We all make resolutions for the new year….some make predictions of the coming year…..and with this president there are many predictions…..but one caught my attention….
The possibility of a resignation……
Alan J. Steinberg—who served as an adviser to former President George W. Bush—wrote in an opinion piece published this week that he didn’t believe President Donald Trump would be removed from office through impeachment.
Steinberg, a former Environmental Protection Agency regional administrator, said that he believed Trump would resign in 2019 in exchange for immunity.
“Trump will not be removed from office by the constitutional impeachment and removal process,” Steinberg wrote in The Star-Ledger. “Instead, the self-professed supreme dealmaker will use his presidency as a bargaining chip with federal and state authorities in 2019, agreeing to leave office in exchange for the relevant authorities not pursuing criminal charges against him, his children or the Trump Organization.”
Steinberg noted in the piece that should the House of Representatives impeach Trump, 20 Republican senators would have to break with the president to remove him from office—and that seems very unlikely. Steinberg wrote that the many legal challenges facing Trump—the investigation from special counsel Robert Mueller, the probe from the Southern District of New York as well as inquiries from the attorney general of New York and the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office—could lead him to leave the White House, especially as authorities close in on his family.
The president keeps threatening day after day that he will call a national emergency and get his wall that way. Pundits keep pointing out to the people that the border is not in crisis but in Trump’s mind there is a crisis…but now he is calling it a humanitarian crisis…a change from a couple of days ago…..
But back to the question….would I want to see trump declare a state of emergency on his own?
I have thought about this and have decided that I would be upset but I could live with the precedent that Trump set by calling for the national emergency.
Why would I go along with Trump on this?
Easy peasey…..when we have a Dem president he could do what Trump did…..call a national emergency to handle climate change or the opioid epidemic or our infrastructure or…..well you get the idea….so yep Mr. President declare away and set up a precedent for the GOP to lose their minds over in the future.
But let’s look at this national emergency thingy……
The United States is in a perpetual state of national emergency.
Thirty separate emergencies, in fact.
An emergency declared by President Jimmy Carter on the 10th day of the Iranian hostage crisis in 1979 remains in effect almost 35 years later.
A post-9/11 state of national emergency declared by President George W. Bush — and renewed six times by President Obama — forms the legal basis for much of the war on terror.
Is this president so self-centered and ego-centric that he cannot see the harm this moronic move would do…if not then I say be a man step up and declare that emergency.
I get sent a lot of papers by grad students hoping for that advanced degree and recently I was sent one about the use of the national emergency….a timely paper indeed…..
The use of emergency powers by executives has been surrounded by intensive scholarly debate since the Second World War. Victor Ramraj has previously stated with clear conviction that there “will always be a danger that executives, even well-meaning ones, could abuse emergency powers, which has been demonstrated by historical and contemporary events”.[1] Upon examination of Ramraj’s statement, it will be argued that he is correct in his assertion that emergency powers can be abused by executives. On this basis, a two-strand argument will evolve, which will be split into two parts
After the speech of a couple of days ago….the key word of that day was …CRISIS.
I seems that the President has ginned up a new crisis that needs dealing with….the dreaded “caravan” was a dud after the midterms so something new had to be found….it was all this “illegals” flowing across our Southern border.
It is a crisis…..Trump made sure that word was drummed into our brains during his short uninformed speech of Tuesday night…..
But did you know that there are truly some situations that Trump could use the term Crisis and be accurate……
The border is a big deal, and the problems are real, But, as Axios’ Stef Kight writes, often lost in the shutdown madness is whether the crisis is bigger than other vital issues facing the country:
Since that tweet, 547 people have been shot in Chicago, and 111 people have been killed, according to data from the Chicago Tribune.
86 people were killed in the Camp Fire in Paradise, Calif. Trump visited after the fires — but he’s now blaming California for not exercising “proper Forest Management,” and is threatening to cut off emergency aid to the state.
An average of three men are killed every day in the U.S. by police officers, according to an estimate in the American Journal of Public Health. That would mean about 255 American men had been killed by law enforcement since Oct. 16.
There’s no real-time data on deaths from the opioid crisis. But with 67,000 drug overdose deaths in the U.S. every year, according to the CDC, it’s likely that roughly 16,000 Americans have died of drug overdoses — including opioids — since October.
Suicide rates continue to climb despite a healthy economy.
