When There's a Wall, There's a Way

The National Emergencies Act (per Wikipedia) was first enacted by Congress in 1976, and signed by then-President Gerald Ford.  It is intended for use in crises that require the President to use special powers, in cases such as trade sanctions and terrorist attacks.  To date, there have been almost 60 national emergencies declared by every President since Ford, and some of them are still in effect.

President Donald Trump, having tried and failed to convince Congress to fund his pet project of a wall along the border of the United States and Mexico, became the first chief executive to use national emergency powers to commandeer billions from other programs to pay for that barrier.  This bit of creative financing is robbing Uncle Sam to pay The Donald.

Trump admitted in a news conference to announce the declaration that he didn't think it was necessary.  But he did do it believing that--evidence to the contrary--hordes of people and assorted riffraff were coming north from all over Latin America illegally, taking away jobs, selling drugs and even murdering American citizens.  And a promise was a promise to the rabid base that got Trump elected in 2016, and are poised to do the same in 2020.

Having proved how irrelevant Congress really is when it comes to matters like this, the President is hoping the courts will see things his way in advance of all the inevitable lawsuits.  He seems to be counting on the U.S. Supreme Court, which now has a conservative majority, to decide the matter once and for all in his favor sometime before the election.

Lost in all of this, of course, are the headlines involving topics that normal people would consider national emergencies:

• The government shutdown, which Trump originally used as a battle of wills with Congress over his wall, is officially over thanks to a new budget deal.
• This is the one-year anniversary of the massacre at a high school in Parkland, Florida, where 17 students and staff members were killed by a lone gunman.
• Hours after Trump's national emergency announcement, five people were murdered inside a warehouse in Aurora, Illinois by a man who was just fired from his job.

But President Trump, as most of us know, is not a normal person.  He can rant on Twitter all he wants about the Russian investigation that's closing in around him, or threaten "Saturday Night Live" over the way they lampoon him.  He got his way this time.  Who knows what he'll consider a national emergency next.