BORDER/CONGRESS/GOVERNMENT/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/WALL: “We’re ending the week on a high note: The government isn’t going to shut down tonight! Republicans, Democrats, Congress and the President came together (mostly), put aside their differences (kinda), and have passed a stopgap spending bill that lacks Trump’s stated $5.7 billion for the border wall. He officially signed the bill this afternoon. But Democrats are already readying challenges against the national emergency declaration, and many congressional Republicans are not jazzed about the route that circumvents Capitol Hill. Trump himself once called national emergency declarations ‘dangerous’…The President is going the extra mile by declaring a national emergency to build his border wall — something he teased at in a campaign rally in El Paso, Texas, on Monday [2-11-19]. Trump also got something else this week: a new attorney general, Bill Barr, who served in the same position under George H.W. Bush. Barr will take the reins of the Justice Department — which is, of course, involved in the Mueller Russia investigation.”
–Lauren Dezenski, “Trump takes the ’emergency’ exit,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, February 15, 2019 8:23 pm