White House plans to strip disaster relief from California and Puerto Rico to build wall

White House plans to strip disaster relief from California and Puerto Rico to build wall

FULL STORY

Comments:

Violation of Article II, Section 3

He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.

He can’t just magically decide to spend money appropriated by Congress for one thing on something else, in particular not if that something else has specifically FAILED to pass the House.

The First Circuit Court of Appeals (which includes PR, go figure, they sit there in February. . . .) does not have any Trump appointees on it. The most recent three appointments were all by Obama. The full panel includes one Puerto Rican and at least one person of color (from RI). Justice Souter sits by designation, and still has an office in Concord, NH.

This will not be a particularly Trump-friendly bench, IMO.

Christy1947 elwior

February 12 · 08:03:26 AM

The lawsuit that will result from his stealing disaster funds will only be strengthened by demo that it was done on a partisan basis, i.e. stripped from states that voted against him but not those that voted for him, like Texas.

The Repubs already stuck it to CA with their tax bill that extracted $$ that should have stayed in state to support programs that Californians want.  Enough with this income redistribution.

Trump’s particular brand is referred to as “sadopopulism”.

except that the Carr and Camp fires were in GOP heavy areas of CA.  There’s already been blow back by locals about FEMA threatening to withhold fire cleanup funding if fire victims stay in RVs/trailers on their properties before cleanup is done.

To be fair, the fact the funds are available means they aren’t being used for the purposes needed. The trump administration has been slow walking the release of them for ages — especially in relation to Puerto Rico.