Seven U.S. military officers were killed in Afghanistan since Oct. 16, including six combat deaths. Trump signaled a strategic shift but never addressed the nation about it.
In Syria, at least 191 civilians were killed by the U.S.-led coalition between Sept. 10 and Nov. 17, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
And rather than address a devastating report by government scientists in November on the economic impacts of climate change, Trump simply said he doesn’t believe it.
There are truly many situations in this country that could be called a crisis….but the bullshit on the border is NO crisis…..a manufactured crisis with NO validity.
Plus if this is so damn important why didn’t it come up when he had a huge majority with White House and both Houses of Congress…it would have been a breeze to get something then…..but it just was not that big of a deal then….as it should be now.
I do hope that my readers take the time to read my posts on the possible creation of another branch of our military, a space force, this is another way to tap into taxpayer money, your money.
An article I read about the US and China in a possible “space race” to control space…..
China and Iran both are hard at work launching and lobbing rockets into space to show that America no longer has a monopoly on technological leadership. They are also using these blast-offs and landings to warn us of their ability to match and surpass America’s scientific prowess. For good measure, they also want to remind us that they can easily land a nuke on the U.S. homeland.
The opinion piece makes it sound like the US has the best intentions for space….and that China is set to weaponize space….but does anyone Remember Ronald Reagan? If so how about SDI?
No?
Then watch and learn!
Sorry but SDI was weaponizing space…The US is not the “good guy” in this…..we have had a long history of trying to weaponize space….the Chinese are just following suit.
Space…..where will the advantage lie…offense or defense?
Where does the advantage lie in space, with the offense or the defense? Why does it matter? Put simply, perceptions of the balance between offense and defense determine doctrine. Doctrine, in turn, drives acquisition, and what military space operators acquire further reinforces the existing perception of the offense-defense balance.
As a result, a nation’s military is equipped and prepared to fight based on its perception of whether the offense is stronger or the defense, not the reality. It’s only when war starts that a nation’s doctrine and equipment are tested against the reality of its perceptions. The wrong equipment and doctrine often determine the winner and loser in any conflict (see France in 1940). So accurately assessing the strength of the offense and defense before conflict even begins is one of the fundamental determiners of success in war.
This situation is something that I am watching…..taxpayer dollars will be pissed away and someone has to care.
Speaking of pissing taxpayer cash away……look no further than the re-establishment of the “Space Command”…..
Last year, much of the U.S. national security space community’s attention was focused on the Trump administration’s proposal to create a sixth military service, the Space Force, which would be responsible for training and equipping military space forces. While most experts agree that the changes in the threat environment, especially Russia and China’s development of anti-satellite weapons, require the United States to think differently about how we operate in space, no consensus has emerged as to whether creating a Space Force is the right solution to the problem.
All this news but what is the chances the Space Force bill will make it out of Congress?
The outgoing chairman of the House Armed Services Committee predicts there will be bipartisan support for a new military branch for space even in a Democratic-led House of Representatives. But the Trump administration should expect its Space Force proposal to be thoroughly vetted and challenged.
“Our job is not to just swallow whatever they send us,” Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) told reporters on Capitol Hill on Tuesday.
Thornberry’s committee passed legislation in 2017 to establish a Space Corps within the Air Force, and the language made it into the House version of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2018. The Space Corps provision was not supported by the Senate and ultimately was removed from the NDAA.
Time to make this a priority…..time to make this an important situation to be watched. This may seem like a story that does not need so much attention….then you would be mistaken….this will cost the taxpayer and cost them BIG!
Can we afford this without a major structure rehab?
According to the US point of view China is trying to get one up on the US in Africa….
A look at African natural resources distribution…..
But is all the US predictions actual fact or something more fanciful….
At the September 2018 Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in Beijing, African Union Chairperson and Rwandan President Paul Kagame lauded the Chinese aid and investment strategy in Africa as a source of “deep transformation”. Kagame argued that the cooperation between China and Africa is based on mutual respect and is for the benefit of both partners. This sentiment is perhaps shared by most African heads of states and governments if their attendance of the summit is anything to go by.
However, despite the African leadership’s embrace of China as a valued partner, the view that Beijing is a “predatory” actor in Africa, attempting to recolonise the continent is also ubiquitous in foreign policy circles, media narratives and academia.
In Saner Thought 