The US Presidency 2019

[Remius]

Seems that some people over at Fox agree that Pelosi seems to be winning this shutdown fight...

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pelosi-trumps-trump

 

[brihard]

I always enjoy reading Neil MacDonald, even if I don't always agree with him. His opinion piece today is well worth the read. He clearly enjoys stirring the pot from time to time.

Donald Trump is the best president the left has ever had

 

[Cloud Cover]

I think i will post that one at rabble.ca ...  :nod:

 

[Remius]

I think i will post that one at rabble.ca ...  :nod:

Hard to tell who will be more offended, lol, the left or the right...

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Seems that some people over at Fox agree that Pelosi seems to be winning this shutdown fight...

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pelosi-trumps-trump

In my opinion, and that's all it is, Fox tries to be balanced. They have both left and right commentary, although , many just trash them as an alternative right news agency, without really watching them or knowing anything about the station. Usually, people who put stock in anything CNN says.

Even their own journalists, right and left, go after each other on and off air

At the end of the day, when it  comes to journalism, the actual truth is what becomes the lowest common denominator and they will attempt to sensationalize whatever sells the story, but you have to be so first with the hit piece, your story and stature, as a journalist, dies. As a result, much false info hits first, the damage is done and by the time it's corrected, the authors have already moved on to the next manufactured crisis and it becomes just so many bad memes on crackbook. One only needs look at the fiasco, created by journalists, of the Covington students and a lying, native activist. Last night CTV, was still running the original story, even though the students were vindicated the next day. Is it any wonder people are grasping at straws to find the truth? Lots have just come to the conclusion the main stream press, print and electronic, have become payed interlocutors for special interests.

Just a short comment on the shutdown. Solutions are being forwarded, some good, some bad. Some are just ludicrois stonewalling. Nobody is a winner. No Pelosi Trump's Trump or vice versa. No one is dealing. They are at a stalemate. Someone needs to back down to move forward. I have my opinions as to who put it off the rails, but I'll wait on that for now.

 

[Remius]

I peruse the Fox News and cnn websites daily among others and I try to get my info from different sources. 

I like Chris Wallace on Fox.  I try to avoid Hannity, Carlson and Fox and friends.  Well i do read their stuff at times but i end up rolling my eyes.  But in fairness, i also roll my eyes when Don lemon come so on CNN, I can only take so much of him.  But I like King and Como.  Como is upfront about his positions but he normally backs up what he says and brings on people with opposing views and give some them their air time to defend or criticise.  king is a numbers and facts guy.

I also enjoy the panels on CBC and CTV.  The debates open up various points of view to consider.

Side note Fox News site has great coverage of historical discoveries and anything shark related.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

I like the panels on TVO. I do like how Steve Pakin runs them. Plus the Agenda. Sometimes I get absolutely infuriated with some of the guests, but there's normally a good cross section of debaters and Pakin is a good umpire.

 

[Kirkhill]

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday that while Democrats are adamantly opposed to extending the wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, they're open to new fencing and other barriers as part of ongoing talks to prevent another government shutdown.

“There's not going to be any wall money in the legislation,” Pelosi said during her weekly press briefing in the Capitol.

Wall comes from Latin vallum meaning "...an earthen wall or rampart set with palisades, a row or line of stakes, a wall, a rampart, fortification..." while the Latin word murus means a defensive stone wall.[1] English uses the same word to mean an external wall and the internal sides of a room, but this is not universal. Many languages distinguish between the two. In German, some of this distinction can be seen between Wand and Mauer, in Spanish between pared and muro.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall

A fence is a structure that encloses an area, typically outdoors, and is usually constructed from posts that are connected by boards, wire, rails or netting.[1] A fence differs from a wall in not having a solid foundation along its whole length.[2]

Alternatives to fencing include a ditch (sometimes filled with water, forming a moat).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fence

A barrier is something such as a fence or wall that is put in place to prevent people from moving easily from one area to another.

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/barrier

Here's another one for free

A palisade—sometimes called a stakewall or a paling—is typically a fence or wall made from iron or wooden stakes, or tree trunks and used as a defensive structure or enclosure.

And then there is this

dyke in British 1
or dike (daɪk  )
noun
1.
an embankment constructed to prevent flooding, keep out the sea, etc
2.
a ditch or watercourse
3.
a bank made of earth excavated for and placed alongside a ditch
4. Scottish
a wall, esp a dry-stone wall
5.
a barrier or obstruction

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/dyke

Here's Offa's Dyke.

And here, the Danes just called their barrier - The Works.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danevirke

In defence of the country - a 2000 mile long linear fortification comprising ditch, berm, (sheuch and dyke gin ye prefer) vallum, palisades and ports constructed of rammed earth, steel and barbed wire.  You decide if that is fence or a wall.  It is certainly a barrier.

Words and splitting redhead, blonde and brunette.

 

[QV]

I'd vote for a moat. 

 

[cavalryman]

I'd vote for a moat.

Patrolled by sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads

 

[daftandbarmy]

Denmark's building a newer wall, mainly to keep German pigs out.

There's a message in there somewhere, I think

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2019/01/29/denmark-building-border-wall-stop-spread-african-swine-fever/2715792002/

 

[Kirkhill]

Denmark's building a newer wall, mainly to keep German pigs out.

There's a message in there somewhere, I think

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2019/01/29/denmark-building-border-wall-stop-spread-african-swine-fever/2715792002/

The Germans over-ran the last one in 1864.  The result of poor maintenance.

 

[mariomike]

From the OP,

"There's not going to be any wall money in the legislation,” Pelosi said during her weekly press briefing in the Capitol.

