Article IV Section 4 of the US Constitution states that the US government must "protect" each State from "invasion". It goes on to include protection from "domestic violence", but that requires action from the Legislature, unless the Legislature can't convene, then the Executive branch must take action.
It does not say, "The US government may protect the people if it wants to. And, if the Legislature refuses to, then the President must allow anyone and everyone to just destroy whatever they want to." It also does not say, "...unless they really, really want to come into the country, and that's why they're invading." But, that's how House Democrats would like to have it interpreted.
What's happening at the southern border is an "invasion"—people from the outside coming in by force. The Constitution does not specify that the invasion must be a sanctioned, deputized, funded military force operating at the behest of a recognized State. Any and every kind of invasion must be stopped, by Legislature or otherwise.
The Legislature is only required for situations of domestic violence. But, even then, if the Legislature can "convene"—and it can—but disobeys this Constitutional requirement, that could be cause for an action of impeachment because they would be in violation of their oaths of office, to support the Constitution. Then, the power to stop domestic violence would fall to the Executive branch, namely the president.
Trump is well within his powers to declare an emergency and take executive action, but he might be Constitutionally required to begin impeachment proceedings against Congress if the border situation is regarded as domestic, not an "invasion" from non-US citizens. So, claiming that Congress is needed to build the wall would actually be an argument to indite Congress.
As for citizenship by birth, that applies only to children of parents "subject to the jurisdiction thereof". Amendment XIV does not say, "Anyone can run from the police, sneak into the country, have a baby, then demand citizenship for that baby." But, that's how Congressional Democrats would like to have it interpreted.
The US is about to rediscover its Constitution, the document that united our nation at its founding. That could redefine the entire playing field of elections in the future.
Trump's sanctions about elections are about the election. Turn all eyes to Texas. The seat of Senator Ted Cruz should not be in jeopardy. Democrats have no reason to dump such large amounts of money into a Texas race where senators are trending Republican—unless they are either crazy or they happen to know about other plans that could affect the vote. They aren't campaigning against Cruz because they think he is weak, but because he is so powerful.
Without the additional sanctions on foreign interference, it would be much easier to meddle in your opponent's election by asking a foreign power to do the meddling. Americans know better than to meddle in American elections because they have nowhere to run. Off-shore meddlers are another story—at least they were until Trump ordered his sanctions.
This is a shot across the bow, not so much deterring foreign powers from meddling as much as making foreign powers—and any domestic cooperatives—aware that the White House is aware that there are attempts to meddle. Only a fool would think Trump's order is purely for the optics of pleasing his unusually loyal base, which cares more about jobs and walls than defusing accusations they have already decided are fraudulent. These sanctions from the White House could be what wins Cruz his second term. We'll see.
US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley lives in a unit in the famed Waldorf Astoria. She originally had the $135k/month unit occupied by Susan Rice during the Obama years. Rice had ordered $52k worth of drapes and motors to close them, but the furnishings didn't arrive until Haley had insisted on moving to a less-than-half-the-price unit of the lavish Obama ambassador, at only $58k/month. New York is an expensive place for everyone, but Haley also rejected the set of drapes. Of course, in New York newswriting, Obama's bad decision must be blamed on Trump. It's all Trump's fault what Obama did.
Senator Feinstein should be impeached and Judge Kavanaugh should be approved Monday rather than Thursday. After a long and—according to Democrats—interesting career in the White House, an uncorroborated claim from a supposed victim of a so-called assault—much less severe than anything Clinton was praised for by his base—came to Feinstein in July. The accuser didn't mention anything in all the other years of Kavanaugh's career, nor did Feinstein mention the accusations in July or August. Everyone waited until the last possible minute.
If it is true that Democrats don't mention important facts until time is almost up, they should be expelled from Washington. Many voters in the #WalkAway movement seem to agree. But, this looks more like something made-up. By doing this at such a late hour, Democrats have implied that there is nothing more meaningful to discuss. Democrats are still angry that they can't read all the private memorandum that other people wrote to other people which Kavanaugh was the confidential delivery boy for. So, they pull an Anita Hill style accusation that looks fake in every time and manner they choose. The only credibility this accuser can gain at the bottom of this ninth inning would be for Feinstein to resign in disgrace for either trying to pull a fake "September surprise" or for exploiting a victim in doing so. Fat chance on a Democrat not exploiting the victims so desperately engineered into their voter base.
