Tag: Constitutional Law

US Constitution 101

There is lots of talk about what the Constitution can and cannot do…..impeachment comes to mind…seems there are some pundits that are defining parts of the Constitution…..and they are WRONG!

It Illustrates just how badly this country needs a good civics program in our schools.  personally I think that a civics test should be given before they are allowed to graduate.

Enough bitchin’…… onward……

Trump has said that some Dems are guilty of treason and should be impeached……

President Trump is continuing to fight back against the impeachment inquiry by calling for his critics to be impeached. After calling for Mitt Romney’s impeachment on Saturday—and continuing to hammer him Sunday—the president called for the impeachment of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday night, accusing her of treason. “She knew of all of the many Shifty Adam Schiff lies and massive frauds perpetrated upon Congress and the American people,” Trump tweeted. “This makes Nervous Nancy every bit as guilty as Liddle’ Adam Schiff for High Crimes and Misdemeanors, and even Treason. I guess that means that they, along with all of those that evilly ‘Colluded’ with them, must all be immediately Impeached!”

Then Trump thinks Mitt should also be impeached….

President Trump is calling for U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney’s impeachment — turning the tables on one of his chief Republican critics the day after the Bay State ex-pat slammed Trump’s calls for foreign countries to investigate presidential rival Joe Biden and his family as “appalling.”

“I’m hearing that the Great People of Utah are considering their vote for their Pompous Senator, Mitt Romney, to be a big mistake. I agree! He is a fool who is playing right into the hands of the Do Nothing Democrats!” Trump tweeted Saturday. “#IMPEACHMITTROMNEY.”

For a party that hugs the Constitution every election one would think that they would know what the document says about a couple of things.

First of all…….Member of Congress can’t be impeached, but they can be expelled with a two-thirds vote in the House or Senate.

Let me help the morons out here…..Article One Section 5……Section 5 says that Congress must have a minimum number of members present in order to meet, and that it may set fines for members who do not show up. It says that members may be expelled, that each house must keep a journal to record proceedings and votes, and that neither house can adjourn without the permission of the other.

Then there is the accusations by Trump that Dems are committing treason by their actions…..allow me to help these feckless tools out once again…..

Article 3 Section 3……Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

Once again I write about the ignorance of your president on how the Constitution works.

It seems that they have this list of terms and they pick one to use for the day……yesterday it was “Kangaroo Court”……

Now we either hold to the concept our Founders put down on paper or we throw it in the trash can and let the whims of some deluded dictator wannabe become the law of the land.

Which shall it be?

The one accurate thing said by a GOPer yesterday…he called it a “Clown Show”….a great term to describe the American political process.

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

“Lego Ergo Scribo”

Is This A Constitutional Crisis?

We hear a lot about the Congress and the president and the antics by each. My thought is there is a reason for a Committee called “oversight”…..and any time anyone interferes with the operation of that principle then they should be smacked down….matters not if it is a WH attorney, a child, the AG or the president himself…..we either live by the checks and balances or we start an imperial presidency.

I remember the calls for the impeachment of a president that got his wanker licked and those that called for such are now overlooking their “oversight” duties to massage the ego of a mental midget……

The conservative media is totally ignoring the crisis brewing and even are helping it destroy the democratic scheme we had before…..

As legal experts, historians, and Democratic lawmakers have sounded the alarm over President Donald Trump’s blanket obstruction of congressional oversight of his presidency — suggesting we have reached or are approaching a constitutional crisis — Trump’s conservative media allies are brazenly misrepresenting the arguments and suggesting everything boils down to a fight over the Mueller report, claiming Trump’s obstruction is normal, and ridiculing Democrats for speaking out.

https://www.mediamatters.org/research/2019/05/14/conservative-media-downplay-trump-administrations-unprecedented-stonewalling-congressional-oversight/223698

The media reports, if we may call it that, but it is sensationalism not anything but entertainment…..

So are we in a Constitutional crisis? Yes or No or what?

It is probably safe to say that this is not how we imagined America’s little fling with representative democracy would end. But on Wednesday morning, New York Rep. Jerrold Nadler described the battle unfolding between the Trump White House and Congress thusly: “The ongoing clash between congressional Democrats and President Trump over the Mueller report has turned into a full-blown constitutional crisis.” On Thursday morning, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi used the same turn of phrase, warning that the nation is now in a “constitutional crisis.”

