even American?
2
So flood and storm damaged areas take a back seat to his wall?
And Lindsey Graham is as insane as Trump.....and where is Mitch McConnell, supposed leader of the Republican Senate.......and where are the Republicans elected to Congress. What has happened to this country? where is common sense and what is good for all Americans.
It's embarrassing to be an American........we are the laughing stock of the world.
5
“It’s very difficult when we’re dealing with people who do not want to budge at all with their positions, and that’s the president and Speaker Pelosi,” Senator Susan Collins of Maine said. “They’re each very dug in on their position, and that’s made this very difficult to resolve.”
Wow. Maybe Sen. Collins should go out and get some fresh air. Or bring out her “talking stick” and have a serious, non-delusional conversation with herself.
6
The PEW research center shows that illegal immigration across the US/Mexico border has been waning since roughly 2006. Plus, our govts own DEA report on drugs (from 2018) shows that most of the, for example, heroin coming into the USA is through official US border crossings, NOT snuck across the desert in the middle of the night. So, there is simply no crisis as the President has depicted. But Trump is a real Psych-case, he is constantly projecting. So, yes there is a crisis, but the crisis is He HIMSELF. Impeach, or see our democracy dwindle towards dictatorship. Do NOT allow the President to declare a national emergency. If he succeeds, then what else will he be able able to arbitrarily claim a national emergency about? Where are the limits on Presidential power...Hello Congress, Senate????
3
@paul S Since global warming is a REAL "national emergency" that will take trillions to fix, I say let him go for it because in the next election the Democrats may run the table and be able to rely on precedent. Republicans, is that what you want?
2
Nothing like having t he 5'10" Pence talking-bobble head doll to negotiate for the Trump. All you have to do is pull the string and it says: "No, wall, no deal."
4
Republicans have to decide how far down this road they will travel with Trump. Many have already decided to retire from politics before they got in any deeper. The rest should consider that Trump May get lucky once in a while, but he’s also a proven incompetent. Everything he’s done has fallen apart and everyone around him gets stuck holding the bag. It was Daddy’s money that gave him his clout, but his tax returns will show that it’s all been frittered away years ago on worthless high risk schemes. Sticking with Trump is a losing game. Seriously, what successful real estate mogul needs to run a two bit mail order university? Or hawk Trump Bottled water during an election? How about Trump steaks? Pathetic, but this will be your future if you stick with the Donald.
4
Why don't the Democrats arrange to meet with Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh directly to work this out, and eliminate Trump, who is only the middle-man and has no idea what to do here anyway?
5
Really?
Does Trump stay up at night dreaming of ways to hurt as many people as possible because he can’t swallow his pride and admit “The Wall” is and always was a tool to manipulate and woo a certain segment of voters?
Or has “The Wall” become a physical manifestation of his manhood. If he doesn’t Win the Wall War it demonstrates he is an impotent president. Does he know Homeland and Border Security sawed through the steel bar wall prototype? What’s that symbolic of?
5
He does not have to stay up at night thinking of ways to hurt people. Fox and Friends tell him how to do it when he wakes up every morning.
1
To those who would doubt that there is a National Emergency: There is one. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington D.C. and is named Donald Trump. It is time to use emergency powers to rid the nation of this very real threat.
8
The Republicans had the majority in both houses for 2 years but never passed funding for a wall? Now it's the most important item on the agenda? They are creating a controversy over it now that the Democrats have the house. They gave away $1.5 trillion dollars to the rich and now want to steal the wall money from emergency aid.The GOP has become a pathetic bunch of Trump Chumps. If he wants it so bad he should stop spending millions playing golf. He cancelled the Davos meeting and you can still hear sighs of relief from the other attendees. You also should remember the walls in Germany and Korea were used to keep people in not out!
5
Yeah, I mean Puerto Ricans - who are United States citizens - don't need water and electricity, right?
2
Money for a physical wall when the biggest threat to our country is more cyber-based by stealing funding the biggest physical threat to Americans?
Maybe someone should play the tape of W Bush reading to kindergartners on 9/11 and remind him how that worked out.
2
They don't care for others. It's hate. It is the definition of racism. But tax breaks for the rich is ok!
2
WHO CARES IF HE VETOES IT?! The whole point of balancing powers is that you can then overrule him anyway! You are supposed to be a SEPARATE and equal branch. Grow a spine and do your jobs!
3
The hypocrisy continues - The Washington Post wrote in 2014, “White House requests $3.7 billion in emergency funds for border crisis,” while CNN published a feature, “Daniel's journey: How thousands of children are creating a crisis in America.” It described a problem of "epic proportions." Under obama it was a crisis, what has changed? Oh yeah, it's gotten worse.
For all of the stupid things that our government spends money on the money spent on the wall is money well spent. The alt left media down plays or in many cases does not report crimes committed by illegal immigrants. The left wing looks with disdain at families that have had loved one killed by illegal immigrants. The alt-left media is part of the problem.
Why is no one talking about the constitutional crisis Trump is about to create? He is planning to circumvent Congress to attain tax money he wants for his own purposes. This is, in every way, subverting the will of the people. It is wholly and completely the eradication of our democratic institutions and our constitutionally bound system of government. Congress was elected by the people to represent them in government law and fiduciary matters - the Congress and no other branch makes the laws and distributes tax money. While the American people are arguing in the weeds over the minutiae, the forest and the trees are on fire.
15
Absolutely. This is the heart of the matter.
1
It’s not a Constitutional crisis. The legal systems are in place to challenge Trump’s declaration of a national emergency should he decide to do so. The dysfunction that has resulted is due to politics and the normal posturing that occurs on both sides over the budget which is being held hostage, but there’s nothing inherently unconstitutional in the threats and actions of either side. So let’s not jump to talk of a Constitutional crisis when it’s just politics as usual.
@Cujo Why was it okay when the last 'president' went around Congress, where was the outrage? I hope President Trump uses everything he can to secure our border, since the left has proven they support illegals over Americans - again and again.
If Trump is able to divert much-needed disaster-relief funding from Florida, Texas and California, my hope is that the few-remaining supporting voters in those states take note of his callous disregard for their well-being. 2020 can't get here soon enough.
5
@Greg What about the callous disregard for Americans that the left is showing? I agree, can't wait for 2020 to take back the House, given the dems protection of illegals over Americans.
MEMO
To: Donald J. Trump, President of the United States of America
From: The American People
Re: Ending the shutdown
The solution is obvious, Mr. President. Consider the following two crucial facts:
1. Poll after poll shows that the wall is far more important to you than it is to us.
2. By your own (unverified) account, you are worth billions of dollars.
Why not write a check to cover the wall that you want to be your signature accomplishment? It's lunch money to you, so you won't feel a thing, and 800,000 of us can get back to work or get paid for the work we've had to do for free.
We can't find a single thing wrong with this proposal and anxiously await your response.
13
I concur with other commentators pressing Schumer and Pelosi to demand that Trump put a true price tag on his "big beautiful wall." Otherwise. Trump will score points by making the $5.6 billion he is demanding seem like the total price tag for this folly, which would cost many times more and do all but nothing to secure the Mexican border better.
4
@Alan Mass Yeah, let's just send another $150 BILLION in cash to Iran, or somewhere equally important to our security.
Katie- please get a grip. The money released to Iran was theirs (i.e., Iranian assets ) held as part of sanctions. It was never ‘ours.’
Perhaps the most reasonable way of getting out of this wall impasse is for the Democrats to agree to the following compromise: agree to build the Trump Wall to end the Trump shutdown if Trump wins the 2020 election. Make the election a referendum on the wall. It would be faster if we had allowances for public referendums on the federal level for these kinds of contentious and important issues---but we don't. So the upcoming election might serve for this purpose. If most Americans want to spend their taxes on this Trump Wall rather than on other needs---then OK, we have to go along with the majority. After all, we are a democracy. Now Trump might claim we can't wait, but that would be a lame argument in view of the many decades without a wall without the Mongol hordes invading. So for those who can only feel safe with a wall--vote for Trump and we build the wall if he wins. In any case, Trump plans to use the wall as his main campaign prop in 2020 and is going to campaign mainly as the visionary builder of a Great Wall.
@shimr I disagree, he won the election and we want border security now. No need to wait for more murders, more human trafficking, more drugs, more gangs. No need to add more names to the memorial to victims of illegal aliens. http://www.ojjpac.org/memorial.asp
I read a lot of comments here expressing appropriate outrage about our con man in the White House. (As many do, I use "con man" as simply a useful, consise phrase covering Trump's broad range of disgusting behavior and personality disorders that are ruining America, maybe irreparably.)
What surprises me is how few (thankfully it wasn't zero) express the imperative that he be REMOVED from office. And BEFORE November 2020. Remember, if he gets voted out of office as some prefer, he stays on until January 2021. He would be quite willing do scorched-earth damage in those last two months -- nay, he would enjoy it.
My final statement was to be, "Are we going to let him fiddle while Rome burns?" But it is worse than that: He is fiddling and throwing gasoline on the fire.
13
This shouldn't surprise anybody.
"Me, Mine, My Way" is his mantra. He does not care about anybody else- - his actions prove it.
Keep this in mind when voting!
@Marianne Truly, schumer is exactly as you describe him He is despicable.
It’s the phantom wall that never was and perhaps never will be, but its specter hangs over us casting its long shadow. It was originally invoked by Trump as nothing more than a campaign stunt but now it’s taken on a life of its own that dominates the national conversation, but ironically its power over us exists only as long as it’s not real. Once built, it’ll be just that—a wall and nothing else. So let’s get real and build the darn thing and get it over with.
Let's see. Federal courts are deemed essential during the current government shutdown, so they are currently open. But the federal immigration courts that process immigration cases are apparently considered nonessential, because they are currently closed. The Republicans have now cynically decided to change their party line to stress the humanitarian crisis of all those immigrants, including those held in custody pending their immigration hearing. Seems the Trump administration is doing whatever it can to exacerbate the situation in order to support their simplistic and wrong headed solution to illegal immigration.
