"a snake oil salesman is someone who knowingly sells fraudulent goods or who is himself or herself a fraud, quack, charlatan, and the like." ...if the shoe fits...
2
Trump has made a not-so-subtle change in his demands. Where he was touting only a “beautiful” cement wall, he has now shifted that and claims that the Democrats want a steel slat barrier (the Dems have never requested ANY barrier or wall). He is now saying that he is sacrificing by approving the more expensive slat wall as evidence that he is cooperating with the Dems, even though he’s not. Could this be due to pressure from the steel lobby in order to gain a monster production order for steel slats? Trump has dug himself so deeply into his created mythos of The Wall, he will probably never be able to climb out of it. Pathetic.
Residents of McAllen, TX gave live interviews on TV and they all said they wanted and needed that wall. Who better to understand the crisis then those who actually live in the town. They stated they agree with President Trump and are backing him 100 percent. Some have families who are in law enforcement and others who are being affected by the shutdown yet they still agree to this wall. We need to listen to those residents who are living this illegal immigration problem on a day to day basis. They are the victims of this situation and we better listen to them before it becomes even worse if it could become any worse. They have had enough and want that wall now.
2
We don't want a wall. This is a one-sided pro-Trump story that fails to even name those who are quoted as speaking to the President at yesterday's invitation-only political rally. (How shameful that he did not deign to address the public but only a handpicked crowd of yes-men.) Why do you not name the pastor that wants the wall and was invited and handpicked to address Trump? Why did you not interview and quote any of the local pastors who publicly and outspokenly oppose the wall? They would have been willing to be interviewed. Who were the other invited speakers that you fail to name? For each such speaker there are similarly situated locals who oppose the proposed wall. Be journalists, not stenographers! You're the New York Times for heaven's sake. You're not freaking Pravda.
2
A senator at the Ethics Committee just revealed on CNN that Trump plans to build his wall by using the money earmarked for the rebuilding of Puerto Rico.
Is Trump a racist or is Trump a racist?
5
We've been put out of work by the shutdown and things are getting tight. For some of us things are desperate. Trump, Pelosi, Schumer, and their crowds are rotting the country from the inside out so they can continue their pointless grandstanding. They all say "jobs, job, jobs for Americans" and yet hundreds of thousands of us citizens, and growing every day, are out of work. Stop this nonsense!!!
3
I’m afraid Trump will win with a declaration of a state of emergency. He is a bully and the bully will brow beat anyone in his way. He’ll put on his authoritarian hat (the red MAGA hat) and make it so.
1
If the border is so dangerous, why did he go visit it?
5
President Trump, do not back down, stick to your guns.
3
Donald, Mitch and subservient Republicans are hurting Americans. They are actually doing harm to our country. Dump them in 2020.
3
Why no mention in this article about the mayor of McAllen, who has stated that there is no border crisis in his town. I'm not surprised that he wasn't invited to Trump's dog and pony show, but your reporters could have included some of his comments in this article.
5
This may be the longest he has gone without "golfing" at one of his resorts. That may ultimately be his breaking point.
1
If Mexico were a European country he would welcome immigrants the fact that it is Hispanic and he is anti-Hispanic deserves a mass
24/7 protest against this foolish 12th century idea which worked in the era of bows and arrows & spears ,but not for drones.
Incredible is it not?
2
The country just massively voted for the Democrats' opposition to a wall, and now Trump decides to put up a reality tv show where Pelosi and Schumer can say "no wall!" each and every day ... ?
Did Nancy hire him as her PR machine ... ?
Because let's imagine that instead of shutting down the government (= making it impossible for Congress to accept ANY deal, as that would de facto end its constitutional independence from the WH), he would finally, after two long years, have engaged in REAL negotiations with Congres.
As Democrats have always respected the equation in DC and as a consequence accepted to compromise during divided government years, they would have probably accepted at least some money for the wall, if negotiated within the framework of bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform.
And THAT would have been much more difficult to sell to the Democrats' base than the current, utterly spectacular daily "no!" to Trump, which is clearly the very best way to make him look weak and Nancy look strong and fire up Democrats ...
GO NANCY!!
Time for the Dems to invite Co-Presidents Limbaugh and Coulter to meet and negotiate terms that will satisfy them enough to reopen the government. Because at the end of the day, Trump is an empty vessel that will do whatever it takes to be praised by his favorite network. He has no conviction, no stance, no point of view, and no independent thought outside of receiving applause from his beloved fans.
So the Dems should go straight to the people that actually pull the strings of this sad, pathetic puppet.
3
Mulvaney was on the plane too?
Did he use his time to remember the president that he too, just like Generals Kelly and Mattis, has been saying for years already that a wall is NOT the most efficient way to protect the southern border ... ?
Or does he rather believe that the best way to work for a lying president is to lie to him too ...?
2
Build bridges, Mr Trump, not walls.
2
The extent of disgust I have for this man. He is an enemy of the United States of America, compromised completely by greed for Russian interests. Impeachment proceedings need to go forward. There is no other way.
2
If someone threw a shoe at Trump, the smart money says he wouldn’t be able to duck like W did.
3
Does it matter to the Executive Branch or the Legislative Branch that 800,000 people in this country are either working without pay or furloughed?
Look up the pay scale for a GS-5 in Washington, DC and then look up the average rent in the metro DC area.
Creditors don't care, utilities don't care - they want to be paid. Families need to be feed and housed.
These are people who decided to work for the Federal government and the great majority go to work every day doing their best at their job.
Pettiness and stupidity rule the day - these are the "leaders" of our country who were elected by us.
Declare a national emergency and build a wall or fence - at this point does it matter - what is $5.6M in the trillions of dollars DHS budget? Can we even comprehend it?
Is it worth the damage to the National Parks?
Is it worth our food not being inspected by the USDA?
Is it worth the added stress to an Air Traffic Controller?
Is it worth the loss of personnel who quit low paying TSA screener jobs and then we (tax payers) spend more to get new people in those positions?
Is it worth paying more to unwind this shutdown when it is over and when is it unacceptable to continue this shutdown - one month, one year?
I guess if is it worth it to all who support this partial shutdown - just remember - next time it might be your social security check......... or medicaid or medicare.....
4
In the meanwhile, his shutdown makes it impossible for NC to get its urgently needed disaster relief money... whereas in Puerto Rico he mainly threw paper towels to a bunch of people.
What this all shows is how lucky we are that this president did not have to deal with a real national emergency yet ...
What if Trump arrests 'Nancy and Chuck'? His base are wanting them and Mueller arrested. His AG, Homeland Security, NY FBI office, ICE and 'his' Senate may do his bidding, using national emergency authorization. Who's going to stop them?
Critics of the President cannot stop their own arrest.
Too late, you didn't crush this in time...
Now he says (I paraphrase) “There will be blood”. People will die if a wall isn’t built. Don, people have been dying in the USA for years now, killed by Americans. What have you done about that?
3
Thank you POTUS. We elected you to build that wall. That was on the ballot. Get er done.
@steve
And Mexico will pay for it. It won’t get done, Steve. Thank God.
3
The impetuous, little tyrant. He cannot be removed from office soon enough.
3
I thought it was unusual that when the President visited his home state Sen. Cruz appeared in disguise.
2
At age 74 i have certainly disliked some of our President's, but i have never despised one before. It doesn't feel good. Be is despicable.
5
A pox on the Democrats who over the years have supported border protection and who now do not only to thwart Trump. And a pox on Trump for continuing to spew lies, deceit and unpresidential behavior.
When the Democrats wanted to appoint Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, they didn’t have the votes and the nomination was tabled. When the Democrats wanted to deny the nominations of Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, they didn’t have the votes and the nominations were confirmed.
Now the Republicans want a border wall but they don’t have the votes. So they shutdown the government.
That’s the difference between the two major national parties.
2
I think it's time to start calling this wall, "Trump's Folly"
2
I hope Trump requests some emergency mental health funding as well because there are going to be some seriously unhinged folks on the left bouncing off the 'walls'.
Steve Bannon, the Trump "whisperer," had the brilliant idea that the US government had to be deconstructed before any real change could happen to make "America great" again.
Well,
it sure seems like a government shutdown might be a good place to begin that process before the Muller report comes out...
As someone who lives in the UK and has never experienced a government shutdown I am surprised that this sort of thing can be allowed to occur. It hurts so many of the most vulnerable individuals and lead to significant problems in areas such as the IRS and national parks. I wonder what the founding fathers think of all this?
His wall, why does the President want his wall? Politics? Sure. For a deeper understanding we must go into the President's mind. Wear protective clothing if you dare to follow. As we head into the cerebrum locate the area somewhere between the loci of disingenuous responses and gob-smacking. You have arrived at Vanity Island, a lobe that occupies 1/5 of the President's cranium. Whether it is at the root or an extra-special bonus of his wall, having a structure you can see from space named after him just makes him giddy as a school boy. Perhaps he can convince the Army Corp to design it so it will aesthetically spell out TRUMP over its 1000's of miles.
I know one group of people on both sides of the border that are looking forward to the wall, graffiti artists. A 1000 mile canvas with the additional thrill of dodging bullets.
@richard wiesner ---- Wrong, it's will be a wall owned and defended by the United States of America saying this is our side and that is your side. Period. The President doesn't get to take his wall with him or sell it after 2024 when he leaves office.
If you listened to the conference today the people requesting this structure, "the border patrol" needs to have a barrier of about 360 miles, not 1,000 or 2,000 miles. They were talking about more than merely a wall to solve the problems we are facing by this invasion, humanitarian, and national security crisis emergency.
I understand Trump is seeking to feed his ego by diverting needed money to address American's who suffered losses in severe storms in order to build his shrine. Never again can even the most noncredible Republican can EVER say Democrats are out of touch. The only thing this guy cares less about than people, is what they think.
1
A true national emergency by definition almost garner consensus of all branches plus a majority of Americans. The Wall presents a mere oarty-based impasse. That's everyday politics. Not an emergency.
1
Take it to them Mr. President. Everyone knows that the Democrats have caused this and continue to hold the American people hostage over an open border. It's out of spite that they won't do what is right and secure our border. They don't want it, they haven't ever attempted to enforce it and the last time this nation did anything about the invasion from the southern border was under, Eisenhower when he rounded up and deported over a million of them.
Think! The Democrats biggest argument for not funding the wall is, that it will not work. Now, Democrats want to eliminate ICE! And the Democrats are for Sanctuary Cities, the Democrats are for open borders. If a wall doesn't work then tell me why would they be so adamant about being against the construction of something that does not work? After all, if it is a failure it would fall on the Republicans and they could say; See we told you so! They could use it in the next election to say that President Trump's wall is a failure and the Republicans let him do it!
Their arguments are always so childishly disingenuous.
5
#45 is cruising for trouble if he bypasses Congress. That will be his death knell.
1
I ask every American to think about this. Warning: The question I’m about to ask is likely to cause some level of discomfort, especially if you do as I ask. Question: What does it say —about us(!) — that our Prresident’s re-electability nearly 2 yrs from now seems to hinge on whether he is seen, by a minority’s of Americans, as following through on a controversial campaign promise supported by neither 100% in his own party, many of the relevant experts, nor a majority of Americans?
4
As a Norwegian it strikes me as absurd that the president can declare a national emergency over an issue he, like a spoiled and angry brat, can't get otherwise, but not over a Government shut-down, which impacts thousands, if not millions.
2
On Lawrence O.Donnell tonight, Lawrence had on a former solicitor general who said that Trump realizes his back is against the wall and may want to be impeached so he can play the victim.
1
Reality Check why not use the money in social security to pay for the wall . Retired lazy workers should all go back to work raise age limit to 100 before person can collect social security.
1
Trump behaves immaturely because, rather than those around him giving him negative feedback, they have always been yes-men who kowtow to his whims. So, when Democrats dare to have a different stance, he honestly does not know how to manage himself and has a meltdown.
Heads up, Senate Republicans. Giving feedback to Trump has become necessary. Do your job and stop playing politics with people’s lives.
3
Trump, like most malevolent fools without a conscience, is once again using the keen conscience and sense of responsibility of Democrats against them: Trump and his accomplices know that the suffering of Federal employees without a paycheck will bother the Democrats while he cares not a whit. That's why he phrases opening the government and relieving the suffering from the shutdown as giving the Democrats what they want. Since the Republicans control more than 2/3rds of the government (presidency, Supreme Court and Senate) it is the Republicans who should want to end the suffering and reopen the government. Trump is using his delusional fantasy about the non-existent power of a wall to justify making pawns of nearly a million Federal employees and their families. Mitch McConnell can put a stop to it by putting the bills passed by the House to a vote in the Senate. Congress has the power and the votes to open the government and over-ride any presidential veto. But McConnell has neither the courage nor the decency to do so. On this issue the Democrats should never surrender. Never!
5
Anyone who witnessed Trump's rambling enraged comments as he left the WH today should be deeply concerned that the man is disturbed and unfit for office. The media continues to treat Trump as he is an individual fully in control of his faculties. He's not and we need to act accordingly.
8
If Trump is so worried about U.S. and its People's security, why he evoked many times for Russian's meddling during 2016 Presidential campaign Election? If Trump care about U.S. People why is he rolling back the Clean Air and Water protections? It is not only in Flint, Michigan, it also in Brockton, MA, Newark, NJ and other parts in the United States that water is contaminated. What about stopping the gun killing in Schools, Churches, etc?
Most important, a crime is a crime regardless the criminal's race, gender, immigration status, etc. No one is above the law!
If Trump really cares U.S. and border security why not to use drones? It will cheaper (not increase our national debt), efficient and protect the environment (migration of animals), farms, etc. He is using the border as a shield to protect himself from the Russian investigation!
3
Imagine taking away from disaster relief for many suffering communities to feed Trump ego, for an utterly useless wall. I say
1. Give him the $ specified ONLY for border security—however the relevant Border folks might want to use it, but not for a “wall” per se;
2. Reopen the government immediately;
3. Continue to document Trump lies about immigration and immigrants;
4. Appropriate the same amount of funding for hard hit families cheated out of pay checks because of the Trump shutdown.
1
Individual-1 needs to release the hostages (800,000 govt employees). Period.
4
Why not have a vote during the 2020 election about the wall? This is not an urgent issue that warrants a government shut down.
We are not at war with Mexico or any of the countries to the south of the Mexico border.
2
Trump will declare a "National Emergency" because he doesn't want to negotiate, with the other branches of government; the Senate and House of Representatives..
The House has passed multiple bills, to put Federal employees back to work. Friday they miss their first paycheck.
But Mitch McConnell, is worried Trumps rabid supporters in Kentucky will drive him out of office, if he doesn't give Trump his wall. So the GOP Senate leader, won't even let the US Senate vote on the House Bills.
So now Donald Trump, who has no clue how the three branches of Government work, will use Emergency Powers as President, to get his way.
What will he do next, use so called "Emergency Powers" to override the next election, and keep himself in the White House?
Republicans, grow a spine!
6
Democrats are all show. They've supported border barriers in the past and are only now changing their ways due to Trump being in office and claiming the moral high ground. It's absolutely absurd.
3
@Don Q
Trump, moral high ground? Shirley you jest.
The words Trump and moral cannot logically appear in the same paragraph. Zoiks.
1
@Don It is Trump who backed out of a deal
1
Let China build the border wall. (Theirs is a tourist attraction.) They have the expertise building big things.
Make it wide and tall. Six lanes of two way traffic stop it. Toll booths or Fast Track sensors. On and off ramps. Toll fees go to China. The indebtedness can be offset by our exporting toilets and Charmin (which are scarcities in China).
When the icecaps melt and the oceans come ashore, the wall can save Texas from flooding.
2
It seems to me that the shutdown needs to fail: if it works to get him his wall, it can become his go-to tactic to get whatever else he wants. He becomes King.
6
President Trump would be dead by the time all of the land deals for the part of his wall in Texas were settled, unless the federal government took it by eminent domain. That would be a sight to see in Texas.
3
GOP Senators should consider carefully supporting Mr. Trump's use of "a national emergency" as a pretext for building a wall. Once the precedent is set then any future President from any party can take similar action to fulfill any campaign promise that might seem equally selfish and partisan.
The nation will witness if the GOP Senators are up to the task or will ignore the opportunity to serve the country and uphold their oath to the Constitution.
Going around the power of Congress, which has the sole power to legislate and appropriate funding, defies the intent of the Constitution. This will not end well.
3
How about this, start a crowd funding page to enlisted all GOP voters to contribute to the 5 billions to build that border wall? They seem really passionate about it...
4
@ Though Trump is so rich, he can take his billions and contribute to his own edifice with large Trump signature at the top
I live only a few miles from McAllen in the adjoining community of Edinburg and have lived here for more than a decade. During that time, I have felt quite safe. My associates also feel that way.
None of the three Congressmen representing the Rio Grande Valley in the House of Representatives and no local mayor joined this presidential publicity stunt. They know a fraud when they see one.
7
@Quiet Waiting o
Thanks for the info. Just as I suspected.
1
@Quiet Waiting Thank you for pointing this out. We Texans from southern Texas know this. But as you know, they don't ask us! What a farcical circus this is all turning into.
What is also not mentioned at all, is the fact that the majority of the private landowners are not prepared to part with their property and not in favor of the wall.
3
Federal workers need to walk out, shut down the country. Republicans are showing workers why they need to stick together, unionize.
3
@sdt
Right on. Don't work if you're not getting paid on schedule. DJT will get his on time.
1
This diversionary tactic to keep the congress from holding open hearings relating to treasonous "collusion" and running out the clock while Trump stacks the DOJ and the supreme court is working like a charm. As is the Russian Brain Hacking Hate Virus.
The press and the congressional leadership as usual took the bait hook line and sinker.
Get this off the front page and put the greatest threat to our democracy in modern history back where it belongs before we forget as our memories are short and our processing power is limited.
3
Kudos to POTUS for standing up to the obstructionist democrats who seek open borders and the influx of criminal aliens to guarantee they have power for generations to come. Trump won. The wall was on the ballot. Keep the government shut until we get a big beautiful steel wall.
I was afraid to venture out this morning -- those hordes of brown women and children Trump has warned us about.
The United States has the largest military in the world. How are these Salvadorans and Guatemalans an existential threat to the United States, but not so to Mexico where they are residing?
3
If he wants his Medieval wall, he can pay for it out of his own personal billionaire pockets - and perhaps he'll find some Republican buddies to chip in from their recent $10K raises they gave themselves.
3
Republicans seem to suffer from the battered wife syndrome. Trump keeps beating them up about everything: their worth, their power, their principles, but republicans keep coming back for more
1
The only "national emergency" we have is Trump's not getting his way. How shameful he is.
3
President Rain Man: Must have a well. Definitely need a wall. Need a wall. Definitely.
MSNBC: President Rain Man, how much will this wall cost?
President Rain Man: 'Bout a hundred dollars.
(Acknowledgement to Will Durst)
Why isn’t there more condemnation of Trump wearing a political campaign banner on his head while threatening a national emergency.
3
A wall that has not yet been designed, partly on private property that has not been surveyed, in locations where there are no roads, no power, and no water, without environmental studies that are required by law, in a manufactured emergency and crisis (why now?).
2
The bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform bill of 2013 had $46B in it including money for 700 miles of fencing and fence maintenance. The Republican House killed it. If Trump and McConnell want a solution, pass the bill again and send it to the House. Then Trump can sign it. That would be what is known as a compromise.
1
Send the so-called Dreamers back to where their parents brought them from. They dream too much and need to taste some reality.
2
Cohen will give public testimony to the House in February. Mueller has clear evidence Manafort colluded with Russia which is probably just the tip of the iceberg. Cue the emergency powers. Wag the dog.
4
Mike Pence: "We feel confident that now that we have stacked the Supreme Court with conservative justices while keeping Merrick Garland off of it, that they will vote that DACA is unconstitutional". What jerks these guys are.
Do Trump voters really want those who came to the US as kids, and grew up here, and are holding down productive jobs, and are paying taxes, and do not know how to speak Spanish, to go back to Mexico because of what their parents did to them 15 years ago? This does not seem right.
3
Meanwhile, regardless of how you feel about the President or either political party, the idea of holding ALL of these federal employees hostages as a negotiating tool is outrageous and unforgivable. Most of these people, Coast Guard, TSA, Boarder Patrol and the Department of Justice are all responsible for keeping us safe so where's the REAL crisis? If this was such a national emergency where was the President over the past two years when the Republicans had complete control of the government.
The Coast Guard suggested their soldiers walk dogs and have garage sales to make ends meet. Fact, the Coast Guard stops most of the illegal drugs coming into this country. Fact, they always have multiple targets but only have the resources to go after about twenty five percent of what they see. Fact, Russia has multiple ice breakers commanding both poles. The Coast Guard is down to one fifty year old vessel that is barely able to operate and they're still trying to get the funds from congress to build one which will take years in any event.
So where's the National Emergency, where are our priorities and why as Americans do we continue to accept this stupidity?
Quick question, how many of the mass shootings in the United States over the past five years have been committed by immigrants legal or otherwise?
It’s embarrassing.
Wake up people!
4
So much for “checks and balances”, huh? I guess we just make all our important decisions based on Trump’s “gut feeling” from now on.
2
Or long national nightmare just goes on and on and on and...
1
Visiting Berlin in 1987, Ronald Reagan said: “Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Today Republicans say, “Mr Trump, build this wall!” What a shameful reversal for the Republican Party.
2
@RGGarrett
Clearly, this is not Regan's Republican party.
So Trump admits today on national television that his “national emergency” is that Chuck and Nancy won’t give him what he wants.
4
For two years Republicans had control of the house and senate to push funding for the wall. They did not. Now it is a huge priority to get it built. Why is that?
7
The collussion with Putin would have yielded a $500,000,000 bribe and/or a TRUMP Russian hotel conglomerate? But i think that deal is now a non starter ...But
Now he wants his monument to HIMSELF at the southern border...lights seen from space, always flashing, bells, whistles, fog horns loud enough and earth shaking enough - to be felt and heard at the Canadian border, time dimensional transporters, robo guns, quick sand pits, lagoons with alligators, razer wire, cuckoo clocks, lotteries for a gauntlet run - if you make it to get a green card retroactively nulled and voided....oh yeah Russian soldiers and mercenaries to help shoulder his involuntary burden of dictatorship...don't get me started...
