Tag: End of the Republic

The Ostrich Wins – America Looses!

Is this the end of the American Republic? Too many Americans have chosen to hide their heads in the sand. Too many have chosen to cover their ears. The very last thing they want to hear is testimony from John Bolton, Mick Mulvaney, Mike Pompeo or anyone else. Like any ostrich, the truth might hurt.

Donald Trump faced charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Sadly the Senate has decided that while his actions were inappropriate they do not rise to removal from office.

Donald Trump contends that the second article to the Constitution gives him power to do whatever he wants. The Republican controlled Senate agrees. They choose to ignore his high crimes and misdemeanors. This leaves us with a toothless congress.

If he wins a second term as president will he attempt to overturn the constitution? Could he run for a third term as president? Who would stop him?

Text of the 22nd Amendment. “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of President more than once.”

I am really frightened. We appear to be following the gullible in places like 1930 Germany, today’s Russia, Philippines, Venezuela, and Turkey.

Declaring a National Emergency should freak out (frighten) most Americans

Once again the U.S. government is faced with a possible shutdown that will impact about 800,000 workers. Its cause is the same as the last shutdown. President Donald Trump wants $5.7 billion dollars to build a border wall and congress is only willing to allocate $1.3 billion dollars.

To avoid another shutdown Trump will sign the law and then he could obtain the balance of the money by declaring a National Emergency that would give him the power to take the additional funds from any other funded project or any department. And he has the authority to do that.

So what’s wrong with this scenario?

What we have here would be the overturning of a constitutional requirement that all funding must be made by the congress.

Texas Republican senator John Cornyn summed up the problem succinctly when he said to CNN on February 4, “The whole idea that presidents — whether it’s President Trump, President Warren or President Sanders — can declare an emergency and somehow usurp the separation of powers and get into the business of appropriating money for specific projects without Congress being involved, is a serious constitutional question.”

I can imagine the congressional response to Trump usurping congressional authority would be taking the question to the Supreme Court. If the Supreme Court supported Trump, you can kiss the Republic of the United States goodbye.

We will be left with a dictatorship.