Posted on 03/25/2018 9:08:24 PM PDT by Kaslin
Remember the Kobayashi Maru scene in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan? Sometimes, you end up with no good options. Donald Trump just had that happen to him with the omnibus abomination, though don’t be fooled by the passive voice – he deserves some blame for letting it come to this. The absolutely essential military spending was wrapped in a fat suit of glistening, rancid pork, and the congressional rats had already abandoned ship and fled out of town when it was dumped on his desk. So he had a stark choice. Trump could sign it, and enrage his base but ensure our military could prepare for the wars looming on the horizon. Or he could veto it, and launch a government shutdown with about 0% of succeeding in getting a significantly better deal.
Trump chose the least worst of two bad options, and I, for one, refuse to lose my Schiff over it.
This was a last minute congressional jam-down of a swamp-generated monstrosity, and Trump deserves a slice of the blame for not seeing it coming. He evidently failed to ensure that his priorities and preferences were included as this sausage was being made, and suddenly the whole thing dropped on him (and us) seemingly out of nowhere and became a thing overnight. Except it wasn’t overnight. This train had been coming down the tracks for three months; the Congressional weasels succeeded in sneaking it in right before they ditched town. Trump is liable for letting himself be put in that position, but the GOP leadership is responsible for putting him there.
Now, the people who hate Trump anyway – many of whom would have squeed with squishy glee had Presidents Jeb! or Foamy Marco signed the bill – were delighted for a chance to scream “BETRAYAL TURNCOAT CUCK!” about this choice. For many of them, this is just another chance to try to tear apart the Republican coalition that rejected them – many still dream of someday getting a slot in a Ben Sasse administration. But none of them offered a game plan for an alternative.
What was the alternative?
Step One: Veto the Bill
Step Two: ?
Step Three: Congress Passes Conservative Spending Bill We All Love
If anyone can explain Step Two to me, I’d sure appreciate it. After all, that’s kind of the key step, and no one seems to have a good answer for what it might have consisted of. The simple fact is that while the GOP has a majority, conservatives do not. Step Two can’t be “Wishing” or “Wanting” or “Waving the Magic Wand.” If you think a government shutdown caused by Trump’s veto would result in a better outcome, well, that requires some explanation. I’d be interested to see a citation to a governmental shutdown that the shutter downer won. There isn’t one; people like us love government shutdowns because we think the government sucks, but the rest of America doesn’t.
It just doesn’t. I don’t want that to be the truth, and I don’t like it, but that’s how it is. We are not yet an unassailable majority, and the United States is not yet the dictatorship the left desires, so we cannot just decree that our wishes become reality. We have to compromise and make deals. And it’s annoying as hell.
This is a over-compromise and a bad deal. This bill is not what Trump promised and not what we voted for. The base is mad. Furious. And it has a right to be.
We’ve been mad at the saps in the GOP Congressional Caucus forever, and we’ve slowly but surely been turning out the simps and the squishes. There are many more to go. But a lot of the anger, fueled by giddy libs and eager Fredocons, is directed at President Trump. Some of it is justified – he let himself get pushed into the corner and he needs to reach out and get some advisors who actually agree with his program. But a lot of the base’s fury is overblown.
It’s absolutely understandable – in fact, it’s inevitable – that Trump supporters are going to be ticked off. We’ve been lied to and betrayed for decades, and anything that even hints at a continuation of that pattern spins us up to Rage Level 11. But the fact is that this was a screw-up that led to him being faced with two bad choices, and we need to see clearly what happened. We weren’t “betrayed.” It’s not “over.” And “Trump has totally lost my support” is exactly what your enemies want you to say.
Don’t say what your enemies want you to say.
This was a bump in the road, as road that includes Justice Gorsuch, defeating ISIS, Keystone, regulatory rollback, tax cuts and many other conservative achievements. Our enemies would love for us to throw that all away because we got a case of the madz. But that would be stupid.