Okay, so manufacturing a national emergency to divert funds from other Congress-mandated programs is Trump's trump card.
That still doesn't reopen the government.
So if this really is what Trump is going to do, why doesn't he just agree to any of the proposals to open government without the wall funding, then declare his "emergency"? Probably because he knows it is an empty threat and will never pass the smell test. If this how the Art of the Deal is done, I think most 3 year olds have mastered it.
4
This is a high-stakes game of cat and mouse, and optics are central to who comes out ahead. A national emergency declaration is unprecedented in the modern presidency and, as undefined, means different things to different people. Thus, the President gets to define the term, and thus the debate.
Pelosi and Schumer need to rebrand this as the beginning stage of a Presidential declaration of Marshall Law, which means the same thing to all people; something ugly, dangerous and un-American.
Once the daily news coverage turns to a narrative of Marshall Law - even a form of it - it creates a different level of momentum both in Congress and with the American people. Yes, it is a terrible message to send to the rest of the world, but this guy is in such proximity to being unhinged that if there is a real national security crisis arising - a Turkish raid on Kurds, a Russian mobilization into an Eastern European nation or a Chinese hack to freeze/destroy our Social Security records, the country feels helpless in their guy being able to navigate our country through it.
1
He's not going to build a wall, that's not the purpose of his remonstrations. He needs to extricate himself from the mess he created and the way he'll do that is to declare the emergency, then sign legislation to fund and reopen the government. Later, when the courts strike down his "emergency" solution he'll simply say that he tried, but the fake government and judiciary colluded to stop him and he'll try again later. He won't, but that won't matter to his followers.
1
Senator Collins of Maine is wrong to implicate Speaker Pelosi as a party to the impasse, and further attempt to distance herself as a Republican Senator from being responsible for resolving this situation. Senator Collins needs to take some responsibility and do her job as a member of the majority in the Senate.
The utter and complete cowardice of the Republican Senate abounds.
6
@Sparky
There was a time when I think Collins had a spine and an inteligent opinion of her own. She voted on the basis of issues and not party loyalty. Maine had a good rep.
No longer. Now she seems to pretend to have a spine, she puts up short lived faux oposition to contensions issues, and then in the end falls in line with the rest of the sheep.....I mean cowards..... I mean GOP.
She can take comfort in the fact she's not alone. Ever since the rise of Newt Gingrich and then the Tea Party, more and more of them have been turining into GOP centric, Info Wars motivated, Fox Educated, Trump Led sheep.
At least it seems to create a myopic vision condition, as so far none of them seem to see that their time is up. the GOP is set to get wiped out in 2020. The first term Obama win was big, but this is set to be much bigger with the right leader on the Dem side. (and it aint Pelosi)
Wouldn't it be ironic for Trump to divert aid from Puerto Rico and California to build his Great Wall? If so Trump will be continuing on his quest to make two America's. Trump has shown since he was elected the people he wants to represent and the people he cares nothing for. I wonder how far The GOP is going to allow Trump to go in his quest? Unless there is a huge increase in the birth rate of Trump's chosen people The GOP is in big trouble.
1
Why is it that when the President refuses to negotiate on the wall he is obstructionist and the cause of people not getting paid, but when the Democrats say the wall is a non-starter that’s okay?
1
Trump isn’t just winning. He’s completely owning the Democrats.
And the funniest thing is that they don’t even know it.
Trump has one primary winning issue – immigration/border security. His primary goal is simply to ensure that immigration/border security remains at the top of the news cycle.
He will issue an emergency order to build the wall, and simultaneously agree to end the shutdown. This will leave the Democrats with no shutdown to talk about and taking the legal position of opposing Trump’s effort to build a wall.
Since Democrats have offered no concrete (or steel slat) proposals to secure the border, their intransigence will simply “prove” that they oppose border security.
Trump’s not afraid of this getting tied up by the 9th Circuit. He welcomes it. It will simply keep border security riding high in the news cycle heading into 2020. And Trump only has upside, as there will inevitably be more caravans and more high profile crimes committed by illegal aliens. It will simultaneously energize his base, and more importantly completely keep Democrats off-message.
As a Trump supporter, I am eternally grateful that most Democrats (except for Cher) are so blinded by rage that they can’t see what’s happening.
2
@John
Perhaps.
Until a terrorist comes in another plane, or blows up a cruise ship with 5000 people on it.
9-11 terrorists came from Saudi Arabia.
Yet Trump is awfully thick with them.
Old habits die hard. The Republican congressional leadership for eight years just said "NO" to all things Obama, now has transitioned to just saying "NO" to the needs and desires of the American People. The House passed the budget bills with bipartisan support, and the Senate would too, if the Republican leadership would simply yield to the will of the people. The Republicans control the Senate even though their candidates had 13,000,000 fewer votes than the total votes for Democratic Senate candidates. Senator McConnell, vote with the people. Let the budget come to the floor.
3
Trump and Republicans don’t have any respect for the working people, nor do they have any respect for themselves. They’re preoccupied only about the possibility to lose more power after the midterms showed them that, not only that they support an incompetent in the White House, they seem incapable of thinking that they are hurting their electorate. How is it possible that there is any dollar left that were supposed to be used for relief after the hurricanes ?
The power of the purse is exclusively given to congress by the Constitution. Trying to illegally divert funds and unilaterally direct projects is a violation of the Constitution Trump swore to uphold - theoretically an impeachable offense; definitely one that is easily blocked by court action.
2
Under normal circumstances, a President would give up an unpopular stance when encountering such resistance. However this is not a normal Presidency nor a normal President.
1
Trump's border wall scheme is a textbook example of clueless governing for the history books. Our President does not understand how our democracy works. Congress is vested with the responsibility to be a co-equal branch of government, and they are taking their responsibility seriously in holding the Administration accountable in rational and funding of a border wall. The President could approach this impasse as a mature leader of the American People, and find a deal that Congress can sign on to. If the President wants to "do a much broader form of immigration,” then he has a golden opportunity to do that. Diverting money from border state disaster relief is not going to garner any votes for the President. Neither is withholding 800,000 Federal employees' salary, or exercising Imminent Domain for the land needed. It is viscerally painful to watch the slow political suicide unfold that is Mr. Trump's Presidency.
1
When are we going to have that moment like Tom Hanks in "Big" where we finally figure out how to use the Thermal Pod to melt the wizard?
We are like 12 year-old Josh Baskin distracted by his mom.
"With luck, we will thaw in several million years."
Trump is going to win this fight. Whatever happens with this "wall!" fiasco he'll still be able to eat $30 steaks and the cake and greasy hamburgers he loves, play golf, travel in limos and private airplanes, dress his wife in $50,000 designer coats, send his children to the best private schools, get the best medical care and not go broke if he and his family are diagnosed with major illnesses, collect HIS paycheck and continue (thanks to an enabling Senate majority) to use the presidency to emass more money for his personal wealth than he and his children and his children's children and their children will be able to spend in any of their lifetimes. Same thing for all the fatcats in Washington, particularly Mitch McConnell, who, along with Trump, is holding true bi-partisanship and a government "for the people" hostage and preventing a Democratic government from doing its job.
Meanwhile, ALL of the American people, including the people who voted for him and support him, will continue to work three jobs with no good healthcare, ride over unfixed roads and bridges, worry about how they're going to pay for groceries and put their kids through school and not losing their homes, and deal with closing factories and losing jobs and having no wage growth as they try and find new jobs or hold onto the ones they have. This Trump/McConnell Shutdown is building a wall between the Republican party and the American people brick by partisan brick.
3
We know, many of us well before November 2016, that Trump is a man of no ethical core or compassion. It is painful to know how many workers are harmed by the government shutdown, but it is, most unfortunately, not unexpected from him.
My suggestion is to ask the President of Mexico to write a check payable to a private psychiatric facility in Wash DC, give it to Trump and then he can say Mexico is paying for the wall, after all. Trump will recall that he did, in fact, say that Mexico would pay even if he mis-remembered that talking point this week. Trump supporters don't care about facts, that includes the Republicans who sold their souls to the devil, and Fox News devotees so Fox and Friends can say the check is in the mail for wall and the travesty can stop. And perhaps if the check is used, Trump will get the medical care he sorely needs and his family has neglected to see to.
1
This diversion of funds would be immoral.
Which makes it just another day in Trump’s GOP.
4
Trump is only doing what he's done in the past. Making bad business decisions and bogus claims. Nothing new BUT how the GOP led congress still goes along is beyond any sensibility.
5
Dear President Trump - I have a solution for you.
Ask Congress to make one small adjustment to the giveaway tax code they enacted recently, which will raise enough revenue to pay for your wall.
The tax break is one happens to benefit real estate developers and investors, but since you have some familiarity with that industry, I'm sure you'll be pleased by this opportunity for your family, and your son-in-law's family, to contribute to the security of our great nation.
Thanks in advance!
As a Canadian living in Brazil (which, of course, makes me an immigrant) I can only wonder when the America I once knew and respected will be returning.
2
Of course, it's a con. Trump is being Trump, as he's always been, wanting to build something to honor his ego with somebody else's money. First, His Great Wall was to be built with Mexico's money. Then, it was to be built with money from Americans. Now, he's turned his sights on money earmarked for Americans who've been devastated by tragedy. His avarice and greed knows no bounds. If they want a wall so badly, why don't Senate Republicans (or any Republicans for that matter) create a 'Go Fund Me' campaign. Let's see who's willing to pay for it? Maybe the Koch Brothers will toss in a few bucks? Maybe Hannity? Anne Coulter? Susan Collins perhaps?
3
I hope that all the Democrats and "independents" who did not show up to vote for Hillary Clinton are happy now. Was she a bad candidate? Yes. Was she a corrupt candidate? Not more so than anybody else on the hill. Was she a better candidate than Trump? Yes, without any doubt, there is no comparison between the two. She is a glowing paradigm of virtue compared to the president. Under her leadership, the economy would continue a steady uphill climb instead of wild swings leading to the inevitable crash because that is what Democrats do, every time. Under her leadership, the Middle East would not be a mess, Kim Jong Un, the Saudis and Putin would not treat POTUS as their lackey, the environment would not be destroyed, government agencies would not be dismantled, science policy would not be influenced by radio hosts, courts would not filled with lunatics,..., and yes, under her leadership, America would still be respected abroad.
