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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSenator Jack Reed just released statement on Trump declaring a national emergency to build wall
/04/2019
WASHINGTON, DC - Today, U.S. Senator Jack Reed (D-RI), Ranking Member of the Armed Services Committee, issued the following statement after President Trump threatened to use emergency powers to try to use U.S. Department of Defense funds and military personnel to build a border wall along the Southwest border:
The idea that President Trump is considering declaring a phony national emergency as a pretext to take billions of dollars away from our troops and defense priorities in order to pay for his wall should alarm all Americans.
Declaring a trumped up national emergency in order to skirt Congressional approval is wrong. And our troops and taxpayers should not bear the burden of a broken, preposterous campaign promise.
Defense spending is for national defense, not the Trump campaigns political wish list. I will work with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to block any attempt to take money that has been dedicated for our troops and redirect it to construction of a wasteful, ineffective wall.
President Trump had an all-Republican Congress for the last two years and they didnt enact his wall. Now, suddenly, he wants the Pentagon to foot the bill. Absolutely not.
Using 10 U.S.C. 2808 or 284 is not appropriate. 2808 specifies that even if the president declares a national emergency, any military construction project must be necessary to support such use of the armed forces. We are not at war with Mexico, and the proposed border wall has no core DOD function. Indeed, the Pentagons most recent National Defense Strategy doesnt mention the southern border as a national defense priority.
President Trumps midterm troop deployment stunt will cost DOD and taxpayers an estimated $132 million and counting. That money could have been better spent on actual border security rather than on campaign season border security theater.
The Pentagon has billions of dollars in infrastructure backlogs, ranging from military construction projects for new missions to deferred maintenance in facilities sustainment, restoration, and modernization. There is no credible argument that a border wall takes priority over any of these. Moreover, if President Trump attempted to use 2808, that would require DOD to cancel MILCON projects that have already been authorized and appropriated by Congress in order to try and redirect the funds to a border wall. So which MILCON projects -- which DOD already deemed its highest priorities -- will the Trump Administration now try to terminate or delay in order to fund the wall? I urge President Trump to share his proposed list with Congress and the American people.
The President needs to understand that there is bipartisan opposition to misusing defense dollars or treating the Pentagon like a campaign piggy bank.
Congress must work together to provide our troops with a budget and policies to match their extraordinary courage and sacrifice, and I urge President Trump to do the same.
https://www.reed.senate.gov/news/releases/reed-opposes-trump-administrations-plan-to-declare-national-emergency-and-use-defense-dollars-to-pay-for-wall
malaise
(268,885 posts)This is serious shit
pangaia
(24,324 posts)The next step to a totalitarian dictatorship.
I saw this while on the Eliptical at the gym. I damn near fell off.
I can't spell elyptacile
malaise
(268,885 posts)This lunatic has to be stopped and every treasonous enabler must be locked up
populistdriven
(5,644 posts)But what's the proof?
pangaia
(24,324 posts)populistdriven
(5,644 posts)Kitchari
(2,166 posts)perfection
maddiemom
(5,106 posts)in Trump's mind. Also they're mostly turning left , instead of right
guruoo
(5,092 posts)Response to Mrs. Overall (Original post)
octoberlib This message was self-deleted by its author.
canetoad
(17,149 posts)After his name.
ms liberty
(8,572 posts)Blue_true
(31,261 posts)Fullduplexxx
(7,852 posts)Blue_true
(31,261 posts)aeromanKC
(3,322 posts)The East coast Elitist liberal is the important part!!
Blue_true
(31,261 posts)octoberlib
(14,971 posts)Blue_true
(31,261 posts)Really competent guy, but sort of a little unknown when compared to bigger lights. I even got his state wrong, he is so much like Senator Carper.
JudyM
(29,225 posts)Competently. Hes got intelligence and strength.
cannabis_flower
(3,764 posts)dalton99a
(81,432 posts)Any Republican?
guruoo
(5,092 posts)JHB
(37,158 posts)But we already knew how little his "standing up to Trump" act was worth.
nolabear
(41,959 posts)A trumped up motherfucker creating a trumped up emergency to pander yo a trumped up base and sell them some trumped up monument to his trumped up glory.
He isnt going to do any of this. Hes posturing in his trumped up little way.