In the totality of Trump scandals, this week’s is rather boring and technical. The problem at hand: The House Judiciary Committee seeks to interview William Barr, the attorney general of the United States, on the subject of the Mueller report. When he refused to show up, they voted to hold him in contempt of Congress for doing so. Meanwhile, the president has opted to assert seemingly boundless executive privilege in an attempt to shield the unredacted Mueller report from congressional scrutiny. The question at hand is basically: What happens in this standoff between Congress and the president? The stalemate, and immovable positioning, is certainly making it feel as though we are hurtling at high speeds toward a new precipice.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/05/trump-barr-constitutional-crisis-yes-no-or-wrong-question.html

To help you with the question…..there a 4 types of Constitutional crises……

People have been talking about the possibility of a “constitutional crisis” since before President Trump’s election. And in the wake of Trump’s executive order restricting the ability of people from seven predominantly Muslim nations to travel to the U.S., we’re once again hearing that term a lot. Rep. Don Beyer, a Virginia Democrat, used the phrase to describe reports of Customs and Border Protection officials snubbing members of Congress and refusing to abide by a judge’s ruling delaying the enforcement of the order. And the Washington Post’s Aaron Blake investigated whether Trump’s disparaging remarks about a federal judge who ruled against the administration could be considered a constitutional crisis.

So what exactly is a constitutional crisis? We should be clear about what does — and, more importantly, does not — merit this description. It’s possible to have a major political crisis even if the Constitution is crystal clear on the remedy, or to have a constitutional crisis that doesn’t ruffle many feathers.

Political and legal observers generally divide constitutional crises into four categories:

The 4 Types Of Constitutional Crises

Are we in crisis?  Is the Constitution still the law of the land?

As it is today I am not so sure any more.

This simple cartoon can answer the question better than I can…..

Closing Thought–06May19

Remember back during the 2016 election when the conspiracy floating around with those mental midgets that Obama would not leave office and that he wanted more time and would find a way to extend his presidency?

I know that was a life time ago but does anyone remember?

I ask because of something I read today…..

Article Two of the United States Constitution states that the president “shall hold his office during the term of four years”—but President Trump is apparently interested in making an exception. On Sunday, the president retweeted Jerry Falwell Jr.’s call for “reparations” for the Russia investigation to be made to the president, in the form of a term extension. “Trump should have 2 yrs added to his 1st term as pay back for time stolen by this corrupt failed coup,” the Liberty University president tweeted. The Trump retweet came after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi expressed concern that Trump would refuse to accept the results of next year’s election if Democrats had a narrow victory, the Hill reports.

In a tweet later Sunday, Trump complained that two years of his presidency had been “stollen” by the investigation, Politico reports. “Despite the tremendous success that I have had as President, including perhaps the greatest ECONOMY and most successful first two years of any President in history, they have stollen two years of my (our) Presidency (Collusion Delusion) that we will never be able to get back,” he said. The “stollen” typo was later corrected.

Two things that made me chuckle…..one these people do not know the first thing about the Constitution and two these fools are the most hypocritical bunch.

Does this president have any idea what he is doing to this country and to the rule of law and the Constitution?

Anybody that supports this stupidity and the person behind it can NO LONGER claim to defend the Constitution and should remove it from their coat pockets where it waits to be used as a prop.

Birthright: An American Idea

Yep we are having one of those political moments that comes around ever so often….we had it when Muslims were coming get us all…then there was that Mexico was gonna pay for a wall…..and now it is the 14th amendment…..all were used for political gain and not one was heard of again….that is they were filed away until needed again.

I read a pretty good piece in the American Conservative that until the era of Trump was considered a pretty mainstream conservative publication…..my my how things change….but I digress…..TAC offers their conservative opinion on the issue of birthright citizenship……

The 14th Amendment became part of the U.S. Constitution 150 years ago in July of 1868. Among other things, it enshrined our traditional common law practice of granting citizenship to those born in the United States who are subject to its laws—specifically it guaranteed that the recently freed slaves and their descendants would be citizens. The 14th Amendment also applied to the children of immigrants, as its authors and opponents understood at the time.

President Trump’s immigration position paper, however, famously endorsed an end to birthright citizenship. Michael Anton, a former national security official in the Trump administration as well as a lecturer and researcher at Hillsdale College, pushed such a move recently in the Washington Post. Anton argued that President Trump should use his pen and his phone to exclude the children born here to noncitizens, with little thought of what would happen were such a policy enacted.