5
@The Hawk I agree she would have been light-years better than what we have.
But Lump, Hannity and the armed white nationalists would have been marching in the streets, inciting violence against everyone.
They would have already launched impeachment and she might even be on her way to jail by now.
No. It is probably best that things went the way they did. This fever has to be broken one way or another.
@The Hawk
Republicans have shown over the past 25 years that they are experts at mobilizing against a Democratic President. Under a President Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party's extended decline in electoral fortunes would have continued. Last year would have seen the Democrats suffer a net loss in the House (not the +40 net gain and the regaining of the majority), a much worse net loss in the Senate than the -2 that they took, a net loss in governorships (instead of the +7 net gain they got), and a net loss in state legislative seats too. The Democratic Party should be, and I suspect privately is, glad that she lost.
For two years, the Times has done a commendable job exposing Trump’s delusional unreality, desperate ego and sadistic bent to hurt the weak and vulnerable. Now it’s time to turn the laser light on Mitch McConnell. McConnell’s malice is intentional and strategic, and he is doing long term harm to the Republic by manipulating the legislative process to his own narrow ends.
3
Senator Collins, who frequently pretends to consider other options but consistently, and very often cruelly, votes with her Republican chums, seems an odd choice to quote in tying together this article.
3
trump said that Mexico would pay for the wall. He said it many times. Now he says the wall will pay for itself while at the same time blaming the DEMs for not paying for it. This makes no sense. The guy has no credibility ... none!
5
Lindsey Graham is as weak as a kitten. Capitulation to Trump's impulse to declare an emergency where none exists should be disqualifying for him. Congress needs to stand up straight, take a deep breath, sign the deal that it has already agreed to, put it to a vote in the Senate and then send it to Trump to be signed or vetoed. That's how this works.
Trump doesn't want this to end because all he has ever wanted is the issue. He wants no part of the solution. So let him explain to America, if he has the guts to veto (he doesn't), why innocent federal workers and others need to be held hostage.
1
This is not about loopholes, it's about Trump's consistent record of punishing/threatening/bullying/frightening people who did not vote him or do not agree with him. He is a very cruel person.
Can we use the emergency funds to offer this disaster of a president an early buyout so he can get out of Washington ASAP?
2
If FEMA funding is cut in Butte Country, the NorCal area devastated by fires, it will turn from red to purple just in time for 2020. And if Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) lets that happen, he's also toast. Let's see if he has experienced any spinal regeneration since he became Trump's loyal caddy (literally) at Mar-a-Lago last fall. One night in a fancy hotel suite does wonders.
1
How Thoughtless and how so like Mr. Trump! Americans here needing disaster relief after things like the devastating wildfires in California . The consequences of diverting monies will be terrible for those Americans who are already suffering. I urge every American to contact their Senator and Congressional representative to voice a strong objection and contact Trump at www.whitehouse.gov. Just say NO!
1
When Rick Perry was governor of Texas, every time there was a natural disaster, no one had his hand out faster than Perry for government assistance. Red states don't want government regulation but they sure want government money.
How well is this going over in the hurricane, flood, and tornado prone states of Florida and Texas?
4
My, Trump must be so brave to venture down to the southern US border with all those hordes of bloodthirsty zombies, err, no, Darth Vader’s storm troopers, err, no, Hannibal with 40,000 soldiers, 20,000 cavalry, and 80 elephants, err, no, Alexander the Great with 47,000 soldiers, err, no. Nope. Nope. Nope.
Just the old Rio Grande chuckling and babbling to itself, above a few dozing channel catfish and large mouth bass, and a desert breeze wafting the scent of Rio Bravo sage across the water.
What a big, big man to want to starve and dehydrate to death the Peninsular bighorn sheep, the Mexican grey wolf, Mexican jaguar, the Sonoran pronghorn, and thousands of other species that depend on access to the river and to each other across the region.
Trump doesn’t care if animals go extinct just so he can look tough to his fanatical groupies.
More than 2700 scientists from 47 countries have denounced the building of a wall.
https://qz.com/1334546/the-us-mexico-border-barriers-threatens-1500-plant-and-animal-species/
Could we listen to reason for once?
15
@Heather It's clear that Trump doesn't care about wildlife, nature, the climate, the world or any living thing in it. Trump only loves Trump.
1
At the end of the day the Republican leadership especially McConnell and his Congressional GOP sooges know that the Wall is a stupid waste of time and money. They don't care about that anymore than they did about foisting off the ignorant, incompetent racist Donald Trump on the American people through corrupt election practices.. No person who has even a shred of respect for the United States can support Trump and these evil Republicans who are destroying our nation to satisfy their own lust for power and money.
37
I feel like I am watching a horror movie where an unleashed monster keeps destrying, destroying and destroying. Or a vampire keeps sucking the blood from its victims. This has never been an issue of illegal immigration, and it is no longer a political struggle. It is squarely an issue of decency, compassion and honesty. Most importantly, it is a final wake up call to irresponsible republican congressman and senators to stand up for America, all America. And Lindsay Graham, who has turned into one of the biggest opportunists in The Senate, should be asheamed of his actions and even more ashamed of the the legacy left behind by his close friend and colleague John McCain. Forget McConnell, he’s a lost cause and mean to the bone. But there are a number of decent-minded Republican Senators and Congressmen who need to stand up and shout. enough is enough. America is suffering under the weight of this administartion and the remnants of an ultra-right wing group of elected officials and commentators. We have been there before, and we still ahve not learned. Only the American people can end this. Stand up for waht’s right, protets, shout and march. And more importantly, boycott the intransigents and hit them where it hurts the most: tjeir pockets.
17
For sheer elegance and eloquent transparency, nothing can top pulling those TSA paychecks!
11
I am usually an optimist - even to the extent that sometimes I see a long term benefit to Trump's craziness. But, giving in to Trumps' wall demand won't improve the situation. Rather, it will exacerbate his willingness to use a "national emergency" over and over again in order to get his way. It's time for me to pull the covers over my head and hope the country survives the next two years.
16
@Perplexed No. It's time to fight for our Constitutional Republic. The Democrats in Congress are fighting. Lots of lawyers will be donating their time to fight against this atrocity.
There may come a time for us ordinary Americans to take to the streets. Don't punk out on us!
Elders in a clan of primitive humans testing fire as a resource become convinced of its usefulness to keep predators away. "A bigger fire," they deiced, would mean fewer predators, which would mean fewer lost among their own.
The theory partially proved true. As the fire was built bigger, and bigger, signs of predators in the area decreased dramatically. But, the deaths did not decrease.
The elders puzzled over the mystery until a child who witnessed multiple takings by the predators swore until he was bloody from the beating he received that it was the same single beast doing the killings. It was the biggest the child had ever seen, and the child knew it according to markings known by local reportings. Signs in the area confirmed the child's testimony.
The elders could not understand that, while the weaker predators fled the area, the fire provided the strongest among them an opportunity to thrive. They also couldn't understand that the bigger the aspirations for the fire, the more manpower was required to maintain it, the smartest among the predators learned that the fire meant fewer threats from the villagers. The few left stalked the women and children freely while the men cut, dragged and piled wood.
What are our smartest predators, who seem to be Trump's closest political allies, gaining from all the focus on Trump's misguided wall?
6
Diverting aid from where its needed to build a wall in the middle of nowhere where its not, would be entirely consistent with Trump's constant campaigning to his base. Its would be a double hit; blaming the victims of storms and fires, while pretending to solve a crisis he manufactured with his base's pet project. I'm surprised he hasn't jumped at it.
14
Let him have his $5 billion. Far more will be wasted repairing the damage from the disaster of this game of chicken. At least when the smoke settles and the reality of the walldoggle becomes clear, Trump will take the heat. Right now Democrats are burning through all the cred and trust they will NEED in 2020. It is not worth the cost of this tragedy just to save face and stick stubbornly to principles. It is imperative to get this man out in 2020 -or sooner. If the people do not believe in a viable alternative they might stick with the status quo. Then this country would spiral from dysfunction to the unimaginable. Why that word? Because no one CAN IMAGINE what will happen with six more years of this.
5
@Hypocrisy 101 - If they give in to him now, when will it stop?
1
@Hypocrisy 101
“His” $5 billion? Sure, give him “his” money, just leave my tax dollars out of it.
@Hypocrisy 101 Reality will never become clear to Trumpsters. Letting Trump have his way, no matter how bad it is, is unacceptable. If people are stupid enough to hang this on Democrats they deserve Trump and the disaster he will bring.
If there were any doubt left that Trump is unfit for the presidency this should seal the deal. Taking aid from disaster victims to fund a vanity project that is entirely unnecessary demonstrates precisely what an evil man he is.
What's worse, he is only creating this crisis to divert our and the media's attention from the Russia thing. With the lifting of sanctions on Derispaska proof that Trump's main agenda is to do whatever Putin wants. Lift sanctions, leave Syria, downgrade the EU...
23
Now there’s an idea. Take the money from people who have suffered recent disasters and catastrophic losses to build this border wall. Never mind that every security expert says the eventual 40-80 billion cost is a huge waste of money and not an effective solution. Never mind that people are suffering real crises involving the loss of home, health and livelihood vs this invented “crisis.”
Trump is certainly aloof and out-of-touch regarding the very people he promised to help. But either he’s not being very smart or he’s read the tea leaves and realizes he’s a one-termer.
7
@Michael
Even if he has decided that he’s only a one-termer, that doesn’t justify the cruelty he exhibits toward the people.
The man is a disgrace, a sadist, an entity without a soul.
No wonder Trump's enterprises go bankrupt. Now it's the country.
24
This is just crazy. Puerto Ricans are still suffering, as are the people of Northern California and North Carolina. The funds designed to help them (and others in need), should go to them. There is no need for this wall. A minority of voters, led by a weak president, should not be allowed to impose it on the rest of us.