Gothmog
(145,086 posts)trump does not have the magical power to do anything he wants
malaise
(268,885 posts)Trust me - the end is near
Gothmog
(145,086 posts)Hermit-The-Prog
(33,315 posts)You may want to read:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100211625295
This is not fine.
BSdetect
(8,998 posts)Cha
(297,114 posts)Sugar Smack
(18,748 posts)beautiful.
saidsimplesimon
(7,888 posts)TheBlackAdder
(28,182 posts).
James Lankford said on MSNBCs MTP Daily, Im going to have to see where that authority is coming from. Obviously congress delegates those funds and appropriates funds specifically for specific purposes. The president does have some reprogramming authority. That typically has to come back to Congress to get additional approval on. He is very passionate about this as an emergency, this needs to be resolved.
https://www.politicususa.com/2019/01/04/lankford-trump-wall.html
Hah! Suck it Trump!
.
workinclasszero
(28,270 posts)How long can we sit by and watch this bloody f****** moron destroy democracy and shit all over the rule of law and the Constitution?
We HAVE TO DO SOMETHING! I don't give a damn if the Senate convicts or not!
The new Michigan congresswoman, Rashida Tlaib gets it, do we need to wait till Trump burns down the white house and takes hostages??
Oh wait he's already got child hostages in his Kiddie concentration camps and has killed two of them already!
Honeycombe8
(37,648 posts)I was hoping that a Republican Senator would respond in that way.
lindysalsagal
(20,648 posts)Tweet that away, asshat.
yuiyoshida
(41,831 posts)His Vanity wall.
Eyeball_Kid
(7,430 posts)Talk about dreamland. Trumpy cant string ten words together to make a coherent sentence. His attention span only compares favorably to a goldfish. And hes supposed to put together a list that has nothing to do with money laundering?
jmowreader
(50,552 posts)If Trump attempts to divert already-allocated defense funds to his wall without congressional approval, he will have become a full-blown Tinhorn Dictator and a Domestic Enemy. The Founding Fathers were very much against Tinhorn Dictators, and the oaths of enlistment and commissioning that all military members swear out require us to defend the country against "all enemies, foreign and domestic."
I would never recommend that the 82nd Airborne should go to Washington, enter the White House, capture this entire administration and put them up against the wall...there are well-defined procedures for removing a tyrannical president from his office, and if the Republican Party has a grain of patriotism left in their corrupt little bodies, they damn well better cooperate with us in sending him away. Yes, I know the Republicans have the right to have a president of their party in office, if he wins the election. This 8-ball is no president.
FSogol
(45,470 posts)snort
(2,334 posts)treating the situation as business as normal. Wrong!
Haggis for Breakfast
(6,831 posts)In his entire life he has always gotten what he has wanted. He has never been told "No" that he has not found a way around it. Now, he is being told "No" and he refuses to accept it. So, like he has always done, he is pushing the envelope to find any way possible to get what HE wants. Like a bumper car, he will keep going, in search of another way to finance his stupid wall. Now, he is proposing declaring a national emergency, which grants the presidency a wide latitude of possibilities.
In the mean time, he is holding 800,000 federal employees hostage. They cannot give him what he wants. Yet, they are the ones bearing the brunt of his bile. He is punishing them for something they had no part in, cannot give him and will not be any better off for all of his pandering to his base of knuckle-dragging, toothless morons.
What he is doing to these people is morally-indefensible. Meanwhile, Bitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy sit on the sorry asses doing nothing to help these folks. Remember this in 2020 because we need on hang this on them like an albatross.
Doitnow
(1,103 posts)insisting on the stupid wall.
Another thing----on one hand he says the people affected by the shutdown are Dems and then in another statement he says most of them are followers and supporters. Can't be both.
orangecrush
(19,512 posts)if he does this.
BlueJac
(7,838 posts)Texin
(2,594 posts)It may well be that the military will have to implement a soft coup to keep him in check, because it's crystal clear that the supine Senate rethugs *led* by #2 Putin puppet, McConnell, will not check him from his baser deeds.
Scurrilous
(38,687 posts)The Wizard
(12,541 posts)is running interference for Trump in the Senate because he's compromised. Thus the Senate is a useless governing body that serves no purpose. It's up to the Republican Senate to replace McConnell with someone Trump can't threaten.
calimary
(81,194 posts)Thats the way, Dems! Do it! Say it! Go there! Dont mince words or backtrack or apologize or try to be nice.
This is a new day and we SHOULD BE fighting in a new way: THIS way.