Democrats popped the champagne last night when Rand Paul announced that he would cast the fourth and deciding vote on the Resolution of Disapproval to block Pres. Trump's border wall emergency order.
As you know, President Trump elected to use his powers under the National Emergencies Act of 1976 to use discretionary funds - appropriated by Congress - in the DOJ and Pentagon to build 250+ miles of border wall. What Trump is doing is both legal and constitutional.
But while the law allows Trump to do this, it also affords Congress with an opportunity to overturn the national emergency order. A majority vote in both the House and the Senate is enough to block it.
Pelosi's House already passed their resolution last week. Under the law, Mitch McConnell has no choice but to schedule the vote now in the Senate... and with Rand Paul's announcement, the Democrats now have the votes!
Paul joins Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Susan Collins (R-ME), and Thom Tillis (R-NC), who have already promised to vote against the border wall order. Combined with the 47 Democrats, that is enough to pass the resolution.
But already, we're seeing other Republicans come out of the woodwork as well. No one wanted to cast the deciding vote against the wall. But now that the Democrats have the votes to block it, more and more Republicans are joining them. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) just became a hard-no. All-told, there are at least sixteen other Senate Republicans who are now leaning towards or threatening to vote no.
The magic number in the Senate for Democrats to override a Trump veto is 20 defections, though that number can be lower if Republicans choose to abstain from voting... There are 4 GOPers already promising to vote with the Democrats. Add in the 16 others and they reach the 2/3 necessary to override Trump's veto.
The border wall project is now on the brink of total collapse. The Establishment Republicans were never going to let Trump build the wall. They blocked him for two years when he had the votes, "caved" to Democrats by approving just 55 miles of fencing in this last spending package, and are now joining the Left to block Trump from building any additional fencing whatsoever.
While I can understand Rand Paul's position since he has always consistently voted against any expansion of government powers, he is the only principled one in the bunch. As President Trump said the other day at CPAC, there are a lot of people in Congress who hate this country.
That has to be the case for someone to vote to leave the border unsecured. Imagine how much someone would have to hate this country and her people to actually believe that the drugs, crime, and disease pouring across the border are a good thing...
Democrats are scrambling to secure the votes to not only pass this resolution, but to override President Trump when he vetoes it. If that happens, then the border wall will never get built.
This is your last stand. Fight back!
Democrats need to secure enough votes in the House and Senate to reach the two-thirds necessary to override Trump's veto. They are almost there.
But if they come up just one vote shy in either the House or the Senate, then we win. You only need to strike fear in the hearts of a couple of Congressmen and Senators in order to win this.
These people think they can get away with this. They think they can serve their corporate donors and leave the borders wide open, forcing YOU to deal with the consequences.
They are wrong!
Never surrender,
Joe Otto
Conservative Daily
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