14
Good way to lose the support of Florida and Texas (he never had it in California or Puerto Rico). Next he'll be stealing from the $12 billion he set aside for aid to farmers in states like Iowa and Ohio who have lost their export markets because of his trade wars with China and Mexico. There's a silver lining to his wrecking ball madness because it's also wrecking his chances of reelection.
7
Republicans had two years, when they controlled the White House and both house of Congress, to soak the American Taxpayer for their wall. Now that the Democrats control the House, what makes them think they can suddenly pull off this scam?
If Mexico is not going to pay for the wall (hint: they won't and never were) than Republicans and the con man in the White House should come clean and own this. I am not holding my breath.
12
@Dersh
The wall did not get funded during the last two years because the repubs don’t believe in the viability of Trump’s wall any more than the dems do. They just were too blasted chicken to tell him that.
1
Beyond, totally beyond. Disaster relief goes to build a wall?
8
After reading the transcript on Vox of Trump’s “interview” with Hannity at the Texas border, it is clear that Trump is non compos mentis.
There isn’t much point in attributing any form of thought to this creature. It is time Melania spoke to Mitch and asked him to clear the way for Trump’s resignation and a Pence pardon. Please.
Then we can focus upon dealing with a “Christian” fundamentalist cabal trying to resurrect the Confederacy.
13
Further evidence of the immorality of our President -- juxtaposing a fake problem against real ones. At the same time: we created this problem; we need to fix it. Lobby your representatives.
5
@Albert K Henning
People of color live in Puerto Rico...who cares?
(Trump's reasoning).
They should just "get over it".
it seems that the executive and legislative branches pay NOTHING for this disgrace.
first, WE THE PEOPLE need to penalize all of our representatives and senators for their disregard for the citizenry they represent.
We need a law that causes them some pain... so, how about; if they are unwilling or unable to reach agreement before sending the country into closure, the president, vice-president and all elected members would have to give up their congressional pensions for 5 years; give up their health insurance for themselves and anyone covered under their current policies for 5 years, and refund their salaries for a period not less than 18 months.
when this is over it will be time for a real, formal, Constitutional Convention... obviously, WE THE PEOPLE are getting the short end again.
3
@an alternative view The actual solution is quite easy: throw the Republican bums out! You appear to be a silly centrist who just has to blame both sides. Why? Afraid of taking sides? Would you have supported our Revolution or would you have denounced George Washington and George III?
Also, pay attention to the professionals.
"All four concrete prototypes would present “extensive” construction challenges, two of the others would present “substantial” challenges, and the last two would present only “moderate” challenges. Six of the prototypes would need “substantial” or “extensive” design changes to accommodate surface drainage, and the same number would require “substantial” or “extensive” changes to accommodate Border Patrol’s gates.
"Only four of the prototypes could be built on 45-degree slopes, while three of them would not be constructible on any slope over 15 percent. One of the prototypes could not be constructed on any slope without a redesign. This is a particular challenge on the U.S. southern border, where much of the terrain is difficult or mountainous."
There's more. Here's the source. https://www.engineering.com/BIM/ArticleID/17599/Writing-on-the-Wall-Report-Suggests-Border-Project-Is-Off-Track-and-Over-Budget.aspx
5
Trump says only a wall will work without data to support it. Pelosi - and most of the rest of the free world - think a massive barrier is either immoral or an ineffective waste of money, although both sides have voted for some fencing and agree that border security is very important. So
Open the government.
Fund a bipartisan to study and rank the specific border threats - to all our borders and points of entry - and the most effive means to mitigate those threats. Based upon such a study the Congress can pass a funding bill. Maybe Trump will read it...
5
Why is McConnell allowing trump to destroy the republican party? The government shutdown proved trump has no concern for anyone but himself. And taking away funds from disaster sites, shows no moral compass at all. Most likely another Steve Miller sadistic ploy.
I haven't heard any outrage from the money evangelical religion.
Has Giuliani crossed the Rubicon?
8
@David J Well that's simple.
Mitch knows that, without Lump's gun-toting, bible-thumping supporters, none of the Republicans up for reelection in 2020 can win.
How is taking aid from those in need a good thing?
How does his "base" not realize the deleterious consequences?
How was he the right person for the job in the first place?
There is so much wrong in the GOP management plan that Dems could make policy on, but are not.
There aren't two sides to the coin anymore, one in the same.
Who are they working for, really?
Camelot was a dream, but we were proud to be an American
It is embarrassing what our system has become.
What legacy do we leave?
184
@Vanman Trump is exactly the person to deal with these situations and he fears nothing since he is not on the take like many or most of congress who are beholden to donors
@Vanman
How is keeping the government shut down indefinitely rather than making an expenditure that is less than 0.1% of federal funding a good thing.
Democrats have previously supported the wall.
Obama gave $0.5 billion to Solyndra in a loan that they defaulted, despite the fact that the investors didn't lose a dime, in exchange for $50,000 in campaign donations.
Obama sent $1.3 billion in cash to Iran to fund terrorism.
Obama gave $7 billion per year in unappropriated funds to his friends the insurance companies.
Obama gave $3.5 billion to the UN to be gifted to third world dictators, ostensibly to fight global warming.
Who was Obama working for?
1
@david, is your comment intended as sarcasm? He is more on the take than any president in our history: by the Russians with whom he signed a letter of intent to build a Trump Tower, by the Saudis who have been renting his apartments and hotel rooms en masse; by other Arab nations renting his hotel rooms in the DC Trump Hotel. Are you that ignorant? And listen to the former Director of ICE who says that a wall is unnecessary; the walling we have is in the only places where it would be effective.
38
Trump is searching for the best possible way to cause pain to the greatest number of people. This time he is trying to steal from the victims of hurricanes. As much as I detest Trump's insisting on a wall we don't need, I am slightly comforted that he still has a few advisors who will tell him what will not work. But it sounds to me as if they don't dare tell him what a dumb idea the wall is.
1
Just like Trump has found loop holes to get what he wants throughout his entire life, he will find a loophole to build his wall. Once the wall is built, he will blame the Democrats for continuing the government shut down. It will be a win, win situation for him as his devious actions will continue unabated. I do not trust the Democrats to block his wall and more importantly, his stacked courts will protect him. I hope I'm wrong.
88
@Phil M Your scenario makes no sense. If he gets to build his wall by means of a phony declaration of emergency why would he refuse to sign the funding bills to re-open the government? He can keep trying to blame the Democrats but only his base will buy it.
You say you don't trust the Democrats to block his wall but there's absolutely no sign of them caving to him. You have such preconceptions about them that you are apparently unable to see what's actually happening.
As for getting right-wing judges to approve a phony declaration of emergency, it could happen but it would clearly reveal that we have a bunch of political activists pretending to be impartial judges. This would set the stage for the Democrats to counter attack, by perhaps "packing" the Supreme Court. Republican claims of "politicizing the judiciary" would ring quite hollow.
16
@Phil M Why should the shut down continue if Trump loopholes his wall? He should then approve the original bill he was going to sign before the far right hardliners got his goat. If not, then the shutdown is still on Trump.
14
@Phil M
Also blame the Dems for the biggest national deficit George Bush and he Trump helped create with this welfare for the rich tax break and now fake wall cost.
13
Diverting emergency funds? Sure -- what could possibly go wrong with that?
9
This will certainly win the GOP friends in Florida and Texas when hurricane season arrives in a few months. Both states could easily flip, though more likely in Florida with the addition of 1.4 million new voters added to the roles thanks to Amendment 4. The administration doesn't have to worry about California or Puerto Rico, since neither will vote GOP in a presidential election, but it might be enough to push out Nunes and McCarthy the next election cycle. Fingers crossed.
6
@j They won't flip because their guns and their religion are more important to them than anything else, including their children.
1
Brilliant Donald! Take emergency funds away from primarily red states usually used for hurricane damage, floor relief and tornado damage and use it to pay for a wall that most people don't want. Your red state supporters will be thrilled.
12
Is it possible that Trump doesn't understand Puerto Rico isn't part of Mexico?
13
@Randall
Wouldn’t matter to him if they were part of Russia. They don’t vote in presidential elections.
Beyond amazing...beyond words.
The crisis is clearly not on the border but in the Oval Office.
9
Where are the designs and cost estimates for this wall we don't need? As an architect, the process is to complete the design and then issue the construction documents for contractors to bid on it. None of this has happened as far as I am aware. Trump should know this as he was involved in the construction industry for many years before becoming a politician. He expects people to agree to a wall that is not even designed or has a cost estimate?
Diverting disaster relief funds to pay for a wall is immoral - especially since there is no crisis occurring except in Trumps own mind.
378
@Philip Calbi
Not to mention subsequent long term maintenance costs.
And then when simple means of getting over the barrier are found - like ladders for example, or attachment of climbing accessories - guess who will pay for patrolling the fence line?
The burden of proof the wall makes any sense is with the chief executive - otherwise I am contacting my senators and representatives to ask them to not send one more dime to fund Trump’s boondoggle.
28
@Philip Calbi There is no way to tell how much Trump learned about construction as he failed his way upward, using his father's millions to make himself look successful.
39
They haven't even chosen the material, let alone designed it.
16
This is what "winning" means for Trump. Just take whatever you want, regardless of law, tradition or decency. That's how the man has operated his entire life. Maybe that's okay for an individual in real estate, but it should not be the modus operandi of national and international politics.
15
When will Trump supporters and Republicans realize how destructive Trump is? So now his crazy plan is to take money away from disaster relief to build his ineffective and unnecessary wall, which means that he will be hurting not only the 800,000 government workers who are affected by the shut down, but the millions more whose lives were destroyed by natural disaster. That's making America Great Again in action folks!
And then Senator Susan Collins' quote, just made me laugh. Her comments were misdirected as they should have been applied to Mitch McConnell. He is the one that is preventing the shut down from ending. The Senate already passed a spending bill unanimously, which means they can override any veto. Ms. Collins: start doing your job! It is not very becoming when you parrot Trump.
11
Only to someone with a complete and total lack of empathy would this make sense. Let him go down this road... It will be his Waterloo. Remember what happened to W.
