They weren’t on any ballot I saw. Maybe they didn’t have enough signatures in Wisconsin? 
I don’t think it worked that way at all. I think McConnell TOLD Trump that if he vetoed the bill THIS time, McConnell was going to whip his majority to OVERRIDE the veto – and by huge numbers!
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“I can’t say I’m happy. I can’t say I’m thrilled,” {Trump} said at the White House.
I haven’t read the goddamn thing, I don’t want to read the goddamn thing, hell, I can’t even read the goddamn thing, Trump continued.
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My money is on a scramble to re-apportion existing funds with an Executive order. He won’t do another shutdown because his polls tanked and McConnell told him his R Senators were about to defect last time.
He won’t do a full National Emergency either, because McConnell also read him the riot act on how R Senators would be forced into an automatic vote on revoking it, following action in the House. They do NOT want to be on the record for that, or face what a future Democratic government could do with the power.
So he’ll be forced to take some wimpy middle ground with an Executive order for wall funds, that probably won’t make it past the courts. But he can claim to his base that he “took action” and “the wall is being built,” which is all he cares about.
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Then why not just deliver a veto-proof bill from the get-go?
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Gillian Tett of the Financial Times was at some function in Switzerland a while back and realized she didn’t know the name of the President/Prime Minister of Switzerland.
So she asked the Swiss people in the room, and they didn’t know either. Part of it is that their govt is based more regionally, but part of it is the people in charge of Switzerland just do their jobs. It’s not a circus or a pageant. It’s a government. Govern.
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And how would he do that? Congress controls appropriations. There aren’t slush funds, and it’s an Anti-Deficiency Act violation for an agency to use funds other than as appropriated by Congress.
The whole reason for the Emergency declaration is that it’s one of the few ways to work around that.
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All together now:
Veto-Proof Majority
Veto-Proof Majority
Veto-Proof Majority
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That bails Trump out. McConnell wants Trump to own this bill. Trump has been an ass about all this.
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The House would not oblige that and I doubt the Senate would either.
I’m curious. 
Is this new funds or essentially the same funds appropriated for barriers that Trump didn’t use?
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Beats me how it would be legal. All I know is Mulvaney said the other day that the WH had looked into it, and he seems to think it’s an option. Or he was pulling the idea straight out of his ass. Either way, Trump was enthusiastic today about the vague idea of shuffling funds without an Emergency declaration, so someone on the ship of fools must think it’s a viable option.
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I am sure the Texas Farm Bureau has all those numbers. They are down in Austin lobbying for eminent domain reform.
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“Assurances from Trump”
Worth about as much as a caterpillar fart.
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Lindsey Graham now saying Trump may sign the bill AND declare a national emergency.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said that he was waiting to confirm the details of the deal his colleagues had outlined during the luncheon — that President Trump would have the flexibility to reprogram money to fund more detentions beds beyond roughly 40,000 beds the deal allocates…
I’m pretty sure that’s not true, but Flimsy Graham does like to lie a lot too.
Livestock and wildlife that don’t understand “anti-personnel” would be at risk as well, which would generate considerable whining from non-liberals as well.
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That’s just insane. The national emergency is defined as being something needed because congress has no time to resolve the matter sufficiently.
If he signs the bill, the ENTIRE impetus for an emergency DISSOLVES.
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Being insane doesn’t mean he won’t do it.
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