Trump,s campaign rhetoric about Mexico paying for that great, big, beautiful wall was always imprecise as is most of what he says, as in "may be I'll declare a national emergency." Even if Mexico had been masochistic enough to pay those billions the money would have gone to the US Treasury and the House of Representatives would be the branch of government deciding how to spend it, not Trump. By the way , what and where is this national emergency?--other than the administration's self created humanitarian crisis inflicted on the immigrants and their children and the harm done to our own country and workers affected by the shutdown of government.
4
Are his new lawyers related to Cohen? Seriously, the GOP needs to step up to the plate. Newscasts are saying Trump placed himself in one of the safest areas and declared that criminals and drugs were crossing right there but they must have been wearing the cloaks of invisibility that Harry Potter and his friends had.
Is he really going to take money set aside from disaster funding to pay for the wall? What will he spend on people of the US if there is an actual disaster? He threw out paper towels in Puerto Rico like he was hosting a game show and the towels were prizes. Would he say that people will 'adapt'?
2
The solution to border security is to divide the $6 billion cost of the wall over six years, with Trump getting to allocate $2 billion and the next president getting to allocate $4 billion or cancel the project. If Trump wins the next election he gets his wish and controls the entire pot. Given his braggadocio he will assure us all that he will win and back down from demanding it all now and say he has won this confrontation. But the Democrats will be able to say they won too, given that if they win the next election they can do what they want with $4 billion. A wall or any kind of border security is not going to happen overnight. It's a multiyear project that will require a bipartisan sustained effort. While the shutdown needs to end and the Democrats are right to try to separate the issues, the Democrats should put some kind of plan on the table without giving it all away to Mr. Trump's dimwitted ideas or harming 800,000 furloughed Americans by inaction.
1
The wall would be there to enforce the laws of the United States. It is intellectually dishonest (ie political) to support those laws while opposing the wall. Building a wall would not in any way hinder a national debate on immigration reform. I'm not a fan of the President, but it is interesting to note that none of the opposing commentary explains why the wall would be and thing. Let's debate something more meaningful.
1
as soon as Mexico pays for it, it can be built
1
Sami, 'We The People' believe the WALL would be an egregious insult to the Lady at Ellis island that your country so nobly gifted America.
'Where there is no vision the people fail.'
1
Like some others below, I also think that Dt declaring a national emergency would be the best solution. This may be the best guarantee that it never gets built. Even if the "national emergency" power makes it through the court, he can spend two years fussing about what the wall will look like, etc.. After all in the first two years of his term, he has still built NOTHING!!!
All of the ecological and other studies required for the wall, deciding on a beautiful design, etc will occupy all of his time and keep him away from other pursuits. He will be like a kid playing with his favorite toy ignoring al around him. It would be the perfect excuse for him to go on TV a lot (showing wall designs, talking about it, etc) and neglect trying to govern. After all, why is he not going to Davos, really? Could it be because everyone there knows what a doofus he is and he knows that intelligent successful people may not be able to contain their snickering at him, as happened at the UN?
1
it amazes me that Trump is considering declaring a national emergency. When you look back at the Obama presidency, if he tried something like this the GOP would have certainly tried to impeach him. Trump deserves the same.
2
This American veteran would like for the president to stop campaigning and begin to govern...will he ever govern?
4
Yes, he'd rather have us focus on his folly the wall and the shutdown rather than Manafort's lawyers letting it slip that he gave the Russians what they needed for their social media campaign to be effective when Trump became candidate, and the after he was elected spoke to them about the US brokering a peace treaty between Ukraine and Russia, so Putin could legitimize his taking their land.
He'd rather we forget he's an un-indicted co-conspirator in another crime that helped him gain the White House, Individual 1.
He rather we didn't talk about his giving up in Syria and Afghanistan, or his saying Russia belongs in Afghanistan more than we do.
He rather we totally miss his lifting sanctions of Russian oligarchs, and in particular one that has been indicted for his role in Russian interference in the tainted election that got him elected.
Worth talking about also is the enhanced powers he'll have over the country if he manufactures a "national emergency." Read the Patriot and the addendums since for more.
2
Someone please tell me WHAT EMERGENCY? There is no emergency. If there were an emergency, it would have been declared after any event that precipitated the emergency.
What 'event' has precipitated this so-called emergency? Nothing has happened other than Trump getting a scolding from Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News; those who direct Trump other than Putin.
It is long past time timidity left Washington DC and some Senators and Congresspeople grow a backbone. If this deranged President declares an emergency, it should be clear to all he is mentally ill and should immediately be removed from office. There is no emergency; other than the need to distract Americans from the news Paul Manafort, while Trumps campaign manager, sent polling data to the Russians in 2016. Conspiracy and collusion with the Russians to disrupt a Presidential election. That is the emergency.
3
Trump's government shutdown has nothing to do with border security. It's just another in a series of diversions meant to keep his supporters from paying attention to the criminal enterprise he's been running from the Oval Office. Physical walls don't work, especially if they can be cut through with a hacksaw, but the walls that are closing in on Donald Trump amid the swirl of investigations threatening him are another story.
3
This piecemeal approach is unacceptable. If trump and his ilk want a wall then please give us a proposal for a WALL that reaches from border to border with a realistic price tag. This of course must include the price for all eminent domain purchases and legal fees for stealing the land from those who object as well as upkeep costs for the WALL. Include an equal amount for the rebuilding our infrastructure ( a far more important "emergency") and bring it to a vote.
1
5 billion dollars? Maybe it would be better to save that money for the upcoming lawsuits and fixing the mess that’s a result of this ill conceived shutdown, including the trashing of our National Parks and the fallout from the lack of pay for the $800,000 federal employees.
2
The DOD can magically find $5.7B that they don’t have to spend?
3
Trump is patently violating the Constitutional separation of powers and Congress's authority over finances.
That's what the American Revolution, the Constitution are all about.
He has neither the power nor the IQ of Putin; only the presumption that he is not president but monarch.
If he commits this crime, it will add to his time in prison.
And hasten the day he's sent there.
1
The time is ripe - right now, tomorrow - for Democrats to say in plain language what they propose for border security and immigration policy going forward.
Good ideas, explained clearly will trump Trump completely.
The most rational, reasonable, well thought out side in this fight will spark the mind and imagination of the country.
That can never, ever be the abnormal Donald Trump.
The side that presents a full package of border security and immigration reform ideas will win.
That can only be the, relatively, normal Democrats.
Tomorrow.
DJT will eventually invoke a national emergency, and then have zero reasons not to sign the bills to fund the government. He and his charming enablers get his wall--if he can get past the inevitable lawsuits and possibly even a bipartisan challenge from Congress. The dang thing will never get built. Everybody wins, for a change.
Let’s never forget that putin interfered in the 2016 election that gave us DJT.
We have always known that DJT was compromised (a puppet) and that mcconnell is weak.
This shutdown will have deep and long lasting effects on our nation.
Question: what are we doing to hold vlad and his flunkies accountable for this?
1
Reading the paragraphs about 45 at the border, surrounded by props-cash, drugs, & guns-and background actors-the border patrol agents-makes it crystal clear that all he ever was, & all he ever will be, is a bad actor. The Presidency is just another show for him.
3
I look forward to the next Democratic President side-stepping Republicans in Congress and declaring Climate Change a national security emergency.
President Pelosi to run out Trumps term would be a balm for the world.
Trump intends to use this government shutdown as leverage to evade investigation and criminal charges. It’s the only leverage he has left. Democrats need to show their mettle and impeach Trump and McConnell immediately for dereliction of duty.
2
I remember when the Republicans threatened Obama with a shut down he wisely pointed out that this isn't how it's done. A minority cannot impose it's agenda on the majority with threats. If you want to get something done you have to make your case to the public, win elections, establish a mandate and then legislate. The Republicans backed down that time. If the Democrats cave we will be in the era where elections don't matter. We will have legislation through executive fiat. It is called a dictatorship.
1
The GOP on a 50 year mission to obtain/keep power.
Their objective to make this Nation more amenable to oligarchical wealth and less amenable to worker/citizens rights.
Plutocracy comes with authoritarianism and perhaps nationalism.
But the GOP had to go further adding passive aggression, cruelty, dishonesty, shortsightedness, theocracy to please their base.
Because majority of citizens have more progressive egalitarian inclinations than the GOP the GOP had to acquire a base from those with darker emotions, prejudices, fears, misappropriated religious fervor.
And they had to tamp-down the opposition with propaganda and system rigging.
Did that brilliantly! Too well in fact.
Fact: About 1/2 of Rs would welcome - better said would prefer - some form of Martial Law as our form of Government. Most of those OK with a Military Coup to solve specific political problems.
Most view Dukedoms as the perfect Government.
So now we have a GOP almost fully beholden to regressive reactionary theocratic and bigoted demagoguery as well as wealth defined Plutocracy. Honesty, truth, honor mostly has to take a back seat.
Trump is the perfect GOP metaphor. More importantly he is the tool they needed - a gift from heaven. He'll do the GOP's dirty work and give them cover.
They'll go along with phony national emergency ploys and the like because their base wants them to. Their obligations to truth/higher principles mean nothing,
"We the People" must purge GOP from our system.
4
Dr. Ducks, Thank you. Well said!
Using democratic institutions to gain power, then claiming an emergency to tear down those democratic institutions, and finally claiming unchecked dictatorial powers.....I think I remember reading something similar in a European history book.
American voters will bury Trump in a landslide in 2020, but can the country really wait that long? It's time for Republicans to decide: the Constitution or Donald Trump?
1
Give him his wall...it will be tied up in the courts and no significant construction will be done for a year, until primary season for the 2020 election. Trump loses. New President abandons the project. Unfinished sections left to rust and will be remembered as Trump's Stonehenge.
Isn't this the act governing national emergencies?
"a United States federal law passed to stop open-ended states of national emergency and formalize the power of Congress to provide certain checks and balances on the emergency powers of the President. The Act of Congress imposes certain procedural formalities on the President when invoking such powers. The perceived need for the law arose from the scope and number of laws granting special powers to the executive in times of national emergency."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Emergencies_Act
Seems to me Trump's attempt to jam through the wall funding is exactly the kind of invalid pretext the act is supposed to prevent. And perhaps he knows that because with the Democrats controlling the House he can't count on them to fold the way the cowardly GOP Senate has.
#45 thinks he can run this country like a business. His political forum is weak and undermanned. If Trump proceeds with his push to build his wall with a declaration of a national emergency, he will sign the death warrant for his administration.
2
This is madness people. We need to, as a nation, refuse to let trump (via the enabling media) lead us around by the nose to one distracting/deflecting new manufactured crisis after another, drawing us away from the real story(ies). The Mueller team is going to drop a nuclear bomb on the nation in 2-3 months, and the House is going to blow it wide open in several ways, including with the Cohen public testimony.
Pay attention to the main event, and not to the sleight-of-hand.
1
The crisis here is not hoards of terrorists and drug dealers. The crisis is Donald Trump's incapacity to govern. Trump has taken the government hostage, telling us we have to pay a $6 billion dollar ransome or else. We the people refuse to pay. The national emergency is his presidency.
1
Since Trump claims that Mexico is going to pay for the wall through the tariffs from the unapproved USMCA agreement, there is a better solution for Trump to get the wall done. Mr. Trump, please ask Mexico to build the wall by keeping themselves the $5B or $25B tariff payments that you claim they are paying us through USMCA. Better yet, use your “art of the deal” power to build it on Mexican side. They can build it faster and at a cheaper price. Problem solved. If you need more money, you can ask China to finish it off through their tariff payments that you proclaim filling our coffers all the time. That way, you don’t have to work with Nancy Pelosi or our congress.
2
Question: A nation with a two-party political system has both a national security and humanitarian crisis on its border. Which strategy should a nation take to address that crisis when their are different opinions among the two political parties on a solution?
a) Refuse to pay salaries of federal employees (albeit make some of them work without pay or get fired) and do not fully support the operations of : Border Patrol and Customs; Policing crimes and terrorist activities (FBI): Safety at airports (TSA, air traffic controllers; etc)), safety of shipyards and ports (DoT) ; safety of highway infrastructure and railways (DoT); Predicting weather (NOAA); collection & management of federal revenue (Treasury); safety of food (USDA), water, and air (EPA), protecting public lands and responding to crises like forest fires (USDA FS/Interior); monitoring for earthquakes (USGS); shutdown basic scientific research, space exploration, and processing mortgage loans; and a much more. Funding 200 miles of a wall/fence (that may take years to build) on a 2,000 mile border is far more important.
b) Ensure employees and functions above are funded at a level already agreed upon by both political parties. Then, negotiate a full strategy that may include physical barriers.
c) Scrap the current political system. Hire an autocrat.
d) Implode.
Answers:
a) I can't see the logic
b) Seems reasonable
c) Too dependent on the autocrat
d) Chaos is not my thing
1
For God's sake, for as long as this ridiculous debacle over The Wall continues to garner 24/7 coverage can the news media at least preface that coverage with a reminder of the actual origin of The Wall??? This has been covered by Forbes, Newsweek, WaPo.
The Wall was conceived of by Roger Stone and another Trump campaign advisor as a "visual memory trick" to remind an erratic, uncontrollable, off-script, rambling candidate DJT to promote hard line immigration policies at his rages/raves/rallies. No more, no less.
That's right: There is no, never has been, any factual, research, policy or expert opinion re: The Wall. It was entirely created out of thin air.
But the rally crowds swooned and thus was born the Great (Mythical) Wall of Trump: Signature Trump Campaign Promise.
Bottom Line: There is no "there" there re: The Wall....never has been.
Any ethical news org. ought to remind their readers every time, of this factual history, for as long as they cover this fraud.
Trump’s ‘national crisis’ is simply that absent a ‘big, beautiful wall paid for by Mexico’ his chances of re-election next year are greatly impaired. What it costs to get himself re-elected and who bears the burden of those costs are of no import to him.
1
Trump is obsessed/possessed by the wall. His handlers came up with the idea during the primaries. Give him something to talk about that's easy to remember, something he can relate to (a structure) and let him loose. It worked well for him. His supporters loved his narrative and how the wall would keep "those people" (non-white) out of America. Fast-forward to today and you see why Trump has to deliver on this promise. It was the centerpiece of his make America white again campaign. All the wishing and hoping will not stop Trump. He will declare a national emergency, it is his only option. The GOP will simply line up behind him, remember they want to rule, not govern. Once this threshold is crossed, expect in quick succession executive actions like no one has ever seen in the history of America. Your democracy is collapsing, the only people who could stop this are the traitors in the GOP. Their vision of America is something akin to the Handmaids Tale.
2
Not much to be said our democracy is crumbling before our eyes. Good night USA.
1
Trump’s wall will fall over. Crumble. The science is not there. First, where is the land surveys for this wall to give it the green light?
A construction project this large would take nearly 5 years to complete a serious, and professional survey. Pelosi should just demand to see the surveys and when Trump doesn’t produce them his fraud and boondoggle will be exposed. In addition, we know that from geological studies of the land, some of the areas of choice the bed rock alone is hundreds of feet deep. How do you build without bed rock! To build a 20 ft. high wall it would need a foundation 8 to 12 ft. deep and it would have to sit on bed rock. Also, all along the proposed wall-site it is prone to earthquakes and every type of terrain imaginable, even rivers.
Another problem is soil. There is over 1500 different types of soil along the way that is not conducive to cement or metals and different soil will corrode these types of materials. Now, Trump wants his MAGA-WALL built of metal. But there’s no survey on what type of metals are useable, if any. It’s all the same problems if you build w/metal, cement or wood, straw or brick. I got it! The best choice is a GLASS wall. It could meet all the demands and what a strong message a MAGA-GLASS-WALL would send to all those “illegals” who try to cross our southern border. They could LOOK at the USA but they could not touch it or enter it. The wall would be a glass edifice of Trump’s vanity and HUGE ego. MAVA: Make America Vain Again!
2
Build the wall out of paper towels, since that’s what Trump does in emergencies.
1
Let's say my house is on fire. I go around screaming "Fire!" "Fire!" Ok. Instead of calling the fire department, I ask the mayor to look for a nice piece of property for a fire station. After securing some land we hire the best builders, lawyers and accountants to ensure the funding is there. Then finally after the ballot initiative in next November's election, I get the signatures approved for a fire station and firefighters to...wait...what about my house?
Sound familiar?
He's not getting his wall folks.
What a fine mess you have on your hands Republicans.
For those who voted for trump and are now penniless due to him shutting down your government? Best of luck.
They’ve all gone nuts. Pence can say in one breath that DACA will be overturned as unconstitutional because of presidential overreach and then in the next approvingly discuss the current president’s plan to declare a fraudulent state of emergency to get around the legislative branch and its constitutionally mandated “power of the purse.”
2
I know, I know, it's a detail (and not surpring at that), but why is DT wearing a campaign MAGA cap while on a official presidential trip? Shamelessness, thy name is Trump.
1
Trump's choice of hat says everything you need to know about the purpose of this trip.
Rather than donning a Customs & Border Protection or DHS hat, or even a plain ball cap (always an acceptable, non-partisan way to accessorize), the president chose to wear a ball cap emblazoned with his instantly recognizable official campaign slogan: Make America Great Again.
As with his recent appearances with troops in Germany and Iraq, whenever the red and white MAGA hats come out, you immediately know you are witnessing a campaign event, not a presidential one.
Which, of course, was the sole purpose of the president's costly and completely unnecessary photo op at the border.
Send the bill for this trip to Trump 2020. Taxpayers have no obligation to pay for Trump's ersatz presidential visits.
41
@Obie
By now we're all painfully aware there's not a presidential bone in Trump's body. He is for Trump, only for Trump.
The Trump Texas Chainsaw Massacre?
From LIAR to madman. He started out trying to run the country as if it were his personal reality show. new contestants every few weeks. Walkons by celebrities - Kim Jon Un! Valadimir Putin! Lost of PR and televised antics to hold the ratings up.
But In his murky interior, he IS developing increasing anxiety about the Mueller posse in the silence over at the Dep't of Justice, still operating despite his salvos.
Now that it's clear that his 30' concrete wall is a joke, he desperately asserting that concerns raised by Dems were ALWAYS HIS conditions, and threatening to define his hitting THAT blue wall as a national emergency. After all, he's losing face.
I do wonder if someone( Giuliani?) gave him the idea that during such an emergency a President is untouchable -protected from subpoenas and impeachment. And one emergency can so easily lead to another, a dangerous prospect fr a President who loves chaos and disdains the very government he now heads.. He is willing to cause any amount of damage to get his way - and to avoid the legal morass that awaits him.
If he were to get away with declaring a national emergency and deploying troops, I fear it would stoke an increasingly mad need for power.
He's not only not equipped to be at the helm of the ship of state, he is almost deliberately heading it for the rocks.
36
Do we elect officials to represent the people and the country, or to only represent what is agreeable to the President?
My civics and social studies talked about the roles and responsibilities of the three branches of government. It would be good for Mitch McConnell to review.
What's next? The Supreme Court only rules or hears cases that will please the President? That is not America. I hope it stops, now.
Mr. McConnell, I want my contribution returned ASAP. Dereliction of Duty is not what I was sold and promised.
84
For the people of Texas and other areas affected by recent disasters, get ready to get your unspent disaster relief money taken away for Trump's wall. Also, anyone who believes that Mexico will indirectly pay for the wall because of the updated NAFTA agreement has the intelligence of a golden retriever.
62
This may be offensive to the innate intelligence of golden retrievers!
@Joe - Sir - That is an insult to golden retrievers. They have butterflies for brains but they understand unconditional love, something Mr. Trump should consider.
1
That’s disrespecting golden retrievers.
Why are anti government Tea Partiers not demonstrating in the streets over a one man coup?
66
Because—just to tell you what you already know—none of that meant anything to them.
And the Constitution? A balanced budget?
Pfui. Fooey, even.
This IS a slow-moving coup from the inside.
Because the tea party was always more about rhetoric and tough talk and nothing about substance. Furthermore they were first and foremost insulted that a “black socialist” (their words) occupied the White House. Trump in many ways is their man
Yes, do it with your campaign fund. You sure do have strong supporters and they are the only group whom they will support you all the way. Don't waste tax payers money for the something only nice to have.
23
El MAGA Commandante appears to be preparing to vamoose, arch-villain style. Not surprisingly, just as personal fixer and flip-phone aficionado, Michael Cohen prepares to "spill the beans" to Congress. Hopefully, as soon as the bigly guns, kilos of raw Adderall and $5.7 BILLION DOLLARS are loaded aboard Trump's jet, he will attempt a dramatic, yet luxurious televised flight to asylum in sunny Columbia.
In a plot twist, unpaid Secret Service, TSA and ATC agents will just let the plane leave.
31
Meanwhile, Hothouse Earth is coming much sooner than predicted.
And we do... nothing.
40
I am going to keep asking this question until I obtain a substantive answer.
What, exactly, are the effective border security arrangements Democrats are prepared to fund?
An end to "catch and release"?
E-verify and raids on any employers who hire undocumented aliens?
Full funding for ICE?
Tripling the number of immigration judges, prosecutors and public defenders?
No path to citizenship for any person age 18+ who entered in violation of law?
10
@Frank 1.) Expand processing of refugees seeking asylum; 2.) $7.7 million to hire 328 additional U.S. Customs and Border Protection customs officers; 3.) $366.5 million for border security technology; 4.) $224.6 million for "non-intrusive Inspection equipment" at ports of entry; 5.) $1.3 billion for new fencing in the Rio Grande Valley and funding to replace secondary fencing in San Diego and other existing pedestrian fencing.
These are just a few of the items they offered in their latest proposal. If you are curious enough to know more, it's easy to find online. Or you can just continue to complain about not knowing what the Democrats want.
20
@Frank
“Catch and release” is an insulting term, implying human migrants are wild animals and as untraceable as released trout.
Migrant info (name, birth date, local address, etc.) is collected, and people are given a court date. Many are fitted with ankle bracelets. Getting a job, registering a car, enrolling kids in school makes people highly trackable. Only a minority skip court dates as they know that such an infraction terminates their chance at receiving legal asylum.
Democrats already fund ICE and the Border Patrol. Last year, the Border Patrol had more money than FEMA!
