Have you ever stopped to consider the grandiose magnitude of a good synonym? If not, I wish you luck on your way and hope that life hasn’t been bleak to this point. For those of you who’ve had the distinct pleasure of finding countless words of phrases that mean exactly or nearly the same as another lexeme in the same language, Y’all know what I’m speaking about. Then, getting even fancier, we have something called a homograph, which is a word spelled the same as another, but the meanings are completely different. For example, the word ‘block’ is a homograph because it can be used to describe a stretch of road akin to a neighborhood or a cube-shaped object of some sort, or even, if you want to get specific to current events taking place, ‘blocking’ can be a move used by a Senate Majority Leader to stop another branch of government from ending a partial government shutdown. Too specific? While you may be right, we’re going to have to continue onward.
Yes, several media outlets took a break from covering Jeff Bezos’ impending divorce to cover Mitch McConnell’s electing to block Senate Democrats from getting the chamber to vote on spending bills to reopen the government. If you’re just tuning in, I’m unsure how you’ve made it thus far with your head buried beneath the sand. Chunks of the United States Federal Government have been shut down for twenty days since President Donald Trump threatened and made good on his words to shut down the government if Democratic leadership in Congress refused to grant him his long-standing billions dollar budget proposal to construct a massive border wall along the US-Mexico border.
President Trump, undoubtedly feeling pressure from the 116th Congress, with its Democratic majority in the House of Representatives, told reporters at the White House on Sunday, that “we’re looking at a national emergency because we have a national emergency — just read the papers.” Some analysts believe President Trump’s recent move is emblematic of the possibility that Trump feels cornered, and rather than handle the present crisis, he’d prefer to ignite a larger controversy, chock full of sound bites and tweets, all the while buying his administration more time to figure out a way to convince the Democratic leadership.
Sources have pointed out that the Department of Defense has indicated that, if the President does, in fact, institute a national state of emergency, they will invoke the use Title 10 U.S. code to allow the military to construct the border wall. The code referenced by the DOD states:
“In the event of a declaration of war or the declaration by the President of a national emergency in accordance with the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.) that requires use of the armed forces, the Secretary of Defense … may undertake military construction projects, and may authorize the Secretaries of the military departments to undertake military construction projects, not otherwise authorized by law that are necessary to support such use of the armed forces.”
–50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.
House Democrats are insisting that the Senate reopen parts of the federal government not related to the border wall after reports surfaced that thousands of government employees are struggling to feed their families since they’ve been out of work for the last three weeks. Regardless, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, in congruence with President Trump, has made it abundantly clear that he won’t budge on any legislation related to the shutdown that he feels demonstrate “pointless show votes that make up political stunts that won’t get us anywhere.”
