How (and when) will the Government Shutdown end?

@Olivier5,

We're going with a privacy fence.

I've got some starter plants on the go.

Quote:

The campaign started with the modest goal of raising $250,000, which was estimated to be enough to pay for an ad on Fox & Friends asking Americans to help Canada secure its border against the dreaded MAGA-16 gang.

“But when we achieved that ambition in less than one hot minute (Celsius), we realized we needed to expand our operations from trolling the dredges to bankrolling the hedges,” Candy says, as he directs another tractor trailer into a vast warehouse he has stocked with young yew saplings, waiting to take their positions along the formerly longest undefended border in the universe.

“And in under two hours we collected $6 billion Canadian. Which is extraordinary, really, given the time of year, and current cost of hockey tickets.”

https://outabouter.com/2018/12/21/canadian-gofundme-raises-6b-in-two-hours-to-pay-for-privacy-hedge-along-entire-us-border-2/

https://outandabouter.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/hedgery.jpg?w=829

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@ehBeth,

Ha ha. Good thing that Quebec is planting a similar fence to isolate themselves from them terrible Ontarians...

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I think it is pretty clear at this point that this is going to end with the President signing a bill to reopen the government without wall funding and then declaring a national emergency. I'm not so sanguine about the Supreme Court overturning that. This court has been very supportive of Presidential power and they could easily say that this is a misuse of the law, but it is within the letter of the law and therefore approved and Congress would then say this is a tremendous executive overreach, but we just can't do anything about it and we're stuck with it. I guess the next President can just declare a national emergency about gun violence and implement gun bans.

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@engineer,

Wasn't that Lindsey Graham suggestion? I haven't heard the President taking him up on it.

Lindsey Graham’s Shifting Sands on the Shutdown

I just don't see why Pelosi don't offer to fund the wall in exchange for DACA and other immigrant issues and get the government open and government workers back to work and/or paid. I think it is a bit silly to stand on such a principle knowing you are dealing with an idiot bully who nonetheless has the power of the presidency on his side.

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@engineer,

I just read through the list of the "national emergencies" currently in effect. Some of these were clearly not emergencies the way I think of them.

Let's admire these Clinton "emergencies"

Quote:

March 15, 1995: The National Emergency With Respect to Prohibiting Certain Transactions with Respect to the Development of Iranian Petroleum Resources was an effort to prevent potential deals between oil companies.

October 21, 1995: The National Emergency With Respect to Blocking Assets and Prohibiting Transactions with Significant Narcotics Traffickers Centered in Colombia was declared after increased reports of drug cartels laundering money through American companies.

March 1, 1996: The National Emergency With Respect to Regulations of the Anchorage and Movement of Vessels with Respect to Cuba was after civilian planes were shot down near Cuba

November 3, 1997: The National Emergency With Respect to Blocking Sudanese Government Property and Prohibiting Transactions with Sudan implemented economic and trade sanctions.

All of these sound somewhat important policies, none of these sound like something where the President needed to go around Congress to take immediate action. Most of the declared national emergencies are like this. I thought they were like 9-11 or Katrina and those are in there, but most are just times the President wanted to take action and not put up with Congress.

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@revelette1,

Two likely reasons. The first is politics. Because they are negotiating in public instead of behind closed doors, both sides are trying to please their bases instead of trying to get a deal. The second is time. If the President were willing to go this way, comprehensive immigration reform for wall money, that would require months of legislative work. The House and the Senate would have to hammer out what that would look like with all the details. The previous Congress did no work that direction, so there is no 90% done draft that is laying around waiting for some final touches. The President would have to agree to reopen the government for some time (like six months), then he would have to pressure Senate Republicans to work with the House Democrats. That's three killers right there - Trump would have to reopen the government, he would have to work hard to push the Senate and the Senate and the House would have to work across party lines on a contentious issue. That's not going to happen with this administration and Congress.

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@engineer,

Unfortunetly for my argument, you make a lot of logical sense. Still, if the house actually started the work on the immigration reform and sent it to the Senate, they would have to either sign on with it, or go on record as not signing on to it. Same with the President. At least there would be some effort made to immigration reform, which more than we have had since republicans and Trump has had control of the country. Either way, Trump gets his wall one way or another. Also either way, I guess Pelosi can start the work on immigration reform without signing for funds for the wall. But what if Trump will not open the government without wall funding? How long can this shutdown continue without someone giving in?