ICE regularly conducts raids, and e-verify is mandatory for federal employers and voluntary for other employers. (Trump was one of those employers who didn’t bother to use it and had undocumented Guatemalan workers at Mar-A-Lago.)
The Democrats support border security. They support fenced areas near high traffic zones, but they take the advice of military generals and border patrol officials who do NOT think that a solid wall should be built along the entirety of the southern border.
That is what the fight is about—do we put a solid wall in places that are very hard to access, like mountain tops composed of boulders, or in places where Mother Nature has erected a natural border, or do we use foot and air patrols over challenging terrain?
If we have to patrol the wall after it is built, then all that is needed, in areas of low traffic, is the patrol. There is no need to waste our money.
12
@Frank
See the Immigration Reform Act of 2013 which Democrats wrote and convinced 14 Republic Senators to support in a 68-32 veto proof vote that had more than 235 votes in the House if the Republic Speaker Boehner would have allowed a vote on the legislation.
Who are they planning to shoot with that gun -
a mother seeking sanctuary, or her child.
Honestly, what is up with the gun. Did the NRA pay Trump a little extra on the side to pose behind it?
28
I don’t like the way this guy spends my money.
54
@Nicholas Balthazar I don't like illegal immigrants spending my money either.. They have no rights for tax dollars. The guy is just trying to stop that, although his ways maybe not the best way, but at least he's brave enough to do something and persist.
Local people interviewed indicate there's a major crisis and those denying it "are denying reality." So there goes the left's mantra " a manufactured crisis. "
1
@Frank Leibold
Less than 1/3 of Americans believe that.
More than 1/2 of Americans blame Individual-1 for this shutdown.
He has never been over 50% approval since February 2017.
He LOST the popular vote by more than 2% and more than 2.8 million American voters.
He could not get the Republic Congrease to fund his border boondoggle over the last 2 years so why should Democrats fund it ?
1
@Frank Leibold
You really believe that it would be impossible to find some local Trump supporters who blindly believe his tweets .. ?
To KNOW whether there's a crisis or not, you can't interview three locals, you need to read national security experts' studies and border patrol agents' reports etc.
It's those studies that invariably show that no, there is no major crisis.
They also show that there still are problems to solve though, and HOW to do so.
The good news is that Obama's bipartisan immigration reform bill, which he got through the Senate in 2013, does exactly that.
The bad news is that since then, the GOP House has refused to vote on it.
And now going to sit between a pile of drugs and deciding not to pay border patrol agents won't do anything to increase border security either, of course ...
2
@Frank Leibold: I don’t believe you without statistics, source, names, dates, aka evidence. Many more local people say there is no crisis at all, so there goes your mantra that there’s a crisis.
3
To play the tough guy you've got to be the tough guy, Donald.
It's more than a reality show. You can't chicken under fire.
Stand at the border all you want. Tear gas a few poor folks in flip flogs trying to escape their horror show in order to be cast as villains in yours, if you think that'll play well on Fox. It won't last. Nor will you.
This country is stronger than you - even when it has to hold its breath till you're gone.
42
Trump will resign. Can't wait.
28
I am so tired of Trump defenders trying to say that Trump is playing the Democrats for fools and that he is making them look bad. The man flat out lied. First about Mexico paying for the wall. And now about the shutdown, trying to blame Democrats even though we all saw and heard him say he would be proud to shut the government down. He lies and lies and lies and lies. And his cult of merry followers think this is all just some game and that Trump is winning. He isn't. But we're ALL losing. That's for sure.
43
I am sorry to say that he is carrying the obvious message with his "white", "great again" cap! Rep. AOC is correct on what she said recently!
18
Guess he avoided the part where the invasion is happening, bone spurs and such.
22
Dear Mr Mueller.
Please wrap this up once and for all before Bob Barr, who obviously had to pass a Trump blood oath to get the job, shuts you down.
Or somehow Trump manages to shut your operation down as a part of this bogus shutdown.
It’s Time.
Sincerely,
America
24
Why doesn’t Trump just appoint himself emperor?
14
Irony:
Drug abusers who collect Federal benefits such as SSDI, SSI, 9too addled to work) TANF, SNAP, Section 8 housing vouchers, free phones, and in my state (PA) for 5 million dollars recently, free NARCAN, get thier Federal pay...
The very people who USE drugs and perpetuate the problem are getting thier Federal benefits. The ones who are unproductive members of society who commit crimes, who in most cases will never be more than they are right now, get any Federal payment they are due.
Workers for the Fed who are furloughed?
NOthing. NADA. Zilch. NOt even a bailout like the soy farmers did...who are now selling thier beans to China and so are getting paid twice for the same crops.
Trump could re-open part of the government and do a REAL negotiation with the Dems, or, he could look into the camera and explain how the border is now a National Emergency, but wasn't for the two years the GOP had all three branches.
This guy is just so dishonest and clueless.
11
And meanwhile the GOP is leaving town. They are at fault. They need to be washed down the creek with the Trumps. Every single last one of them. 2 trillion in debt and climbing.
32
Doublethink - “maybe” <-> “definitely “
9
This whole episode is such a farce. I hope he's greeted in McAllen by a mariachi band playing "Zacatecas" and, on the other hand, perhaps a large poster of former Mexican President Vicente Fox telling Trump what he thinks about Trump's expletive deleted wall.
12
The great negotiator.
10
Putin must rejoice... His dream is coming true: Trump is destroying America.
36
@exo Yes, America is being destroyed -- not with a bang, but a whimper. Not one shot was fired in this coup, which also proves that guns do not keep us safe from anything.
2
so, let's get it over with: declare the emergency, and "allow" government to reopen, and the get the wall funded somehow, and the border crisis will magically end.
I do want to hear from the generals when they describe to the House Armed Services Committee where they will get the $5.7 billion of funds appropriated to other stuff to build a wall. We may learn more about Pentagon slush funds.
I actually suspect that the "lawyers" are telling him that this emergency thing is a deep state rabbit hole where nothing will emerge. And as the Times hints that this may be his way out of the fix.
6
Regardless of what side of the aisle you are on, it’s just plain wrong to use the bully tactic of a government shutdown to gain political leverage. We the tax paying people have paid for the services our representatives are now denying us. And, pay check to all the people who keep our national going.
It’s disgraceful that politicians punish us, those who pay their pay checks, because they refuse to use negotiation and reason to do their jobs.
19
@NBrooke
Correct.
And don't forget that keeping the government open simply means passing (Congress) and signing into law routine, standard, clean (= no new projects attached to it) appropriation bills once a year.
Under Obama, the GOP started to refuse to do so and wanted short-time stopgap bills, in the hope that this would allow them to time and again attach new projects that Democrats rejected to those bills, rather than engaging in real negotiations.
The wall now is the EXACT same thing.
Appropriation bills are designed to fund the implementation of EXISTING law during the next year, based on what the Executive shows will be needed to implement them.
They do NOT change existing law.
It's refusing to pass an appropriations bill if simultaneously the other party doesn't accept to pass a NEW law too, that de facto shuts down the government.
And that is what the GOP is doing today (and what Ted Cruz did in 2013).
NO party can EVER give in to such blackmailing instead of real negotiations. That' why Pelosi and Schumer cannot but say no, until McConnell accepts to pass and Trump is forced (through overriding his veto) to sign a neutral appropriations bill into law and to open the government again.
if the army corps of engineers has an excess of cash, how about it go towards rebuilding puerto rico, florida and north carolina.
there's no place like home...
25
Trump is right to bypass Congress.
National security can never be sacrificed to petty politics.
And the federal courts should be ignored if they try to infringe on the president's powers as Commander-in-Chief.
7
700 billion in 2018. Have we not spent enough on national security? How much more money are you willing to shell out from your middle class income to enrich the fat cats in pentagon, in the name of national security?
2
@Rolf
Except that there IS no national security experts' reports proving that there is a national security emergency, remember?
You can't just invent these things, you know.
In the meanwhile, not paying TSA agents and border patrol agents DOES threaten our safety ...
2
@Rolf
What ‘National security’ was at issue over the last 2 years ?
Why no funding when Republics controlled BOTH HOUSES OF CONGREASE ?!?
Trump has little to gain and much to loose from declaring an emergency and having the military build the wall. Doing this would end the political emergency and let Democrats off the hook. They could credibly claim to their base that they stood their ground and Trump abused his power by declaring the emergency. Then they would take him to court and the Ninth Circuit would stay his declaration declaring it an illegal abuse of power as they have every time before. Trump is better served by standing his ground, leave the government partially closed and demanding that the Democrats negotiate. Until they come to the table the government will remain closed. Cynically, the closure hurts Democratic voters more than Republican voters. As it stands now, the Democrats are equally responsible for the government shutdown by refusing to even negotiate on border security. Over time, this will take a toll.The voters will see the Democrat's intransigience for what it is and their claims otherwise as transparently false.
3
@Toni
Speaker Pelosi and House Democrats passed the spending legislation that Republic Senators voted for 100-0 last month.
What changed ?
1
Actually the voters see that the republicans had two years to do whatever he wanted when when they had full control but they didn’t. This is all on them.
2
How to no that there was no emergency situation where Trump was sitting?
He wasn't throwing any paper towels around, whereas in his case that's his natural reflex when put into real emergency situations..
11
Its widely reported that the vast amount of drugs and illegal immigrants enter the US through the normal border crossings (ports of entry), not in the middle of nowhere.
With the enormous amount of trade goods entering the US, its impossible to check every truck, van, container.
Similarly, the majority of illegals enter with visas or as refugees and don't go back.
Recognizing that these issues will never be solved 100%, its essential to 'prioritize' on spending that is the most cost-effective.
In this case; high tech detection equipment and state of the art vetting programs.
10
@dsbarclay
vast amounts of drugs enter the usa daily from government/military smuggling.
ever hear of iran contra?
He's just so literal. In his mind a "wall" is the only possible solution to our complex immigration issues. Never mind streamlining a border process, working with other countries to help their people stay there, providing a DACA path...nope, just build a wall. Going ahead because his ego can't back out of this.
15
@Boggle Providing a DACA path? To what? Deportation, I hope. People who entered the US by violating immigration laws DO NOT deserve a path to citizenship. I have been in the US on various visas for 10+ years and still the US doesn't give me any path to permanent residence, let alone citizenship. I've spent a lot of time and money, enduring anxiety and family separation, to maintain my legal status here. It is possible to do it the right way, instead of just crossing the border without papers! I've helped countless Americans in my work, I've paid tax consistently, never committed any crimes, and never had any debt. I feel like America is like an irresponsible partner who is ready to kick you out at any time after taking so much from you. Giving special treatment to illegal immigrants and their children is an extremely unfair treatment to people like me, who choose to honor and abide US immigration laws.
"Trump, Along the Border in Texas, Reiterates Demand for Wall"
Trump went to Texas to drum up support for border wall as shutdown talks stall.
If it is a "crisis" as Trump keeps claiming, why does he have to "drum up support for border wall"?
And:
If it is a "crisis", why hasn't Trump already declared it to be one a long time ago and avoided all of the pain and trauma he is putting Federal Employees through as well as the business people and farmers who are also gravely affected by this Trump wall?
I suggest there IS NO Crisis, except in the craving Trump has for a wall with his name on it. And further, I suggest Trump does NOT have the power to declare this to be a crisis and try to bypass Congress who holds the purse strings of our tax dollars.
14
Texas landowners are preparing to fight the wall.
Funny thing! They don't fancy having their land taken away so that Trump can play banana republic tyrant!
So instead of signing Obama's bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform bill, that passed the Senate with a 68-vote majority in 2013, and would send an additional 40,000 border patrol agents to the border (on top of th 18,000 already there), install e-verify etc. ... this president first does NOTHING for two long years, and then even stops paying border patrol agents altogether ... ?
In the meanwhile, the GOP refused to allow a vote on that bill for five years now.
The ONLY ones who de facto support open borders here are clearly the GOP.
24
The GOP still refuse a vote.
In his defiance and abuse of executive powers, his lack of human decency and integrity, and his utter contempt, Mr. Trump has created a spectacle of the shut down, holding every government worker a victim.
There is now a dire urgency for our lawmakers on both sides to intercede and act conscientiously with moral authority to reopen the government.
Too much time has been wasted attempting to satisfy party line agendas. Instead, focus of negotiations must shift to how the impasse is affecting the lives of government workers in "real time".
Three days ago, Mr. Trump said he could relate????
Imagine for a moment if Mr.Trump and everyone in Congress on BOTH sides were informed that all their assets, financial accounts, including credit cards and resources were frozen by court - an action to take effect immediately. Imagine if all their privileges which are paid for by tax dollars was also suspended.
What would Trump do if he was stalled in Texas with no security, no chauffeurs, no pilots for Air Force One? What would McConnell, Pelosi et.al., do if upon leaving their Capitol Hill offices, there was no security, no chauffeurs,, etc. Call Uber???
I don't thinks so.
No matter how "far fetched" this scenario, the shut down is creating serious hardships for the less "moneyed class" among government workers.
Bottom line: Our lawmakers must act with conscious and address the urgent needs of their fellow government workers and NOT allow this impasse to continue.
4
If trump resigns before the next election, and gets Pence to pardon him and his family, could he throw in again for another term in 2020? Just asking.
1
It seems courts will use Trump’s own words against him if he goes the “crisis” mode. He speaks of it like it’s a political choice for him rather than any real crisis. Perhaps because he lies about there being a security crisis. The shutdown is making an asylum system more backlogged as lawyers aren’t working so cases are all on hold. That’s on Trump and Republicans.
6
One can't help but wonder why the Republicans didn't deal with this issue when they had control of both houses of Congress...
19
I remember well the show and tell games that were played prior to the invasion of Iraq. It was show and tell and posturing. If one was against the war that person was labeled as unpatriotic and a traitor.
Fast forward to today with Trump's show and tell. I will concede there is crime on the southern border. It is sad that people lose their lives, particularly law enforcement. However, statistics tell us there is more crime in middle America than on that border, and many of those pesky illegals are entering, along with drugs, through legal ports of entry.
Thus, the show and tell. We were peppered with "evidence" that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction.
Trump peppers us with claims of invasion by hoards of brown-skinned people. He babbles numbers and statistics that are close to being false.
So, his show and tell is still unconvincing in the yuuuuuge need for his vanity wall.
Perhaps if he didn't fear the tweets of Coulter and Limbaugh there could be an end to the tantrum.
9
‘No Wall, No Deal,’ Pence Says as Shutdown Drags On
No government = no reason to pay taxes.
13
It seems that Trump is using his "negotiating tactics" to distract us from the Russian collusion and Obstruction of justice.... He is running around screaming the "wall, the Wall"
8
So he has a few more donors yet to pay off for their silence and support. Bad design. Bad construction. Bad motive. No budget. Horrible marketing. But Trump has to do it?
4
"In Texas, he listened to tearful stories from people…"
I guess there was nobody who talked about all the kids that were separated from their parents.
12
Trump says the new trade agreement will pay for the wall.
Yeah, sure. The check is in the mail.
9
Trade his tax returns for the wall.
13
Abraham, Martin and John and Bobby. Only the good and the decent are taken from us.
Life, somehow, isn't fare, is it?
7
Let's see...800,000 federal employees not getting paid because Republicans won't challenge Trump...add in partners, spouses, children of voting age who are suffering. I count about 2 million votes for Democrats. Well played, Donnie!
10
President Trump, you say, "No Wall, No Deal," so the shutdown is only about the wall. And you say the wall is about border security and national interests, not your intransigence and ego. If the wall is so important to the U.S. and you're only looking out for the interests of the America people, let's make a deal — we'll get our Democratic representatives to agree to fund the wall, just as soon as you resign your position as POTUS. I think that's deal that both sides can make. C'mon, you can act right now to stop the flow of murderers, rapists, drug dealers, drugs and weapons, and can save tens of thousands of American lives. Plus you can get the government running again, securing the lives of almost a million federal workers, and protect our economy from the terrible effects of a long-term government shutdown. Will you make the deal?
Oh, no, of course not. Because it's really all about you after all, isn't it? Like everything.
7
Isn't it about time for Republican members of the US Senate to palpate their abdomens in search of enough guts to stand up to Mr. Trump on this issue of a useless and ridiculously expensive non-solution to illegal immigration? And isn't it about time for Democratic House and Senate members to signal clearly that they believe wholeheartedly in protecting the US ports of entry and borders (all of them, not just the southern one) and dispel the fiction that Democrats are not interested in maintaining border security? It is past time to actually represent the people of this nation.
4
Given Trump's virulent opposition to illegal immigration, why does no one ask him to explain why he employs illegal immigrants?
10
As I told our son when he was 7 years old and reading at the 8th grade level...
As I told our son when he was 9 years old and was selected for the TIP (Talent Identification Program) sponsored by Duke University...
As I told our son after taking the SAT at the age of 13 and scoring higher than 1 percent of high-school seniors...
I said, "Kid, you're just going to have to accept the fact that you are smarter than 99 percent of all of the people you will encounter in your life, and that includes the President of the United States."
8
A declaration of a national emergency is tantamount to fascism.
24
That staged photo is ridiculous; guns, bags of cash, bricks of drugs. None too subtle. Where are the diaper bags?
27
@dm
I have noticed a new voice behind much of Trump's pomp in recent months. The man behind that voice maybe Bill Shine.
That clearly staged photo, supporting actors and photo op events? Those Game of Thrones style posters? The presser? The Oval garbled regular program preempting breather? That secret visit to a war base? When you're a star they let you do anything. Build a wall even.
Meanwhile, in Foxlandia, the country is all forced to stop and watch their horrible show.
9
Only the most ignorant of people can possibly accept that this guy is still playing with a full deck.
35
According to the photo there is a clear trash-bag full of money, so just exchange that for Pesos and viola, you have your wall funding.
11
"Some say a wall is medieval. So is the wheel. The wheel is older than the wall." - Donald Trump (said today at the border). As the great philosopher Bugs Bunny once said - "What a maroon!!!!!!"
31
I actually want to fact check that. I bet the wall was first.
2
Did President Trump bring the pay checks of the border agents?
11
Fun fact: that enormous sniper rifle sitting on the desk in front of them is manufactured right here in the United States! It's the Barrett M82, and it's used by the military. I wonder how it ended up in the hands of "dangerous Mexicans..."
23
@Randall Because most of the weapons confiscated from the narcotrafficantes were sourced from the U.S. itself.
3
Giant machine gun in the center of the photo below trump and agents...what's the message...kill everyone who crosses like they did at the Berlin Wall???
15
Could they see Russia from there?
18
Trump just wants to slap his name on something. It's his whole reason for being. It doesn't matter if that thing is a total boondoggle: Trump Taj Mahal or his other Trump casinos Trump vodka Trump airlines Trump University Trump wall no thanks.
16
Please stand firm Democrats. PLEASE.
31
@Ron And keep the standoff longer?
Trump has people working without pay. Does that make him the biggest slave owner ever?
25
The Border Patrol must be really busy... only three of them could show up to meet the President
20
More Important..How about declaring a state of national emergency and ban guns!!!!!!!
21
Hmm. Let's see. Stock market's in the toilet. Mueller investigation was heating up. Poll numbers in the cellar. Democrats in charge of the House. Any coincidence now is the time when Trump suddenly decides we desperately need a wall on the southern border?
It's so transparently obvious why he's throwing a temper tantrum about his stupid wall. It has nothing to do with security and everything to do with trying to distract us from the real news.
The dog is wagging the tail yet again !
24
In the midst of parading around in his sporty outfit at the border, someone should go over and whisper in Trump’s ear that Michael Cohen, the “weak one” is testifying in court February 7th - open to the public. Do I hear and see Donald Trump sniffing?
11
Thank you, NYTimes, for being quicker to call Trump on his lies.
10
Ugh, not again. This is a slam dunk for Democrats - Trump is trashing the Constitution. The House has the Constitutional authority over Federal spending, not the President, and the President is especially twisted in trying to blackmail Congress. Democrats should hammer this message! Trashing the Constitution! But Pelosi and Schumer are basically media incompetent.
8
This whole Trump-inflicted disaster shows the world, and even his gullible followers, what an abysmal failure Donald Trump is at his one purported skill: negotiating. Any halfway competent and conscientious president could end the shutdown and get a border security deal that’s in the best interests of the country. But this idiot can’t and won’t.
He’s an utter failure as a dealmaker and an utter failure as a president.
21
Whatever happens in this battle, Trump will always figure out a way to claim that he won and that whatever form the so-called wall takes, will solve the southern border illegal immigrant problem. He will lie and twist the data that will show otherwise but he needs to show his base that he did what he said he would do, even though the only impact this "wall" will have is drain money from the coffers, money that can be put to much better use for the US. This slimy, slippery, loud mouthed coward sitting in the WH needs to be taken out to the shed for some straightening out.
6
You know what, let him declare some kind of unfounded "emergency," the thing will never get built, and he'll waste some of the trillions that we blow on military spending. The Ds in Congress will have shown that they'll stand up to him. The failures that will occur from trying to build something viable in the next two years will show how inept he is, if that's not clear enough already. He's just a giant windbag. Leave him to huff and puff.
9
Time to call in William Shatner. A combination of Captain Kirk, T.J. Hooker and Denny Crane could sort out this mess.
9
So the little circus barker brings his dog and pony show to the border. What a comedy this "man" is. It is infuriating that he is holding the country hostage to get what his desires. Some stupid, ridiculous, inane and insane campaign promise. "Who's gonna pay? Who?" Oh what fun he had. And now we pay with the government shutdown, workers, families being caught in the middle of this man's unreasonable demands. I hope the Dems do not cave, he will pull this again and again as long as he haunts the White House. He is a despicable human being and he has no business governing the United States of America.
18
Go for it don, let's make the Supreme Court earn their fat paycheques .
4
All the tedious, repetitive, old news Trump wall rhetoric aside, when is he going to realize wearing that stupid baseball cap makes him look like an adolescent idiot? This is a strictly non-partisan comment; I can't take Trump OR someone like Michael Moore seriously as long as they don those moronic hats on national TV. But I earnestly believe that Trump, as only he could do, will drag presidential imagery to the bottom by showing up someday with his idiot cap on backwards. This WILL happen and the decline and fall of our republic will be complete.
9
Why on earth would the New York Times pick the photo Trump made this boondoggle of a trip to take? It's utter nonsense. It is bad enough to have to put up with the cruel and malignant incompetence of the Trump Administration, the 4th estate should not allow itself to be used to amplify his lies. Do better, New York Times.
