Posted on 03/26/2018 4:22:35 PM PDT by Kaslin
RUSH: I want to share with you a piece I found here in the failing U.S. News & World Report. I didn’t even know that U.S. News was still around. I don’t think it is as a magazine. But it’s there, because I found something on a website claiming to be U.S. News. And the headline is: Building a Wall in the Dark.” The subhead: “Congress is using budget shenanigans to funnel Pentagon money to President Trump’s border wall.” And the writer here is Ryan Alexander, opinion contributor.
Now, this is dated back in July of 2017. It’s not about this deal last Friday. July of 2017. But I came across this, and it sounds eerily similar. Don’t know if there’s anything to this, but I just want to share.
“FAIR WARNING: This week’s column is a deep dive into the inner workings of the House of Representatives. When you kick that rock over, goodness knows what will skitter out. In this case, it reveals some unsavory shenanigans to funnel money to President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall.
“If you’re for the wall, you’re thinking, ‘Good! We should be spending taxpayer dollars to keep illegal immigrants out of the country.’ But, if I told you the money was going to come from the Pentagon budget, would that still make sense to you? Federal military troops are forbidden to engage in law enforcement actions, such as enforcing immigration law … The federal agencies charged with protecting U.S. borders and enforcing immigration laws, like the Coast Guard and the Border Patrol, are in the Department of Homeland Security. And the president’s budget request for fiscal year 2018 includes just over $44 billion for the department.”
Now, remember, this story is about nine months old. So bear with me.
“So, again, I ask, why should the Pentagon be asked to pay for a border wall? It seems to be a testament to the famous reason Willie Sutton gave for robbing banks: ‘Because that’s where the money is.'” The Pentagon is. It’s even more true this year. This omnibus that Trump signed sends $650 billion to the Pentagon. The upshot of this piece is that Trump can allocate that money however he wants. Wait. No. He can direct it, he can spend it. Congress allocates, but Trump, once the money is at the Pentagon it’s in the executive branch, and Trump can do with it what he wants.
“So, again, I ask, why should the Pentagon be asked to pay for a border wall?” That’s where the money is. “The Pentagon, with a total proposed budget of $639 billion ($574 in base budget and $65 billion in special ‘war’ accounts), is where lawmakers can find the money for just about anything.”
So that $639 billion last year, it’s even bigger this year. Remember this is July 19th, 2017.
“But the House Armed Services Committee version of the annual Pentagon policy bill included a common-sense provision to make sure the Pentagon isn’t tasked with paying for the wall,” just like this omnibus has all kinds of restrictions in it. You know that this omnibus says that concrete cannot be used in the fencing that Trump is permitted to build. And Trump’s out there saying (imitating Trump), “Hey, we’re starting today, we’re starting today on the wall. We got our initial down payment, $1.6 billion, we’re starting on it today.”
He’s telling people that over the weekend. He tweeted it out, he told people at Mar-a-Lagos as he’s running around saying hi to guests. He’s characterizing the $1.6 billion in this omnibus as a down payment.
“But the House Armed Services Committee version of the annual Pentagon policy bill included a common-sense provision to make sure the Pentagon isn’t tasked with paying for the wall: ‘Section 1039. Rule of construction regarding use of Department of Defense funding of a border wall. None of the funds authorized to be appropriated by this act or otherwise made available for the fiscal year 2018 for the Department of Defense may be used to plan, develop or construct any barriers, including walls or fences, along the international border of the United States.'”
And that same kind of language is in this year’s omnibus.
“A careful reading of this language … points out this is a fairly broad prohibition. The armed services committees don’t ultimately control how federal dollars are spent. The Constitution preserves that role for the appropriations committees. But by saying ‘or otherwise made available … for the Department of Defense,’ the House Armed Services Committee was foreclosing the possibility of spending any Pentagon money on this wall,” but, but, but…
“Enter the House Rules Committee. A little known congressional powerhouse, the Rules Committee is also called the speaker’s committee. It’s called that because the speaker of the House simultaneously served as the chairman of the committee until 1910 and, as the committee website says, ‘because it is the mechanism that the speaker uses to maintain control of the House floor.’ The Pentagon policy bill, HR 2810, needed a ‘rule’ to allow for its consideration on the House floor.”
