Featured

DENIED! Bi-Partisan Pushback Leads Trump to Cry, “Emergency”

NNPA NEWSWIRE — Trump said he’ll get money from multiple sources including tapping into the $3.6 billion earmarked for military construction, $600 million in asset forfeitures seized by the U.S. Treasury Department, $2.5 billion available through the Department of Defense’s drug interdiction program and the nearly $1.4 billion Congress approved earlier in the week for border barriers – an agreement that proved vital in avoiding another government shutdown.

Published

7 years ago

February 15, 2019

Oakland Post

By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Correspondent
@StacyBrownMedia

Hunger, affordable housing, unemployment, underfunded public schools and climate change are all national emergencies, but not a border wall, critics of President Donald Trump argued as the Commander-in-Chief declared a national emergency to fund his 2016 campaign promise of building a wall on America’s southern border.

“As someone who has visited our southern border several times, the only emergency is the crisis that was created by this administration’s cruel immigration policies that separate families and put innocent children in cages,” said California Democratic Rep. Nanette Barragan.

Congress should never have approved Trump’s budget that included funding that was still well-short of the estimated $6.5 billion border wall, said activist Shaun King.

“All he did was wait until Congress approved some then declared a national emergency the next day,” King said.

The president said declaring the national emergency and other measures will help free as much as $8 billion so he can fund construction for the wall, which would run some 234 miles.

Trump said he’ll get money from multiple sources including tapping into the $3.6 billion earmarked for military construction, $600 million in asset forfeitures seized by the U.S. Treasury Department, $2.5 billion available through the Department of Defense’s drug interdiction program and the nearly $1.4 billion Congress approved earlier in the week for border barriers – an agreement that proved vital in avoiding another government shutdown.

“Sadly, we’ll be sued and sadly it will go through a process and happily we’ll win, I think,” Trump said as he announced the “emergency.”

In a joint statement, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called it an “unlawful declaration over a crisis that does not exist” and said it “does great violence to our Constitution and makes America less safe, stealing from urgently needed defense funds for the security of our military and our nation.”

“The President’s actions clearly violate the Congress’s exclusive power of the purse, which our Founders enshrined in the Constitution,” they said.

“The Congress will defend our constitutional authorities in the Congress, in the Courts, and in the public, using every remedy available.”

Even Republicans publicly expressed their opposition to Trump’s decision.

“I’m disappointed with both the massive, bloated, secretive bill that just passed and with the president’s intention to declare an emergency to build a wall,” Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky tweeted.

“I too want stronger border security, including a wall in some areas but how we do things matters. Extra-constitutional executive actions are wrong, no matter which party does them,” Paul said.

Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio said, “I generally don’t think it’s a good idea.”

Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins called Trump’s decision a mistake. “It’s just not good policy,” she said.

Jaime Contreras, a vice president at 32BJ SEIU which represents 700 federally contracted janitors and security officers who were affected by the shutdown, said in a statement that Trump’s declaration of a state of emergency is “a dangerous and unprecedented political maneuver that seems from every angle to violate the separation of powers at the core of our Constitution.”

“At a time when unauthorized border crossing are at an historic low, the real emergency remains that immigrants are being castigated to deflect the pain caused by Trump administration’s assaults on healthcare, labor rights, an equitable tax system, and the continuing promise of the American Dream for working and middle-class families,” Contreras said.

The declaration by Trump also deflects attention from the ongoing crisis created by the historically unprecedented government shutdown, he said.

“For five weeks, workers were robbed of their paychecks, and then the President broke his promise of back pay to all government workers as thousands of contract workers aren’t slated to receive a dime, including hundreds of janitors and security officers who are members of 32BJ SEIU,” Contreras said.

Perhaps echoing the sentiments of many in both parties and Americans in general, former Florida gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum said the United States currently has one sizeable problem.

“Donald Trump is our national emergency,” Gillum said.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Up Next

Our Black Women and Girls Have Gone Missing but Few Seem to Care

Don't Miss

FedEx Powering Up Its Downtown Presence

Oakland Post

Click to comment

#NNPA BlackPress

Poll Shows Support for Policies That Help Families Afford Child Care

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

Published

1 week ago

March 2, 2026

Oakland Post

By First Five Years Fund

New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

The national survey was conducted by UpOne Insight on behalf of the First Five Years Fund from January 13–18, 2026.

Key findings include:

• Parents need help: 80% of voters say the ability of working parents to find and afford child care is either in a state of crisis or a major problem.