4
I knew there had to be a catch with the one non-white guy in the photo. He's the brother of a slain police officer (live by the sword, die by the sword), so used as a political prop. Classic racist Trump.
7
Donald Trump has been, is now and always will be a liar, a lousy business man and incompetent negotiator. All of this is nicely demonstrated in this wall idiocy.
Trump has been through numerous bankruptcies, stiffed contractors and workers and is repeating now that weak and damaging approach to taking care of business.
Perhaps those in his administration should forfeit their own salaries and other perks until Trump's latest gross stupidity is resolved... no wall!
7
Up Against the Wall, Redhat Mother!
6
Trump has to continue this wall chaos to overshadow Mueller’s report coming out which will likely bring his failing empire and the White House!
10
President goes to border, lies some more and prolongs the humanitarian crisis he created. Vice president opens his mouth and sets up an opportunity to be undermined by the president. China lands space craft on moon, Russia develops hypersonic missile to deliver nuclear warheads, Kim meets with Xi, new charges against Manafort, Cohen agrees to testify to Congress, Air Traffic Controllers working without pay, FDA no longer inspects our food, CFPB being dismantled, TSA workers going without pay, Wagons, ho.
23
@CMK Remember, Trump said he alone can fix it. If this is what fixing looks like....I'll take the broken.
2
Declare the national emergency, fund the wall and get the people back to work. Leave Pelosi and Schumer crying in the corner.
4
@Robert
FYI: declaring a national emergency when there is none is a crime, remember?
4
How about we get back to work now and he can cry about his wall later
Let's see the video of the meeting or hear the recording...or has the White House stopped recording what Presidents say and do?
7
Even the Mayor of MCALLEN TX doesn’t think there should be a wall.....we need more anti wall protesters
16
There is no irony at all to having the Toddler in Chief declare that he is planning to go under and around the legal systems in place for funding.
9
I miss the days when Trump just golfed.
32
We are the richest country in the world!
Our economy is booming!
We gave the biggest tax break to the wealthiest in recent history!
However we will not pay our federal workers!
What a shame!
4
I don't see any severed heads on the table. He's losing his touch.
8
Where were all those drugs and weapons and money seized? I betcha a $5.7 billion wall they were not found on migrant moms and kids turning themselves in to border agents, seeking asylum. Not seized at desolate locations far from ports of entry. I’d wager they were found during searches of vehicles and cargo ships entering through existing checkpoints, welded into subframes, packaged in crates hidden inside benign dry goods, sewn into passengers’ clothing and so on.
Let’s just cut the nonsense, shall we? It’s a stupid construction project that will end up costing tens of billions of dollars and yield nothing in the way of enhanced ‘national security.’ An eyesore, a scar.
Trump squandered tens of millions of other peoples’ money building monuments to his ersatz greatness in Atlantic City. The entire thing was a flop. A disaster. Everybody else suffered the consequences. Trump demanded a softly cushioned landing with a rich personal allowance. He protected no one but himself.
Then Trump could only tap banks, private investors, suppliers, contractors, employees and local government subsidies. Now, he will defiantly tap into the richest mother lode on earth - the U.S. Treasury holding our hard earned tax dollars. The overwhelming majority of us do not want to spend one thin dime on this folly, this ugly monument to Trumpism.
He’s going to spend billions anyway.
The National Endowment for the Arts, annual budget: $135 million. $5.7 billion covers the NEA for about 50 years.
16
So ... instead of signing the Democrats' proven measures to detect drugs faster when they cross the border (90% of them come in through official entry points), Trump decided to flee and just go sitting between a pile of drugs at the border.
Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh must be so proud of him.
10
Twice in the last two days Trump has explicitly put his own personal agenda ahead of the lives of Americans - once when he said he would "do" a national emergency if he doesn't get the deal he wants and secondly when he said he would cut funding to FEMA in California because he doesn't like the way state agencies are managing federal lands in CA. To my mind, these statements are themselves impeachable offenses. Trump's business modus operandi was to run companies into the ground, file for bankruptcy and walk away. Now he is doing this to the United States.
25
In the famous words of Lord Acton, "Absolute power corrupts absolutely." Thank goodness for the Framers, who in their wisdom, saw the need for checks and balances in our government.
2
Apparently, Mitch McConnell doesn't see the need.
4
Every federal employee who doesn't get a pay check tomorrow, should call or email mail one of trumps enablers in GOP House or Senate, and ask them why they are supporting this wall issue over them. I would be willing to bet not one of those enablers would be willing to have that one on one conversation. All calls and emails would be answered by the hired help, with no. The Democrats in the house have passed separate stand alone bills that would start funding most of the 25 percent that's currently shut down. its up to the Senate and trump to do there part.
8
As usual, my fellow NYT readers have sliced and diced the issue ad infinitum so I have noting to add. However, I'm glad that Mueller is slowly methodically working and working ... The sad part is how much time and resources this miserable excuse for a human being is costing us, but thanks to Mueller, I believe it will be over soon.
A question about this 'meeting'. Pelosi & Schumer said that Trump asked for 'a wall' and Pelosi said no. Now Republicans are saying that Trump asked for 'border security' and the democrats refused. Are we hearing instant 'rewrites'? Do they forget: (1) For 2 years the republicans didn't approve 'border security'. (2) The democrats have proposed a full spectrum of solutions for border security which did not include a wall? (3) Experts & research have shown that 'a wall' is not necessarily the best solution in all instances.
I guess they will not be among the republican members of congress who join the democrats to say: Open the government and we will discuss all aspects of border security.
It's sad that a simple, functional, decision with the intent of finding a solution is rare.
15
The way the president delivered his remarks on TV this past Tuesday sounded exactly like a hostage reading scripted remarks lest he face beheading.
Who or what terrifies him the most? The three M's: McConnel, Manafort and Mueller? The southern District of New York? Congressional democrats pressing to reveal his traitorous financial entanglements?
Or could it be the threat of dwindling ratings on Fox if he loses face with right wing media and his so-called base?
But most of all he is held hostage to his own self delusions and unfulfillable promises.
14
@JD
The thing that terrifies him most is clearly reading.
1
The LEAST he could have done, once he wanted to go to the border himself, was to show us his PLAN for a wall, and what $5.7 billion would do more precisely.
Can you imagine that you wanted to build a building, asked a company how much it would cost, and then that company asks you to just wait two long years, to then merely come up with a price tag but NO plan at all, and ask you to just pay for it and then they'll come up with a plan later ... ?
What Trump is showing the nation here is just HOW he got bankrupt so many times ...
25
There is no emergency. The one trick pony wants to use someone else's money to build something, then put his name on it. The money is the taxpayers' and we have elected members of congress to create a budget in our interestes. He can't ignore this.
12
My father, along with thousands of other young boys/men and women signed up for the Army the day after Pearl Harbor.
That, President Cadet Bone Spurs, was a state of national emergency.
My step-son joined the army after 9-11, to protect us from Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. He became an Army Green Beret serving several tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.
That, President Cadet Bone Spurs, is what it means to answer your country's call to protect us in a national emergency.
Trump is making a mockery of all of the many thousands and thousands of Americans who have actually walked the walk in dealing with national emergencies--volunteering to give their lives because the cause was of enough importance.
To call a group of people crossing the border to work at back-breaking jobs, and women trying to protect their children from rape and death a matter of national security is only something a draft dodger could do.
And it demeans my father's bravery and my son-in-law's bravery.
45
Best Comment. Nailed IT.
13
@Dan
Well said.
Thanks for your family's service!
4
@Dan
The three generations of vets in my family would have
agreed.
WW1, WW2 and Vietnam.
The men went and fought REAL wars not imaginary caravans.
He ought to walk a mile in their shoes. One mile, not hundreds. But I guess his imaginary bone spurs would hurt too much.
5
In order to achieve a truer sense of the ongoing impasse.news outlets should use auto correct and substitute Republicans for Trump each time his name would normally come up. the republican party likes to distance itself from their last two presidents. in 200 they needed a scapegoat to initiate their far reaching extensions of presidential power. Every time bush went over the line they would say it's just bush being Bush. Republicans now have the current president to take the blame for all of their indiscretions. Try it out. Republicans threaten to invoke a state of emergency. Republicans deny they ever said Mexico would pay for the wall. Republicans didn't say they're (Mexico) is going to write us a check for 10 billion or 20 million dollars. Republicans say we will immediately exit Syria then change their minds.
We have to report that Republicans are running the show, the donnie is just their front.
10
I suppose only republican senators can stop this now. Hopefully they will act with dignity.
6
Our nation is in serious jeopardy from a completely unfit man at the helm. Trump has exposed serious cracks in our Constitution and system of governance. Our Founding Fathers assumed that only men of reasonable character, intelligence, and temperament would rise to such a lofty position. And to insure that, they installed a circuit breaker in the form of the Electoral College to insure against an unfit populist wooing the undisciplined masses. It is now evident that the system they installed is inadequate.
8
I'm no Trump fan (I did not and would not vote for him), but how can the media rightfully claim that Trump is lying when he claims that Mexico will "indirectly" pay for a "wall"? If changes in NAFTA results in a NET gain of $5B in tax revenue, even over several years, what's to stop him from rightfully saying that he'd like to earmark it for a "wall"?
4
Um, Congress.
5
@mkt
where does "tax revenue" go?
The Treasuryy. By AERICAN Taxpayers.
2
@mkt
The fact that all studies show that it will NOT result in a net gain of $5 billion, first of all.
Secondly, if it would have resulted in such a gain, that would only be the case AFTER Obama's NAFTA 2.0 (= Trump's NAFTA, negotiated for 95% by and under Obama) would have passed in Congress and signed into law, whereas today it isn't certain at all that that would happen.
Third, he's head of the Executive, not Congress. So IF NAFTA, once it would be signed into law, would result in a $5 billion net gain in tax revenue, he would STILL have to obtain from Congress that those $5 billion go to the wall, rather than to something else (eg reducing the deficit created by the GOP's massive tax cuts for the wealthiest, passed last year).
Obama, for instance, cut waste in the government by $17 billion. It would be absurd, however, for him to claim that now Obamacare is paid for, as he would still have to get a bill through Congress that spends an additional $17 billion and allocates that money to the implementation of Obamacare.
2
Another disgusting waste of taxpayer's money to grandstand an issue Trump created for his despicable base. The immigration crisis was created by him. The "terrorists, rapists" etc. are families, singles and small kids escaping terror and abject poverty in their own countries.
We have jobs unfilled in this country and these hard working, decent people can help fill them by harvesting our crops etc. Two children have died, families have been separated and are living in tents under guard while they wait an uncertain future. We have over 330 million people in this country. The "caravan" numbers about 3,000 according to reliable sources. Just what is the problem? Skin color, religion possible voting choices should they become citizens?
The Geneva Convention protects combatants. Who is going to protect these innocent people from a madman and those apologists who want nothing, but to hold onto power and please their nefarious, disgusting minority base?
18
For me, Mr. trump looks more like a lunatic based on his illogical talking and un-presidential behavior.
16
Trump is a phony of course, and his fraudulence stems from a disreputable education since childhood. This immature, and insecure, con man is an expert demagogue however, hence, convincing a cadre of credulous folks (his base) that he was the real thing. He sold his 'wall and payable by Mejico' from a rabbit's hat; a similar feat as when he raised his hysteric Birtherism (claiming proof that Obama wasn't born in these United States), totally devoid of truth and with no factual evidence whatsoever. In brief, a charlatan. Too bad his assistants, and the republican party, have decided to toe Trump's line of lies, exaggerations and intrigue, with complete abdication of their duty, thinking for themselves. Trump will, in due time, bite the dust, but not soon enough. And now, trying to declare an emergency for a non-existent crisis, a fiction created by himself to justify his gross abuse of power, is a very dangerous move. Crying wolf now, deaf ears when action is really needed.
11
President Trump may bypass congress and build the wall on his own to protect the American people.
President Obama bypassed congress, bombed Libya and armed the resistance to overthrow Kadaffi and then Isis filled in the vacuum. President Obama had the craziest foreign policy by dissing Saudi and cuddling up to the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran the largest exporter of terror in the world.
2
@P McGrath
You seem to forget that Obama as Commander in Chief never asked Congress to start paying for his actions in Libya in the first place?
And that foreign policy IS part of the powers of the presidency, whereas building a wall is not?
Lest we forget president Obama got ossama bun. Something the republican administration bungled didn’t apply serious thought act and follow to.
Trump says "some people call the wall Medieval--wheels are old too and they are still around-they work". No one is disputing walls, wheels effectiveness. Heck -Jesus wore sandals and they are still around too. The point is -There are New Options-Hello. Fixated on innocuous wall just stupid. Terrorists fly-don't walk
20
Body language in that photo from the two conscripted is priceless.
1
President Trump heads southwest aboard Air Force 1, destination “The Wall” boasting all the way that he and he alone can Make America Safe Again.
Warnings by staff, the Secret Service and select Mira Lago board members that the weather may be a problem at speech time are dismissed by Trump via a vicious series of Tweets carrying the same basic theme....”Fake Warnings, Fake Weather!” On the ground near The Wall, to insure his safety Trump cuts all phone traffic from Mexico while decreeing that like Emperor Hirohito, as a Son of Heaven or Son of a something, no staff, Republican cowards in the Senate, Democrats, military including The Joint Chiefs, The Supreme Court or Cabinet officers other than Betsy DeVos and Linda McMahon may look directly upon his divine personage.
To keep the focus on him, the president will operate the TV camera himself via drone....Torrential rain is possible. “Fake rain” screams Trump. When even CNN reporters warn of possible flash flooding, Trump sneers “lock ‘em up”. Stiffing Fed workers and starving families, Trump gleefully cackles, “somebody’s got to do it” But 10 seconds into his blame-screaming fit, a lightning bolt strikes the camera drone & obliterates the platform beneath Trump’s feet tossing him into the raging Rio Grande River.
Later, on the Mexican side, saved from drowning, instead of thanks, Trump's shouting," jailing me for no passport & entering the country illegally? That's so unfair. My wife & son will worry. Don't you care?
3
Trump latched onto the idea of declaring an emergency to build the wall the moment he heard about it because it's his kind of move... alarmist, authoritarian, tough sounding, and ultimately meaningless. He's well aware that it will be tied up in the courts until after the next election. That's what he wants. Otherwise, he'd have to come up with another stupid idea to rally his base around during the 2020 campaign. When are those folks going to realize what a total sham this guy is? He is truly all hat and no cattle.
18
I have to mute the President of my country when he monopolizes the airwaves or his sound bytes are replayed. I have seek out political pundits to fact check and keep me in touch with the truth. What a pathetic waste of time.
9
Trump is a national emergency. One crisis after another. All of his own making.
He's a drama queen – just wants to see his name on the front page of every newspaper.
10
Mind telling us what that gigantic gun is doing in the picture?
4
@bill
It's the kind of pictures that makes the Trump base feel safer ...
3
Tell me again what this photo op was about? All I see is what looks like a cannon sitting on a table.
I am waiting for it to turn into a “My cannon is bigger than your cannon” moment.
Sigh.
5
“And on the pedestal these words appear: 'My name is Trumpymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
(My apologies to Shelley)
3
Can you please stop calling it “Wall”? You’re playing by his tune.
When are we Canadians going to get our wall? We signed a trade agreement too and we're tired of these illegal immigrants flooding across the boarder from the south. Well, OK, maybe we're actually welcoming of the immigrants, but that wall would be a thing of beauty and we could use it to keep people in... for their own good of course. :)
1
There is a "National Emergency" so your president shuts down half the government.
That right there is why we think rightists are stupid and why we'll continue to fly over their ignorant states long after president bone-spurs is dead and buried.
4
Mr President, if you are truly concerned about the crisis at the border, how about putting up some of your own money to build the wall. You claim to be a multi-billinaire who wants to MAGA. Well, here is your chance to put your money where your mouth is.
4
I am not (usually) a conspiracy theorist, but I'm beginning to wonder... Britons are mislead by Russian trolls on its ramifications and vote for Brexit. Trump shuts the US government down. And who in the Kremlin is smiling?
6
Wow, it certainly doesn't look like a national emergency zone based upon the pictures. What a joke.
5
Can some one please put this man out of 0ur misery? The man is delusional, lies like my x-wife and needs therapy...not the power of the presidency. Please, Republicans, pull your heads out of your keisters and let's got on with now I can say it..."make America great again after the last two years. It's a travesty and a joke. We're being ruined.
4
Ah yes Sean Hannity. Says it all. Where will they be sleeping?
"Trump, Heading to the Border, Suggests He Will Declare an Emergency to Fund the Wall"
Trump's early-morning, mid-morning, afternoon, evening, nighttime and deep night 'thought' process...
(rubbing small, soft hands together): "Okaaayyy, time for another diversion. Let's see who I can ruin or hurt today!"
3
The President is encouraged by his way of getting what he demands by placing Americans in bondage and he will do it again.
3
Proving daily he will go down as the worst president of all time!
6
Scientists just released data showing the oceans warming faster then expected and you are following this clown to the border for his imaginary crisis. The Pied Piper is leading us to doom. Wake up America.
7
If national security were truly Trump's motivation, and a wall is his way of enforcing it, then we would need a 4,000 mile wall on the northern border as well as the southern border. Why is that not being proposed?
If I am a terrorist, I just go to Canada and walk across into South Dakota...but perhaps that is not the reason.
Those fools who voted for him only support him now out of pride and hoping not to be proven wrong. Get serious about a plan, but open the government and stop the hurt and embarrassment.
8
We must resist an imperial presidency. He thinks he is king.
8
I am absolutely in favor of Trump's Wall just as the samples were built across from Tijuana--towering structures marching to the horizon in 30 foot heights (each separated from the next one by some 20 yards).
Hadian's Wall, the Maginot Line, the Great Wall of China. Hitler's Atlantic Wall to stop the invasion of France.
Sorry, Mr. Trump. 30 foot walls only beget 31 foot ladders and 3 foot deep tunnels. You might as well just try to boil the ocean to solve rising sea levels as build this wall.
5
According to The NYT, this Trump statement is a mere “contradiction”:
“When during the campaign I would say, ‘Mexico is going to pay for it,’ obviously, I never said this...”
A contradiction? That’s the word you choose? It’s delusional!!! What gutless reporting. I’m Seriously thinking of making good on my promise to cancel my subscription.
3
I think the Times missed the third part of this idiotic fiasco, so I added it below...
Trump is taking a trip that he did not want to take to discuss a crisis that Democrats say does not exist, so he can build a wall that does not work.
8
If he wins this one it's "Adios America!"
2
Build a 10 foot tall double steel wall, 1/16 inch thick steel, with the walls at least 30 feet apart. Fill the area between the walls with 8 feet tall rows of razor wire. Monitor the wall using drones, with one drone for every 30 miles of wall. That will stop most illegal aliens from attempting a crossing, while slowing down the rest long enough to direct Border Patrol officers to any place where a breach is occurring. Cost would be about $1 million per mile.
2
This is what Trump thinks is the job of the Commander in Chief. Build walls and keep non-whites out; when is he going to build one on our Northern border, more so called terrorist according to the State Department came through the Canadian border - no no they are white.
When is the MSM started calling spade a spade, Trump is just another white nationalist, look around him and his supporters?
MSM must stop providing him a bully pulpit to continue spreading this false narrative.
4
This is all a manufactured sideshow to distract from the Trump-Russian collusion story (Manafort funneling info to Russian intelligence) that would otherwise be running in the papers.
9
Traveling to the Tex-Mex border
Without Ms. Nielsen, Trump ignored her
Proving once again that
She is still his doormat
While he remains a headline hoarder
1
Does a President say, "Bye, bye"?? This does sound a bit babyish, but fits with a fit!!
4
a national emergency... Ok...
Flashing his abusive power around.
2
Trump and his ilk care so much about the safety of Americans. Just not the safety of kids in schools. or people in church. or movie theaters. or concerts. Keep asylum seekers out and guns in! Thanks Republicans.
8
If he declares martial law to build his wall, ANYTHING could be next.
5
So next time there is a mass shooting when a Dem is in the White House we can seize all the semis, right?
7
The only "state of emergency" we have in this Nation is the lunatic in the Oval office. Trump thinks that he is King, and can do an end-run around Constitutional due process.
5.7 BILLION Dollars ?? Please tell me that Halliburton is not getting the (famous) uncontested bid on this project.
11
Hi Team, I thought you would know that NYTimes isn't working well on Safari here in Vermont today.
When I click on links, the links are taking me to different stories. And everything is slow. Just NYTimes. Not other websites.
Perhaps some people don't want us to read your stories?
2
Maybe blame Shoreham for not updating their servers.
Trump could solve this in 15 minutes. He could have
" El Chapo" pay for the wall. Then he could pardon him.
The perfect deal ! It meets all Trumps demands and the
government goes back to work.
2
Me ico, can you PLEASE keep him if he happens to stumble onto your side of the border?
5
bypass Congress?
Go directly to Jail
Do not pass GO
do not collect $5.6B
9
Just another carefully scripted PR stunt by Trump and Fox News.
Did Hannity get a free ride on Airforce 1?
Really, this is totally absurd. How about a headline 'There is NO EMERGENCY' with article regarding outlining NO CRISIS in 2017 or 2018, NO CRISIS 3 weeks ago and NO CRISIS now. How about pointing out Trump's midterms political stunt regarding migrant criminal hordes in a caravan which magically went poof! on election day. Where are they?
How about Trump responding to Ann Coulter being mean to him as the entire reason for the shutdown and impasse now?
THAT IS the reason Trump refused to sign and why he is making this shutdown his hugest political 'stunt' yet.
Please stop trying to give reason and logic to this Trump fiasco.
6
The left, Nancy and Chuck should be down there in the border and learn from these brave border agents and hear from those who have lost their loved ones. While the TV stations wouldn't carry the round table, it was live streamed and those who watched it learned a lot. Maybe the Times reporters should have watched it to find out the truth.
You think a reporter should watch a reporting to report? Interesting.
@Tony J Mann: What about the kids, students, moviegoers, church goers, office workers, concert goers, mowed down by madmen with assault weapons? What can we learn from them?
1
@Tony J Mann
FYI: they did so years ago already.
Contrary to Trump, they then went back to DC and started working.
