Today’s Campaign Update
(Because The Campaign Never Ends)
See something, say something, do something. – President Donald Trump has seen a national emergency developing along our southern border for several years now, and he’s been saying that for a long time. On Thursday, left with no other choice by ineffective Republicans who have no spine and Democrats who refuse to negotiate, the President did exactly as he has been promising to do and declared the situation to be a national emergency.
Naturally, the fake news media/Democrat axis of disinformation portrayed the declaration as the end of American society as we know it, because of course they did. That’s what they do anytime this particular President exercises his obvious legal and constitutional authorities.
How obvious is said authority? Barack Hussein Obama – America’s Worst Mistake – declared no fewer than 13 national emergencies in his nine years in office, at least nine of which are still active. On October 24, 2009, he declared it a “national emergency” when 12 people died of the Swine Flu. I swear I don’t make this stuff up. Who could?
All of the Obama “national emergency” declarations that are still active have to do with seizing the personal assets of various minor international bad actors, people you’ve never heard of. Funny he couldn’t find it within himself to take similar actions against the Iranian Mullahs or the socialist thugs down in Venezuela, or against the radical Islamic terrorists who assaulted our embassy in Benghazi and murdered four U.S. diplomatic personnel.
How do any of Obama’s “emergencies” remotely compare to a situation in which our country is literally being invaded by thousands of mostly-military-age males across our border with Mexico each and every day? It is important to note that, when America’s Worst Mistake exercised his clear authorities to declare said “emergencies,” no one in our fake news media or in the Democrat Party uttered a peep of protest. Nor did a single Republican squish like Marco Rubio, who appears to be auditioning for John McCain’s old role as the Senator From The News Media on this issue.
Jonathan Turley, Constitutional Law Professor at George Washington University, told Fox News that the leftist interests who will inevitably challenge the President’s authority to declare this emergency will “fail spectacularly” in the courts on that question. He also thinks that the President has full authority under laws passed in 1977 to reallocate funds from other parts of the budget, and in 2005 to target them towards building the wall. Why? Because congress gave presidents those powers – reaffirming his already-existing constitutional authority – to do those things, and has never acted to try to repeal them.
So what you’re seeing in the fake news media this morning is – you guessed it – more fake news!
Some things never change.
Having said all of that, there are at least seemingly legitimate political arguments to be made against President Trump’s actions. I don’t agree with them, but they are fair.
Many Republicans reeled in horror yesterday when San Fran Nan implied that a future Democrat President might use the same authority to seize guns. But this is an absurdity. There is no authority – statutory or constitutional – that would allow any president to effectively amend the Constitution or reverse decisions by the Supreme Court via an executive order. It’s typical Pelosi idiocy.
Late last week we saw Rubio and other GOP squishes fret about the potential that a future Democrat would declare “climate change” to be a national emergency and enact the lunatic “Green New Deal” via executive fiat. That’s a concern that’s at least understandable to some extent, especially were we to elect someone like Bernie Sanders or Fauxcahontas, neither of whom will ever become president.
But the declaration of a “national emergency” is not the same as a president appointing himself to be a de facto dictator. The actions he takes under a national emergency declaration still must be founded in a legal authority, either statutory or constitutional. Where the “Green New Deal” is concerned, there is no such legal authority that would allow a president to, for example, unilaterally triple the price of gasoline and your electricity and home heating bills in order to make you stop using fossil fuels, or force privately-owned companies to go bankrupt building thousands of miles of railroads to nowhere, which is exactly what that mindless plan contemplates.
Look, if that were going to happen, Barack Obama would have already tried it and failed. So quit worrying about it.
The real wild card in this is Chief Justice John Roberts. In recent months, Roberts has made several decisions in which he has sided with the leftist minority on the Court, indicating that he may be turning into another Anthony Kennedy, an unreliable jurist with no real principles.
At least one of the inevitable court challenges to President Trump’s declaration will ultimately come before the Supreme Court. That is when we will find out once and for all whether Justice Roberts still respects the Constitution and his role in interpreting it, or if he has become just another Deep State skunk.
Might as well find out now.
That is all.
Follow me on Twitter at @GDBlackmon
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