But before going further, has Rush and Ann signed off on this?
9
Aside from the 30% minority who forms Trump's base, no one sincerely believes the wall will solve anything. Certainly not the Senate, who voted unanimously to fund the government without the wall just a few weeks ago but now suddenly insists it's a national crisis.
The only wall being built is between conservatives and liberals, and that's the only wall Trump cares about. His version of reality is entirely manufactured for convenience, and the entire notion of the wall is existential at this point. It's almost like our shared grip on reality is what's really at stake. To give in to the wall affirms every insane thing Trump has said over the past three years. If he has to hold federal workers hostage, then rob the American people to get his way, so be it. He needs to own every single bit of this invented catastrophe.
I'm genuinely sorry that federal workers are suffering - that's entirely Trump's doing. Democrats can't give in to this, not after last November. America overwhelmingly voted to dis-empowered Trump and the GOP. We don't want Trumpism. We don't want the GOP's sad, reluctant complicity. We don't believe Trump's version of reality.
We don't want the Wall.
13
It is obvious that Trump's moral conscience has no human compassion whatsoever. This figures into his so-called deal making. Thus, he dangles legal status for the Dreamers to the House as bait. Should they make the mistake of taking interest in the notion, he'll reel them in a bit closer. Once they've committed he'll snatch the bait away. If they then protest he'll claim they are welching on the deal. He is using the threat of declaring a national emergency in much the same way.
He's an unscrupulous negotiator. He only wants his way and is uninterested in compromise other than using it as a means to appeal to his opponents better angels. The Democrats would be wise to remember that Trump lies with abandon. Anything he says should be suspect. He truly has no credibility.
4
I find Senator Collins's remarks disingenuous. Come on Ms. Collins, you know full well that the bills passed in the new House are the same as the CR passed by the Senate before the shutdown. Further, at that point Trump said he'd sign it and get funding for 'the wall' some other way. That was before the GOP-led House pulled it's stunt of not passing the CR and passing a bill with wall funding.
Or are you going to pull a 'I don't recall'?
7
Here is the new face of America -- cold and heartless not only towards those trying to come here to make a better life for themselves and their families, but also turning a callous back on those who live here as citizens already.
9
Palin -- never forget.
You cannot negotiate with a child who throws a temper tantrum. You cannot talk to the parents to calm the child if the child says no to every offer. In affect, you cannot negotiate with yourselves.
3
The real crisis and national emergency is the one that President Loco (Ana Navarro's "pet name" for Trump) has created and that Mitch McConnell and the rest of the GOP have aided and abetted.
7
This is, presumably, precisely why the power of the purse is vested in the legislative branch: despots punish enemies and reward friends. Only in all inclusive forums does the totality of a polity decide how collective resources may be allocated -- who shall sacrifice, who shall benefit.
5
I am sure Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico, California and other places will be glad to hear there will be no aid when the next disaster strikes. Trump's administration refused FEMA help to Marshalltown, Iowa that was devastated in a tornado in 2018 so he will probably refuse to help them as well.
6
I think Trump has lost his mind. This makes no sense at all to divert funds from a crisis to one that is not a crisis.
8
How about repealing the "repeal" of the estate tax which the Republicans passed which is will cost $269 billion over a decade, the Joint Committee on Taxation estimates, before counting the interest costs of adding to the debt.
That's $26.9 BILLION a year. You can make it up in 2 months.
https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/ten-facts-you-should-know-about-the-federal-estate-tax
5
Congress on both sides of the aisle have much to work with already without having to experience this National emergency solution by the President. Congress do you job to benefit all American citizens by compromising on border security. If it does get done then there is hope for real reforms in immigration and on the status of (dreamers) of illegal people already in our country.
1
Trump does not care if federal workers are going without paychecks, it is his mode of operating to stiff people who work for him. Of course, all the Republican congressmen are hiding behind his coat tails waiting for someone else to take action. Any American who is not a federal employee or member of such a household can only, for the moment stands in utter shock at the absolute disregard our "leaders" are showing for the lack of care they are demonstrating for our collective well being. I'm just waiting for TSA workers and air traffic controllers to say enough..."We are staying home...The line at the food bank is too long...We can't come in today, we are too busy having a yard sale, etc." Beyond sad.
4
If Trump does indeed divert the disaster relief fund to his wall, between the hurt inflicted on the victims of fires, storms and floods, and the federal workers hurt by the shutdown, he could legitimately be compared to Bashar el Assad: a leader making war on his own people to achieve his authoritarian ends.
8
1) I am against the Trump's wall for strictly practical reasons. More wall in relatively remote areas is not the most effective and most efficient way to reduce illegal immigration and smuggling.
2) If Trump falsely declares a national emergency and takes the money from Puerto Rico aid, then there is no harm done and his wasteful wall would not be a waste so long as the money is not subsequently made up to Puerto Rico. That is because all the money given to Puerto Rico is wasted anyway as its thoroughly corrupt government steals and/or wastes it all anyway.
3) The real issue is whether a lot more wall placed in relatively remote areas is the MOST EFFICIENT and MOST EFFECTIVE way to address illegal immigration and smuggling.
Democrats do not address that issue. Nor does Trump. Trump has recently called his wall as the only effective way to stop illegal immigration and smuggling.....but he offers no evidence. Nor do Democrats offer evidence to the contrary. All the public gets is baseless claim by Trump that Democrats do not even address, let alone refute. Both do nothing but partisan political rhetoric, no real argument and no evidence from either.
4) Trump will win this contest by make what is obviously a false declaration of national energy. This is similar to his unilateral imposition of massive tariffs based upon him falsely redefining national security as economic security according to his personal erroneous belief of what is economically beneficial to the nation.
1
@Errol
The wall and the shutdown should be two different things. Only in Trump's worldview, and in the false equivalence of media coverage, do the two converge. Democrats and Republicans can have debates as well as hearings which highlight the relative effectiveness of various border security measures, seek compromise, vote, amend, compromise some more, vote again. That is their role. Shutting down the government and laying off 800,000 people to try to force your will upon the legislative branch is not acceptable. What next? Many on the right think that legal abortion is a national crisis; should we have a shutdown over that? The president knows that the only way he can remotely begin to sell his wall is by fabricating a national crisis. There is no immigration crisis, except for a Trump-created humanitarian crisis. Even if there were a crisis, a shutdown would not be justified, but trump is playing to emotions - and his base is reacting on an emotional level - rather than acting in the best interest of the country. The shutdown must end. The relative merits of one form or other of border security have no bearing on the matter.
Trump says walls in other countries like Israel work but in fact people tunnel under these walls to the other side so it's obvious they don't work. When people dig these tunnels what are we going to do - flood them with tear gas or even use deadly explosives to collapse them and kill the people in the tunnels? It sounds like it would be an expensive effort anyway to keep the tunnels closed so why not use measures that work like funding more border security patrols and transporting the people caught to a legal port of entry on the Mexican side of the border instead of caging them and their children on this side? If the Mexicans don't like these people being dumped back on them then they need to beef up their own border security to keep these people out before they even reach the U. S. If Mexico balks then close the border with Mexico and cut off trade with them.
Some people may think this is draconic but consider what Canada's reaction would be if we made a corridor through the U.S. to funnel these people to the Canadian border that would give them the opportunity to allow them to enter Canada illegally. That seems to have previously been the role of Mexico in all this - to serve as a funnel for illegal immigrants to enter our country. However recent articles in The Times indicate that Mexico is taking stronger measures to keep out illegal immigrants and they should continue to do so. This should not be just our problem; it is Mexico's problem as well.
1
Let's review the bidding here:
1. For two years with GOP control of both houses, no funding for his wall. No declaration of emergency, or even discussion of such.
2. Both houses of Congress have passed bills to keep govt running
3. Prez says he won't sign because he doesn't get his wall $$, immediately after opposing political party gains voting control of the House whose members were just directly elected.
So the logical conclusion is that a US president should get whatever he wants, and the Congress must "compromise" to acquiesce to his unilateral demand, any time there is a funding bill.
Ergo, any president who wants pink elephants in the white house, or an Iran Contra slush fund, or gun control, or whatever suits his fancy that day, should be able to shut down the govt until Congress bows to his demands.
And this is America, not Russia or Venezuela.
Got it.
P.S. I can't wait to see how the Supremes rule on this madness. Talk about a slippery slope legal precedent.
6
I work for the U.S government in another country here in Europe. I am one of thousands that help U.S citizens when they need help or are in a bad situation. I have worked hard to offer my assistance when U.S citizens have been injured, gotten sick or even died in my country.
And now, I have to face facts - my income is reliant on a government I did not vote for and who does not care about anyone else.
I am going to look for a new job because I do not deserve to be treated like this - and even though I have cherised the idea of the United States of America and believed in my faith in its people - that is now gone.
Good luck - you'll need it.
5
I’m almost getting the impression that he’s trying to find a way to pocket most the money he’s asking for!
1
How can they even consider that idea? Cold and heartless.
2
The humanitarian crisis, if there is one, was created by the people who marched up to the border, not by the president. He's exacerbated it, but it's fueled by the liberal establishment in this country who think that we should have more open borders. We have immigration laws. Rather than try to blackmail us into granting admission to those who don't qualify, we should be putting our efforts into improving the governments in Central America and having a fact informed debate about what our immigration policies should be. These people, though, need to go home or take asylum in Mexico which offered it to them.
Maybe the US taxpayers should declare an emergency and shut down the Trump organization properties. We are the employers of the Federal workforce NOT Trump. Perhaps our local and state employees could start by checking that all of the Trump organization workers are documented and paid what is owed them and all contractors and subcontractors have been paid in a timely fashion. Shut them down!
4
If Trump is worried about criminals he should build a wall around the White House. I'm willing to bet that as proportion of the population there have been more criminals in Trump's White House than in the Mexico-originated population.
4
For two years the Republicans controlled both parts of of Congress and the White House. If a border wall was so necessary why did they not fund it then?
