Congressional Dems in Disarray on Trump National Emergency Declaration and Green New Deal
Two defeats in both chambers.
Democrats on Capital Hill faced two major defeats on Tuesday.
House Democrats couldn’t pull in enough votes to override President Donald Trump’s national emergency. The Senate Democrats threw a hissy fit by voting present instead of yes on the Green New Deal to protest the fact that Republicans brought the bill to the floor.
National Emergency Remains
The Democrats have the majority in the House, but they failed to convince enough Republicans to their side in order to override Trump’s national emergency. They needed two-thirds in order to accomplish an override.
It’s not really a shock since the resolution to block Trump’s national emergency only passed with 245 votes, which is about 45 votes short of the two-thirds threshold.
From The Wall Street Journal:
“We have the power of the purse and that prerogative has been invaded by Donald Trump, ” House Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.) told reporters Tuesday. “Everyone that cares about the U.S. Constitution, as many of my Republican colleagues profess to do, should be alarmed at this presidential overreach.”
Republicans backing Mr. Trump said before the vote that it should mark the end of the fight and enable lawmakers to move beyond the bruising debate over the border wall.
“I’m hoping that when it falls way short that we can move on and get the border secured,” said Rep. Mark Walker of North Carolina, a member of House GOP leadership. “There is critical evidence to show why this is a national emergency.”
Republicans voting YES:
Amash-MI
Fitzpatrick-PA
Gallagher-WI
Herrera Beutler-WA
Hurd-TX
Johnson-SD
Katko-NY
Massie-KY
McMorris Rodgers-WA
Rooney-FL
Sensenbrenner-WI
Stefanik-NY
Upton-MI
Walden-OR(CSPAN) https://t.co/2Zd13DHSaT
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) March 26, 2019
The Pentagon announced late Monday night that officials authorized $1 billion to begin border wall construction. Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan stated “that the funds will be used to support the Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Patrol.” He notified Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen that his department “had the authority to support counter-narcotics activities near international boundaries.”
I noted this morning that the Democrats can scream all they want, but Trump is well within his power to do this by using a “specific statutory authority that congress created for the president” in the National Emergencies Act. Trump’s declaration stated “that it is necessary to increase the use of military forces at the border and to invoke the emergency military construction authority in 10 U.S.C. § 2808, which will provide funding for the construction of border walls.”
This gives the Defense Department the ability to move around funds, even if those funds did not get allocated for a border wall.
Green New Deal
Well, if you don’t want your bill to go to the floor, maybe don’t draft one? The Senate Democrats could not believe that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had the nerve to bring Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s massive Green New Deal to the floor!
But I thought the bill was cutting edge? You know, eliminate the fossil fuels and cow farts while rebuilding all the infrastructure in America!
I guess not since the Democrats all voted “present” even though many support the bill. From The Washington Examiner:
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said he brought up the measure for a vote in order to get Senate Democrats to publicly indicate where they stand on the resolution, which he labeled “a radical, top-down, socialist makeover of the entire U.S. economy.”
Republicans have seized on the resolution as 2020 talking point on the Democratic agenda.
In a closed-door meeting with Senate Republicans Tuesday, President Trump urged Republicans to keep the Green New Deal a focus because he believes it will help the GOP in the 2020 elections.
The measure has the backing of the half-dozen Senate Democrats running for president.
McConnell has described the plan as “a radical, top-down, socialist makeover of the entire U.S. economy.” The American Enterprise Institute estimated the “Green New Deal would cost the economy nearly $9 trillion a year, while doing little to meet United Nations climate targets.”
Mike Lee had fun with it:
WATCH: Sen. Mike Lee uses Reagan, a machine gun, and a velociraptor to argue against @AOC‘s Green New Deal https://t.co/q30t3Johaq pic.twitter.com/hluEacyvNE
— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) March 26, 2019
Ocasio-Cortez didn’t appreciate it.
Like many other women + working people, I occasionally suffer from impostor syndrome: those small moments, especially on hard days, where you wonder if the haters are right.
But then they do things like this to clear it right up.
If this guy can be Senator, you can do anything. https://t.co/vU4ChbTnnr
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 26, 2019
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Comments
Ummm, Alexandria? Are you even aware that Mike Lee is one of the smartest men in Washington? Did you know he knows more about our nation’s history and Constitution than …
Never mind. You tried to belittle him and just made yourself look small in the process.
Here’s another benny she’s gotten.
For which she has no appreciation.
Most bills die in committee. Especially bills written by freshman reps (more accurately written by so-called think tanks and intensively special interests). And even if a bill gets through committee/s, it typically bears little resemblance to the initial draft.
Here, she got her full un-amended bill to be voted on by the full Senate.
And yet she gripes.
This was a resolution, which is a weaker action than a bill, which could become law. But, both can be voted on by Congress.
If you don’t want a vote, then write a policy statement which can be discussed, and agreed-upon portions can then be expanded to a bill.
I thought it was written by first graders… in crayon
Green crayon.