There’s another spending fight coming. Trump says he won’t sign another flaming pile of garbage like this. After the reaction he got the other day, it’s likely he’ll keep his word. He should demand that he receive the next bill in final form 30 days before the deadline – no more 30 minutes to read 2,200 pages nonsense. This will give real conservative leaders a chance to disinfect it with sunlight, like Senator Rand Paul did highlighting the flotsam and jetsam in the last one.
Finally, Mitch McConnell needs to earn the base’s lost confidence by getting the GOP to toss out the filibuster rule and start passing our priorities because if these hacks blow the Senate majority (and they absolutely could) Chuckie Schumer will do that the first day anyway. Oh, and it would be really good for morale to get Ric Grennell and the other hung-up nominees confirmed. If McConnell has to change the rules to outflank Democrat obstruction, okay.
What do the rest of us do? Not quit. Get up, brush off, and get ready to fight. Tighten the hell up and jump back in the game. If you can’t take a hit, if you can’t stand to encounter an obstacle, if you’re giving up everything because something goes wrong, you’re not really committed to recovering your country and your own freedom. This is going to be hard. This is going to take time, a lot of it. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and draining the swamp will not be done in a day either. We are going to have more days like Omnibust Friday in the future, lots of them. That’s how it goes. But also remember that we will have days like November 8, 2016, where liberals are spread out before us, sobbing as their hideous libfascist dreams die before their eyes.
And those days make it all worthwhile.
Sure, Trump funding Abortion and every other Leftist enterprise, but not funding the Wall, is just OTA.
If the Omnibus bill is available for us now to view, maybe we should see what is really in it.
Trump: I will never sign another omnibus.
Trump: I will never recertify Iran deal.
Trump: Dreamers have to go.
Trump: I surround myself with the best people (do I really need to list the losers he has fired?)
It is. Go look at it.
As Vice President Pence reminded us, we need to elect more conservatives. That’s only we’ll get the government we want - and need.
Getting mad at President Trump accomplishes nothing. And Pelosi and Schumer will give us lots more than another omnibus - they will take away our freedoms.
Let’s keep our focus and fire where it belongs - on the Democrats and turncoat squishes in the GOP and send conservatives to Washington.
The fate of our country depends upon it.
Sorry but Trump made a disastrous mistake by signing this vile monstrosity. He has lost at least 1/3 of his core support and lost an opportunity to revitalize and redefine the Republican Party with a carefully crafted veto message. The people who came out in droves to vote for him in 2016 are now disillusioned and will stay home in 2018 and 2020. The vile Democrats will reacquire power and grave harm will come to the country. There is no sugarcoating this stupidity and its aftermath.
And for those who wish that he had vetoed it, need to realize what kind of all out HELL the MSM and all of those in Congress, not to mention the general public who hate him anyway would have made of that; not to mention a dilapidated/decimated/underfunded already military shambles that would have left this nation with.
We don't live in a dictatorship, nobody in D.C. would stand for what Obama got away with, if Trump followed suit/emulated him, and whilst we don't like most of the things we have been told are in this Bill, a Veto ( which would have been over ridden ! ) was the worst option; like it or not.
I agree with the author. I still like Trump, especially compared to Hillary!.
My understanding is that an omnibus bill is NOT a budget and the executive branch is not constrained to spend the money according to the bill’s suggestions.
” a Veto ( which would have been over ridden ! ) was the worst option; like it or not. “
Bullshit. He could have used it to expose the monstrosity of corruption we face, instead, he backed down.
Trump was elected to stop our homeland from becoming Mexico.
On that basis he has earned an “F”.
He has fought for nothing and let the Democrats write his agenda.
So, I'm thinking that maybe we should give him the benefit of the doubt.
He wants to build the wall. If he gets it built with this omnibus, then I am not gonna complain.