Result? In 2013 Obama managed to get a bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform bill through the Senate, with a supermajority, including all that border patrol agents had asked for (and no, they didn't ask for a wall).
Why isn't this the law of the land yet? The GOP House refused to hold a vote on it. For FIVE years.
THAT is why nothing has been done, concretely, until today.
In the meanwhile, all of the Generals in Trump's cabinet (and we all remember that he only hires "the best") have publicly explained why a wall is NOT the most efficient way to protect the southern border.
And then of course there's the fact that IF Congress would accept to negotiate all while the president decide to no longer pay TSA and border patrol agents, it would de facto end the independence of Congress, which is totally unacceptable and unconstitutional.
So as long as Trump keeps the government shut down, Pelosi and Schumer cannot possibly BEGIN talks about comprehensive immigration reform again, you see?
2
Trump keeps saying, "I can do National Emergency if I want." OK, but can he Mashed Potato? Can he do the Twist? Tell me, Donald, do you like it like this? The president's strenuously slippery dance moves are like Elaine's spasmodic terpsichorean efforts on "Seinfeld." Time to step up or shut up and see how conservatives like it when Trump really shakes 'em down.
6
There are approximately 1 million illegal migrant children enrolled in our public schools, at the cost to American taxpayers of approximately $11,000 per child, per year. That doesn’t include the hundreds of thousands of anchor baby citizens that are also enrolled in our public schools at taxpayer expense.
Let’s do the math: 1 million migrant children x $11,000 per student per year x 7-10 years of public school..
Equals.... $77 Billion-$110 Billion... at taxpayer expense...the tip of the iceberg.
2
@Shenoa It might surprise you to learn that many undocumented workers do pay taxes. Unlike, it would seem, Trump, with at least three, or maybe four, anchor babies of his own. Ivana was not a citizen when her children were born. Of course those anchor babies went to private schools, but have otherwise availed themselves of the protection and services of the US. And of course, any of those so called anchor babies you mention, like Trump’s kids, may have a parent who is an American citizen.
Why shouldn’t anchor baby citizens of a tax payer undocumented worker get a public school education when the anchor babies of a tax dodging, self proclaimed billionaire are eligible?
1
@Shenoa
You conveniently left out the fact that their parents work in the US and as such increase GDP and federal tax income ... ? ;-)
If Trump was really all that anxious about securing our borders against illegal entry, he would end the Shutdown today, sending back to work the border patrol and other federal personnel who should be at their posts keeping us safe
12
Maybe we should start calling Donald Trump "Il Duce," after his doppelganger, Benito Mussolini (at least without the orange comb-over). Mussolini also had a penchant for declaring national emergencies and ignoring democratic norms.
4
How sweet it was to hear a journalist on the BBC say on the 6pm news “Donald Trump falsely claimed that he never said that Mexico would meet the costs of a border wall with the United States.” Another BBC journalist reporting from the US added “ he delivered this untruthful statement...”
Any journalist worthy of the name, must call out Trump consistently and directly on his outrageous lies and gaslighting.
14
Trump is visiting " The Wall ".
Really???
An inanimate object that begs for humanity.
I suppose he's going to meet with the engineers who will pep him up with with talk of space age meets stone age, and then back on the plane for a steak dinner and brownie ala mode.
A Dog and Pony show.
4
The world is laughing at Trump. Well, in fact the world is laughing at Americans...
9
Know who’s running the American government? Sean Hannity.
9
Last time I checked, trump was saluting a helicopter. Fox News will be tickled.
5
This whole wall thing is appalling and if the Democrats cave and give it to him, it will be a disaster on a number of levels, giving his idiotic ego a massive boost; wasting public money on something completely unnecessary; and changing the structure of government into rule by president. Unfortunately, at least from where I sit, Trump has by far controlled the media coverage and although the Democrats have a good, coherent basis for opposition, the message isn't adequately getting out there. If 'Chuck and Nancy' can't deliver the message and get some of the media focus off of the Lyingorange, then someone else needs to step up and do it for them. The longer you let a lie bed in, the harder it is to dig it out.
8
Wow - one liar, Cruz, defends another, Trump, where they're both making a show out of inflating a political stunt into a full blown crisis and actually acting as though it's something to be proud of! Meanwhile, the vile Mitch McConnell won't even allow a bill to reopen the government come to the senate floor because - well, why exactly?
None of these people deserve a federal paycheck; despite the ostensible anger and pious-mouthed fictions, they are not serving their country, only their own egos and the wallets of their enablers. In the meantime, those who do want to serve Americans - the Democrats in congress, with those in the House elected by an overwhelming majority of voters - are being shut out. What more can we citizens do to take down the corrupt and uncaring Republicans? Maybe it's time to find out....
5
This is an utter outrage this poor excuse of a president holding America hostage for a completely unreasonable and useless goal of a wall that will never be built! He had 2 years with full republican control of congress to push this ridiculous wall through and yet NOW he is creating havoc and innocent people have no paychecks just because he throws a temper tantrum over losing the House and to make the dems look bad. It is an utter outrage that we cannot hold him accountable for this! I'm so disgusted. We should be revolting at the steps of every congressional office and the White House!
3
"I have the absolute right".. its all about him again. What about the rights of others?
McConnell will go down in history as an enabler. 3 branches of government. Nothing stops Mitch from bringing the previously agreed agreements to the floor- nothing stops him putting it on Trump's desk. He cannot sign it if he never receives it. This is preposterous.
Trump is too impatient an entitled to go through proper processes... a bit like his sexual impatience. He is truly disgusting and his enablers are culpable too.
8
It's not Trump himself that's dangerous, it's the people who are manipulating and taking advantage of his stupidity and, unfortunately, his power as president as a leverage to manipulate the people and resources in our country. The very people who will be crushed and destroyed the most by these efforts make up the majority of his supporters. There is a coup of sorts going on right now consisting of the GOP, Fox News, corrupt members of the one percent, and Putin via Trump to destroy all American institutions and its Constitution, and these unfortunate backward people are falling for their scam hook, line and sinker.
7
What is Trump referring to when he says “if this doesn’t work”? The photo op at the Border? Couldn’t he and has advisors saved us the the dog and pony show before the cameras and just declared a National Emergency last week like Trump wanted to? Making it up as they go along. Pathetic.
1
Mr. Trump, you should seriously consider apologizing to the citizens of United States and the rest of the world for the fact that you exist. You are wasting the air we all breathe.
5
Don The Con and Stephen miller will be listed as among the Top Ten Most Criminal politicians in American history. Causing more death and destruction than cancer. Ray Sipe
5
Trump to Pelosi: I won't blame you.
Trump to supporters: It's the Democrat's fault.
6
Direct quote from the White house lawn: “I know the Fake News likes to say it when during the campaign I would say Mexico is going to pay for it. Obviously I never said this,” Trump declared. “I never meant they’re going to write out a check.”
Seriously, is he wrestling with dementia?
5
It's clear as day that if Trump puts up this wall many Americans will simply not be able to get the drugs they need to stay high.
#You too, Chuck and Nancy
1
Well. the threatened phony "national emergency" (including misappropriation of funds earmarked elsewhere) will constitute still another "abuse of power" by this petulant and reckless president.
Rack up another impeachable offense!
4
What if Speaker Polosi caves, he might change his mind as he does every 5 minutes. What's his excuse for wanting the tax papers to pay for his stupid wall. As I recall Mexico is supposed to foot the bill. Aside from all that, doesn't this person have any feeling for the 800,000 federal workers. Let's not forget, he said he was proud to shut down the government. How one human being could be so unbelievably callous and vindictive just because he can't get his way. This wanna-a-be dictator couldn't care less that he is destroying the country . He's reliving his old reality show, but no one cares. We shouldn't have to suffer under his immature, lying and inept leadership. He most likely leads a very miserable life to inflict so much misery on so many. He cannot be taken seriously because he's just a buffoon making a sham of the office he (unfortunately) holds. And today, just to waste more of the taxpayers money he takes a trip to Texas for a photo op.
7
Wow. I am getting angry. Like, really angry. So all these people from other states yelling for the wall are okay with the government taking land from private citizens?!? Isn't that communism? If they think Texas landowners are going to roll over and happily sell, donate or have their land forcibly taken so that the Feds can put up a wall on their property they are sadly mistaken. (Wouldn't the wall, whatever the size shape or construct, obstruct their view, invade their privacy, hinder their movements and be crawling with patrols? - what a nightmare.) Texans will fight this tooth and nail. If you noticed, even Cruz backpedaled on this one. He just demurred - saying Trump put the spine back in the capitol. Ha. He's the one lacking a backbone, as usual. As per the Washing Post, the federal government has already been sniffing around.
24
Trump wants border security to stop terrorists, so he refuses to fund the TSA, the guys who actually catch terrorists. Got it.
27
Ah yes, Stephen Miller - the "architect" of Trump's zero tolerance immigration stance. Always hiding in the background, but making his venomous presence known whenever he crawls out from under his rock and writes another speech for Trump to parrot.
25
@NancyKelley
In real life, his "zero tolerance" stance resulted in putting hundreds of captured illegal immigrants on the streets at the same time.
That's because Trump decided to abandon Obama's Family Case Management program, which instead of 60% allowed us to see 99% of those who were caught and released to show up in court, and then to massively incarcerate no matter whom, without first making sure that we had the means to do so.
EVEN when it comes to illegal immigration, this administration is utterly incompetent.
2
Trump is big on showmanship and he showed it by staging his speech in front of drugs, guns and money.
However probably none of that stuff came from the border and was probably flown in for the show, but it sure looked good.
Spend enough time in front of a TV camera and you learn how to create make believe.
11
Here's the problem: If the Democrats cave in to Trump while he holds federal employees hostage, he will just continue to do the same thing over and over. Please continue to represent your constituents who realize that this "emergency" is fake and the wall is a total waste.
15
Was this bit of theatre meant to distract us from the Mnuchin testimony today?
I mean it Trump wants to build the wall, but Mexico wouldn’t pay for it, and the trade agreement he says will finance it has not been passed?
That is just ridiculous.
7
This isn't about a wall. This is about democracy.
Given all that's going on maybe we should look beyond the forefront of this story? Trump is holding our entire country, including our Government, as hostages and he's using the money (an amount he's surreptitiously increased) as the negotiation tactic. Only there's no negotiation, it's concessions, from the Democrats and he's more than willing to do whatever it takes to stop the Mueller investigations.
Now Mattis and Kelly are out of the picture, who else is left to stop his plan to prevent the newly elected Dems from doing their jobs because that is what this is about: stopping the Democrats and he's using us, the public, as collateral damage. He's shut down the Gov't because the Dems now control Congress. Period.
Anyone know why McConnell is AWOL? The lying traitor, including his Russian-owned GOP minions know once the Dems start pealing off the layers, the rotten smell emanating from whatever they've been going to great lengths at hiding, will continue reek for years to come. The whole does not equal the sum of its parts.
Mueller uncovered far more then he or anyone could ever have imagined. The GOP have taken our entire country hostage and they're using the $$$ to ensure we as a nation, do not progress beyond the ideological coup that has devoured us.
Look beyond what's in front of you because there's something else is hiding behind the curtain. This isn't about a wall. This is about democracy.
17
McConnell is silent because his wife's job is there at the whim of the president.
2
Props for Trump. Trump lies with every breath he takes, how can anyone believes what he says.
5
Ridiculous image. This could be a weekend haul from a bust in any major city in the US. One of my close relatives worked drug interdiction in South Florida.. I've heard all the stories that never make the evening news. This stuff doesn't travel by land through the desert by mules, coyotes, hikers, caravans or migrants. It arrives in bulk via commercial carriers, planes, container ships, cruise lines, private aircraft, boats, etc. No border wall will contain this sort of stuff. Folks in charge need to get real.
17
"McAllen, a border community where crime is near a 30-year low..."
And that explains exactly how imaginary this crisis is.
17
Trump cannot open his mouth without lying. There is no reason to believe a single thing he says, ever, about anything. Since we can't depend on Republicans to reign him in, then In Bob We Must Trust.
10
We here in Canada have a Prime Minister we're not too fond of, just an empty suit that can't get anything done, got elected on his name, Trudeau, but then, we see your choice, wow.
7
One more step towards our first Autocracy.
10
@mjbarr thanks to the Russian-owned GOP and Trump, the US has already completed 9 out of the 12 step process. If this goes through, we as a Nation, will be owned by a foreign Government. We're currently being held hostage. We need to wake up. Right now.
2
Trump states, I never said Mexico is paying for the wall.
That Communist China are more honorable than the Democratic Party.
I’m stunned at how low this deplorable man can go.
He is a danger to the Republic and needs removed and either jailed or hospitalized
7
He can't string more than two words together. Pits races against each other. Incites violence. Thinks the world is his to plunder at every opportunity. Lies about any subject at any time. Has military hero-worship (until they disagree with him). As a world leader, this man makes Idi Amin look sane. God help us. Either that, or Mueller help us. Let's get this done before there's no America to put back together.
12
Mitch McConnell is giving up the Senate to a cowardly, incompetent President that may not even have been legitimately elected. The evidence being reported in the papers is tying the whole conspiracy together. The government shutdown is un-American and should be ended today. It is way past time. McConnell get in the game and put the house bills on the floor. Make Trump veto them if he has the guts!
4
If border patrol got all of these drugs and cash, then why do we need the wall? It seems to me what we have in place is working fine. If Mr. Trump wants the wall, then why not cut down on his expenses as president? His golf outing to Florida is costing tax payers approximately 3.6 million dollars per trip.
We need to fix our roads, bridges, ports, and airports. 5.6 billion for a wall construction, and millions of dollars for maintaining the wall is stupid and waste of money.
The wall never worked in China, Berlin, Atlantic wall, and Hadrian wall. Where are the adults in this issue.
9
Trump prattles about the 'sad relatives of victims' killed by illegal immigrants". What about the thousands of American victims killed by American citizens? Trump claims a handful of homicide victims of "illegal immigrants" is a cause for a huge "crisis" -- what about the more than 14,000 people killed in gun homicides in the USA in 2017, who were -not- killed by "illegal immigrants"? Thousands of Americans, killed by their fellow American citizens.
Shouldn't Trump be advocating for doing something about all these American citizen killed homicide victims? Far more people in this country are victims of crimes by their fellow American citizens - if Trump focused on gun violence instead of "illegal immigrants" he would have much more impact fixing some of that problem. Trump is so fixated on "illegal immigrants" from the southern border, could it be there is something about them that Trump dislikes them for - like brown skin?
NO WALL - its a waste of money, it tries to fix a problem that isn't a "National Emergency", and would not be an effective use of that money for the actual border issues anyway.
7
@Jim Brokaw
Don't worry. If he passes a National Emergency on this wall idiocy, the next president can do the same about GUNS.
Not the 2nd Amendment, but about owning certain types of guns. The amendment doesn't say what size gun you can own.
Or, he can implement Universal Health Care.
Or, mandate climate considerations.
A whole host of things that Trump is about to open the door to. I say let 'er rip.
2
Trump needs to understand that The Great Wall of China is a tourist attraction, not a giant leap forward for mankind.
6
If Donald Trump is as rich as he claims, why doesn't he paid for the wall?
5
I believe if we use immigrant labor , the wall could be built for 1.2 billion. Trump should look into that.
5
Donald Trump working to tear the country apart and tear the country down.
It is past time for patriotic Republicans to call for Trump resignation
2
Ask Fox News. That’s who they take orders from.
1
"The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.”
George Washington (1796)
The "Disorders and Miseries" (Donald Trump Nov.2016-Jan.2019).
2
If you fully believe what Trump is saying about Mexico that we are In such peril from our southern neighbors why not defend America with a full military takeover. Lord knows I hope he doesn’t read this.
3
As an extremely concerned American, I demand that Trump be fired as President of the United States right now and just as rudely as he fired people on the pretend-reality show that led to him being POTUS and us being miserable. This showboating rooster is out of control. Is this his country, or is it ours?
On the bright side, perhaps this abuse of power will turn enough voters to ensure a Democratic win in 2020. Walls go up, walls come down.
1
Just look at that picture of Trump standing in the open at the border with no wall to protect him from the marauding hoards. So brave!
3
The Democrats would get further by bargaining directly with Rush Limbaugh.
5
@howier
You don't bargain when the government is shut.
As far as I am concerned I believe Trump is without a doubt, the worst President that our country has had in our entire history.
4
The New York Times should press the White House to provide a detailed accounting of the amount of tax revenue that Mexico will pay to the United States under USMCA relative to a baseline of tax revenue from Mexico generated under NAFTA. Surely, if the president is publicly stating that the additional revenue will be sufficient to pay for the wall “many times over,” such an analysis has been done and can be easily and readily produced.
That picture says it all. This is a photo op, nothing more.
Yeah, we get it, bad stuff comes across the border. No, we still don't want your wall. We want realistic immigration reform involving something that doesn't place an antiquated physical barrier across hundreds more miles of land.
Quit with the photo ops and get back to Washington to make real, actual, reasonable policy!
5
Idea for a protest poster: photo of Trump in a circle with a diagonal line through it and the words underneath:
BYE-BYE!
You're welcome. ;-)
3
The lead photograph for this article makes Trump look like a carnival carny —the guy in charge of the game where you lower the claw into an enclosed space filled with worthless tchotchkes:
in this case, an AK47 and some indistinguishable firearms on a table; clear plastic bags filled with USdollars; black plastic bags filled with, what?, rubles or opiods; more flags than fig leaves on a fig tree; and Kirstjen Nielsen looking at whomever the gun is pointing to.
A pretty fair metaphor for the the mulligatawny that is the current US immigration policy: incoherent, overbearing and visually unconvincing.
2
Donald Trump insists on $5.7 billion from the U.S. taxpayers to build a wall along the southern border where immigration is at a 20-year low, the terrorist threat non-existent as are illegal drugs. So, he shuts down the federal government for nearly three weeks costing the nation more than the $5.7 billion already in lost revenues, Genius! And, perhaps even a stable one as it's reminiscent on a national scale of his bankruptcy of the Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City which cost over $2 billion, but he bankrupted with mountains of debt and was liquidated in May, 2017 for 4 cents on the dollar with Trump's creditors holding the bag. Now it's we, the American taxpayer, still waiting for "trickle-down" from his tax cuts that are once again being asked to hold the bag.
2
how many stories over the years have we heard about tunnels and climbing over walls, fences etc. It is true that the immigration system like many others needs a comprehensive overhaul. But this has to do with making sure that employers cant hire people not authorized to work here, that people that overstay their visas have consequeces to that decision and that at minimum the process that we have for granting asylem is adhered to....we do have a process but that process is not decide to come in and expect to be allowed to stay because you want to and you want to do that now. There are a lot of people all over the world that want to come here for a better life, that have faced persecution (Christians in the middle east, Rohingas anyone?) and have legitimate claims, all of this uncontrolled economic migration is impacting those with legitimate claims. I agree the economic migrents are good people that just want better for their families, but that is not in and of itself a legitimate reason to be granted asylem.
1
That's a pretty fancy weapon, displayed so prominently.
I am once again ashamed of my country, and especially of being led by Pvt. Bonespurs, who'd have to be instructed about which end of it to point.
3
So this is what federal governing has come to: image over substance.
Data? Who needs data? A few billion here or there, so what?
I noticed Hannity the other night playing his violin, lamenting the shooting of an American by a tropical American undocumented foreigner, saying that a few hundred thousand paychecks are worth one life being lost? Without mentioning the daily carnage in American cities by American citizens with freely available firepower. And anyway (Hannity notes), the federal employees will get by without their paychecks (so says the well-fed Hannity, the President, and Congressional representatives).
1
I personally think the wall is just a smoke screen. By declaring a national emergency (read martial law) somehow he gets a better advantage against Mueller. Trump didn't wake up one day and think of this. Much like Stalin he is not smart but very cunning. Time will tell...
1
I predict this will all come to an end very soon, since it's been at least two weeks or more since Trump has been able to take his usual 3-day weekends as taxpayer funded golf trips.
4
Border Wall
“As of January 2009, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported that it had more than 580 miles (930 km) of barriers in place.[3] The total length of the continental border is 1,954 miles (3,145 km)”.
“The barrier is not one contiguous structure, but a discontinuous series of physical obstructions variously classified as "fences" or "walls". In between these constructed obstacles, security is provided by a "virtual fence" consisting of sensors, cameras, and other surveillance equipment that is used to dispatch United States Border Patrol agents to suspected migrant crossings” per Wikipedia
As a 80 year old man, I can get across 30ft wall in less than 10 minutes by ladder; I can use a rental acetylene torch to cut through 8” I beam two places within 6 hours; or I can use a rental jackhammer to break a manhole size at a 12 inch concrete wall within 6 hours.
Most of the illegals are guided by professional “coyotes”. These professional guides are more proficient in the use of jackhammer, torch or other means in helping illegals getting through any type of wall and disguised it for repeated passages.
After spending $10 to $27 billions and 3 years in construction in building 1954 miles 30 ft height wall (and millions more in patching holes and maintenance each year), what happened it did not slowdown the illegals? Who is accountable? There must have some kind penalties for those officials who voted for the wall.
Perhaps the President should have spoken to Jim Darling, the Mayor of McAllen, Texas. Like most of us, he's in favor of increased border security personnel and technology, more attorneys to process asylum applications, more social services. But no border-wide physical wall. In fact, the two bridges in McAllen are the economic lifeblood of his community.
"In certain locations, a wall or a fence or some deterrent makes sense but certainly not one across the great swath of the border in places where, ecologically, the damage would be much greater than a security benefit. So it's really a political football, I think. And just saying we're going to build this great wall across the whole border makes no sense at all. And I think it - what it does is take away from some of the security issues that are there."
--Jim Darling, Mayor McAllen, TX
Source: https://www.npr.org/2019/01/06/682607955/texas-mayor-explains-how-the-government-shutdown-affects-his-border-city
2
Trump needs the wall to serve as a memorial to his presidency, because who can imagine a Trump Presidential Library? Oh wait; I guess it could be built on the campus of Trump University.
2
A man who would lie to the soldiers in Iraq will lie to you.
I just don't understand anyone who believes they can trust him not to lie to them. Do they believe they are different from the troops he lied to?