Your joke hits close to home. We in intel have a joke about “My Three Days With The SEALs.’ Normally it involves combat. Which you can dismiss as BS as no SEAL is going to invite the intel guy to go into combat with him.
Mine involves getting kicked out of the Kadena AFB O club because Gino and his friend were popcorn at an Air Force coronel.
Now, at this point your common sense has to kick in. Would a SEAL invite me on a combat mission?
Would a SEAL just off of a Cobra Gold exercise that might have turned hot throw popcorn at a USAF coroenell?
I went for a walk, telling my newfound buds that what they were about to do might look colorful on their records it would kill mine.
Later we hooked up back at the O-6 suite (I couldn’t get my own room so I was sleeping on their couch) and Gino one of the platoon leaders gave me a black eye while we were trying to make rice.
And I never complained about it.
Point being that I sometimes joke that my only interaction with the SEALs is was handing them construction paper and crayons aboard Dubuque and Belleau Wood so they could do their mission planning.
That is not true.
That was the ANGLICO Marines.
No, wait, that’s not it. I’d never lead them astray. I wonder where does this Brennan, Clapper, et al, talk come from? No, I don’t. It’s an honorable life when lived right. But the court toadies snd throne sniffers will get promoted ahead of you.
This is not bitterness. You can always get out and, say, open a restaurant. Which is what I chose to do.
GND: The final vote was 0-57.
It’s called Capitol Hill, not Capital Hill.
And should spelling ever be mastered, perhaps the author could work on grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure?
And when English teachers embrace starting sentences with ‘And’ we will be at one with the Universe.
Eye half run these sent ants threw a spell checkered hand their ore know heir ores hear.
Funny
Cognitive dissonance in the Dem party: They have an obvious emergency that they refuse to allocate a single dollar to, and an obvious fraud that they’re willing to plow ten years of GDP into.
Republicans have seized on the resolution as 2020 talking point on the Democratic agenda.
“Seized”?
I prefer to see them “pounce”.
Can they not do both? Pounce and THEN sieze?
Green New Deal? Not Presently.
“Greedy New Deal”
So, Democrats are against civil rights and for a Gray New Deal. The first justified by anti-nativism, rabid diversity, and planned parenthood, and the latter justified by hypotheses (e.g. models), political myths, and scientific prophecy. Green drivers and nonrenewable, environmentally disruptive, ecologically harmful technologies to produce intermittent energy for niche applications. Progress.
If this guy can be Senator, you can do anything.
And if A. Psycho-Chick can be a Representative . . .
Oh, it’s too easy. With AOC, the damn jokes practically write themselves.
They might as well bent Cortez over and paddled her 🙂
“We have the power of the purse and that prerogative has been invaded by Donald Trump, ” House Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.) told reporters Tuesday. “Everyone that cares about the U.S. Constitution, as many of my Republican colleagues profess to do, should be alarmed at this presidential overreach.”
Um, congressman, you guys wrote (and passed) the legislation that passed some of that prerogative to the executive, just as you guys wrote and passed legislation that allows unelected bureaucrats to write regulations with the force of law without having to consult congress. If you want to hold your constitutional duties to yourself exclusively, mayhaps you shouldn’t write laws that say the contrary?
At least the Emergency Powers reallocation is somewhat limited, the possible change in spending is effectively less than 1% of the budget, whereas regulatory “laws” seem to have no boundaries to them.
The Republican voting yes are zombie Demoncrats (a.k.a., RINOs).
you kind of hit on why Pres Trump is so disliked by the Political elite, he never held a political office till now, he is not beholding to any political cronies or even the parties for where he is, so for the Political and Bureaucratic class he is the enemy
New green motto: Saving the earth, one cow fart at a time.
No irony at all in this pathological narccissist-twit’s statement, right?
Occasional-Cortex should take a gander in the mirror. “If this vapid, ne’er-do-well, self-reverential egomaniac-bartender-demagogue can become a Congresswoman, you can do anything.”
Also, Occasional-Cortex considers herself a “working person?” She is in government because she couldn’t obtain a six-figure salary and a lifetime sinecure in the private sector, either because she is lazy, unambitious, lacks merit, doesn’t want to work hard, or, a combination thereof.
Donkey Chompers is too stupid to know when she’s being viciously mocked. #Sad
Perhaps there has not been a moment of her life where she hasn’t been viciously mocked and therefore doesn’t know the difference. She just might be the female Chauncey Gardiner. Has she delivered any metaphors in the form of coffee drinks?
I’m all in favor of pulling our troops out of Germany and using the funds for domestic security. No extra cost and national security to boot!
AOC, rather than fearing the Imposter Syndrome, give into it. Because, after all, you ARE an imposter.
Didn’t Mike Lee vote to override Trump’s emergency declaration?
Democrats are a joke. They keep debasing themselves further and further. Who, but a mentally il freak would want to identify with them anymore?
Last month, Alexandria Ocrazyo-Cortez bought herself an AM radio. It took her a week to find that she could use it at night, too!