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Declaring a fake "national emergency" to usurp congressional budget power and seize private property is exactly the type of executive overreach that impeachment was designed to cure. That Article II power is the weapon the Founders gave to Congress to defend itself. 1/10
However, a weapon in the hands of a Congress too craven to use it isn't much of a deterrent, and in this case the Senate majority leader has already withdrawn from the fight like a turtle shrinking into its shell by announcing he supports this attack on legislative powers. 2/10
That dumps the problem into the lap of the third branch of government, the judiciary, which may soon face its own test of institutional independence and constitutional integrity. Because on its face, this situation meets no plausible definition of emergency. 3/10
The executive was given emergency power to enable it to act in crises when a plodding Congress didn't have the time to act. In this case, Congress has quite plainly considered the situation fully, and it has decided against giving the executive the authority that it demands. 4/10
In fact, congressional insistence has been so unyielding on this point that it endured a dramatic three-week government shutdown, initiated by the executive, rather than surrender to the president's petty petulance. Congress has made its decision, and that decision is no. 5/10
Yet this isn't just an attack on Congress and the Constitution, but on the concept of reality itself, because no facts justify the executive's claim of emergency. We know that's the case because over months of debate, the executive continues to fail to city any such facts. 6/10
The lies and outright inventions used to whip a Trump rally into a frenzy can't be introduced before a federal judge to claim an emergency, because any DOJ or White House lawyer who tried to cite such nonsense would risk contempt of court or disbarment. 7/10
In court you can't retell lurid, baseless stories of women with duct-taped mouths being smuggled into the country in caravans of left-turning, high-tech Mad Max vehicles that Border Patrol units are helpless to stop, that only a wall can stop. In court you need facts. 8/10
And the facts are illegal immigration is only a fraction of what it was 10-15 years ago, that the total number of those here illegally is declining not growing, that most smuggling occurs at ports of entry, not open territory, and immigration is not a major source of crime. 9/10
Courts are triers of law and fact, and by law and fact this is not a national emergency, not even close. Should the judicial system somehow twist itself to decide otherwise, then the safeguards have failed and our constitutional republic is in serious, serious jeopardy. 10/10