2
What's missing from this negotiation standoff is the elected official who is responsible for our border crisis: Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrado. Whether it's Mexican citizens and human smugglers breaching our border in the dead of night or Central American migrants crossing Mexico on foot to appeal for asylum, the Mexican government can do something about it. Our national security depends on Mexico doing its part, just as President Trump expects our NATO allies to do their part. Instead of going to war with Democrats and punishing American workers, farmers and businesses by shutting down our government, take the fight to President Obrador.
That’s what Trump said he would do but he’s such a chicken. He has no backbone. He begged the president to at least contribute to his wall so he wouldn’t look foolish in front of his base. It was pathetic.
The Mexican government could do something about when legal Americans stop buying illegal drugs. How much do the drug lords make compared to the GDP of Mexico? They would probably have to triple the amount the drug lords take in to actually fight them. Could they devote half their GDP to fight the cartels? All because a bunch of legal Americans do illegal drugs.
Was Trump on one of those four wheelers or a dirt bike? Lol, are the wheels ok? I hope they had a well-done steak with ketchup on a golden platter for him in that field when he got there. And a gallon of water - he was probably sweatin’ hard.
Please help me understand how this border situation can be described by Senators Schumer & Pelosi as a "manufactured crisis" when there are stories being reported TODAY about drug cartel bodies piling up at the border. Just Google "21 bodies at border" and you will find stories reported by other news outlets. Also a very good special report by USA Today called "The Wall" and refers to "mass disaster" at the border.
I am not a fan of Trump's style - I think his tactics can cause a lot of division. He is far from a smooth politician. However, in this situation, we do have (and have had for years) a very serious border problem that is only growing worse. Children and women are disappearing along this trek to the border. It is very dangerous. A physical barrier is just one piece of the what needs to be accomplished. Chuck Schumer was previously in favor of a physical barrier. It is he and Nancy Pelosi that are playing politics here, not Donald Trump. They should allocate the funds needed to accomplish our security measures at the southern border. Dickering on "wall or no wall" is ridiculous at this point. And bemoaning those missing a paycheck or two (they will be backpaid) while people are dying is just disgusting. The whole thing is a disaster and needs to be addressed immediately. Remember Schumer and Pelosi have been in Congress a long, long time and this illegal immigration problem IS still out of control. I do not trust their judgement on this.
@GoochMe
They don't deny that there still are problems, on the contrary.
For five years now they have worked hard to try to tackle the real, proven problems at the border, with real, proven solutions.
That's what S.744, the bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform bill that Obama got through the Senate in 2013 with a supermajority, does.
And the only reason why it's not signed into law yet is that for five years now, the GOP House refused to hold a vote on it.
Why?
They knew it would pass, and then they wouldn't be able to talk about immigration and border security any more, nor invent lies about Democrats, as the problem would be solved ...
Just one example: for years already, 90% of the drugs that come illegally into the US do so through official points of entry.
A wall, as a consequence, won't solve this problem AT ALL.
What is needed instead is an already existing, hi-tech solutions that allows border patrol agents to detect those drugs better.
And that's only ONE example.
S.744 is full of things like this.
Oh and then there's the fact that a recent border patrol agents reports has shown that less than one percent of them believes that a wall is a priority or will solve any of the currently existing problems.
And the fact that all of the Generals in Trump's own cabinet have publicly declared that a wall is NOT the most efficient way to secure the southern border.
The only ones to trust here are clearly the Democrats.
5
It's beyond me how this president can even visit the border while knowing full well that U.S. Customs amd Border Protection agents and hundreds of thousands of other federal employees have either been "furloughed" -- or are now working paid.
And this is the same candidate who claimed to be the champion of the working-class?
There's nothing great about this, AMERICA.
5
Missing in this discussion: All of those drugs are being bought and used by Americans. No wall will fix that appetite, stop that market, or erase their portion of the responsibility.
3
There is a national emergency but it has little to do with the souther border. In mid December the NY Times reported that almost 40,000 people died from guns in 2018, the third consecutive increase and the most in 50 years. In the beginning of November USA Today reported that so far in 2018 there had been 307 mass shootings. Let’s build a wall after we address the national emergency of easy access, poor regulation and the idolatrous worship of guns.
1
This is nothing but an attempt at distraction away from the Mueller investigations.
3
There is indeed a national emergency, a real security threat to our well-being. And, that would be none other than trump himself.
If someone like trump can lie and repeat his lies in order to justify an emergency, then perhaps congress has given the president too much power.
Why won't congress act to rein in this rogue masquerading as a US president?
Because we need the senate. And the senate is controlled by the republicans.
1
It's not a both sides are intransigent narrative at all. The Dems are correct to not allow the precedent of a President bypassing Congress to do whatever his impulses dictate.
Where were the Republicans when Trump re-wrote Afghan history?
Hardly a word.
Trump has singlehandedly destroyed the GOP for a generation.
Amazing how one rogue leader- a single person- can have such a destructive effect.
3
Is there a possibility that any of the workers who are shown building/rebuilding the wall are undocumented or illegal immigrants?
1
This bluster isn’t leaving the station. He doesn’t have dictatorial powers and will be stopped by the first sane minded judge who’s desk the complaint falls on.
The real winner is Bad Vlad.
The most infuriating part of this debacle is that the media, including NYT, refuses to acknowledge Trump and the right-wing's lunacy.
Does anyone on the right think that the GOP House would have funded the ACA after running against and winning in a landslide?
What possible reason does the right have for expecting the Dems in the House to fund Individual 1's manufactured distraction?
2
He stomped out of the Situation Room. The Situation Room! It is not a classroom for 5 yr. olds. Can't forget the picture of President Obama and senior members of his administration totally focused and extremely serious while the Navy Seals did the mission impossible of taking Osama right under the noses of the Pakistani Army. Imagine Trump having a temper-tantrum insisting he wants to play with our larger red button in the Situation Room!
1
I think I understand how to get Mexico to pay for the wall. Trump’s visit makes it so obvious. I bet the citizens of Mexico would be more than glad invest in a wall to keep Trump out of Mexico and stick us with him.
1
I grew up near Kingsville, TX, about 100 miles north of the Mexican border, and even in the 1950's and 1960's, illegal border crossings were a problem: property damage, crime, and an undocumented work force in the local economy. Administrations, both Republican and Democrat, have paid lip service to border INTEGRITY but have done little. After all, as long as the problem is NIMBY [Not in My Back Yard], why should they care. . . .and they didn't. Finally, we have a President who takes the issue at face value and recognizes how for decades we in Texas have dealt with this extremely expensive issue. For example, in 1982, we had the SCOTUS case Plyler v. Doe which forced local school districts in Texas (and everywhere else) to pay for illegal aliens' children to receive free schooling. Is it any wonder that our public schools in Texas are overwhelmed? And so many other negative federal decisions have created havoc in the Lone Star State. I invite my liberal friends to come visit - I am fluent in Spanish as most of my high school chums were Hispanic; I'd be glad to give them a tour of what we deal with daily, even WAY up here in Dallas, not further south in McAllen where President Trump is today.
@Mike
But YOUR land will not be taken, right?
1
"If the president were to declare a national emergency, which some legal experts say is within his authority, it is sure to stoke debate in Congress."
Quite an understatement. Soon enough we will have an article appear in the Times that says "If the president were to launch nuclear weapons at the moon , which some legal experts say is within his authority, it is sure to stoke debate in Congress."
1
How about a national vote to see if the wall should be built? I would bet it fails because most Americans see through this "crisis" charade. Where are the attackers? Where's the uprising? It's a fake crisis.
1
If Trump believes he has enormous support for building the wall, then those same people should pay for the wall since Trump can't get Mexico to pay for it. I want my tax dollars spent on healthcare which is the real national emergency!
1
How dare the POTUS and Republicans in Congress blame Democrats for this impasse that the president said he would happily own. Then he turns around, changes his mind, and blames Dems for not negotiating when he literally walked away from negotiating table yesterday. The GOP has themselves to blame for basing the terms of their negotiation on a bad idea in the first place that also does not have broad support from the American people. You can’t base the terms of your negation on irrational needs and then blame others for not agreeing to compromise. That’d be like asking for a million dollar pay raise, and then blaming your boss for not negotiating with you.
1
Did the NRA pay for the weapons to be displayed in the photo? I feel much more secure when I see Trump near these.
Now scale the issue to the international scene with nuclear weapons and think about it. I'm confident Hannity will provide good advice to Trump. The biggest threat to U.S. AND international security is Trump.
So, most of the land is privately held. The Fifth Amendment allows the government to take land through eminent domain, but only if Congress passes legislation.
The Trump Wall will never be built. Unlike, of course, the fifty foot high berms that Trump built it Scotland to hurt the poor farmers there.
You've Been Trumped! Go watch the video.
1
I'm getting tired of news like this.
He will lie and hurt the country because he believes that will keep his ratings high among his base, and that's it.
Nothing more or new to see here.
Nancy Pelosi will continue to say no to this kind of utterly immoral behavior, and refuse to have any real negotiations over border security as long as Trump is using hurting America as a way to obtain what he can't obtain through real negotiations with Congress.
A president has to implement existing law and sign clean appropriation bills into law, period. There will never be any "compromising" over something that is so fundamental to the democratic character of the US government as a whole.
Nancy and Chuck are doing their jobs, just tell us when Trump decides to do his too.
2
There is a national emergency brewing, but it's not at the border. Our continuing government shutdown is already causing enough harm to qualify as a national emergency, and it is rapidly growing. The shutdown is a legitimate reason to declare a national emergency and Trump would be justified in declaring one.
Once an emergency is declared there are no restrictions on actions a president might take. His actions need not be related to the emergency. If a declared emergency is a corn blight epidemic, for instance, the president could order seizure of a vessel at sea. And Trump could use our emergency to build his wall.
Should Trump use our ongoing national crisis, one that he himself is causing, to justify invoking a national emergency, Trump would be like the man who, after killing his parents, pleas for mercy because he is an orphan. But that will not stop Trump from doing it.
1
Who can still look at Trump and think electing him was a good idea?
His claim that a new trade deal with Mexico will pay for the wall is absurd to anyone who understands tariffs.
1
As a 80 year old man, I can get across 30ft wall in less than 10 minutes by ladder; I can use a rental acetylene torch to cut through 8” I beam two places within 6 hours; or I can use a rental jackhammer to break a manhole size at a 12 inch concrete wall within 6 hours.
1
It is sad to see that a clown, once elected President if the United States, seems to have every right (and an American lawyer at his side for each of those „rights“ supporting this circus). It painfully brings to light US politics and especially governmental structures need some thorough updating.
Drugs, and money and guns that go with it, is a DEMAND problem. The demand is on the north side of the border and no wall will change this.
1
When you only show one or two sympathetic stories about murder by an undocumented person, then of course the base support will stand firm. The rest of us can see through the charade.
He will keep doing this. Donald has no intention of negotiating. It's been part of his plan all along.
As many commentators have suggested, it is not and never has been about a wall, or even border security, for Trump. It's about staying in the headlines and making sure everyone is talking about YOU. McConnell and his congressional Republicans must wake up and open the government. This is on their shoulders now. How much longer, o Lord?
I really wish the Democrats would compose a clear rebuttal as to why the wall will not work and then share that with America over and over again. They need to make better use of the media and their messaging.
2
Today my wife and I packed emergency food boxes at our local food bank, all destined for 92 TSA employees and their families. Let me repeat that. We packed emergency food boxes requested by people whose primary responsibility is to protect our country from terrorists and who are unable to put food on their table because of the President of the United States.
You want to talk about a national emergency?
4
[When during the campaign I would say, ‘Mexico is going to pay for it,’ obviously, I never said this, and I never meant they are going to write out a check,” Mr. Trump said. That statement was an apparent contradiction of what he has previously said, including in December when he wrote in a Twitter post, “I often stated, ‘One way or the other, Mexico is going to pay for the Wall.’ nytimes]
For a president to persistently create reality-distortion fields in his public statements, for no purpose other than political self-protection, should be added to the list of High Crimes and Misdemeanors. Creating a fake emergency should also be added. Add in contempt of Congress for trying to sleaze around their money authoriation power. What's obvious is, if a real and genuine national emergency occurs, no sentient being will believe a word that Trump says. His falsity is a clear and present danger to the country.
2
Criticizing Trump is low hanging fruit, virtually every Democrat in question has in the past supported a physical barrier as part of a border security regime, Most notably the 2 who gave the response to the president's address. Why the sudden inability to see any value in such a measure? Could politics have anything to do with it? Say it ain't so.
I hate how Trump made this debate so toxic. Most of us all agree we need better border security AND better protections and processing of asylum seekers.
Instead now the debate is led to extremes by Trumps toxic nature. As an independent whose views are represented by neither party, the suggestions on both sides are now so partisan its unbelievable.
1
Declaring a national emergency will not help Trump save face since he has absolutely no dignity to begin with.
Maybe the Dems should give him his wall money in exchange for providing the DACA folks a path to citizenship. He won’t spend the money anyway, he’s already got over $1b he’s done nothing with.
The damage to Trump and the GOP for this unnecessary shutdown has been done. No one is likely to forget come 2020.
Already proposed. Rejected by the emperor.
With Trump's continuing fixation on his wall one has to wonder whether it is to keep "them" out or "us" in. If this keeps up much longer I may be applying for asylum in say Australia.
Frankly, I'm surprised the Democrats have not come up with a strategy to use the prevention of illegal immigration to their advantage. Instead of just arguing we don't need a wall, (we don't), repackage their ideas and rework the whole concept that involves an admission of the problem with sensible solutions. That can be done by pointing out the absurdity of Trump's position while still acknowledging the problem exists but can be solved.
2
@Bob: It is most sensible to carve out immigration management as a stand-alone issue. Logrolling it at virtual gunpoint according to the methods of Trump is a rush job to stupid legislation. One cannot begin a sensible negotiation on such a basis.
1
A National Emergency on our Southern border? Where's the real data? Perhaps we should consider spending $5.7B on larger processing centers (ex.: Ellis Island, historically), expanding the requirement of E-Verify, and updating the path to legal citizenship in a nation founded by and made up almost entirely of immigrants and their ancestors. An unspoken issues persists that most Americans, directly or indirectly, are both hurt and helped when individuals and companies hire illegal immigrants. But our GDP growth and SS system and more need legal immigrants. History agrees with security experts that walls are ultimately ineffective and defeated.
Please remember, this is not just about this $5B. This is the start of a very slippery, and massively expensive, slope. Are there fully costed and rational estimates of the true cost of building a border wall along with the ongoing monitoring, staffing (including health care and retirement), maintaining and repair expenses of not only the wall but access roads and maintenance buildings, etc. etc. And what is the realistic cost estimate for access to and use of lots of private land? Or the legal costs of all the eminent domain lawsuits and payments? This is just the very start of something very huge.
And the price tag will be higher the next budget negotiation and shutdown.
AJ, I agree. The most cost effective wall would be a wall built around the White House. Better yet, build a dome that blocks Twitter messages from being made.
@AJ: Our ancestors immigrated. We descended.
1
"The head of the Army Corps of Engineers traveled with Mr. Trump to Texas on Thursday. Redirecting funds from the Army’s construction agency to build the wall is one option Mr. Trump could use in a national emergency."
WOW! And here silly me thought the efforts of the Army Corp of Engineers were in greater demand in the areas devastated and destroyed by the past few hurricanes (Harvey, Irma, Maria, and Michael) where the fixing, repairing and replacing of damaged bridges, roads, dams, levies were more paramount than one single border wall.
How about taking care of the structural damage which was caused from various natural disasters than to scream the sky is falling and declare a national emergency for a situation that will NEVER go away nor be resolved? The real national emergency is the federal government turning its back on American citizens who desperately need their help.
2
For the billions that it takes to build this wall, how about helping states recover from floods, tornados, hurricanes and wildfires-- there is plenty to do there and people are still living in tents with all their property gone, elderly with no prospects of recovering fully from disaster.
How about supporting a real crisis, climate change. Whole cities on the ocean will need protection from flooding, they could use some seawalls, if Trump wants to build useful walls. Walls that will actually do good protective work.
How about spreading that number of billions around to inner cities and lost heartland communities that have hopes, but no money for rebuilding. That way Trump would actually do real lasting good with those billions. The other one is Puerto Rico,still languishing with little rebuilding from that hurricane. They need help. Why not do real good and provide real hope rather than giving billionaires tax cuts in the trillion category, and building a wall no one wants. Trump, you are now the master of lost causes. Shape up and tend to your lost American people instead. Pay attention to the reality around you, don't create imaginary scenarios to scare people, there are plenty of real situations needing help.
2
No President has ever used emergency powers to circumvent the appropriations process set out in the Constitution. So any lawyer who gives an opinion is using his or her best judgment. I have practiced law for almost 40 years, and this is not an easy questions. Yes, the President has wide discretion, but no discretion is absolute, and his decision cannot be "arbitrary and capricious." Given that crossings at the border are down, I think it is very likely that a court would find an abuse of discretion.
2
The estimated time for building the wall is 15 years. Yes, fifteen years! How is this an emergency that justifies the government shutdown? Obviously, it's not. Plus the fact that Trump has done nothing to secure the border in the past 2 years of his presidency. The real emergency is the government shutdown, and the one most responsible for that is Mitch McConnell, for refusing to let the Senate vote to fund and open the government. The House has passed several funding bills with veto proof majorities and the Senate could too. Or simply pass it and give Trump the chance to sign or veto it. If he vetos it he could be in serious legal trouble, and guilty of an impeachable offence. But first he needs to get it. Both houses should also pass a separate bill for border security specifying exactly what it needs to be spent on, such as filling all open border security personnel positions and installing emergency fencing, and a deadline for using the funds before they revert back to the treasury.
1
This isn’t a budget standoff. Budgeted spending is separately legislated for stuff Congress as already legislated into existence. Not so Trump’s wall. Trump and the GOP are grandstanding on what should be routine funding appropriations for already legislated and budgeted agencies, like TSA or the Coast Guard, neither of which are new spending additions to the current funding appropriations obligations created when Congress legislated those agencies into existence, and into the budget, which is distinct from appropriations bills. The fact is that Trump’s wall has never passed through Congress, so now Trump, with GOP backing, is electing for himself kingly discretion. More than rises to a fair interpretation of the subjective category of ‘High Crimes and Misdemeanors’. The Democratic-controlled House should impeach, regardless the Senate’s will to convict. And it sure would be great if NYT and other press would stop inaccurately portraying this debacle as a ‘budget standoff with Democrats’. No wall was ever legislated by Congress, hence not in any budget. In fact, that is why Trump is now taking hostage an appropriations bill, for already and separately legislated and budget items, to try and force Congress to out of the blue add a new spending element to an appropriations bill. Congress has already once before passed the appropriations, and overwhelmingly so in the Senate. But now the GOP has balked for a wall that can’t pass Congress and, instead selected Trump as King.
3
I'm pretty sure each side knows how to get hold of the other side if it wants to discuss something:
". .. as the government shutdown neared the end of its third week, the president left Washington with no additional negotiations scheduled with congressional leaders."
Maybe it’s time for the house Democrats to ask for something big and they they will agree to the 5.7 billion for the border wall. Write a bill that includes removing the cap on Social Security taxes. Or raise it up to $250,000. It’s currently only $127,200.
1
"The buck stops here," said President Truman. Donald Trump is now the leader of this country and must take responsibility for the government shutdown if he has any respect for the office or the people of this country. The president needs to lead, not follow the lead of right wing media pundits.
I hope DJT declares an emergency. As soon as it is declared, the courts will step in and block the diverted funds for the wall. This will officially exhaust all of his options and mark the end of his political career. Finally, the American people can get some well-deserved rest.
2
...AND MAYBE CONGRESS WILL BYPASS TRUMP!!!!
18
First, both political parties are to blame for this crisis. Second, Trump's optics today will gain him support from a lot of Americans on this issue. I know many reading this will disagree but it's the same people who were shocked on election night.
3
@Bernard: By sheer numbers of people affected, Trump is now the world's biggest hostage-taker. What a guy.
If ever there were an issue to be addressed on a stand-alone basis, it is immigration policy. Trump lies 95% of the time for people who are fake for 95% of the time.
@Why are Democrats to blame for Trumps made up crisis?
The B and B minority checks in.
He's wearing a MAGA hat on our dime, on official government business. Impeach him.
100
Trump is exempt from rules followed by other federal employees and military members, obviously. He can spread hate as he takes political stances and campaigns that would get a five-star general courts martialed. Just more of the political inequality spreading across America.
1
@apparatchick
Not only that -- the MAGA hat and other Trump merchandise isn't even made in the USA!
Add another violation of the Hatch Act to his list of malfeasance.
Insufficient superlatives in all the languages of the world or universe to describe this stupidity.
If this silly wall is the apex of a crisis....and the GOP really thinks that is the case...the planet is in deep trouble.
46
@Glennmr: What cool ATVs and dirt bikes.
NYT, stop making this man’s propaganda and his obvious sales pitches into your lead story. There is other vitally important news to highlight. You are simply feeding the monster the media helped create. Do better.
57
@A McLean
A totally agree. Trump is President because he was, and still is, the source of vast amounts of low-cost, high-margin news programming. And now anyone that runs against him will have to provide the same or they will not be 'competitive' in the news market.
1
@A McLean Agreed
The old fool would rather going down in history as the dumbest and worst president in US history than being wrong and forgotten rather than admit he made a bad decision?
26
Don The Con taking a foto op for hate; Govt workers told to have garage sales to pay rent. Ray Sipe
43
Trump is so stupid that during "the border show" today he was shown how the wall made no difference because tunnels were dug underneath. Also he was shown how border patrol stopped vehicles legally crossing with drugs and people hidden inside them. The wall had nothing to do with these cases. No funding for more wall! The "Idiot" is demonstrably immoral by all measures.
37
As tragic as this is for those affected it is the best that could happen for the country. There will be no mistakes when the next election rolls around and Trump is booted out on his behind.
26
@Tom Considering a lot of people thought he couldn't be elected in the first place.... don't put the champagne on ice yet.
1
@Tom
I dunno, never underestimate the stupidity of the American electorate. Remember that we allowed 5 $COTU$ judges (two of whom were Nominees of Bush the Major) to appoint Bush the Minor on 12/12/2000.