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/birthright-citizenship-an-american-idea-that-works/

I have said the the challenge to the 14th could open up more challenges to some amendments like the 2nd and the 1st…maybe others…and those are not debates we want to have….so all this is probably just posturing for a vote.

Closing Thought–31Oct18–#2

Oh goody….looks like we may have a constitutional law battle on our hands……why?  It seems that Our Dear Supreme Leader has decided that he will try to make invalid parts of the US Constitution…..namely the 14th amendment…..

Whether President Trump can end birthright citizenship with an executive order comes down to one’s reading of the 14th Amendment. As NPR explains in a fact-check piece, a “small but vocal group of conservative legal scholars” have zeroed in on five crucial words, bolded here: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.” Those scholars say those words have been misinterpreted and that the authors’ true intention was that citizenship not be extended to the children of noncitizens. More:

  • The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board agrees with NPR’s take and gives more historical background, writing “‘jurisdiction’ is well understood as referring to the territory where the force of law applies, and that means it applies to nearly everyone on US soil. The exceptions in 1868 were diplomats (who have sovereign immunity) and Native Americans on tribal lands. Congress later granted Native Americans birth citizenship while diminishing tribal sovereignty.”
  • On Twitter Wednesday, Trump referenced those key words in making his argument to the contrary. He wrote in a trio of tweets (here, here, and here): “So-called Birthright Citizenship, which costs our Country billions of dollars and is very unfair to our citizens, will be ended one way or the other. It is not covered by the 14th Amendment because of the words ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof.’ Many legal scholars agree….. ….Harry Reid was right in 1993, before he and the Democrats went insane and started with the Open Borders (which brings massive Crime) ‘stuff.’ Don’t forget the nasty term Anchor Babies. I will keep our Country safe. This case will be settled by the United States Supreme Court! The World is using our laws to our detriment. They laugh at the Stupidity they see!”
  • Lawyer George Conway, husband to Kellyanne Conway, aired his view in an op-ed written with Neal Katyal for the Washington Post: “Sometimes the Constitution’s text is plain as day and bars what politicians seek to do. That’s the case with President Trump’s proposal to end ‘birthright citizenship’ tendment was written after the Civil War with former slaves in mind. Conway and Katyal elaborate in their op-ed: “Birthright citizenship sprang from the ashes of the worst Supreme Court decision in US history, Dred Scott v. Sandford, the 1857 decision that said that slaves, and the children of slaves, could not be citizens of the United States. The blood of hundreds of thousands of Americans was shed to repudiate that idea.”hrough an executive order.”
  • Reuters adds more history, reporting that the amendment was written after the Civil War with former slaves in mind. Conway and Katyal elaborate in their op-ed: “Birthright citizenship sprang from the ashes of the worst Supreme Court decision in US history, Dred Scott v. Sandford, the 1857 decision that said that slaves, and the children of slaves, could not be citizens of the United States. The blood of hundreds of thousands of Americans was shed to repudiate that idea.”

Just something to think about…a closing thought as it were…..

Cahoots! Or Collusion! Or Conspiracy!

“We have a wonderful economic week…..and there was no collusion we all know that…….we won big against Crooked Hillary…..and there was no collusion on my part……Build that big beautiful wall…..was there any collusion……”

First of all….collusion is not a legal term.  But conspiracy is!

Bob Woodward of “All The President’s Men” fame has just released a book on Our Dear Leader…..and he has panned it as trash, lies and sensationalism…..but deep down Trump should be shaking Woodward’s hand for he made a case for Trump….

Bob Woodward’s book Fear has been a sensation in many respects. But one aspect has barely been mentioned. After two years of exhaustive research for his book, Woodward says that he has found no evidence of collusion between Putin’s government and Donald Trump’s campaign in 2016. Zilch, nada, zero. And Woodward strained very hard looking for it.

This largely ignored blockbuster admission came in a radio interview with Hugh Hewitt reported by Real Clear Politics here, where a recording of the full interview can also be found. Real Clear Politics reports the text of the exchange thus:

https://original.antiwar.com/john-v-walsh/2018/09/19/woodward-no-evidence-of-trump-russia-collusion-i-searched-hard-for-two-years/

Please keep in mind when thinking about Our Dear Leader….collusion is not illegal, unethical but not illegal.

I am personally sick of all the media attention…..I am not saying that it should be terminated just that the process needs to continue without all the worthless speculation.

Thoughts?

OMG! Pardon Me!

Well for a couple of days the MSM has been losing their minds over something the president said or was it Rudy had a go at obfuscating the news……it seems someone said the the president may pardon himself over this Mueller investigation.