The bottom line is that the House Rules Committee wrote a rule, an amendment that overrode the original prohibition. “On the House floor, the vote on the full rule passed. And at the end of a long day that means Pentagon money can be used to construct a border wall,” even though the original prohibition existed in the original budget bill.
And this guy is all ticked off about it, and this is from last summer. He’s all ticked off about it. The upshot of this is — and if you look in enough places, you will find a number of people theorizing that that’s exactly what’s going to happen. That one of the reasons there’s so much money in the defense budget is that a lot of it is going to be used for things Trump could not get out of Congress to do. But ultimately Congress had to give the go-ahead with the various shenanigans, if you want to look at it that way, creating this rule.
So I don’t know if that’s a factor in this year’s budget, but last year it was. And there was money spent on the wall last year. Not a whole lot of it, but there was money spent that was not allocated for it.
The guy writing this at U.S. News is a member of something at Taxpayers for Common Sense, and they study this kind of stuff to find out how the American people are being screwed, cheated, misled, what have you. So it’s something to think about. A lot of people I have found — and I don’t know what kind of credibility this has. I really don’t. I’m still trackin’ it all down. A lot of it can be refuted with simple notations of other things happening in the news. But there’s a body of thinking out there that Trump is the one that’s pulled a fast one here.
That Trump has found a way to get what he wants in defiance of Congress with the assistance of some members of Congress on the Rules Committee, and that one of the reasons the defense budget is so big is because a lot of it can be used for such things as the wall. Again, it’s nebulous. “If that’s true,” I ask myself, “then why is Mnuchin on TV demanding a line-item veto and why are so many excuses being made for Trump? ‘Well, you know, he had to do this. It’s a situation, Rush, where if you veto it, then what do I do?’
“I mean, you veto? So what? You got a government shutdown. Then what? What’s next? What’s the next step to solving this? So Trump had to do it.'” So a lot of people are trying to find hidden icing on the cake in this that makes it look like Trump has actually outsmarted people and has found a way to get money for things that he wants that was not specifically allocated or appro… Well, we weren’t any appropriations. This is an omnibus.
It’s not a budget, and some people think that because of that Trump has much more latitude on how this money is actually spent and where it actually goes. But then you go to the reading, you go to the wording in this actual omnibus, and it prohibits concrete. It prohibits anything on this fencing area for 33 miles that looks anything like any of the prototypes. So we’ll see how it plays out. There’s also this thinking about the need for the massive amount of money for defense.
There are two things percolating out there that pose a serious threat — one’s Iran going nuclear, the other is North Korea — and that Trump is serious about tackling them both and can’t do it credibly and with the strength he needs without this massive amount of money that the world now knows is going to be spent on defense. Just that realization alone is thought to be a huge deterrent to both the Iranians and North Koreans and ISIS and anybody else in general. So the situation remains fluid.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Let me read to you a Trump tweet from this morning, given the data that I just shared with you. Trump tweeted, “Fund through military…” He tweeted this. “Because of the $700 & $716 Billion Dollars gotten to rebuild our Military, many jobs are created and our Military is again rich. Building a great Border Wall, with drugs (poison) and enemy combatants pouring into our Country, is all about National Defense. Build WALL through M!”
Everybody thinks that means “military.” Now, the key here is “jobs are created and our Military is again rich. Building a great Border Wall, with drugs (poison) and enemy combatants pouring into our Country, is all about National Defense.” If Trump wants to declare a human rights emergency or a national defense threat or some such thing, the military and its budget would then be allowed — or would be accessible — for use.
So if Trump issues a proclamation which declares the southern border to be a national security threat and a human rights violation area, what have you, there are people saying, “Then legally Trump could go get some of that $700 billion from defense and use that to build a wall, and there’s not a thing anybody could say about it.” The people who are saying this are very worried. This is not… I’m not reading this from people who are Trump supporters who think that he’s outsmarted everybody.