Irrespective of one's position on the Border Wall, there is one irrefutable fact. At least 10M to 15M illegal immigrants are in this country. (If one uses the baseline of the 1986 Amnesty event, in which illegals were dramatically underestimated, the above numbers are probably significantly smaller than the true figure.) Conclusion, this is a national problem that hasn't went away. It might ebb and flow, but it isn't being resolved. So what is the solution? What is not a solution is Sanctuary cities and states. More and more, this act appears to be open insurrection, and an eventual demand for autonomy, or secession, from national authority. Political confrontation eventually ends in conflict. And our nation is very likely on that path.
10
Perhaps we should actually address some of the real reasons this is happening.
1
The solution is to review true and accurate numbers of employment, illegal border crossings, and use of services to determine where we get the biggest bang for our policy buck. Not shooting from the hip because you’re the “smartest” and everything you know comes from your “gut”.
Is Trump going to visit any of the detention centers and the real people (read women and children) seeking asylum? After all, his administration is now putting the word "humanitarian" first in describing this so called crisis and emergency.
28
I would really appreciate it if you could just stop attributing the impasse to the Democrats. The impasse over the wall came about before they assumed their majority because there are not enough Republican votes in the Senate to send a bill that includes the wall to the President. There's a reason Mitch McConnell is laying low - as long as he can reframe the discussion as being the responsibility of the Democrats, he won't be on the hook for the lack of Republican votes. Please stop helping him by adopting the Republican narrative. You need to at least point out that Republicans cannot pass the bill the President wants, every time you mention the Democrats. It's called reporting the full story - do it.
63
Existing high-security facilities, like Groom Lake, use massive amounts of high tech to secure their perimeter. Not a wall.
But the Soviets divided Berlin with a wall.
This is about 45, as everything is about 45 (in his mind). How does it make me look? is his guiding question
10
Republicans hate the government. Reagan: “Government IS the problem.” So they don’t care at all that it’s shut down. It’s their goal. They just care about the optics affecting votes.
10
@Leo Gold They might care when they get some tainted crab meat or romaine lettuce from one of their fancy restaurants. Even they are not protected from various viruses and bacteria....
If Trump declares an emergency and funds the Wall with executive action, it may perhaps shift the arguments for impeachment. It is infinitely better for Trump to be impeached for abuse of power in the service of stopping illegal immigration than to be impeached for a tawdry affair with Stormy Daniels.
If he is impeached for the former reason he can hope to remain a hero to his base.
But there is something quixotic about the Wall. Voters actually wanted a stop to illegal immigration, presumably because they were worried about the impact of too much population growth. Indeed, population growth may contribute to the increasing disparity between rich and poor in the US, a divide which is felt by the dispossessed, some of who voted for Trump.
The population of Guatemala exploded from about 5 million in 1968, when Paul Ehrlich published the Population Bomb, to 17 million today. America doesn't have room for an additional 17 million, nor for the additional millions from El Salvador, Honduras and other points in Latin America.
The only real long term solution is one talked about in the late 60's, then ignored except by China's Deng Xiaoping, who introduced a one-child policy in 1979. We need to make family planning available to all women as a basic right, particularly in the third world, where population growth contributes to poverty.
Sadly, Donald Trump misses that component of the message.
We need to learn to accept the fact that planet earth has finite resources.
6
@Jake Wagner: The bar for impeachment is set at lying about affairs, not having them.
Jake Wagner,
Not sure what you are proposing here. A Wall AND FORCED sterilization/abortions for Hondurans and Guatemalans so that NO illegals ever come in again?
I guess that makes more sense than legalizing marijuana to take the revenue away from the drug cartels that are terrorizing the migrants in the first place.
Good luck enforcing your one child policy on citizens of another poor country with limited resources where large families are the only way to ensure survival.
@Jake Wagner
Last month on the front page is an article detailing the lowest birthrate in the US in more than 8 decades.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/19/us/census-population-growth.html
Trump,"I have the absolute right" Is he a French King? A Russian Czar? Who in their right mind speaks like this? Will he use this "emergency" to impose restrictions on the American people? We all know that he never wants to use moderate power he always wants to exercise complete, absolute power! America should be very afraid of this would be autocrat!
21
@John Libretti He thinks he's the Sun King, Louis XIV. But really he's Louis XVI, who ended up headless.
I think Democrats should welcome the opportunity for the president to set a precedent of bypassing Congress with declarations of emergency when none exists.
It just means that the next time a Democrat is president, they can just bypass a Republican Congress.
Pooof, and just like that, we'll never have the Obama problem every again.
8
Is he wearing campaign material at a public meeting. Isn't that illegal? Does that make him an illegal person?
27
How's this for a plan:
1 - declare make-weight emergency.
2 - Lose it in court -> injunction.
3 - Blame everyone else.
4 - Get thrown out of office before the first appeal is decided.
7
Interesting choice of props in front of the president in this picture. That about sums it up! America, in a nutshell.
17
The "Trump Effect" lead to inflated immigration numbers in 2017. Basically, people who planned on migrating to America across our southern border waited because of Trump's aggressive rhetoric during his campaign. Once things cooled down a bigger percentage than the year before surged over, thereby increasing the yearly percentage to wild number like up 233% -- numbers that Trump and his allies quote to stoke fear. But if you look at the big picture, take the Trump Effect out, immigration trends, both legal and illegal, are at a 20 year low. The massive number increases use to rationalize a national emergency are outliers, an anomaly. There is no crisis, no emergency.
Thank you, Socrates, for providing the link in an earlier comment. I'll re-post here because it's needs more attention. It is a sound rebuttal to Trump's propaganda, and explains the "Trump Effect."
https://www.migrationpolicy.org/news/crisis-border-not-numbers
8
“When during the campaign I would say, ‘Mexico is going to pay for it,’ obviously, I never said this, and I never meant they are going to write out a check,” Mr. Trump said.
The liar lies about his own lies — now that's what I call mendacity!
And don't we all wish we had a Mike Pence bobble-head to nod in agreement while photo-bombing every incoherent TV appearance? He has sold his eternal soul for a few years of reflected limelight.
20
@MCV207 Mike Pence hardly seems to be presidential material. But I think Nancy Pelosi can intimidate him fairly effectively.
It’s either an emergency or it isn’t. If it were truly an emergency Trump would have declared one long ago. Unfortunately his pride and poor negotiating skills mean that he’s unable to figure out a constitutionally legitimate way to save face. Here’s an opportunity for either party to ride to the rescue with a plan that’s equally or more beneficial than the wall and costs tax payers significantly less. Trump can take credit for the brilliant solution and, when 2020 rolls around, the rest of us will know who really deserves our vote.
5
If Mexico wants to pay to take care of all the migrants that amass on their side at the border crossings that an open border policy encourages rather than a wall that states the border is not, that's their business. They're paying for something one way or another.
2
In the end, Trump will prevail and America will be secure. Thank you.
4
@Southern Boy
CSA: From somone who proudly claims to be from a country that sought to defeat the United States. I question his motives.
1
@Southern Boy I doubt all those Texas Republican ranchers want to hand their land over to the Government.
It’s sad to see what Trump supporters voluntarily reduce themselves to in order to shill for him, for free, when Trump himself obviously thinks them of as marks and rubes. Pathetic, really.
1
Isn't this, with the Fox interview, more campaigning on the
taxpayers' dime?
(Also, the world has had enough of Trump and his wall).
There are other things going on that demand attention.
13
Here's a radical thought. Let Trump declare a national emergency and proceed to use DOD funds to the tune of $5.6. This is a drop in the bucket from DOD's bloated budget. Let him use military personnel to build his wall/fence whatever. If it is done in exchange for ending the shutdown.
1
@Bokmal Not enough. End the shutdown and Donald agrees to resign. If left in place, his cancerous effect on the country will reappear.
1
@Bokmal
Where was this ‘national emergency’ during the last two years while the Republics controlled both Houses of Congrease ?
If he does this action, which will be to falsely declare a national emergency, then he should be impeached immediately. Absolutely no waiting on this consequence of his actions, of his lack of good and solid and sound judgement. Forget the other high crimes and misdemeanors he will be found guilty of later on. These egregious behaviors would be profound enough to justify impeachment proceedings; and then, the criminal investigation on the state levels against him and his family and minions will not be impeded.
5
Any parent knows that when a toddler throws a tantrum if you give in they learn that tantrums are the way to get what they want.
11
Any good negotiator will tell you that the way forward has to include both sides being able to claim a "win."
The Dems should give him $10 Billion for "border security and comprehensive immigration reform" so long as it includes an expedited path to citizenship for dreamers, and a path for productive, working, "non-criminal" undocumented.
Claim a win, Don the Con will too, reopen government. Stop focusing on "the wall."
3
This administration coddles dictators that kill and torture their own people. This is nothing more than grabbing at low hanging fruit for his base because everything else is a complete failure.
If he really wanted to solve this problem he would look at what's going on in Central America, not embrace dictators, and change American foreign policy towards that region and affect real change.
Now, where's my great, affordable health care that's "SO EASY!" and "YOU'RE GONNA LOVE!"
4
Trump is happy that the wall issue isn't resolved. He's obviously using it for political purposes.
On his show Tuesday, Lawrence O'Donnell pointed out that Trump used his Oval Office announcement as a fundraiser for his reelection campaign. I don't think Trump's even going to run again (he's probably creating another slush fund).
He's a carnival barking, snake oil selling con man. He's selling out our country, the environment and our values to enrich himself.
12
Mr. Trump said: “If this doesn’t work out, probably I will do it. I would almost say definitely.”This is a direct quote from the leader of the United States of America. The leader of the free world. "Probably," "Almost," "almost say definitely." Wow what a great leader who might do something if something may need to be done, probably.
As Ted Knight (Judge Smails) said about Rodney Dangerfield (Al Czervik) in the movie Caddyshack, "The man's a menace!"
4
Trump is wearing a campaign hat while working? Isn't that illegal electioneering?
14
This is not a real emergency. This is a fake crisis. I do hope the SCOTUS has enough integrity to deny this fake president trying to declare a fake emergency just so he can bypass the rule of law.
8
The most unsurprising aspect of this visit is the one thing he did not do: he did not dare visit the hieleras (ice boxes) where he has warehoused children in cages with nothing but concrete floors and Mylar blankets to sleep on. Nor would he dare speak to the abused migrant women he used as another political prop to advance his odious and brainless course of action.
Is he bent on exposing families to abuse or death as some kind of perverse retribution for the horrors he is so fond of recounting with lurid details in his tiresome speeches? It appears so.
People who support Trump’s nationalist line of thought should pause to think about the consequences of their commitments. The canard that he cares about citizens before people is simply an excuse to dehumanize migrants or any people he feels oppose his agenda. Woe betide anyone who exercises their inalienable liberties under his rule.
7
During my US Army assignment in West Berlin I was surrounded by 2 walls...the wall dividing Berlin and the one enclosing East Germany. It was a horrible and inhumane situation. Some years after I left Berlin one Ronald Reagan implored Kruschev to "tear down this wall". After some time the walls were gone. Then Bibi Netanyahu decided to build a wall in Israel. And now Trump wants a "sea to shining sea" wall. What's wrong with these people?
4
An idiot president elected by idiots. You get what you get and you don't get upset, as they say to tantruming toddlers.
19
Sorry, but that is not true.
The Republicans played the electorate numbers game & Trump did not get the most votes even tho he got the prescribed number of electorate votes to win.
A similar thing happened with Al Gore vs W Bush & the election decision went to Supreme Court.
We should abolish the electorate system & just use the actual number of majority votes.
Democrats must stand firm on their refusal to give in to the president's extortion over his plan to turn America into a national gated community. He is displaying all the wisdom that, during the Cold War, produced the Berlin Wall.
Aside from the absurdities and lies upon which Trump's Great Wall of Mexico are based, we should all know by now what kind of enterprise the actual building of the wall would be. It would be the "Trump University" of public works projects: riddled with fraud; unaccounted-for diversions of funds; runaway costs way beyond the original estimates; contractors with murky connections to the Trump Organization and the president himself; and all of this overseen and mismanaged by vile criminal scum--which is to say, Republican officials.
Trump himself is far too personally-invested in the Great Wall of Mexico for it to be an honest, if demented, operation. Given Il Duce's known past and his ingenuity for corruption, we can expect the building of the wall to be a smorgasbord of criminality that, if ever actually finished, would earn itself incorporation into the National Park System under the name "Malfeasance National Monument"--a monument to the gullibility and idiocy of its supporters, lasting only until some enlightened, sensible citizenry and federal government of the future has the good sense to blow it up and tear it down, to restore our national honor and global reputation.
21
Many are concerned that TrumPutin will set up a situation ripe for the kind of horrible accident/mistake that he might then use to justify Instituting martial law, seizing all the power and causing all the destruction of real democracy that comes with it, and fulfilling the American nazis' (and Bannon's, Putin's, and Trumo's) wet dream of an autocratic America headed by a white-supremacist-leaning, misogynist pawn.
Democrats and all decent people, don't let this happen to our people and our beloved country. A wall is not worth the risk. And we cannot risk a wall (that can just as (or more) easily prevent people from fleeing the US as it can prevent people from fleeing into the US).
14
Hey Melania, for this border visit of your husband’s, what jacket will you be wearing today?
14
@Joanne
"Before giving them US citizenship, my husband demanded a dowry from my parents. If he knew math, he would have charged them interest."
1
Trump is trying to put a chastity belt around the United States, much like the USSR had its iron curtain. This effort to castrate our ties to the American Hemisphere goes counter to everything American. Did he ever hear of the Monroe Doctrine? Did he ever learn that our hemispheric partners went to war at our side in both the First and Second World War? Yes, border security is necessary. This absurd chastity belt is not.
9
Does no one see what he is really doing? He is creating a wall amongst the people - dividing them so if you are anti wall they hate you. He is shoring up his base for a fight . America will be divided . Same thing Hitler did . This is sinister and much bigger than a 5 billion wall. GOP -stop this madness! There is NO crisis at the border and you know that ! Fox News- you should be jailed for the amount of total lies you spew to the ignorants who don’t read and aren’t sharp . Yes I said that . It’s criminal. Focus on the real crisis - the people cannot pay their mortgages and will lose their houses thanks to gilded cafe Trump shutdown. We have no healthcare. We have 2 trillion more national debt thanks to this idiot . Generals are resigning ! He has a cabinet full of crooks. He’s made it impossible for refugees to legally get it forcing them to try illegally- thereby trying to manufacture a crisis. He is a destroyer ,, not a creator and is quickly killing democracy and sanity in the USA . This is far deeper than a wall. We need radical action to get him out and save America .
14
I think Donald J. Trump has some problems. He is way behind on political science, He speaks as though he knows something about the politics of 1980. But he needs to know the politics of 2017. Second, he seems to have speech problems in the brain. I can hear them when he speaks. Any neurologist or something with a Masters Degree would tell us what they are.
11
@Smoky Tiger
Right on, but he does have his own TV network and humble commentator Sean Hannity to tell everyone what they want to hear...likely trumps POTUS’ lack of political acumen.
1
A “National Emergency” could be avoided if Mitch allowed bipartisan bills to end the shutdown, bills already in the Senate with veto-proof majorities, to go to a vote.
50
If the president can alone do everything he wants, why bother having a House, a Senate, a judiciary...and a constitution?
38
@SKK
That's exactly the point, and the Bannonesque, Millerist, TrumPutinian goal.
Wait if the border is so dangerous, then why is Trump there. Based on the lengths he went to avoid Viet Nam, it’s clear that Cadet Bone Spurs has no appetite for danger.
28
I'd be happy to see Trump use emergency powers to finish the wall. Even if the need for the wall is not an emergency in everybody's eyes but his, only the 25th Amendment (impaired mental ability) could stop him from building it on the basis of national security. Here's a good idea: shave $6B off of our 2018 foreign aid (you could get most of that from one country) and give it to Mexico, then Trump could truthfully claim that Mexico paid to build it.
3
@Marty Rowland, Ph.D., P.E.
You'd think that a Ph.D., P.E. would know it will take much more than $6B to build the wall, let alone finish it.
The amount Trump is seeking is just downpayment or an early phase in a phased approach.
He's going to one of the safest sites on the border, to which I have no objection. Except for the exorbitant cost of trucking in bad hombre actors.
That Sean Hannity, living so large in the President's life seems unusual and troubling. After all, it seems like FOX News is his adviser and the only thing he listens to and acknowledges. FOX told him (I think) that Obama wiretapped Trump Tower and also that Mr. Obama was not born in the US. If it comes from FOX News, it must be true. Back then, it was still Fair and Balanced. I guess the President and Sean Hannity are having a bromance
9
Fox News has never really been fair and balanced, because Rupert Murdoch has never been balanced.
He will with great fanfare declare this a national emergency and voila he is off the hook with his base.
The legal challenges will grind on.
No wall built, but the great dealmaker will proclaim victory that was foiled by one of his archenemies, the courts.
6
Don't be so sure it will be foiled by the courts.
So if Trump gets $ for his wall by misusing the power of the presidency and declare a national emergency, then he can just about do anything and get away with it. Could this be the final nail in the coffin of our democracy.
11
@Robert Haberman
Not really. It just changes the rules. Since he doesn't follow the rules that mandate our democracy, neither must we. Give it some time and see how he likes it.
1
Not the final one, but may be the first one. (Or second one, considering trump's essential conspiring with, or at least soliciting and admitting to knowing about, the "rigging" of the election that led to his seat on the Oval Office.)
Such an abuse of emergency powers is just a test so that when he declares an emergency as more indictments come down including his family members and himself.
Is our system so fundamentally flawed that a rogue president can protect himself with his executive powers ? No matter how much harm he is causing and only to benefit himself?
Congress needs to act now on the real emergency of an unfit and out-of-control executive who owes his election to our enemies foreign and domestic.
DJT is not the state. We are the ones who need to be protect from him. That's the emergency.
7
The second paragraphs starts with an error. Their disagreement didn't shut down the government, Trump did. He said as much. Reporters shouldn't echo his lies.
33
Does he understand that the people voted for the House to be controlled by Democrats? Does he understand that he lost the popular vote in 2016 and that the majority of Americans oppose a wall?
Can the journalists who have access to this childish man please stress this to him explicitly to his face on camera?
16
I’m not sure that the majority oppose the wall. Any data on that?
@David Here ya go:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/08/politics/polls-trump-shutdown-wall/index.html
The majority of Americans opposed his presidency on Nov. 8th, 2016. That’s hard data.
Polling source on the wall: https://heavy.com/news/2019/01/majority-americans-against-wall-shutdown-poll/
Want more? I’m sure you know Google. If not, Google knows you.
This is getting very dangerous for our country. I implore our elected officials to do something about this lunatic that presently occupies the White House.
This will end in tears for everyone if it isn't handled on a unified front by reasonable people. When he is removed there will be tears but by a lot less people (his base) than an entire nation and it's closest allies.
We need some adults making decisions here. Soon.
10
Those of us that can see through and past the smoke and mirrors always realized that all the complaints Trump made were simply distractions and diversions. (He who protest too much). The "Crooked H"; "Lock Her Up" chants really could apply to him; the fact that he ignores cold, hard reality and actual facts gave rise to Fake News and Alternative facts (when talking about the Democrats) but those adjectives can just as easily describe him and his claims. Stats indicate there is no crisis and in fact, illegal crossings and crime have gone down but it was a campaign promise after all (and apparently it was just a memory device to ensure that President Trump remembered to expound about immigration) and so being a man of his word (!)....He is walking back facts about how it will be paid for and what he said. IN the digital age and the age of sound bytes, it is not possible to retract what you have said after the fact or claim it just didn't happen that way. So, then you say "I was misunderstood" or "I misspoke" because you want to have your cake and eat it too. Very frustrating, like dealing with a pre-schooler who will maintain everything YOU know is wrong.
4
I will probably maybe definitely do it.
Such an orator.
15
@chrisinroch
Yep, the Stable Genius always has the Best Words!
Unfortunately, they are Word Salad and nonSense.
Let's be clear. Trump shut down the government to get a wall built. He shut it down. No one else is to blame. It is a single issue shutdown. No wall, no work. He is not open to negotiation of any sort and his GOP lemmings line up right behind him. This is bad government. Really bad. Trump and his GOP have shown us how to destroy a government from the inside out. I'm so tired of all of it.
15
Mr. Trump said he has the legal authority to make the declaration. “This is a thing that the lawyers tell me is 100 percent,” Mr. Trump said.
A lawyer never guarantees a client 100 percent anything. There needs to be an investigation into who, either within the DOJ or privately, has been misleading Trump on this.
Everybody (except Mr. Trump and his anonymous legal advisor(s)) knows that the matter is highly controversial.
Everybody knows that the crisis is not of hordes of lawless foreigners breaking into the US but that processing them efficiently and legally is. Everybody knows Trump wants to neutralize the power of the House of Representatives because he is humiliated by the loss of support he received from the voters. The battle isn't about immigrants, it's about, from Trump's perspective, the invasion by Democrats into what was once his save gated Republican city. He's against allowing the House into Congress.
361
@Max & Max
I doubt he even consulted counsel. (no lawyer with any dignity or any concern about their bar approval would ever work for this guy.) Maybe he talked to Guliani ? (see earlier parenthetical)
He says that so he can blame somebody else when yet another great trump idea blows up in his face.
And it will
For a guy that really does nothing this train wreck of a guy is
e-x-h-a-u-s-t-i-n-g-
42
@Max & Max Trump is saying that his lawyers told him that he could do it. Trump will never say if he believes he himself can declare a national emergency so he can blame them if they are wrong.
This is Trump's modus operandi. Do something and reap the benefits personally if it works but use somebody else as an escape goat if it fails.
In other words, Trump never takes responsibility for his mistakes. And if he does make a mistake, he lies about it.
6
Oh come on. Trump has a great record with lawyers.
His lawyer is about to testify to congress to that effect, right before he heads back to jail.
11
No negotiations with hostage-takers. It's a standard practice with law enforcement, and the Democrats are correct in taking that position. The have passed bills that separate opening the government from funding border security. That McConnell won't call the bills, and Trump won't sign them clearly is a GOP problem.
In a Democracy, you do the doable, achieve consensus, and get the necessary votes to pass a signable bill. The GOP has been practicing autocracy, much to the detriment of both America and Democracy. When you elect people to government whose intent is to disrupt government, you get a government shutdown.