6
If Mexico is paying for the wall on the southern border through the warmed-over NAFTA, does that mean Trump is planning a paid-for-by-Canada wall in the north?
2
President John F. Kennedy's assassination was ordered by the same right wing of our government that supports Trump. The faces of the "right" have changed but their morally corrupt ideology is the same.
1
"White House officials considered diverting emergency aid from storm- and fire-ravaged Puerto Rico, Florida, Texas and California to build a border barrier, perhaps under an emergency declaration."
Such a move is as legally questionable as it is bone-headed and heartless. Plus, it would only provide more entities with standing to challenge Trump in court. But that may be the point. Trump is brainless and cartoonishly simplistic; yet he is a well-practiced con man. He promised Mexico would pay for the "wall"as part of a (not particularly original ) bait and switch scam. By punting the issue to the courts, he can pretend to continue his campaign for the fence thingie for as long as he likes, control media narratives, and fuel the fear-mongering that sustains his power. If he and Senate Republicans were to actually trade or negotiate with the House for a border barrier, he would have to compromise. Even if this were to accomplish the stated goal of actually getting his silly vanity project built, Trump is even more afraid of looking weak. Trump is terrible at governing, but he is very good at duping 40% of the American public.
3
Surely the W.H. might build a Wall with lobby money, stolen money, salaries, from the GOP Senate. There's enough there to build a Sherwin Williams Wall to Cover the Earth.
How about Putin and the Russian "oligarchs" (never named) - they've made some big bucks here in Washington. They can fund it and CCCP graffiti it when it's done.
3
He cannot divert monies from disaster areas in order to build “his wall.” Does anyone really believe the citizens of these areas, especially Puerto Rico, California, Florida, and all areas hit by tornadoes, hurricanes, wild fires are going to say “oh yeah, go ahead, use my money for a wall we don’t need, I don’t need a roof over my head.” That money has already been allotted to those areas. And he’s STILL insisting that the California wild fires were due to irresponsibility of the Forestry Department! Now, there’s another MASS CARAVAN building in Honduras! That’s the newly created threat from him. Now he’s claiming he NEVER said Mexico would pay for the wall! I believe MILLIONS of people, including his “supportive” base and republicans, heard him say it, several times! He STILL is saying we’ll get the money back! If he is intending on using taxpayer money, and “we’ll” get the money back from Mexico, you know we’ll never see a penny of it!
3
So is he saying the hate and fear of Central Americans and Mexicans is more important to the Nation's security than the lives of Americans that have suffered from natural disasters such as hurricanes, floods and fires? Is this man insane? is every Republican that is enabling him? I just cannot comprehend this.
5
A great president always governs with a steady hand. But this president is like an earthquake. You just never know when he will strike and when he does he wreaks chaos and damage to the entire nation. But he is also enabled by the likes of Mitch McConnell who only values hanging on to power while ceding most of it to Trump. The Republican Party is an empty shell owned by Trump and incapable of governing. The House has passed bills to open the government but McConnell and Republican Senators will not do the right thing and take a vote to make it happen. History is clear shutdowns don't work as a political tactic and the Republicans are going to pay a great price for supporting Trump and his ugly way of governing.
2
Perhaps the discussion should shift to either shutting down the White House or building a wall around it.
4
NO WALL. This is a colossal waste of money, among other things.
4
Cheaters working on becoming autocrats--who also don't care one lick about those of whom they oppress. Well, at least the farmers going broke will break off some of his intractable base--those who have the schadenfreude mantra: "You are hurting the WRONG people..." To me, it looks like some of the right people are being hurt--as their "beliefs" have hurt the nation.
4
Border security is not in doubt. We are securing our borders well. The influx of immigrants is lower than in the past. Refugees are increasing world wide because of poor governments unable to maintain peace and adequate prosperity for their people. If the world could pressure and help these countries, migrations would be mostly stopped. Trump is playing on a lot of people’s anxieties not any real deprivations they are experiencing.
But we do have a very threatening and apparently worsening event that is already doing great harm to all of us. That is extreme weather conditions which are creating devastating storms and drought conditions and raising the level of the sea and precipitating a rapid extinction of species. The event is global climate change. If we can reduce the proportion of carbon gases in the air and sea, we can diminish this process. That deserves our attention because it will take the greatest efforts to change.
To take money needed for real needs resulting form climate change to satisfy a made up crisis is not reasonable. The Congress needs to bring this nonsense to an end.
265
@Casual Observer
Bring Trump to his senses? He would need to want to come to his senses and want to change, but he thinks he is a brilliant leader and everybody else is wrong. Trump change? Not in the cards. The only thing we can do is to rid ourselves of this world class bully.
23
@Casual Observer
I’m not a trump supporter, and I agree that taking money from Americans in need is a horrible idea but I also think we have to acknowledge that we can’t afford to allow everyone that would like to live here to do so. A pbs report stated that it’s estimated that $2 billion a year in Medicaid is being spent on undocumented immigrants for
emergency room visits while while a lot of Americans avoid seeing he doctor because they can’t afford their deductible.
1
@Casual Observer I say give this president SOMETHING he can boast about as he loses his wall. Building some structures we actually need regarding fires and storms and droughts? And bragging on him for helping out as a tried and true champion of a great American!
Aren't we simply watching a trial of the deconstruction of the administrative state Bannon sought?
6
Only if WE THE PEOPLE do nothing, Mr. Johnston
9
@njglea
I'd call the trial a failure.
While we are only two years into this train wreck, scholar surveys on Wikipedia rank the Trump Presidency the worst in our history, worse than disgraced Warren Harding and impeached Andrew Johnson. I keep on thinking we are hitting bottom but Trump digs the hole even deeper. How could our President be so irresponsible as to shut the government down to build a wall just to feed his ego and then take money from emergency funding to build it? I'm ashamed to be an American right now.
12
Storm aid funds for Trump's wall?
Don't make me laugh.
It is quite clear Trump knows he won't succeed in overcoming the Congressional and legal hurdles this theft would require, Trump will use it as an off-ramp. He thinks this move will free him from the corner he's painted himself into.
Fat chance!
7
Didn't they have a wall in Germany once? And didn't the people tear it down? Hmm...
8
Mitch is as big a problem as Trump, blocking legislation which could at least reopen government services. Trump knows he isn't going to get his ridiculous wall, he just wishes to appear to his feeble minded base that he is fighting for them. With Trump, it's all about smoke screens and lack of any real thought process before making snap decisions .
9
Dear Ammon Bundy,
Here is a perfect chance for you to stand up for the landowners on the border who are about to have their land seized in the name of “imminent domain”. Time to walk it like you talk it - for real this time.
6
This is spooky, been around for a while but uncannily mirrors the present situation. Some commentors reckon that the conman character was modelled on Fred Trump when this was originally filmed, down to the white gowns with mystic symbols and the snake oil con but fits his conman son even more closely.
https://youtu.be/Gs6UcgiDwg0
3
I think we should somehow give the baby what it wants and then throw it out with the bath water!
white house and Senate majority leader should be diverted to jail. house speaker, please swear out arrest warrants
6
Are they really allowed to do this?
2
One more year, folks.
2
@Kevin, Bob Mueller and Democratic leaders believe the time will be much shorter.
Let's hope we still have something left of this country by then.
Trump needs to go now, not later.
So the tax-fraud-in-chief now considers how to pay for his phony wall with our tax money. NO !
3
Mitch McConnell is not taking phone calls or messages in his DC office. What does that tell you? He does not care what We the People think or about what we are trying to tell him! He'd rather live in his Republican bubble.
So here it is, Mitch: You are a disgrace to this country. Either resign or do your job and bring back the bill that the Senate passed on Dec. 18 to move past this impasse of your own making. You are breaking your oath of office to serve the country when you obstruct our norms of governmental process by refusing to bring a bill to the floor. Not to mention the hundreds of thousands of workers who are paying the price for your ego/power play.
Disgusting.
13
@Blue Girl
Pretty sure Mitch isn't terribly concerned with the 'norms of governmental process' after displaying his pride over blocking Obama's Supreme Court nominee. Disgraceful doesn't even begin to describe him.
5
So, the Republicans have held the House, Senate, and Presidency for the last two years and have not passed funding for their wall. It wasn't a national emergency then, so why take money from recovery for real natural disasters now and create real crises for working people all over our nation by denying them their wages. End the shutdown now.
7
Remember folks, it is all about saving face.
Let Trump "get" the money from the Emergency fund. The wall cannot built in a day. They still need to fix the areas they already have money allotted for.
By the time they really dip into the fund to lay money down, the courts will have blocked it but the government will be active again.
Let Trump "think" he has won. As another poster wrote, we can change the law in the future to prevent rogue presidents in pulling this stunt again.
4
This engineer's remarks on Trump's wall are more than than interesting.
Sample: "I’m a structural forensicist, which means I’m called in when things go wrong. This is a project that WILL go wrong. "
"Trump did not hire engineers to design the thing. He solicited bids from contractors, not engineers. This means it’s not been designed by professionals. It’s a disaster of numerous types waiting to happen."
"And it won’t be effective. I could, right now, purchase a 32 foot extension ladder and weld a cheap custom saddle for the top of the proposed wall so that I can get over it. I don’t know who they talked to about the wall design and its efficacy, but it sure as heck wasn’t anybody with any engineering imagination."
"This is not smart. It’s not effective. It’s NOT cheap. The returns will be diminishing as technology advances, too. This is a ridiculous idea that will never be successfully executed and, as such, would be a monumental waste of money." Amy Patrick, licensed structural and civil engineer.
11
I would like to see the media start hammering away at the plight of the federal workers who will continue to not get paid. Have interviews every day on the news with people who are at their wit's end trying to get along without a paycheck. A show like 60 Minutes devoting an entire hour concentrating on the reality being faced by so many of our public servants could go a long way to increase public awareness of the dire need to end the shutdown. It might even be enough to soften the hard hearts of some Trump supporters.
If all else fails, having TSA agents and air traffic controllers all walk off the job may be enough to force Trump to end his tantrum. All planes would be grounded and worldwide chaos would ensue. Only then would there be enough pressure put on Trump by heads of state and business leaders to step back and stop his insanity.