Trump rescinding the so-called "Iran deal" will improve his position with other nations, North Korea only being one of them. Actually, it wasn't a "deal" because Iran never signed anything.
Any "reputation" lost would be on Iran's side for entering into a "deal" that even they didn't commit to. Now the non-committal "deal" is off. Iran shouldn't have expected anything. Now, at the bargaining table, Trump will be in a better position because nations know that he will actually follow through and only make deals that are real and binding.
This goes back to Obama's great failure of his own base: He didn't make laws that would last, he only made policies that depend on him being president in order to last, in this he exploited his voters by giving them high hopes and letting them get angry—the whole time Obama never told his own supporters the truth that everything he accomplished after Obamacare was designed to be blown away with the wind.
Iranians weren't the only party with "gullible" written their foreheads; Obama voters were too, and Obama conned all of them.
The disturbing thing about the Iran "deal" is the reaction. Russia is very protective of that "deal". That should be enough to call the "deal" off—and to prove that there was no substance in the Russianewsgategate "collusion" myth. But, where are all the stories in the press about how the "deal" was bad for the US? Having given $1.7B in cash to Iran should at least receive mention from a supposed "non-biased" media.
Trump rescinding the so-called "Iran deal" will improve his position with other nations, North Korea only being one of them. Actually, it wasn't a "deal" because Iran never signed anything.
Any "reputation" lost would be on Iran's side for entering into a "deal" that even they didn't commit to. Now the non-committal "deal" is off. Iran shouldn't have expected anything. Now, at the bargaining table, Trump will be in a better position because nations know that he will actually follow through and only make deals that are real and binding.
This goes back to Obama's great failure of his own base: He didn't make laws that would last, he only made policies that depend on him being president in order to last, in this he exploited his voters by giving them high hopes and letting them get angry—the whole time Obama never told his own supporters the truth that everything he accomplished after Obamacare was designed to be blown away with the wind.
Iranians weren't the only party with "gullible" written their foreheads; Obama voters were too, and Obama conned all of them.
The disturbing thing about the Iran "deal" is the reaction. Russia is very protective of that "deal". That should be enough to call the "deal" off—and to prove that there was no substance in the Russianewsgategate "collusion" myth. But, where are all the stories in the press about how the "deal" was bad for the US? Having given $1.7B in cash to Iran should at least receive mention from a supposed "non-biased" media.
Donald Trump Tweeting himself is important. It’s more important that Jame’s Comey writing classified information in his personal memos, more important than cutting the environmental red tape holding back pollution, more important than DeVos re-making 1965 education law, more important than Dodd-Frank regulations being scrapped, even more important than Obamacare about to bite the dust!
In fact, Trump’s Tweet about himself is more important than a young man’s privacy, than his dignity—it’s even more important than CNN’s own credibility with the public.
America’s new president is anything but a fool. He knows exactly where to throw a scrap of meat to the dogs, how big it should be, exactly how long it will take for them to scramble for it. He is the master of the spotlight, whether his own spotlight or shining a spotlight on someone else to blind them from what he is doing.
And, he is doing a lot.
He has made massive rollbacks in Obama-era rules. This is arguably one of Obama’s biggest failings—that Obama left everything he worked for so easy to undo. He made rules with the stroke of a pen, Trump undid them with the stroke of a pen. But under Trump, Betsy DeVos is exploring fundamental legislative changes to education—and that’s just the beginning.
The Trump administration is pushing legislation that rarely gets mentioned in light of top titles—military, tax… Obamacare… While Republicans are fighting amongst each other over the optics of disagreeing with Obamacare, other laws are getting passed without any scrutiny from the media. And, it’s all thanks to pop culture’s obsession with everything that doesn’t matter. Pop culture got Trump elected and pop culture will get his policies passed.
Obama’s legacy is being undone because he didn’t work. He didn’t work with Congress to get laws that would outlast a Republican majority. He spent too much time golfing. He gave too many long-winded speeches and didn’t produce enough hard-earned, well-manufactured product. Compared to Trump, Obama was lazy. That’s why Trump is getting his way: work.
No attack can harm a man who works. No media smear can hurt him. It’s not that all press is good press all the time. Rather, all press is good press for those who work.
Right and wrong, for both better and worse, we are entering an era dominated by people who work.
President Donald Trump signed his latest executive order this morning, making murder legal in all 50 states, but there’s one catch – it’s only legal if the murderer is a white, male and the person they kill is a minority.