54
@PJM Seems to me that the GOP has been anti-government since the days of their Saint Ronnie (Reagan).
For For two years Trump had a Republican majority in the house and senate but he couldn't get the funding for his wall. Now that the Democrats have taken control of the house, he has decided to take a hostage (the American people) and is now using the tactic of extortion in an effort to try to get his way.
64
I wonder if trump will look at the existing fencing and border security and see that a wall is not needed and decide to re-open the government. In your dreams.
5
The "wall" a.k.a. fence thingie was not such a national emergency when Trump turned down funding for it last year. Indeed, if this barrier were really so vital to national security why did the GOP prioritize their 1.1 trillion tax cuts for millionaires instead? Even now, why aren't the Republicans actively negotiating for it; what are they willing to trade for something they tell their constituents is so vital? The answer, of course, is nothing. It's far easier to hold our government hostage than publicly admit that even they don't want to fund Trump's silly vanity project. Sadly, there are real human lives and livelihoods at stake. We Americans can't afford constant government shutdowns, and that's exactly what we'll get if Trump and the GOP's blatant extortion is rewarded.
31
"I would almost say definitely". That's a statement from the President of the United States. He must be removed; the damage is going to be irrevocable.
28
I am a bit surprised that the Times seems to cast the shutdown as the Democrats refusing to support $5 billion for Trump’s wall. Technically that’s true. Bit have we already forgotten that the majority-Republican Congress in 2018 also refused him on the wall, particularly in its waning days? Sounds to me like opposition to the Wall was and is rather bipartisan. The votes for the wall weren’t there for the Republicans when they ran the show. And they’re still not there with the Dems now at the helm. And after agreeing to sign a temporary bipartisan bill to keep the government open and continue negotiations on the subject for two months, Trump got some heat from his cabinet-in-fact, Faux and Friends, and flip-flopped.
Point 2: What is the full price of Trump’s Wall? I was under the impression that the $5 billion at issue now was just a down payment on a wall expected to cost $30 billion-plus. Am I having another senior moment? Or did Col. Bone Spurs get us a huge discount? Of course it’s a ridiculous project whatever the cost.
20
Great power is best used with great delicacy. It soon dulls of over-use.
6
Let's go past the wall issue to the strongman dictator issue. Trump has zero respect for and understanding of the constitutional balance of powers.
He's heading towards using state of emergency declaration to give himself royal powers to bypass Congress and the courts.
He views the government as his private kingdom that he can do with as he pleases.
His loyalties are to the Trump Organization, the Koch brothers and other elite forces of darkness in the oligarch class.
Impeachment, not the wall, should be the main topic we discuss.
Trump is an existential threat to our democracy. As long as he is president, we are in grave danger.
21
We are all being held ostage to the paranoid whims of the birther crowd, which doesn't seem to know that Trump already has received money for his beloved wall, that two bills were put forth that he rejected, that undocumented people are NOT the cause of birthers' or anyone's problems, despite right wing shock jocks' hourly squawking as such.
Imagine if President Obama declared the lack of health insurance a national emergency - which it is - and decided on his own to spend the funds. IMAGINE the outcry by the right wing.
Good grief. Good GRIEF. Compromise and the Constitution is for everyone except birthers, apparently.
On my way to read anything and everything written by that most prescient of authors, Sinclair Lewis.
13
I'm not a historian, but I would call Trump declaring a national emergency to get at the money to build a wall the beginning point for the end of our democracy.
22
Haven't financial planners (in interviews and columns in the NYT, among other media) been telling us for years to have several months' worth of our paychecks stashed away in the bank to cover financial emergencies? Prudent advice, right? It seems that 800,000 Federal workers (and probably more to come) are facing just such an emergency. And yet we are told that they are all living paycheck-to-paycheck. Is this really true? If it is, the precariousness is truly frightening.
5
@ Susan: Let me give you a few words from the “paycheck to paycheck” crowd down here in the trenches: it’s pretty hard to save for a rainy day when almost EVERY day is a rainy day. Just last week, I set aside $200 for emergencies, thinking I was finally getting some savings going for the aforesaid “rainy day”. Last Friday one of my front teeth, without warning, broke off, necessitating emergency dental care. It came to just under $250 to fix it, and that was with insurance. See what I mean? Please try to understand that we are not just throwing money at our every whim out here. It’s always something, every time.
1
@Susan Black The vast majority of federal workers earn less than 60K (pay scales are all a matter of public record). As anyone who has an emergency fund knows, that money is supposed to cover, well, emergencies: unexpected but vital home repairs, sick pets, plane fare to see a dying parent, etc. Using your emergency fund to pay ordinary living expenses and bills diminishes/exhausts that cash, making a person of ordinary means much less able to deal with personal crises. Moreover, it takes years to build such a fund, effectively garnishing wages long past the shutdown. Born-rich selfish brats like Trump would never understand this basic economic reality.
Do you have kids? Terrible health insurance? If you have either one then it doesn't matter how much money you have for emergencies. It's never enough. @Susan Black
1
Would someone ask Mr. Trump how Mexico is going to pay for the Wall indirectly? Will there be an import duty on all goods from Mexico that will be collected from the the Mexican government before the goods cross the border? Will there be an export duty imposed on all goods exported to Mexico that will be collected from the Mexican government before the goods cross the border? Will all the proceeds then be given to the US Treasury for deposit in the Wall Fund? Does Mr. Trump have any idea of what he is talking about when he discusses foreign trade issues and what balance of trade means?
10
It is time for a General Strike!
It is time for all citizens to stand together, bring this country to a stand still and demand that this government work for the 65% of us who are not being represented.
20
@Jack
Friends of mine in France and elsewhere always ask me, "Why are Americans so afraid to go out in the streets and shut down the halls of power?"
Not since the MLK, Vietnam War and 1968 Democratic National Convention have we seen the kind of yellow jacket no-compromise, willing to get your head busted open by a police baton spirit of defiance that we need if we're going to take our country back from the despots who rule us.
Voting just isn't enough anymore.
4
@Steve Davies I've wondered why along with your French friends. it takes months of organizing and outreach to get a crowd of even 10,000 to show up in Washington. I've wondered what 's wrong with us for years.
1
@Jack
"It is time for a General Strike!"
No, this is time for Corporal Punishment. Time to drag this obscene disgrace out to the woodshed for a thrashing.
1
Only Trump would think of declaring a national emergency to get funding for his wall. Why not rip up the Constitution and declare martial law? Why not shut down the Congress and declare himself to be king?
The fact that Trump would even THINK of this is proof that he is unfit for the presidency, or for any office. The fact that Republicans continue to support is proof that they have no loyalty to the nation.
This alone should inform voters in 2020.
17
We do have a state of emergency in this country. But it has nothing to do with the border. Instead it exists in the Oval Office. The sooner we impeach Trump the better.
14
Who will it be?
Who will be the one?
Who will step forward?
Who from DJT’s inner circle will be the first to initiate the discussion and step forward and confront him letting him know the 25th amendment will be invoked if he continues with his irrational behavior.
Will it be pence, mcconnell, ivanka, don jr.?
We are nearing that point.
There is a US commander and chief who is holding the federal government hostage based on a crisis that does not exist.
It just doesn’t.
He is not acting rationally. Forget any “policy” differences.
This is not the talk or actions of a sane person.
Someone had to say it....
10
All of the people you named already have criminal exposure...none will step forward. Rotten all to the core.
Wasted of fuel. Creating a greater carbon footprint.
5
Declaration of an National Emergency to keep a campaign promise is total nonsense, what he is demanding is the right to suspend the Constitution.
Every time a constitution is suspended when there is no invasion and barbarians fighting in the streets the end result is always the same, a dictatorship.
National Emergency is the code word for placing the Executive above the law and a declaration of the end of our democratic form of government or what remains of it after the GOP has ravaged it with voter supresion.
The question is whether the GOP Senate will declare themselves as part of the conspiracy to change our form of government and become the internal enemy to join the foreign enemy which is already in control of the president which has a plan using Trump, to make America into a Russian style oligarchy where we have both a kleptocracy and a kakistocracy which is government by the worst people. Mr. Mueller please incorporate your report in an indictment and make it a public record.
12
Can't wait for Trump to set this precedent so the next Democratic president in 2021 can also declare a state of emergency over climate change and seize land used for oil and gas drilling. I'll gladly trade a wall state of emergency now for a climate change state of emergency in 2 years.
14
I am a resident of McAllen. People here are sick of Trump and his wall nonsense, particularly as there are proposals to build walls, roads, and lighting through our (important and beautiful) wildlife refuges, in or near the river (where flooding will be worsened and animal migration will be impacted), and on homeowners' properties. Our cordial, historic relationships with border communities and with nature tourists are also threatened.
We do not see any evidence of a migrant influx here, and we resent the kidnapping and imprisonment of migrant children.
81
@jabber
This should be a NYT pick! Great comment from someone in the region.
8
@jabber
As your neighbor down the road, I agree with everything you say right up until you say you see no evidence of a migrant influx. Come to Harlingen and visit my children's public schools, crammed to the gills, or the emergency room at the hospital where I have also been multiple times with my kids. Our social and healthcare services are strained beyond belief. Do I think a wall will fix this problem, no. I don't see any real proposals coming from anyone about how to deal with this from either side. I am sick of the nonsense from everyone involved.
@jabber
Also, McAllen and other c mmunities near the border have historically hosted many "snowbirds" from the north , who stay the winter months and contribute to the local economies.
How are Trump's wall demands and threats impacting winter long-stay tourism? Inquiring minds in the north want to know.
I , and many people I know, are staying in Cold White Canada this winter, where it seems safer and saner.
1
Yes indeed there is a palpable State of Emergency embodied in the single most serious threat to our national security: DONALD J. TRUMP
14
It is time to remove Donald Trump from office. He has proven to be incompetent, delusional, uninformed, unable to be informed, disinterested, and ill suited to lead the greatest nation on earth. The Trump Party should move to support impeachment efforts by the House and the Trumpers in the Senate should vote to convict.
Time to get the United States on track again. Time now to truly make America Great Again.
Donald if you really want to make America Great Again: RESIGN
15
"Ain't" nuthin like a perpetual coward:
Had the world's attention on Tuesday; punk'ed out. Now the non-chart-climbing "I Can If I wanna; Really I Can..."
We all need to be focused on Mitch McConnell's refusal to bring any bill to the floor. Trump is no longer relevant; McConnell is the culprit. Let the media-spotlight focus on him.
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So if he does decide to forge ahead with the "national emergency" line of thinking, does anyone think that the this would be enough to "flip" some Republican congressmen and senators? Even they, in their willful ignorance, could see that its a sham.
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At this point, I don't see much downside in Trump declaring a national emergency. I mean, it's of course idiotic and perhaps illegal, but the shutdown will end. Then there will be legal challenges that very well could prevent much new construction. (And it's not like very much construction has taken place over the past 2 years with the money already available.) So, by 2020, my guess is that Trump's "emergency" will not have produced much on the ground. On top of that, Trump and the GOP going this route will only reinforce how foolish they are. I mean, why shutdown the government for 3-4 weeks only to declare a national emergency?
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There is no crisis here on the border. Trump is on to create one.
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This will be the end of this presidency.
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Anyone else feels like they are watching a weird version of Wag the Dog?
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I can only hope that Giuliani is right in saying the Mueller report will be "horrific" to this horrible imbecile in the White House and he will be forced to resign from office. Holding almost a million federal workers hostage while he tries to force American taxpayers to fund the "wall" he swore Mexico was going to pay for is shameful. Indeed everyone that voted for this transparent hustler should be ashamed.
I do however agree with his assessment that there is a 'humanitarian crisis' at our southern border- one that he created. A good start in remedying that would be for Americans from both sides of the aisle to admit that the plan to separate babies from their mothers and fathers is evil and sacrilegious.
Don't forget the children, don't forget Jamal Khashoggi, and don't forget that Russia attacked our sovereignty and hasn't been held accountable.
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Other points to consider- Many many Americans live in Mexico and Trump is putting them in danger. Other nations would be wise to cuddle up to mexico and fill the void of friendship. Imagine Russian missile silo's along the border.
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When will the Republicans realize that in supporting the eight year old having a temper tantrum in the White House, they are allowing a dictatorship to gain momentum. My apologies for insulting eight years olds in general.
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How many days has it been since Trump played golf ? Has he played during the shutdown ? His inability to escape to the inks is probably bugging him as much as anything else.
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The wall should come down in Jan 2021 if it is built by then. Thus, the Trump disgrace will be wiped out.
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Trump, a petty, little man.
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It's not an emergency when you don't get your own way
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@Bbrown When you're a spoiled brat used to getting your own way it feels like an emergency when you don't.
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Makes one wonder if trump is getting kickbacks from the companies contracted to build the wall!
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@Michael
Makes one wonder?
Just fell off a turnip truck, did you??
LOL
My concerns are there’s:
Trump does not care at all about the health of our nation, our government or our people. He only cares about himself, and he will do whatever he feels like at any moment.
Mitch M also only cares about his power. So many examples of that over the years.
Trump, on top of that, is not mentally stable.
This will not end well.
I want my leaders, when in a tough spot, to err on the side of humanity. I no longer can even see which option that is. Long-term vs short-term solution impasses are not good by themselves. We need both. How do we get both in this situation? I really do not see a positive way out. Therefore, Trump will succeed. Because he simply does not care what happens. That is the bottom line. He does not care.
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@Diane Taylor: If Trump must die, so must we all, with him. Some folks will not accept that their own deaths are just the high cost of living. Trump will do one better than the Chinese Emperor who took his soldiers with him as pottery.
I can only dream that trump reads the comments section.
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@RST He would just say it was a NYT paid group of professional anti-trump commenters. He's a tool that way.
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He can barely read a prompter after a hit of Adderall.
Give him nothing.
He can declare a state of dementia for all I care.
Note: He can't even build Keystone Pipeline because the courts shut that down...he has zero chance of end running the congress to build his wall.
Once the government is opened....the courts will stop his fake state of emergency. Problem solved.
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@strangerq "Once the government is opened....the courts will stop his fake state of emergency. " Thus giving Trump his only face-saving way out, a victory of sorts.
America’s Electric Grid has been attacked 24/7 by Russian Intel since his election, and massive data exfiltration by both Russia and China goes on unabated, everyday on his watch.
Meanwhile, what Trump wants is a $70 Billion (estimated) for barrel boondoggle wall against migrants who enter via US ports of entry.
WHY? To unify and deflect his cult followers from the myriad legal problems he faces which include Russian espionage, foreign emoluments, and 100 illegal contacts with Russia SVR / FSB / GRU by him and his team members.
The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency has satellite sensing technologies that can pick up a quarter dollar from space and read the year on the coin. Those capabilities are used throughout the world to watch military movements. A word from the executive and those satellites could be instantly re-applied. They are already extant, and far better than any wall Team Trump could ever devise. Best of all, their reapplication would cost us absolutely ZERO.
Not too far back, Trump wanted to pull our 14K men out of Afghanistan, while wanting to put another 15K men at the Mexican border. That is a complete misapplication of US military resources, and I'm sure our nation's enemies are laughing up their sleeves at the state of chaos caused by this man.
The French Maginot line failure and Hitler's subsequent Atlantic and Siegfried wall failures caused Patton to say:
"Fixed fortifications are a monument to man's stupidity."
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@Eisenhower Dwight D.: Maybe these things cannot be explained to Trump because he couldn't qualify for an ordinary security clearance.
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As a practicing cat, I'd like to object to the photo accompanying this article. We do not build useless walls. Thank mew.
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I hope that the Trump does declare a national emergency, leading to a knock-down, drag-out legal battle over an idea that was completely idiotic from the start.
That may be the only way we will learn whether it is actually possible to stop this lunatic.
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Arizona should pay for its wall.
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Why did he lie?
That's easy.
Because if old man trump had said;
"I'm gonna build a Great Wall along our southern border!!! And, through some accounting tricks that are way too complicated (because they are a lie) for you southerners and midwesterners to grasp what with your limited education, but I love the poorly educated, and hayseed lifestyles, I will eventually get Mexico to pay for it even though they steadfastly refuse to cough up a pesos" doesn't play as well with trump's confederate and heartland twits.
See...trump had to lie about Mexico funding the wall.
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Psychopath Tomorrow Magazine exclusive:
The text of the national security emergency speak by Psycho 1.
This emergency declaration is the next chapter in America's longest war.
No it is not the Obama/Hillary AfghaniNam war.
No it is the next step in the Reagan War on Drugs.
Ignoring the basic cause: prescription opioids like Oxycontin,
we must stem the follow of Mexican grown heroin.
Ignoring Aghanistan.
We must stem the flow of Mexican fentynal, brought in by dune buggies making a left turn at the end of barriers.
We must ignore the cars and trucks that bring the drugs in or the ships used to bring the stuff into the Motherland.
We must stem the flow of methamphetamine backpacked through the gaps in the wall.
Ignore those proto-types in San Diego. Those are Obama designs.
I never meant that Mexico would right us a check for the wall. How Mexico will pay will be explained by Professor Rube Goldberg of Godot Economics any day now.
We have met our rendezvous with Destiny. I knew nothing of the payments to her. Ask my lawyer.
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P. Trump thinks he brings a new dimension to governing. Actually, due to his inadequate formal education and specifically his poor spelling, what he has unleashed is a new dementia.
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Hey Bone Spurs, how exactly is Mexico going to indirectly pay for your “beautiful wall “?
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Get rid of this lunatic now!
The House should start impeaching proceedings today both for him and his stooge of a sidekick Pence.
Enough is enough. Mueller will never finish his Kafksesque inquiry and report.
Isn’t it obvious this man is insane first and foremost? Who cares about anything else, second or third order in comparison.
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The Mad King.....with his little dog, Pence in tow, going for a photo op.
God forbid the Fool Of The White House sit down and negotiate (and no, that doesn't mean he gets his wall at the expense of all else). He does not know how to "deal" regardless of what his ghost written book says.
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We should have build the wall at the time of the Zimmerman telegram.
1
The man negotiating with Kim over nuclear capabilities said ...
“If this doesn’t work out, probably I will do it. I would almost say definitely.”
Say what?
How do you translate this gibberish from English to any another language?
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Can we call Trump the "Liar-in-Chief" since he seems to know how to lie and obfuscate more than he knows how to command and lead.
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Many past presidents woke early and studied the issues of the day. They read the national press, briefings, memos from various Cabinet members and tried to make responsible decisions. Heck, Teddy Roosevelt read history books about France in French! Eisenhower read reports about the war in Korea...I'm sure the elder Bush and Obama did lots of early morning readings too, America's C in C, ie Clown in Chief gets up, watches Fox n Fiends and is cemented in the notion that he has all the answers and the only one who is right in the room. The shallowest president ever...as Trump says, believe me! There is a word for people who hold other people and government hostage...Can you say terrorist?
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Where is Mitch McCoward to intervene and impeach this president gone crazy?
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Mitch can intervene immediately by bringing back to the Senate the funding bill unanimously passed already but not signed by Trump. Pass it again, and then again over his veto. Mitch, being in the Senate, cannot initiate any impeachment proceedings. McConnell is every bit as responsible for this fiasco as Trump (but maybe fiasco is not a strong enough word - how about "a travesty of a mockery of a sham" a la Woody Allen).
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Anyone can make or buy a rope ladder and throw it over the wall. Is it an electrified wall? That's all that could possibly work. However, let's remember the Berlin Wall. People have also dug out tunnels underground going to LA. The current wall that I saw being built didn't seem like enough of a deterrent. While a wall seems like it could help, a ton of better ideas should be contemplated. Maybe: greater legal penalties, immediate deportation, billing Mexico for all costs associated with illegal immigrants, greater penalties to hosts and employers harboring illegal immigrants, and also deporting families vs. separating children from parents, etc. Maybe birthplace should also not be the sole criteria for citizenship if the parents are illegal immigrants. Babies should stay with their parents (unless evidence of something illegal), and they can all return to Mexico together. Just some ideas.
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Mc Connell is quite happy with the situation as it is. His GOP controlled Senate had no intention of having their agenda squashed when the House became Dem controlled. Just as he vowed to thwart Obama at every turn, he has concluded that he will keep this from the floor, and push Trump to an emergency declaration. Expect these whimsical declarations as a way of neutering the Democratic Congress. McConnell has systematically perverted the Senate, Judiciary, Presidency, and now Congress. The damage he has wrought is incalculable.
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What a sad state our nation is in. American citizens deserve so much better than this sickening individual and his psychotic abuse of his office and our laws.
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Captain Twittler had a deal with his political party, they left for the night happy and the next morning they found out he changed his mind. A little reminder they offered money for border security no wall. To me his word is useless and can not be trusted for even nano second. He has not keep any campaign promises, Mexico not paying for the wall, Carrier closed & moved to Mexico, maybe 500 coal jobs, tax cuts for very wealthy, negotiating better trade deals to name a few. He spoke the other night about the humanitarian crisis and it is ironic he caused it.
I'm am truly appalled by elected Republicans and at a loss for words. I hope we survive to see 2020 so the left outs and unpaid workers will vote him and his party out. I just can't fathom why they pander to man who does not keep his word, appears to the outside world as an idiot who can't be trusted, when visiting outside the U.S. he does not participate with the group (such as going to the gravesite in France for our soldiers that gave the ultimate sacrifice, just walking off the world stay because ???) and has put our citizens in dire financial condition all while saying he knows what that feels like. I guess Fred's rescuing repeatedly was a dream. Here in NJ he bankrupted the casinos he paid himself and his family large salaries and left nothing for the workers and his trades that built them. In his alternative mind there is nothing, no shame, no ethics, no remorse, no kindness, no compassion just lies.
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Ah. Looks like Go Fund Me pages are already up for government employees. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/10/government-shutdown-gofundme-employee-assistance-trump
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Morning Joe Today! 1/10/2019
Start at "3:20" and watch Donny Duetsch ask Sen. Coons what the Democrat response will be if Trump plays the national emergency card.. Coons doesn't have an answer ..
This is bad. The Democrats in the last 24 hours have handed Trump a political win because of their ineptitude.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kODNT9sG_80
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NYT It's time to get Trump out of the headlines and hammer the Senate. They can end this.
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In the movie version, the President is caught in a rainstorm with illegal immigrants, and finds a common humanity.
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