These are people worried that Trump is in the process of outsmarting people and is going to find a way — using existing regulations and law — to allocate some of that massive amount of $700 billion for defense to his border wall and whatever else that he wants and that they are theorizing… These are people that don’t like Trump. They’re theorizing this is one of the reasons why Trump didn’t seem to fight this very much, is because he had knowledge that he would be able to use or get access to some of the money in this omnibus, even though Congress had not specifically appropriated it.
One of the gray areas here is the difference between an omnibus and a budget.
An omnibus is just Congress allocating (chuckles), you know, a hell of a lot of money. A budget is actually 12 appropriations bills that’s combined into one, with every appropriation containing specific directions over where the money is to go. ‘Cause there’s not a dollar spent in this country that is not first authorized by the House of Representatives. Well, the key here is “authorize” versus “direct,” “allocate” versus “be in control of.” So there’s a lot of Never Trumpers… There are a lot of people that don’t like Trump very worried about how things might actually shake out. We’ll just have to wait and see.
“In November, SWF Constructors of Omaha, Nebraska, won a contract for $18 million to replace wall in Calexico. The administration waived environmental reviews in September.”
This is from an article dated the 21st
of February 2018. part of a local infrastructure improvement project.
It isn’t the beginning of the
construction of Trumps border wall.
The pic in question shows similar
stacked materials, terrain, and fence
type shown in the Feb article.
Rush nailed it yesterday. He explained everything along with the reason why the obamama/jarrett regime never once opted for a budget but settled for a CR or spending bill after bill so they could have exactly the flexibility that is contained within the omnibus not the hard and fast rules of a budget.
Add in a few EO's at the right time and place and the obama/jarrett regime could pretty much get whatever they wanted. They did it at midnight much of the time so even when it was discovered there was little anyone could do.Slick very slick.
Problem is trump is even slicker and they(Chuck U and insane Nancy) are just learning what it is like to be "Trumped"!!
Doesn’t look like a picket fence to me,LOL!!Bottom line for the left:don’t mess with Trump.You will always lose.
Sorry Mr. know-it-all you let me know when that money is spent and how much of the "suggested" amounts are spent!!
Great post we are lucky to have “The Donald” on our side.
I would give Rush a break until you try what he does. It’s a lot harder than it looks.
I think it all depends on what is going on in the background. If there really are 1,800 indictments that are going on, expansion of Gitmo and lots of well knows showing up there, ankle bracelets on all the right people and all that starts being known, so well that even the DBM can’t cover it up say from august til Nov.There is no way we will lose congress.
See post # 42 in this thread:
Trump, the Omnibus, and the Art of the Real
https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3642522/posts?page=42
The Presidential declaration of emergency on the drug epidemic gives him discretion on how to spend the appropriations from a bill which is not a “budget” according to the Congressional rules of order. An omnibus bill is not a budgetary based appropriations bill.
We will soon know if this has legs. The lefts caterwauling would be so loud even more heads will explode.Can you imagine all of that Schumer New York/New Jersey tunnel money going to build the wall? Buahahahahahaha!
People have posted photos of the wall now actually being built.
Building walls in the right places 1.6 billion can go a long way....
Point taken.
But Limbaugh has always had a hesitation about Trump that he never expressed with his nostalgia over Reagan.
Limbaugh did not cut his teeth in radio until Reagan had already won hearts and minds of Americans. Reagan’s greatness was on full display in 1988 when Limbaugh was learning how to handle a microphone.
What Limbaugh doesn’t get is that in 1981-1982-1983 Reagan was hated and maligned, derided by the GOP establishment and nearly within a hair assassinated by someone close to the rotten Bush family.
There have been assassination attempts on Donald Trump. Still, Donald has shown more courage than most Americans by wearing a bullet-proof vest into rallies of tens of thousands of screaming Americans. This from a man who could easily spend the rest of his days in comfort on the golf course living a life of splendor. For that alone, Donald deserves the highest praise and respect from patriotic Americans, yet Limbaugh hesitates.