“This new order is designed to clean out the riff-raff in this country, and as well all know, our biggest problem are the browns, the reds, the yellows, and the blacks…especially the blacks – they’re the ones causing most of the problems in this country,” said Trump. “My new order is designed to keep the streets safer, one murder at a time.”
Trump went on to say that any white male is able to kill any minority at any time, for any reason, and it would be considered “universal defense,” which is what Trump says self-defense of the country should be referred to as.
“Universal defense is what we do, as Americans. We universally defend ourselves, our families, and our freedoms,” said Trump. “Now, I want to take that a step further, and universally defend ourselves from the nasty, the deplorables, basically, that lie within.”
The ACLU immediately filed an injunction in the NYC Federal Courts with hopes of overturning Trump’s order.
Trump is going head on against judges. So far, the judges are keeping their power, which is a good precedent. It’s too bad that Senator Feinstein didn’t object to overuse of executive power a few years ago, but her reversal is both welcome and typical of a politician. The resistance will give more power to Trump’s base and he will gain sympathy for his cause. The “see I told you so” speeches and headlines are coming.
Californians are getting serious about seceding from the Union. If California left it would not be abandoning the US, but its sister State, New York. Without Los Angeles and Manhattan, Trump would have had the popular vote as well, even with Hillary keeping her estimated 800k illegal voters. Keeping some things separate has always been a goal of the United States since its founding. Californians should, however, be thankful that they are asking to leave the United States rather than asking to leave Mexico.
Senate Republicans have claimed that they can’t repeal Obamacare because the employee they can fire at any time, the Parliamentarian, says that Obamacare can’t be repealed the same way it was passed. VP Mike Pence can overrule the Parliamentarian without firing him. These are the same Republicans who said that they couldn’t change Obamacare without the presidency and that their fellow Republican, Trump, would never win the presidency. Now that they have what they said they needed that they said they couldn’t get, they say they can’t do what they said they would do if they got it. Whenever Republicans whine about what they can’t do, they always get more power. The best interpretation is that Republicans are hoping to inch toward a 60 vote Supermajority in 2019. Again, the trend is for slowness to stir sympathy to the cause. May Heaven help the United States if any political party ever gets a Supermajority in the Senate while having control of the White House.
The term “unemployment” has as honest of a definition as the lawyer-defined word “natural” on a box of cookies. The media has finally discovered that there are six ways to track “unemployment”, specifically U1-U6. U3 has been used recently and most famously during the Obama years when the claim was that “unemployment was low”, without emphasizing the qualification “U3”. The U3 figure only considers people who were looking for jobs while U6 considers all Americans without a job—a definition more likely associated with “national unemployment”. Congratulations to those in the media who have finally discovered the six degrees of unemployment figures.
Obama supporters have finally decided that overuse of executive orders is a bad thing. Too bad for them that many of Trump’s executive orders merely undo Obama’s executive orders. Trump finally adopted Obama’s policy of Federal intervention where local police fail, though, Obama probably never thought of it happening where it is most needed, such as his own backyard in Chicago.
Trump was elected in response to Obama. Obama’s policies, mostly by mere executive order, not only couldn’t last, they backfired. Anti-Trumpists still have not learned the important lesson of life: good or bad, right or left, whatever you build needs to last. If Trump harms America, Obama supporters have no one to thank but their own president who rolled out the red carpet for Trump as much as Bush rolled out the red carpet for Obama. The cycle only seems to continue with very few people getting wise to what’s going on.
All that “Russia interfered” jazz morphed into Democrats calling for investigations of voter fraud, which is likely to indite both parties. But, we can’t know how much voter fraud there truly was since asking for photo ID at an election isn’t legal, thanks to the same Democrats who are asking for an investigation. That makes no sense, except in Washington.
The elephant in the living room is the golden brick highway paved to today’s crisis. A Hawaiian Congresswoman told CNN that Obama was funding ISIS in Syria? Trump’s “ban” only affects people coming from seven countries that Obama’s DHS and US Congress decided sponsor terrorism—Libya, Sudan, Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Yemen—these countries were not chosen by Trump, but under Obama. Trump’s order only names Syria, based on what Syrian refugees have done in other places they have gone to.
A federal judge made a very small exception to Trump’s sweeping executive oder: people with pre-approved papers who arrived on airplanes won’t be sent back immediately. This action affects very few people and confronts none of Trump’s campaign principles. Affected green card holders will be allowed to leave the US and return, but need to visit a US consular first. Protests against Trump’s orders are mounting. Some saw the judge’s order as victory against Trump’s goals.