Before the election,

Mexico will pay for the wall!
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/771294347501461504

In today's news,

CBS
January 31, 2019
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-daily-caller-interview-paul-ryan-border-wall-mueller-investigation-2019-01-31/
President Trump said in an interview published Wednesday night that former House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., reneged on a deal to fund the border wall while Republicans controlled both houses of Congress.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

It's nice to see the NEA used for domestic purposes.

President Trump declared a national emergency to free up funds to build a wall without congressional approval on Friday, adding that other presidents have called national emergencies on other topics "many times before." The National Emergencies Act of 1975 allows the president to declare a national emergency, but he must outline the specific emergency powers he is using under existing statutes.

According to the Brennan Center, there have been 58 national emergencies called by presidents since 1979. Thirty-one of those national emergencies are still in effect.

Here is a list of when national emergencies have been used, and what their purpose was:
President Jimmy Carter

    Nov. 14, 1979 (still in effect): A national emergency in response to the Iran hostage crisis, which froze Iran's assets in the United States;
    April 17, 1980: Further Prohibitions on Transactions with Iran, never terminated or continued.

President Ronald Reagan

More at Link - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-many-national-emergencies-have-been-called-by-presidents/

 

[brihard]

It's nice to see the NEA used for domestic purposes.

More at Link - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-many-national-emergencies-have-been-called-by-presidents/

So first he promised Mexico would pay for the wall. That failure was as obvious as it was inevitable. Then he tried to push congress to pay for a wall, and he failed at that too. Then he let the government shut down to hold congress hostage. That failed too, and he caved and allowed a bill to pass to restore funding. Then congress brought forward a border security bill that offered even less than he had previously been offered, and which places considerable checks and balances on the construction of any physical barriers. That bill passed and comes way short of anything he asked for.

So now after his repeated failures to achieve one of his marquee campaign pledges - including when his party controlled both houses of congress, albeit without a supermajority - he has decided to use use arbitrary executive authorities not intended for circumstances like this to circumvent the will of congress including his own party's controlled senate. He's going to attempt to purloin billions of dollars from other purposes under the guise of a fictitious national emergency, despite illegal immigration being lower than in any of the past several presidencies, despite his own admission that he literally doesn't 'need' to do this, and despite the concerns of his own party about the precedent this sets for a potential future Democrat president to declare similar 'emergencies' over gun violence, health care, etc. His own party doesn't want him doing this because of the Pandora's box it opens in terms of executive overreach.

I don't see how this is laudable or a win. He's trying to grab more power for the executive branch in defiance of the legislative... And he's probably going to end up getting stopped by the judicial- another inevitable and likely embarrassing failure as he approaches the next presidential election. Simply put he tried to demand what he wanted, and Pelosi beat him. He failed and now he's thrashing about looking for another way even though Congress has firmly told him 'no'.

His petulance is not serving himself nor his party well.

 

[Brad Sallows]

He's not really grabbing more power; that ship sailed long ago.  This article is worth reading to understand, as it is titled "What Is and Isn’t a Big Deal".  The interesting part is the author's case that the "big deal" isn't the reach of executive authority; it's the openness and candour.

 

[brihard]

He's not really grabbing more power; that ship sailed long ago.  This article is worth reading to understand, as it is titled "What Is and Isn’t a Big Deal".  The interesting part is the author's case that the "big deal" isn't the reach of executive authority; it's the openness and candour.

An excellent read, thank you- well worth reading and digesting in its entirety for why this matters.

 

[Remius]

If the democrats ever win the house it will be interesting when they declare climate change a “national emergency”.  They will certainly try given the precedent set here.

 

[Old Sweat]

Here is a somewhat surprising development. Ann Coulter, a right wing commentator who can take vitriolic attacks to a new height, claims the only emergency is that Trump is an idiot. The president responded in kind.

Ann Coulter slams back at Trump: The only emergency is our 'idiot' president
HuffPost US
MARY PAPENFUSS
Feb 16th 2019 12:20PM

Ann Coulter cranked up her battle with Donald Trump again Friday with another broadside about his border wall tactics. The conservative commentator declared that the “only national emergency is that our president is an idiot.”

Trump scrambled earlier Friday to distance himself from her and her vitriolic comments about him, claiming in a Rose Garden address Friday, to everyone’s surprise: “Ann Coulter, I don’t know her. I hardly know her. I haven’t spoken to her in way over a year.”

In the announcement of his national emergency declaration to divert funding for the wall, he added that Coulter had “gone off the reservation” in her increasingly harsh criticism of him.

“Thank God [Trump has] relieved me of any responsibility for what he’s been doing,” Coulter said on KABC-AM’s “Morning Drive” program in Los Angeles on Friday, just minutes after Trump’s comments. “That was the biggest favor anyone could do me today.”

The Mexican border wall was “the promise he made every single day at every single speech. Forget the fact that he’s digging his own grave,” she added. “The only national emergency is that our president is an idiot.”

Coulter, a onetime major Trump backer who wrote the book In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome, is convinced the president’s declaration of a national emergency is a “scam,” and that he’ll never build the cement wall he vowed to erect.

Trump also tried to distance himself from Fox News host Sean Hannity and from criticism that he is Trump’s shadow president. Hannity had been urging Trump to declare a national emergency to begin building the border wall.

“Sean Hannity has been a terrific, terrific supporter of what I do,” Trump said, but he insisted that right-wing pundits “don’t decide policy.”

As for Coulter’s apparently former influence, MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle said just last month that Trump wouldn’t budge on his commitment to the border wall because right-wing pundits like Coulter would rile up his base.

He doesn’t want to be called a “fraud and a weenie” by Coulter, Ruhle declared.

 

[mariomike]

He failed and now he's thrashing about looking for another way even though Congress has firmly told him 'no'.

There is always a Tweet,
https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/535441553079431168