The difference in Limbaugh on Reagan and Limbaugh on Trump is that Limbaugh came AFTER Reagan had ascended to greatness from miscast ignominy whereas Limbaugh is experiencing the miscast ignominy of Trump as he ascends to greatness. Limbaugh never experienced the dark days of Reagan, only the glow of Reagan’s success when Reagan had become a beloved President. With Trump, he’s reacting to the dark forces that surround Trump and he is hesitant to jump into Trump’s camp with both feet, why?
I guarantee that had Limbaugh been covering Reagan in 1983, he would be just as hesitant with Reagan as he is now with Trump.
Limbaugh thinks Trump is unpredictable, so was Reagan.
Limbaugh thinks Trump’s poll numbers support his hesitancy. Reagan’s poll numbers in 1983 were worse than Trump’s numbers are now.
So why is it that Limbaugh is one of the first to jump in and declare that Trump is ‘going back up the elevator’?
It’s because Limbaugh wasn’t there to cover the dark days of Reagan’s presidency.
Limbaugh and his microphone cane AFTER Reagan had won the heart of America. Limbaugh came on the scene when Reagan’s poll numbers were in the high 70s. Hell, even Pappy Bush had poll numbers in 1990 at 90+%. NINETY FRICKIN PERCENT! And Bush didn’t deserve those numbers. He got them only because he was viewed as Reagan Part II, Reagan the Sequel until the public became aware he was a big Reagan nothing.
So why is Limbaugh not understanding history and making himself jump on the Trump Train?
Because he’s hedging his bets. He’s a little cowardly.
Ok, so he’s not as great as he thinks he is.
I’ll give him one thing, he’s built an audience, a large one, and he has a lot of good people feed him good information which he has the ability to understand is good information. For example, he read yesterday from information that was handed him, ostensibly by someone he respects, that the Rules Committee overrode restrictions put into the Omnibus against using military funding to build the Trump Wall.
The backstory of the Rules Committee was a useful piece of information that helps clear up the confusion surrounding the Omnibus and the interpretations that people were arguing about. So Trump is right, the Wall may be built using military funding or ‘M’, M meaning either military or Mexico, Trump stoking the media. My take is Trump starts the Wall and gives Congress one more shot to get it right else he moves military funding into the Wall construction and/or he tears Mexico a new one with a renegotiated NAFTA and from that comes Wall funding. Either way, just as President Trump said Friday, more funding for the Wall will ‘follow’.
But what I noticed about Limbaugh when he was announcing the information about what the Rules Committee had done to afford Trump multiple options on many things, was that Limbaugh while reading couched his comments with distanced conditionals such as “people are trying” to find a silver lining in Trump’s Omnibus signing. In other words, the Rules Committee actions were brought by people “trying to find”, “trying to spin”, etc. That means Limbaugh is still not on the Trump Train. He’s in the Michael Reagan, Mark Levin tent. And that’s why I call Limbaugh ‘Lamebutt’.
This is typical Rush Limbaugh, who never predicts anything that is straight up. That way, he can claim he came down on the right side of any issue regardless of how it turns out. This isn’t going to happen, as much as we would like to see it happen.
Agreed, and while Reagan was opposed by many (even in the GOP), the level of hatred from politicians, the media and entertainment is orders of magnitude more severe against Trump. And that doesn't even factor all those actively working to subvert his presidency with police state tactics and more.
Even though we all want more to be done, and done quicker...it's astonishing what he was accomplished so far while going up against those kinds of odds.
That is the specified allocation of the money - along with no increase in border agents and a decrease in detainment areas. Don’t know if the photo is legit.
Ugh, how about you let me know the money wasn’t spent. And, let me know when the military dollars are being spent on the wall.
Yeah, believe you or my lying eyes.
Be sarcastic if you want... but from bots to Photoshop I tend to disbelieve most of what I read and see on the net. When the dems file in court to stop Trump from truly building the wall, then I will know he actually started.
Sure thing Thomas. Lotta wall will be built before then. Remain in your negative juice, but why spread it?
Well it’s a start.
It needs razor wire on top, plus with a rope and grappling hook they cab still flow past the border.
IMO the best design is one of the concrete prototypes with the rounded top area.
Which of course the open borders congress would not approve.
But Trump does not need their approval, the bill is not a budget so the uses for the money allocated are just suggestions pretty much.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.