No one is writing about this (could that be an indictment of silly these things have become?)……they, the citizen, had rather go to the local news station for their opinion.

But really can the president pardon himself?

First of all let’s answer a couple of questions…..

With news reports suggesting that the Trump White House and their legal advisors are taking a close look at the president’s pardon power, we decided to review the rules ourselves. We’ve asked a dozen legal experts for their views on four questions related to presidential pardons.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2017/jul/21/4-questions-about-presidential-pardon-power/

The questions asked and answered….let’s move on…..and I will offer up a couple of arguments pro and con……

First, yes he can pardon himself……..

As he often does, President Trump hijacked the news cycle with a Monday-morning tweet, this one observing that “numerous legal scholars” agree that “I have the absolute right to PARDON myself.” The president elaborates that he has done nothing wrong, and thus there is nothing to pardon.

So, one might ask, why bring it up?

It’s a good question, and not for the first time are we asking. Late last July, Trump tweeted that “all agree the U.S. President has the complete power to pardon” — only to add that there was no point discussing pardons because the only crimes arising out of the Russia probe were leaks of classified information to hurt the administration, not misconduct by the administration. On that occasion, the president was obviously reacting to a Washington Post report that he had been asking advisers “about his power to pardon aides, family members and even himself.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/06/can-a-president-pardon-himself-yes-trump-can/

Finally, the “NO” side of the argument…….

Can a president pardon himself? Four days before Richard Nixon resigned, his own Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel opined no, citing “the fundamental rule that no one may be a judge in his own case.” We agree.

The Justice Department was right that guidance could be found in the enduring principles that no one can be both the judge and the defendant in the same matter, and that no one is above the law.

The Constitution specifically bars the president from using the pardon power to prevent his own impeachment and removal. It adds that any official removed through impeachment remains fully subject to criminal prosecution. That provision would make no sense if the president could pardon himself.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/no-trump-cant-pardon-himself-the-constitution-tells-us-so/2017/07/21/f3445d74-6e49-11e7-b9e2-2056e768a7e5_story.html

My thought……if Trump pardons himself is he not admitting that he committed a crime?

Whatcha you guys think?

Then We Have “Executive Privilege”

WE heard the term many many times during Watergate and now with this hearing thing in full swing we are hearing it again……but what is “executive privilege”?  What do they mean?

Let’s go to the definition….

The Constitution does not specifically enumerate the president’s right to executive privilege; rather, the concept has evolved over the years as presidents have claimed it. As the courts have ruled on these claims, their decisions have refined the notion of executive privilege and have clarified the instances in which it can be invoked. The courts have ruled that it is implicit in the constitutional Separation of Powers, which assigns discrete powers and rights to the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government. In reality, however, the three branches enjoy not separate but shared powers, and thus are occasionally in conflict. When the president’s wish to keep certain information confidential causes such a conflict, the president might claim the right of executive privilege.

The term executive privilege emerged in the 1950s, but presidents since George Washington have claimed the right to withhold information from Congress and the courts. The issue first arose in 1792, when a congressional committee requested information from Washington regarding a disastrous expedition of General Arthur St. Clair against American Indian tribes along the Ohio River, which resulted in the loss of an entire division of the U.S. Army. Washington, concerned about how to respond to this request and about the legal precedent his actions would set, called a cabinet meeting. Although no official record was kept of the proceedings, Thomas Jefferson described the deliberations in his diary. The participants, Jefferson wrote, concluded that Congress had the right to request information from the president and that the president “ought to communicate such papers as the public good would permit & ought to refuse those the disclosure of which would injure the public.” In the case at hand, they agreed that “there was not a paper which might not be properly produced,” so Washington provided all the documents that Congress had requested. This event, though notable as the first recorded deliberation concerning executive privilege, did not carry precedential value until after 1957, when Jefferson’s notes were discovered. In 1958, Attorney General William P. Rogers cited Jefferson’s remarks as precedent for an absolute presidential privilege. Legal scholar Raoul Berger declaimed Rogers’s arguments as “at best self serving assertions by one of the claimants in a constitutional boundary dispute.” Instead, Berger argued, Washington’s willingness to turn over the requested documents shows his recognition of Congress’s right to such materials.