A Sheriff in Travis County, Texas has refused to cooperate with the State’s requests, which are mainly aimed at not releasing people who entered the country illegally and are sought by US Immigration after they are arrested and in custody for a local crime. Travis County receives just shy of $2M from the State in law-enforcement grants, but the Sheriff says that she has neither the priority nor the authority to comply with the requests from Federal and State governments to hand over sought-after illegals already in her custody.
As fast as Trump wants to build his wall, he will have difficulty breaking Russia’s record in Berlin. Mexico’s president canceled his meeting with Trump once Trump Tweeted that paying for the wall was a requirement. President Neito told his people that “Mexico must protect its interests”, which, apparently, includes being able to cross into the US at non-border crossings. Building the wall would not change the number of entry points and, if anything, could create more entry points since patrolling the border would be easier. Canceling the meeting won’t change anything. A presidential candidate can skip out on one of an excessive number of televised presidential debates and still win the nomination and the election, but a sitting president can’t skip out on a meeting when his presence has been requested by a nation whom his own citizens are persistently entering illegally when that nation is about to rip up a trade agreement. The meeting with Trump was not going to negotiate whether Mexico will pay for the wall to contain its own people, but how Mexico will pay for the wall to contain its own people. By not attending, Mexico’s president is leaving that decision to President Donald J. Trump—which might have been exactly what Trump wanted in the first place. Now, Mexican Billionaire Carlos Slim wants to step in.
Mexico is currently our 3rd largest goods trading partner with $531 billion in total (two way) goods trade during 2015. Goods exports totaled $236 billion; goods imports totaled $295 billion. The U.S. goods trade deficit with Mexico was $58 billion in 2015.
The story compares to the rich, old uncle who told his nephew, “No, you’re gonna pay for the repairs to my barn you burned down or you might as well not even ask me to buy you another car.” The kid ran home to his daddy who said, “No, you are gonna’ talk with your uncle about his barn. I’m calling my brother and you’d better be here when I do.” By asking to step in to negotiate between the US and Mexico, Billionaire Carlos Slim has proven in Mexico what Trump proved in the US—people with actual business experience know more about getting things done than politicians. Maybe he wants to run for president in Mexico. Or, maybe he doesn’t want his own business empire to be at the mercy of a much younger president who can’t hold two candles to the adults in the room.
It seems that America isn’t the only country dealing with brats who complain all the time, repeat perfectly what they hear on TV, but can’t put a roof over their own heads. There’s nothing wrong with not having money, as long as you don’t lecture the people who do.
Early this morning, President Obama made what could very well prove to be the most controversial move of his presidency with the signing of Executive Order 14302, which makes it illegal to perform the national anthem at sporting events nationwide. Under the new order, it is now illegal to perform or recite the national anthem in any public venue. Because the anthem is primarily performed before sporting events, this is where the new order will have its biggest impact. Individuals who violate this order can face fines of up to…
Following the results of Tuesday night’s election, President Obama has signed Executive Order 13805, which orders a full recount of all votes cast in the election and calls for a special election to be held on December 19th. Obama signed the order in response to the concerns of thousands of voters across the country who said that they were prevented from casting a ballot on election day, too many absentee ballots have not been found or counted, equipment failures, as well as concerns that some members of the electoral college may have acted unethically.
“People all over the country have been flooding my office with calls, telling my staff of horror stories about being harassed and intimidated by poll workers,” Obama told reporters. “Many have even said that they were flat out denied entry into the voting booths to cast their ballots if they were wearing…
Obama’s speech was quite long-winded as he rebutted strong arguments he knows are coming against him. He also used the old Harvard debate tactic of claiming that his opponents agree with him, but of course not giving them the microphone. He is using executive order to make laws that Congress has already rejected. He is trying to make guns traceable through technology.
Individual ability to sell guns is in question and may not hold up in court. Imagine not being able to sell a car without a dealer license. There must be another way. Among those “better” ways includes enforcing laws already on the books, which he apparently hasn’t been doing. If Obama enforces his own executive orders as well as he enforces gun control laws already on the books, then there won’t be anything for gun advocates to worry about.
The bigger problem with restricting guns is China. No one is happier than Beijing. Not even the most radical Democrats and Liberals are as pleased with Obama’s gun laws as the Chinese Communists. Perhaps being in the direct line of sight for China’s attack has some bearing on why Oregonians have taken over a federal building.
