MORE BUDGET SHENANIGANS: President Trump’s proposed fiscal year 2020 budget, due to be submitted to Congress early next month, will include a plan to avoid having to reach a consensus with Democrats over Pentagon funding, by moving regular budget items into one-time war spending accounts, which are not subject to spending caps.

HAPPENING TODAY: Congress appears poised to pass narrowly a resolution pushed by Democrats that attempts to block President Trump’s invocation of his authority under federal statute to declare a national emergency and shift unobligated military construction money to fund additional border barriers.

The bill needs only a simple majority in both chambers to pass, and it’s picking up a few votes among Republicans who are queasy about ceding the power of the purse to the executive branch, fearing it will just come back to haunt them another day.

“Republicans need to realize that this will lead inevitably to regret when a Democrat once again controls the White House, cites the precedent set by Trump, and declares his or her own national emergency to advance a policy that couldn’t gain congressional approval,” writes Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., in an op-ed in the Washington Post. Tillis noted Republicans railed against President Barack Obama’s use of executive orders to bypass Congress to protect “dreamers.”

“There is no intellectual honesty in now turning around and arguing that there’s an imaginary asterisk attached to executive overreach — that it’s acceptable for my party but not thy party,” Tillis writes. “As a U.S. senator, I cannot justify providing the executive with more ways to bypass Congress. As a conservative, I cannot endorse a precedent that I know future left-wing presidents will exploit to advance radical policies that will erode economic and individual freedoms.”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, told a local Alaska TV station she’s also “likely” to vote for the resolution, according to the Hill.

SCHIFF’S OPEN LETTER TO GOP: In yet another Post op-ed, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, writes an open letter appealing to his Republican colleagues to stand up to Trump in what he calls “a moment of great peril for our democracy.”

“When the president attacked the independence of the Justice Department by intervening in a case in which he is implicated, you did not speak out. When he attacked the press as the enemy of the people, you again were silent. When he targeted the judiciary, labeling judges and decisions he didn’t like as illegitimate, we heard not a word. And now he comes for Congress, the first branch of government, seeking to strip it of its greatest power, that of the purse,” Schiff writes.

“The president has just declared a national emergency to subvert the will of Congress and appropriate billions of dollars for a border wall that Congress has explicitly refused to fund. Whether you support the border wall or oppose it, you should be deeply troubled by the president’s intent to obtain it through a plainly unconstitutional abuse of power.”

TRUMP PROMISES A VETO: “Will I veto it? 100 percent. 100 percent,” said President Trump when asked about the bill last week. “And I don’t think it survives a veto; we have too many smart people that want border security, so I can’t imagine it could survive a veto. But I will veto it, yes.”

THEM’S THE RULES: It turns out President Trump won’t have to wield his veto pen for the first time on a bill that aimed to end U.S. support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen. The bill was derailed by an unexpected decision by the Senate parliamentarian. The news blindsided supporters, who were shocked to learn yesterday the bill had been deemed “de-privileged,” meaning it is not entitled to a guaranteed Senate vote after passing the House.

The legislation passed the House Feb. 13 in a 248-177 vote and was to be considered by the Senate this week, before the parliamentarian determined it wasn’t actually entitled to an up-or-down vote. The decision allows Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to block a vote on the bill. McConnell has repeatedly said he won’t allow legislation to have a floor vote if Trump won’t sign it.

DEM GOVS WITHDRAW BORDER TROOPS: Meanwhile Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, announced yesterday 112 Wisconsin National Guard personnel will be withdrawn from the southwest border, where they have been conducting border security missions.

“There is simply not ample evidence to support the president’s contention of a national security crisis at our southwestern border,” Evers tweeted Monday. “Therefore, there is no justification for the ongoing presence of Wisconsin National Guard personnel at the border.”

The announcement comes after California Gov. Gavin Newsom and New Mexico Gov. Michelle Grisham — both Democrats — issued similar directives.

IT’S SUMMIT TIME: President Trump arrives this morning (tonight Hanoi time) in Vietnam for round 2 of his summitry with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. “Heading over to Vietnam for my meeting with Kim Jong Un. Looking forward to a very productive Summit!,” Trump tweeted Monday before leaving Washington aboard Air Force One.

“If President Trump succeeds in dissolving the world’s last remaining Cold War rivalry, it will become yet another great feat that will be indelibly recorded in world history,” said South Korean President Moon Jae-in, according to the AP.

Kim Jong Un is already there after a marathon journey across China on his armored train from Pyongyang.

WESTERN PRESS DISPLACED: White House reporters got word today in Hanoi they would all have to pack up and decamp to a new hotel, because Kim was taking over their accommodations, reflecting a logistical planning failure that local officials attributed to the fact they only had about 10 days to prepare for the summit — much less than the nearly two months Singapore had before the first Trump-Kim meeting last year.

WILL TRUMP END THE KOREAN WAR? Harry Kazianis, director of Korea studies at the Center for the National Interest, hopes so. “If America is going to have any hope in convincing North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons Washington needs to find a way to convince Pyongyang that it is serious about forging a new relationship and that decades of tension can finally end. There is only one way to do that: the signing of a peace declaration ending the Korean War once and for all,” he writes.

Kazianis argues the key to convincing Kim to give up his nukes is to reassure him he doesn’t need to fear a U.S.-led military invasion to topple his regime. “If Washington was to sign with Pyongyang a simple political declaration ending the war, Kim may have the proof he needs to not only trust America’s intentions but to go back to his own people — especially those in the military or in the leadership circle — with evidence that America no longer has any hostile intent and begin denuclearization.”