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@engineer,

This is the opening text to the emergency declaration Trump made in November. There is no way what was happening in Nicaragua represented an "unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States". If no one challenged this one or the dozens before it that were similar, where is the precedent to override one on border security?

Quote:

I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, find that the situation in Nicaragua, including the violent response by the Government of Nicaragua to the protests that began on April 18, 2018, and the Ortega regime’s systematic dismantling and undermining of democratic institutions and the rule of law, its use of indiscriminate violence and repressive tactics against civilians, as well as its corruption leading to the destabilization of Nicaragua’s economy, constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States, and I hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat. I hereby determine and order: ...

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@revelette1,

The Democrats can, will, and should hold out as long as it takes. The pressure will build on the Republicans. The Democrats are passing bills to reopen the government that the Republicans are burying. The growing public anger is mostly toward the Republicans.

The Democrats can just hold firm, this is a Republican problem. When air traffic or taxes or something else starts failing spectacularly, the Republicans will take the blame.

It will end soon enough. There will be no wall.

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@maxdancona,

Quote:

The growing public anger is mostly toward the Republicans.

Maybe, but the number of citizens that want a wall has grown and continues to grow. The MSM has chosen their side and the way people feel about the MSM the Democrats deserve them. There will be walls.

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@coldjoint,

Engineer agrees with my prediction that this will end with Trump declaring a national emergency.

What is your prediction Coldjoint?

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@maxdancona,

Quote:

What is your prediction Coldjoint?

I don't see him doing anything else but declaring the emergency, but the longer he speaks about it the more support he will get. You do understand he does not have to change what he is saying. The facts are there to back him up.

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@coldjoint,

Quote:

the longer he speaks about it the more support he will get.

The rest of what you said is partisan wishing... but we will see if objective polls bear this out (I suspect not, but we will see).

The government will reopen. There will be no wall (although there may be some money for additional fencing... but less then $1.5 billion worth).

That is my prediction. We will see if I am correct.

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@maxdancona,

Quote:

There will be no wall (although there may be some money for additional fencing... but less then $1.5 billion worth).

You are saying there will be no wall after an emergency is declared? It will go to the courts and Trump will win. And what the Congress does or does not allocate won't matter.

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@coldjoint,

Quote:

It will go to the courts and Trump will win.

A testable prediction... good. We will see.

I think you are wrong about winning in court. I think you will also find that you are wrong about Congress not mattering. But we will see who is correct.

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@coldjoint,

I want to ask your opinion Coldjoint...

Some conservatives are saying it is dangerous to give a president the ability to declare a national emergency to bypass congress in a controversial political issue. If Trump declares a national emergency for a wall, a future president might do the same for gun control, or climate change.

Do you see any validity to this worry? (I am asking about a future president... if you start talking about presidents I will ignore it as partisan blather).

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@maxdancona,

Quote:

Do you see any validity to this worry?

Yes I do, but the success a wall would achieve will vindicate Trump. We will see the results quickly. Taking guns or raising taxes to outrageous levels and killing jobs would be quite different.

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@coldjoint,

Fair enough... I guess. But, we will never see.

I predict there will be no wall (other than maybe a couple of billion dollars for 'additional fencing')... and I am pretty confident about this. If I am wrong, you can rub it in.

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@coldjoint,

Just to clarify the problem. It seems clear to me that President Trump has the legal ability to declare a National Emergency. I don't think a court will rule against him for that (although I may be wrong).

The problem is what happens next. Declaring a National Emergency doesn't force Congress to appropriate the money for the wall. Instead, the National Emergency will allow Trump to divert money from other project (presumably military contracts).

The court cases (and public outcry) will be whether he can take money that was designated for projects (like military housing for example) to build his wall.

He will literally be siphoning money off from the military.... with the all the obvious legal and political issues this entails.

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@maxdancona,

Quote:

He will literally be siphoning money off from the military

Through no fault of his own.

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How (and when) will the Government Shutdown end?

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