If people who supported him in '16, stay home this fall, in a substantial figure, then they are cutting of their collective nose to spite their face and are bloody stupid to boot!
That's opening the door to a Dem take over, impeachment and a Senate where, for the first time EVER, an impeached president WILL be thrown out of office; you can take that to the bank! And what then, a Pence presidency? Pence is worthless and if anyone imagines that he would follow Trump's stances, they need to be put away in an insane asylum.
We should have voted for Jeb.
He would be making the cleverest most cutting remarks
about how President Clinton was handling things!
What is the meaning and purpose of the President’s letter? A John Salisbury tweeted out this explanation. Could not find any MSM reference (of course not). The letter from the President is copied below with reference. For those who do have time, the conclusion of Mr. Salisbury . . . The President has basically told the house . . . See ya in court! For those who have given up, patriots all in the trenches, understand, North Korea has stood down, only the details follow. Up next is Iran. The President needs what he got from that bill to accomplish what is going to be confronted in the next 3 to 4 months. Hang on folks. Its show time In the meantime is this explanation correct? Freepers decide. John Salisbury account
Let's talk about what the President can and can't do for this Omnibus Bill. There's a lot of discussion both ways so let's examine how money gets allocated & spent in the US Government: 1. Congress allocates money to be spent. The President spends the allocated money. 2. Once Congress allocates money, their job is oversight of the money being spent. They don't spend the money and have no say HOW it gets spent as long as it's spent legally. That's their job to monitor with oversight. 3. Once the President is given the money with the instructions to spend it, he has a number of choices to make in spending it. There are some rules he has to follow & some of the money is fungible and some isn't. 4. However there are some other factors that are in play here. One of them is that the President has declared a Human Rights Emergency AND has notified Congress that he's invoking the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985. NOTE: See Letter and Link below for reference of above statement. 5. This opens up new options. 6. By making these two declarations President Trump has just communicated that he has the authority to NOT spend any funds he doesn't deem necessary and will return them to the US Treasury. So, funds for Planned Parenthood? He can simply not allocate the funds 7. Also, these declarations make some funds fungible. For instance if he determines that building a Wall on the Southern Border is a defense against Human Trafficking? He can move funds from anywhere else in the Defense Dept Allocation & simply build the Wall.
8. Congress is powerless to stop cash reallocations on an omnibus bill AND cannot stop the DOD from taking measures under a declared Emergency. NOTE: In part the above statement needs to be challenged, 9. Despite their language in the Omnibus Bill about the Border Wall, it is trumped by the State of Emergency that Trump declared
8) (sic)So in summary - This will go to the Courts. Congress will sue the President over the Border Wall. But here's how it will play out - Congress and the President are co-equal branches with different functions. Congress allocates. The President spends. 9) (sic) The President has National Security as his Primary Responsibility and it's his job to use whatever funds and declarations he needs to for that job. No Court in this Nation (except corrupt on the take Judges) would EVER rule against a President for exercising that authority. 10) In the end the Supreme Court (yes, that's where it will end) will fully VALIDATE the President's Constitutional Authority & the Wall will be built. / Letter from President to Speaker of House You will have to find that letter. I am not good enough to do so.
You’re a political naif who doesn’t understand the ramifications of a Veto and then have that Veto over ridden; which it absolutely WOULD have been.
Trump wouldn’t have gotten a better deal if he had vetoed it.
The government would have been shutdown and Republicans would have been blamed for the fallout - women, children, seniors and minorities hardest hit.
No upside to a veto. Trump decided to put off the fight to another day. Sometimes you have to roll with the punches.
Its sucks and like I said, we need to elect more conservatives to bring about meaningful change.
In case every one forgets, the Democrat Deep State still effectively runs Washington.
Trump talks and talks and talks. But his actions and judgement are showing him to be weak.
Ryan and McConnell SCHEDULED the vote for one day before the anti-gun march so Trump could not let DC chaos occur with all park staff off work
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