• This is an affordability issue: 82% believe federal child care funding will help lower costs for working families — including 69% of Republicans, 84% of Independents, and 94% of Democrats.

• And there continues to be strong support (62%) for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), a federal program that makes it possible for hundreds of thousands of families to afford safe, quality care for their children while parents work or go to school, including a majority of Republicans, 63% of Independents and 72% of Democrats.

• Support for funding child care programs remains strong: 75% believe child care funding should be increased or kept at current levels — including 75% of Republicans, 85% of Independents, and 97% of Democrats.

• 74% say funding for child care is an important and good use of tax dollars, including a majority of Republicans, three-quarters of Independents, and nine in ten Democrats.

FFYF Executive Director Sarah Rittling said, “Voters across the country are sending a clear message: federal child care and early learning programs work. These investments help parents stay in the workforce, strengthen families, and support healthy child development. They have also long had strong bipartisan support in Congress. At a time when affordability is top of mind for families, continued federal funding is essential to ensure child care remains accessible and within reach.”

First Five Years Fund works to protect, prioritize, and build bipartisan support for quality child care and early learning programs at the federal level. Reliable, affordable, and high-quality early learning and child care can be transformative, not only enhancing a child’s prospects for a brighter future but also bolstering working parents and fostering economic stability nationwide.

We work with Congress and the Administration to identify federal solutions that work for families with young children, as well as states and communities. We work with policymakers to identify ways to increase access to affordable, high-quality child care and early learning programs for children. And we collaborate with advocacy groups to help align best practices with the best possible policies. http://www.ffyf.org

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Activism

Oakland Post: Week of February 25 – March 3, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of – February 25 – March 3, 2026

Published

1 week ago

March 1, 2026

Oakland Post

To enlarge your view of this issue, use the slider, magnifying glass icon or full page icon in the lower right corner of the browser window.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

#NNPA BlackPress

Trump’s MAGA Allies are Creating Executive Order Plan to Steal the 2026 Midterms

NNPA NEWSWIRE — The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

Published

1 week ago

February 27, 2026

Oakland Post

By Lauren Victoria Burke, NNPA Newswire Correspondent

A group of MAGA pro-Trump activists, who say they are working in coordination with the White House, are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that would claim without evidence that China interfered with the 2020 presidential election. Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential to President Joe Biden by over 7 million votes. Since Trump lost to Biden in 2020, he has repeatedly claimed that the election was “stolen” without evidence. The report of a group of “Trump allies” preparing an executive order to give Trump power over elections was first reported by The Washington Post.

The lies around the right-wing campaign that pushed falsehoods that the 2020 election was stolen was trafficked through right-wing media, particularly Fox News. Fox News was then sued for defamation for the claims by Dominion Voting Systems. Fox lost the case and had to settle for the largest defamation amount on record of $787.5 million in April 2023.

The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

The story in The Washington Post arrives as Trump increasingly signals that he may take actions that would alter the result of the 2026 midterms. The Republicans are widely expected to lose as their approval ratings plummet as a result of a failing economy under Trump. Over 50 members of Congress have announced they will retire this year and not return in 2027.

The Trump Department of Justice, which now has a large image of Trump on the side of it, “sued five new states Thursday [Feb. 26, 2026] demanding access to their unredacted voter rolls — escalating a campaign that has been rejected by multiple federal courts and faces resistance from Republican-led states as well,” according to Democracy Docket, a group that works to protect voting rights.

Trump claimed back in late 2020, the last year of his first term, that he had the authority to issue an executive order related to mail-in voting for the 2020 elections — which he would then lose. But the Constitution states that control of elections lies with the states. As the GOP works to place hurdles in front of voting, Democrats worked to make voting easier.

In March 2021, President Biden signed an executive order calling on federal agencies to expand voting access as part of the Biden Administration’s effort “to promote and defend the right to vote for all Americans who are legally entitled to participate in elections.”

Trump’s focus is clearly on altering the November 2026 midterm elections. Trump’s polling numbers and the elections and special elections that have taken place around the U.S. over the last year clearly indicate that Republicans are about to be hit by a blue wave of Democratic victories.

Lauren Victoria Burke is an independent investigative journalist and the founder of Black Virginia News. She is a political analyst who appears on #RolandMartinUnfiltered and hosts the show LAUREN LIVE on YouTube @LaurenVictoriaBurke. She can be contacted at LBurke007@gmail.com and on twitter at @LVBurke