5
Let's do the math here: Trump wants to take disaster relief away from hard-hit, vulnerable American communities so he can 'take a stand' against desperately vulnerable people seeking asylum and uses vulnerable working-class federal employees as pawns.
The only constituencies he's interested in protecting are;
a) Himself - while Mueller and SDNY close in and; b) Wealthy, white people. Shielding them from any burden of citizenship - paying taxes for instance - and making sure they can pull up the ladder behind them.
7
The humanitarian issue of denying funds to victims of natural disaster touches our hearts.
No less important is the constitutional issue. The Constitution states that "No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law." Appropriation" here is a money bill originated in the House, subsequently adopted by both the Senate and the House, and signed by the President. Our system does not give the Executive a blank check or a slush fund.
Moving funds from appropriated accounts to other purposes or spending money without an appropriation are subject to administrative and penal, or both, penalties under the Anti-Deficiency Act.
The White House will attempt to whitewash this brazen violation of our Constitution and statutes. Let us hope that Trump's attempted subversion of our judicial system fails, at least to the extent that the crime they plan will be punished.
3
Having voters in Florida and Texas learn that money intended for them had been used instead to fund Trump's vanity wall would not be an entirely disappointing development -- for Democrats that is.
6
Personally, I think it’s a gd tragedy no matter party affiliation. I would hope Republicans would not be gleeful at taking money from supposed Democratic states. Sadly, the comments on social media I’ve had to push back on are from Trump supporters who somehow take pleasure in seeing our neighbors homes burned because they live in California. It’s beyond bizarre that fellow citizens (and humans) can be so callous. But the thread and pattern has been clear for awhile. Some folks want others to hurt even if it hurts them.
2
@Penseur
The Houston area is majority Democrat voters. The rural parts of the stay would be overjoyed at them losing aid. I once had the displeasure to hear a Texan talk about 4 cities he despised because they were full of communists and (can't use the actual word. Slang for homosexual). Those cities were New York, San Francisco, New Orleans and Austin. Trump got both Louisiana and Texas by large margins. It's not southern states vs northern, it's rural vs urban. Trump knows this won't affect his base.
1
@Max Deitenbeck: Interesting analysis. The same holds true, I suspect, in many states. The smaller cities and towns particularly have stagnated economically as a different economy has favored the larger metro areas, leaving the small town areas -- as opposed to the metro areas that tend to be ports as well -- feeling forgotten and betrayed. They vote for anyone who says what they want to hear, without much further thought it would seem.
This turns my stomach to think that any American president would even consider such a move. Trump displays a total lack of compassion and understanding of what we are as a nation and what human suffering is all about. This consideration and that of declaring an "emergency" at the border are simply his steps to becoming the dictator he has dreamed of becoming.
5
Good luck with that. A court would shut that down pretty quickly.
4
Instead of cutting emergency aid, Trump should ask Mexico to actually build the wall by keeping their $5B or $25B tariff payments that he claims they are paying us through the USMCA. They can build it faster and cheaper. Problem solved. If he needs more money, he can rope in China to lend a hand through their tariff payments that he proclaims filling our coffers.
5
@vgg
do some research on tariffs. mexico and china do not pay the tariff fee. american consumers do.
no wonder trump loves the "poorly educated".
Our Framers of our US Constitution never once envisioned that Senators would not carry out their duties. In this instance, the Senate has the votes to readily override Trump's veto. Instead, Leader McConnell is failing to carry out his duties by exclaiming that it is futile to send a bill to the President. That should be declared an illegal inaction, for it subverts the process and imposes a rule that has no basis in law.
Instead McConnell like Trump seeks to subvert our fundamental institutions. Of all things our Framers would recognize they themselves as immigrants is the irony that immigration is the basis for the shutdown. Speaker Pelosi is correct the wall is immoral but like Trump's other policies regarding immigration fundamentally wrong as to who we are as a nation. Ultimately, the fact Trump will inevitably be facing felony charges for collusion with a foreign government, obstruction, fraud, etc., is clearly wholly unrelated to Trump's wall issue. Believe me.
5
What we have not heard from the administration is a complete estimate of costs for the "barrier." We are not talking about anything as simple as a residential picket fence.
Consider the following recently reported costs and roadblocks to building this ego project:
More than 10,000 construction workers to house and feed along the way; in the more remote sections, roads must be built, tent cities and medical facilities must be provided; costs of actual materials including the infrastructure to be built for the actual barrier; wages and insurance benefits for this large labor force including the administrators needed to monitor all cost-benefit analyses. Rough estimates suggest that, under ideal circumstances, this will be a 10 year project.
Other costs willl have to include legal expenses for the coming court fights against the Eminent Domain seizure of private lands. This will create long delays in this project resulting in non-productive onsite expenses.
This will extend the completion date much further into the future, and all for Trump's legacy project based on ill-conceived promises made on the campaign trail.
In fact, we now know that two of Trump's campaign advisors, Sam Nunberg and Roger Stone, concocted this promise to add more kerosene to the fires of Trump's lies about a non-existant "crisis" at our southern border.
To Nancy and Chuck, I say, demand those construction details before entering any further negotiation with Trump. Information is power.
312
@David Ohman Excellent points.
14
@David Ohman
Excellent observations. The open sections alone are some 7,000,000 lineal feet...time for some savvy folks to generate a real estimate.
17
@David Ohman Why are senators like Lindsey Graham so unconcerned with these details? Something weird is going on.
18
Yes, let Mexico pay. And leave us alone, Go away.
12
Trump promises that Mexico will pay for his stupid wall, then tinkers with the idea of diverting disaster relief funds directed toward his fellow Americans instead?
It's time for Californians to stop paying federal taxes. The IRS won't notice anyway, given their chronic budget issues.
16
Donald Trump is barely human.
And, it's totally surreal to see Pence, McConnell, Lindsay and the other ones sub-human robots destroying systematically their country. The GOP is spineless and corrupt to the bone. Disgusting to witness what fear, power and money bribery can do.
20
I'd like to add to previous comment providing Mitch McConnell's mailing address, THE FAX NUMBER:
202 224-2499
15
This fake president flaunts the law, it is long past time to remove him.
15
Straight out of the Frank Underwood playbook, you CAN make this stuff up.
12
For Donald and his base, Puerto Rican’s are just island Mexicans so I am sure whatever relief he steals from Puerto Rico they’ll agree is the same as getting Mexico to pay for it.
And isn’t it rich that one of Donald’s biggest cheerleaders, Matt Gaetz, represents the Florida panhandle? Is he willing to give up all that disaster relief for the great god Donald? Let’s see.
17
The cruelty of this administration is beyond belief. They don't care how many suffer (refugees at the border, the elderly of Paradise, CA, the people of Puerto Rico, and on and on), so long as Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh are happy. I'm with Rashida Tlaib. Get him out.
18
Can it get more outrageous - we have a mentally ill president and he needs to be removed from office.
13
"“I didn’t say they’re going to write me a check for $10 billion or $20 billion,” Mr. Trump said on Thursday."
That's a lie. He actually did say they were gonna make a one time payment. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/10/18177058/trump-mexico-wall-pay-shutdown-mcallen
It's even on his website although I'm sure they'll take this down soon. https://assets.donaldjtrump.com/Pay_for_the_Wall.pdf
Guy can't stop lying.
15
When Floridians and Texans lose their disaster relief, do they turn their states blue?
6
Eye on the prize, people! This is merely one more "red herring" diversionary tactic trotted out by gaslighting Trump & Co. to distract us from the Mueller investigation. We are in the eye of the hurricane. If you want unfiltered analysis of our situation, then watch BBC or Sky News who characterize it as "political crossfire." Sabre rattling via a fictional national emergency declaration and diversion of funds from the Army Corps of Engineers, etc. will be met with swift blowback in the form of litigation and a flurry of restraining orders, accomplishing nothing -- save frittering away more taxpayer money. As experts have repeatedly stated, the proposed wall is unnecessary and ineffective. Current Shutdown cost is $4B -- $5.6B by next week. Stop throwing good money after bad -- it's not going to happen. Get over it and move on!
11
The only thing I have to say about this, is this........
"There is no unit of measure, for that level of stupidity".
9
Divert aid from takers like PR and commie CA. But leave aid alone in big wonderful TX and FL. Especially since the latter has such a porous border. With GA.
1
@dave fucio - Blues states more pay in taxes than red states. Basically California (the sixth largest economy in the world) is supporting the freeloading Trump supporters.
1
Trump should move immediately to declare a national emergency and build the wall. Demographic change NOT climate change is the biggest threat to the USA. The democrats know that by flooding the country with illegals and people from regions south of the border they can eventually unseat the white male and female population with their ultimate goal of transferring the national estate out of your hands through diversity, political correctness and multicultural regulation and taxation. If you are white, these people will not care whether you supported them or not by the time they gain power. By 2030 you will not recognize the USA unless we act now. Build the wall! And may God bless President Trump!
1
@Sven Gall Sven, good old American name? Where do you originate from? The US white male and female population will inevitably be unseated but not in such a malign way that the native American population was 'unseated'. You have expressed clearly the motivation for the wall - race discrimination. It won't work, hard luck.
3
I fail to see how increased diversity is a threat our country. it might be a threat to white dominance, but you have your head in the sand if you think that more brown people are a threat to your survival. When did the founding fathers declare that America should be defined as a haven for white people, plus just enough black and brown people to do service work for the whites?
@Sam
We planned it, we invented it, we innovated it, we took it and we built it. We own. You’re not taking it away. Period!
1
Lost in this shuffle is the fact that the Democrats have voted, multiple time now, to reopen the government and then talk more about border security. They are simply and clearly not the ones causing this mess. And don't forget that the Republicans in the Senate also voted to go forward without a wall. Trump and McConnell are literally holding federal employees hostage because Trump wants to show them he can get what he wants no matter what the majority of the American people, and Congress, think. Please Democrats, say this at every turn and do not cave to this stupidity.
