Wednesday, March 13, 2019

So what does this mean in the real world?



Will they cut off funding?

If they do, will Trump get it elsewhere?
The Senate on Wednesday again rebuked President Trump for his continued defense of Saudi Arabia after the killing of the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, voting for a second time to end American military assistance for the kingdom’s war in Yemen and to curtail presidential war powers.

  NYT
What happened to the first time? Will they go for three if this doesn't do the job?
The 54-to-46 vote, condemning a nearly four-year conflict in Yemen that has killed thousands of civilians and inflicted a devastating famine, sets the foundation for what could become Mr. Trump’s first presidential veto, with the House expected to overwhelmingly pass the measure, possibly this month. The vote also might be the opening salvo in a week where Senate Republicans have the opportunity to hit back at the president’s aggressive use of executive power. On Thursday, the chamber will vote on a resolution that would overturn Mr. Trump’s declaration of a national emergency to secure funding for his border wall.
He'll veto, and they won't have the votes to override. Then he'll feel even more powerful.
Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, encouraged lawmakers on Wednesday to oppose the Yemen resolution, calling it “inappropriate and counterproductive” and warning them not to conflate their displeasure with the administration’s response to Mr. Khashoggi’s death with the broader issue of the conflict in Yemen. But in a show of defiance, seven Republican senators broke ranks to join the resolution: Mike Lee, of Utah; Susan Collins of Maine; Steve Daines of Montana; Jerry Moran of Kansas; Lisa Murkowski of Alaska; Rand Paul of Kentucky; and Todd Young of Indiana.
Not the 10-12 somebody in the White House thought there might be. Of course if you overstate how many you expect, you can claim victory when it's less than that number.
Supporters of the Yemen resolution have faced a long and grueling road to get the legislation onto the president’s desk. The Senate — led by the resolution’s authors, Mr. Sanders, Mr. Murphy and Mr. Lee — first passed the measure 56 to 41 in December, but Paul D. Ryan, the House speaker at the time, refused to take up the resolution.
Aha. I'm really opposed to this rule, as I've mentioned before, that the leader of either branch gets to choose what measures to bring up for vote once something has passed the other branch. If it passes in one chamber, it should automatically have to be voted on by the other.
His successor, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, did take it up, and the House easily passed it last month. But House Democrats inadvertently derailed the process by supporting a surprise procedural motion offered by Republicans to declare the chamber’s opposition to anti-Semitism. By attaching an unrelated amendment to the Yemen resolution, the House ended its “privileged” status, which would have forced the Senate to quickly take it up and send it to Mr. Trump.
Well done gang. They gotcha with that anti-Semitism trope, didn't they?
The vote on Wednesday was essentially a do-over, and House leadership and the Congressional Progressive Caucus, wary of a repeat derailment, are already urging Democrats to oppose any unrelated amendments that Republicans might add.
Fine, but what if they do the anti-Semitism thing again? Or guns? Or post-birth killings - or whatever it is they use?
The resolution is a rare use of the 1973 War Powers Act, which gave Congress the ability to compel the removal of military forces absent a formal declaration of war. Those powers, created after the Vietnam War, have almost never been used, as lawmakers have demurred from intervening in politically delicate matters of war, peace and support for the troops.
A bunch of chickenshits.
In an attempt to defuse rising anger on Capitol Hill [over the White House's refusal to condemn the killing of Jamal Khashoggi], the White House sent two aides from the State and Treasury Departments last week to a closed-door briefing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. But senators on the panel were left unsatisfied, with some suggesting it was time for the full Senate to act.

[...]

The Foreign Relations Committee, now overseen by Senator Jim Risch of Idaho, a Trump loyalist, however, has yet to report out bipartisan legislation introduced last month that would impose new sanctions on the kingdom. Mr. Risch condemned the passage of the resolution on Wednesday evening, calling it “a terrible message of U.S. division and lack of resolve” and a “bad precedent for using the War Powers Resolution to express political disagreements with a president.”


...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

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