In subsequent incidents, however, Washington and his successors did choose to withhold requested information from Congress, citing various reasons. In 1794, for example, the Senate requested from Washington the correspondence of Gouverneur Morris, the U.S. ambassador to France, who was suspected of aiding the French aristocrats against the revolutionaries despite the United States’ official stance of neutrality. Washington provided the letters, but he censored them first, acting on the advice of officials such as Attorney General William Bradford, who said that the president should “communicate to the Senate such parts of the said correspondence as upon examination he shall deem safe and proper to disclose: withholding all such, as any circumstances, may render improper to be communicated.” The following year, Washington refused to provide the House with information relating to Ambassador John Jay’s negotiation of a treaty with Great Britain, arguing that the House had no constitutional right to participate in the treaty making process and so had no right to request materials associated with it.

A short history of the situation and its use and legality……

You now more than you did before you read this piece……you are welcome!

Believe me we will be hearing this term a lot in the coming months and now you can write on the phenom with a bit more knowledge….

The Electoral College Wasn’t Meant to Overturn Elections

I recently got an email from a friend that asked me to contribute to the debate about the Electoral College….I turned her down because I was not interested because for years I had been writing about the need for its elimination and as usual NO one was reading or listening….and then 2016 happened and there was a renewed interest in the elimination……

I decided to do a short series on the EC….trying to give both sides of the debate…….

Electors were intended to be faceless hacks whose independent exercise of judgment was neither wanted nor permitted.

Here is Question One on this year’s Constitutional Law exam.

The “electoral college” is

  1. a terrible idea that has gone wrong repeatedly and now bids fair to destroy the Republic.

  2. a wise creation of all-wise “Founding Fathers” who foresaw precisely this moment and set up the “college” to protect the People from themselves.

  3. Both of the above, even though that makes no sense at all.

  4. WTF? How did we get here?

At least from now until December 19, when the electors will meet in the state capitals to vote, we are likely to hear a good deal about answer 3 from Democrats and supporters of Hillary Clinton. (In the spirit of disclosure, I am both.)

Source: The Electoral College Wasn’t Meant to Overturn Elections – The Atlantic

In my opinion, the EC has outlived its usefulness as part of the process….now it only serves the two party system and the media….it is used to drive the conversation and determine which states will be important.

The popular vote is the only logical way to elect a president in the 21st century.

Even a supporter of the EC has changed his mind and says time for it to go!

The man who would have been the 43rd president if the Electoral College weren’t in place thinks it’s time to ditch it. Al Gore, who won the popular vote but lost the presidency to George W. Bush in 2000, tells NBC News that he’s changed his mind about how America picks its leader. “I think moving to a popular vote system is not without peril, is not without problems,” he says, per the Hill. “But I think the balance has shifted, in my mind at least, and I think that we should go to a popular vote.” Among other things, he says it would “stimulate public participation” like no other election reform, adding that it’s “pathetic how our system is not working today.”

Time for this dinosaur (the EC not Gore…but it is a thought) to be put in a museum where it belongs…

2016: The 2nd Amendment (And More)

This election as with all elections the candidate from the Right goes on some rant about the next Dem president will take away our 2nd amendment rights….and right on cue Donald Trump is NO different.

Then there are his supporters and the ones before him….they rant on and on about how our rights to own guns will be suppressed if the country is stupid enough to elect the Dem that is running…..

As usual it is pure bullshit!  Apparently these candidates that the mental midgets that echo the lie have NO concept of what is in the Constitution or how the thing works…….

So let me help the poor mentally deficient sheep out…..a quick constitutional review……

I think the answer to the 2 questions are a little of both……the candidate has NO idea how this works and he really thinks his followers are that STUPID!

This is typical when a party has nothing to offer….send in the fear card about guns or harp on something they have NO chance of doing…repeal Obamacare…..

I expect more out of the Party that wraps itself in the Constitution with every election…..

Here’s an idea….before you jump on the stupid bandwagon take a course on the Constitution….because by trumpeting his BS then you look as STUPID as he plays you to be.

I am not be a constitutional scholar but I know enough to see a outright lie when I see and hear one.

If only there was an educational aspect to the media…..wait!….There is but we cannot fund it because somewhere in the tiny brains of the GOP it has become a no-no to fund education……Smart thinking!

One more thing….since some of you are hot for the GOP…both as president and Congress….then ask a couple of questions to the “saviors” of this country….

Bet you get platitudes and slogans…but NO good answers….

But go ahead vote for these pigs that have promised a lot and delivered NOTHING…they are NO better than a Democrat.

But go ahead and vote in a couple of days….and prolong your agony…..”stupid is as stupid does”…..as someone once said.