7
I find it somewhat ironic that the despot-and racist-in Chief wants Mexico to pay for the wall without understanding that the immigrants are from Central America. Do you suppose he thinks the C.A. countries are part of Mexico?
6
The president is deranged. He needed to be removed from office a long time ago. The very fact that he is even uttering these threats is perverse.
18
shifting funds away from other areas because he's not getting what he wants....just ask Melania. When she decided to get pregnant he turned to alternative supplier. Same as he's ever been.
11
Natural Disasters = Real
Border Crisis = Manufactured
Amazing. Maybe he can gut Social Security funding to stop leprechauns.
12
Two things:
(1) Can NOTHING be done to aid those hundreds of thousands of workers--men and women (as I suppose) on minimum wage or close to it--
--who are SUFFERING right now?
Can some form of relief be found?
I hurt for them. We all do.
(2) Democrats! I never thought I would say this. But what else can I say?
IT'S TIME TO IMPEACH THIS MAN!
I know--I know. You really should wait till Mr. Mueller finishes his report. Please God that'll come soon. And then--
--WHAT ELSE CAN YOU DO?
This man, Mr. Donald J. Trump--
--this man is DESTROYING the United States of America.
This government shutdown! What else can I call it but massive and egregious malfeasance?
"I must work the machine as I find it," declared President Lincoln upon taking office.
Mr. Trump (with a well-aimed series of kicks and blows) is destroying the machine. Deliberately. Day by day.
Two years ago--two unforgettable years!--he took his oath of office to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States." He is, in other words, the servant of the American government and the American people.
He is NOT--I repeat, he is NOT--
--the servant of Mr. Rush Limbaugh--
--or Ms. Anne Coulter--
--or Congressman Mark Meadows--
--three miscreants (pardon my language) who have helped bring this CATASTROPHE--
--upon the country he was supposed to preserve and defend.
GET HIM OUT OF THERE, DEMOCRATS!
While we still have a government.
While we still have a country.
15
Here's what appears to be a list of FEMA funding for texas:
https://www.fema.gov/fema-regions/texas
I say appears to be because it looks like Vietnamese. I wonder if FEMA has been hacked. (That or the Vietnamese population in Texas is much larger than I thought it was.)
Cornyn seems opposed to the Wall. But Cruz is standing tall with Trump. If you can call 5' 11" tall.
2
There are many Vietnamese in Texas as well as states like Louisiana.
@qisl
Interesting. See the top of the page:
"Due to the lapse in federal funding, this website will not be actively managed."
But if you look again, you'll see that the links are Vietnamese, Spanish, and English versions of each category of information. I'm all in favor of multilingualism, but they should probably put the most-used language first, and I'm sure they will when we climb out of the wreckage of the lunatic's shutdown.
The GOP is no longer a functioning political party, they no longer possess American values but have crossed over to the Trump values of lying, cheating and injustice. I call out Lindsey Graham in particular who used to be a rational and respected member of his party. Since collaborating with the incompetent liar Trump he is unrecognizable and will go down the drain into the sewer as all people who Trump infects go.
6
In a nutshell, this is a disgusting example of the skewed priorities of this president, demonstrating an incomprehensible lack of empathy.
12
Truly a frightful mess we're in, a president deliberately sowing chaos and desperation, no one stopping him!!
5
Dems need to stay strong now. It’s time to teach the tantrum toddler he’s not king.
6
There is a real national emergency, and it is called Trump and McConnell. 25th Amendment anyone, is anyone there? Anyone????
9
Oh great. So now one can imagine Trump raiding funds that have been earmarked to help the people of Puerto Rico after they were abandoned by Trump in the first place. Is there no limit as to how low these imbeciles will go just to say here is my stinking wall; as promised?! But hey; getting reelected is really the ONLY thing that matters right?! This is beyond pathetic. If he is allowed to get away with this; the United States really has descended into Banana Republic status. The very title of Republican should now be seen as a badge of shame; if this is all they are good for.
6
Why should speaker Pelosi give in to a petulant child as he stomps his feet and points fingers at everyone but himself? No one has ever stood up to this lunatic , I give her a lot of credit.
11
I look at this headline and am further convinced that Trump is losing his...stuff.
4
Trump's ego-driven cruelty knows no bounds. I'm sure he thinks that disaster victims are "mostly Democrats" just like Federal workers not being paid are "mostly Democrats," and so who cares? There are limits to this disgusting disgusting attitude. But will the MAGA-heads wake up and understand that he is exploiting them and their families for his infantile desires?
6
Oh goody, can we think of any relief projects in more red states like Florida and Texas that he can steal money from? And since the Trumpdown has ended subsidies in the formerly deluded farm states the Dems won't even have to campaign to drive this lunatic and his Senate attendants out of office.
3
The Good People within these agencies The Con Don intends to "raid" should block the use of emergency money for his childish wall agenda.
NOW is the time for all Good People to come to the aid of OUR country.
The Con Don and his International Mafia brethren want to destroy it all - and OUR lives - and they will stop at nothing to do it.
This must not stand in OUR United States of America. Not now. Not ever.
9
The American taxpayers should have a say as to how their taxes are spent. If I am not being properly being represented by Congress and my tax money is going away from Americans who need it to finance Trump’s vanity wall that is taxation without representation. Time for a nationwide tax revolt!
12
If the funding for the wall is due to a 'national emergency', how are we going to handle this emergency while the wall is being built?
5
@Scrumpie0
That's exactly what I've been wondering. If I gave you X billion $ for a wall and an equal amount for the other security measures we all agree on, which funds would produce results faster and more effectively? If there is really a national emergency, what good is a wall in the middle of nowhere that will take years to build? Could it be that this is a fantasy emergency?
BTW, it looks like Pence is signalling that even when Donald is removed from office the insanity will continue.
1
"[A] senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe confidential discussions, questioned the legality of using Army Corps funding, saying it would be subject to restrictions under the Stafford Act, which governs disaster relief. The official said the process was as much a political exercise intended to threaten projects Democrats valued as a pragmatic one."
Okay, maybe illegal, plus, using storm relief funding takes us from Mexico paying for the wall to American disaster victims paying for the wall.
5
So what's Trump's goal? Create another crisis that Democrats will have to fix? Blame them if they don't appropriate additional flood relief funds?
6
Are there really people that believe a Wall is the end all, build the wall the Problem goes away? This is how it is being sold. There are ports of entry where most drugs come in from. People who fly in on a Visa and stay. How does the Wall address this? We have a country that is falling apart.
Yes Immigration needs to be addressed, So does Infrastructure. Two years into Trump's Presidency and our roads and bridges are worse today then when he too office. Open up the Government put people back to work and let's address the problems of the Country. There are many small business that reley on government workers. Restaurants near the government offices, stores that are nearby will these people be reimbursed? Of Course Not.
7
I am all for it! Establish the precedent of declaring an emergency so in 2021 Kamela Harris can declare emergencies in health care, gun violence, opiods, the budget deficit, gerrymandering, etc. and move money from the bloated "defense" budget to fix the real problems.
3
His policies are murdering people and will murder a lot more. He threatens citizens of this country every day by his threats, by his climate change denial, by his views on healthcare, and by his refusal to address gun violence.
Americans just let it happen. You do not see people in large scale out in the streets demanding him to step down. Nothing. Americans care about nothing. Our kids will pay the largest price for your inaction and your indifference .
3
Geez, talk about screwed-up priorities. Who would take money from disaster relief to fund a useless project that nobody wants?
What's next? Robbing orphanages or literally stealling candy from babies to fund the wall? Does Mr. Trump actually understand how large this country is, and how little his border wall matters, compared to the many much more immediate, more real needs that face our citizens?
14
The next time my state has a fire, when people's homes and livelihoods are destroyed, when people are burned to death, and if it is also my home and my life or my neighbors and loved ones endangered, I will blame Mr. Trump. The next time Florida or Texas or Puerto Rico is devastated by hurricanes I urge these folks to point the finger at the man in the White House, protected by our hard-earned money in DC, in Florida, in New York. My question is: Why does Florida and Texas support this evil president? Do those of these states not realize that he has as much contempt for them as he does for us in California?
13
He has most contempt for those who yield to him as do I. The one thing we have in common.
2
This presidency is descending into a dark place from which there is no hope for escape. Trump's impractical border wall, supposedly paid for by Mexico, was a campaign promise, not legislated or vetted by Congress. There is no reason for this wall to be built other than to satisfy the ego of an insatiable demagogue. When will this end?
13
Emergency? Bring it on, I will indist on only voting for 2020 candidates who use emergency of global warming furing their campsign. It will be the only way to get action. Clean air and water. and trees vs fires. floods and catastrophic natural disasters abound. Goodbye fossil fuels. I also believe if we do not give DACA recipients the vote, that many will become terrorists in the future.
1
Before Christmas Trump was willing to let the wall go. Then Coulter, Dimbaugh and others freaked. Now he's for it, will wreck things to get it. So it's not about the wall. It's about his pleasing people.
6
Please Senator Collins, get your facts straight and don't lump Speaker Pelosi with DJT--she has offered proposals to get the government open and each time Trump has rejected them. She is doing what an adult does when confronted with ignorance and bad behavior--try to negotiate and stay calm. Trump on the other hand--well, calling him a child is an insult to children.
11
Slogan for Democratic candidate 2020. "Take down the wall, get Trump to pay for it."
7
So we are diverting money from real crisis to a dummy crisis. Way to go Mr. President.
8
Ah, how predictable! Trump does the inverse of what is humane and rational. Of course.
It's a lot like playing Opposite Day.
Taking money allotted for real emergencies and applying it to a fictitious conceit.
Kind of feels like a subplot from a bad reality TV show, doesn't it?
5
At the end of the day Trump is a bully and a coward. and so are his Republican enablers in the Senate. They have shirked their constitutional duties. McConnell is no different than Trump. Collins sold her soul on the Kavanaugh appointment. Lindsay Graham is like a leaf in the wind. Facts on immigration refute Trump. Decisions should be made on rational arguments. He is holding the Federal Government hostage. It's not rational. it's childish. It's hurting people. People who make our country work.
8