DEMS SAY THEY’RE ‘ROOTING FOR SUCCESS’: “We’re all rooting for success — and, again, if the president is able to pull it off, I’ll be the first one to say ‘Well done, Mr. President’ — but our role must be to bring a realistic view and a healthy dose of skepticism when the president takes another victory lap,” said Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Speaking at the liberal Center for American Progress yesterday, Engel pledged to keep an open mind. “Democrats aren’t going to stand in the way of a real opportunity just because it happens to come from an administration and a president with whom we deeply disagree on so many things,” he said.

BUT ARE DEEPLY SKEPTICAL: Over on CNN, Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee, insisted he too wants the president to succeed but remains deeply skeptical, based on the first summit last year in Singapore. “I worry that the president wants his made-for-TV moments. I worry that he’s dumbing down diplomacy at the end of the day. And I am worried that for the sake of declaring a victory, he will give too much,” Menendez told Wolf Blitzer.

“The president walked away from the first summit without even a definition of what the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula is. So we’re going to a second summit in which there isn’t an agreement, the jumping-off point by which you would seek to seek all the other elements of an agreement,” Menendez said. “We need a verifiable, enforceable denuclearization, which means the elimination of all of North Korea’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, the infrastructure that supports those weapons and ballistic missiles, and a verifiable regime in order to achieve that’s the case.”

MALE-ONLY DRAFT DOOMED? The chairman of a congressionally created commission charged with reviewing the nation’s selective service registration system says a ruling by a federal judge in Texas spells doom for the current law, which requires only men to register for the military draft. “The district court’s opinion means change is inevitable and the status quo is untenable,” Joe Heck, chairman of the bipartisan National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service, said Monday.

While ruling that a male-only draft is unconstitutional, U.S. District Judge Gray Miller of the Southern District of Texas stopped short of ordering the government to begin making women register for conscription.

Nevertheless Heck says the ruling underscores the need for reform of the nation’s selective service system and makes the work of the commission “all the more important and relevant.”

The advisory commission, which has been studying the issues for two years, is charged with making its final recommendations to Congress by March 2020. It has a series of four public hearings scheduled for April 24 and 25 at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C.

INDIA BOMBS PAKISTAN: In a sign of increasing tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbors, India has conducted airstrikes against militants in Pakistani territory, according to the BBC.

A top Indian minister was quoted saying strikes targeted a training camp of the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) group in Balakot. Pakistan said the strikes hit an empty area, while India said the pre-emptive strike killed a “very large number” of militants. JeM claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing last month in the area that killed more than 40 Indian soldiers.

The airstrikes are the first launched across the de facto border that divides India-administered Kashmir from Pakistan-administered Kashmir since a war between the two countries in 1971, says the BBC.

SOMALIA WATCH: With a bombing run Sunday that the United States says killed 34 al Shabab militants, America’s other war in Somalia has now claimed 181 kills for the year. The United States has about 500 troops in Somalia backing government forces and the U.N.-authorized AMISOM mission.

So far this year the United States has conducted 21 airstrikes and assesses it killed 181 militants, 78 in the month of February. In all of last year it conducted 45 strikes and killed 323 suspected terrorists, according to public releases from U.S. Africa Command.

DEADLY TOLL IN AFGHANISTAN: More civilians were killed in the war in Afghanistan in 2018 than any other year since the United States started fighting there in 2001, says a newly released United Nations report.

The report found there were 3,804 civilian deaths in 2018, an 11 percent increase from 2017. Of those deaths, 927, or about 25 percent, were children up to age 17. It said 7,189 civilians were injured last year in the armed conflict.

The U.N. singled out what it called “a significant rise in civilian casualties” from airstrikes in support of the Afghan government, which resulted in a 61 percent increase in civilian casualties and 82 percent increase in deaths.

“Airstrikes comprised nine per cent of all civilian casualties and caused the highest levels of civilian harm since UNAMA began systematic documentation in 2009,” said the report, noting “with concern” that the increase in civilian casualties from aerial operations in 2018 was largely driven by the NATO-led air operations, which caused more civilian casualties than operations by the Afghan Air Force.

The U.S. military says its does everything possible to limit unintended civilian casualties, but even with the most precision weaponry and strict rules of engagement, deaths are unavoidable in combat.

THE RUNDOWN

Washington Post: The military’s male-only draft registration requirement is unconstitutional, a judge ruled. What comes next is unknown.

AP: New fitness test presents challenges for Army Guard

Washington Times: U.S. Envoy, Top Taliban Official Meet For Peace Talks

Wall Street Journal: U.S. Tightens Curbs On Venezuela

Reuters: After Putin’s warning, Russian TV lists nuclear targets in U.S.

USNI News: U.S. Destroyer, Cargo Ship Pass Through Taiwan Strait In 4th Warship Transit In 5 Months

Navy Times: Why the Donald Cook Is Still Sailing The Black Sea

Stars and Stripes: Senior military colleges aim to fill gaps in cyber skills for the Defense Department

Military Times: Military Retirees Can Still Be Court-Martialed, Supreme Court Affirms

Bloomberg: Pentagon’s Fast-Track Funding Lacks Reliable Data, Report Finds

Stars and Stripes: Takano announces congressional task force to address challenges facing women veterans

Washington Post: As the battle against ISIS grinds to a close, no one knows how many people are inside its shrinking territory

USNI News: Navy Stopped Publicly Announcing Flag Officer Nominations, Citing Policy Review

Air Force Magazine: RAND Study Claims USAF Suffering from “Identity Crisis”