Opinion: Making it Up as they Go

Comments

1. Paul Plante says

   November 11, 2018 at 8:01 pm

   Yes, indeed, people, making it up as they go along!

   American history, I mean, as we can clearly see in an editorial in the Hearst publication, the Albany, New York Times Union, entitled “Editorial: Correct America’s course” on October 29, 2018, where we are fed this following falsehood, to wit:

   It is time to restore a two-party system, for the sake of the country.

   Regardless of whether you’re Republican, Democratic, a member of a minor party or an independent, it’s hard to imagine any thoughtful American would be comfortable with the idea of absolute control of Washington, D.C., by a single political party.

   The last 22 months have shown us the dangers of a federal government without the checks and balances envisioned by the nation’s founders and set forth in the Constitution.

   end quotes

   What hog**** that is, because the so-called “two-party” system, which has all political power in this nation in the hands of just two factions, both of which are minority factions in terms of population in America, is not set forth in the United States Constitution, at all, nor did the so-called “nation’s founders” put in place the two-party system in the United States of America as a check and balance on anything.

   And in fact, the Era of Good Feelings in America, which certainly does not exist today, marked a period in the political history of the United States that reflected a sense of national purpose and a desire for unity among Americans in the aftermath of the War of 1812.

   That era of American history saw the collapse of the Federalist Party and an end to the bitter partisan disputes between it and the dominant Democratic-Republican Party during the First Party System.

   President James Monroe strove to downplay partisan affiliation in making his nominations, with the ultimate goal of national unity and eliminating parties altogether from national politics.

   So much for this spew of hog**** from the editorial staff of the Albany Times Union about the tw0-party system being essential to the functioning of government here in the United States of America!

   As to this internecine political warfare we see plaguing this country today, as the Democrats make open war on the Republicans in a naked grab for power, it was after the Era of Good Feelings, during and after the 1824 presidential election, when the Democratic-Republican Party split between supporters and opponents of Jacksonian Nationalism, leading to the Second Party System, which plagues our nation today.

   As to the First Party System, which ended when the Era of Good Feelings began, it was a model of American politics used in history and political science to periodize the political party system existing in the United States between roughly 1792 and 1824.

   It featured two national parties competing for control of the presidency, Congress, and the states: the Federalist Party, created largely by Alexander Hamilton, and the rival Jeffersonian Democratic-Republican Party formed by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and usually called at the time the “Republican Party.”

   The Federalists were dominant until 1800, while the Republicans were dominant after 1800.

   In an analysis of the contemporary party system, Jefferson wrote on February 12, 1798:

   “Two political Sects have arisen within the U. S., the one believing that the executive is the branch of our government which the most needs support; the other that like the analogous branch in the English Government, it is already too strong for the republican parts of the Constitution; and therefore in equivocal cases they incline to the legislative powers: the former of these are called federalists, sometimes aristocrats or monocrats, and sometimes Tories, after the corresponding sect in the English Government of exactly the same definition: the latter are stiled republicans, Whigs, jacobins, anarchists, dis-organizers, etc.; these terms are in familiar use with most persons.”

   Contrary to the hog**** the editorial board of the Albany Times Union is making up as it goes along there in support of the Democrat party in this recent election, the Constitution did not create either of those parties, nor did the founders intend them into being.

   Rather, they were the result of something – that being the struggle for political power at the national level here in the United States of America after the new Constitution was ratified.

   Getting back to the so-called “First Party System,” and the power struggle, both parties originated in national politics, but soon expanded their efforts to gain supporters and voters in every state.

   The Federalists appealed to the business community, the Republicans to the planters and farmers.

   Thus, we see the original lines of political division in America exposed here for all to see, and that is supposed to be our common political history, no matter your personal political persuasion, because history as it happened should trump politics.

   So why doesn’t it, then?

   Any thoughts, anyone?

   Reply

2. Paul Plante says

   November 15, 2018 at 9:50 pm

   Yes, people, making it up as they go, and shamelessly so, as to be a “liberal Democrat” by their own definition is to be “liberated from all traditional forms of authority,” which actually starts with history and the meaning of words as a means of inter-personal communications, as can be seen in this following colloquy from the internet where RLA2 is a self-identified “liberal” in favor of democracy in America over the Republic on what was an “ask me anything” thread where people could learn first-hand from a self-professed “liberal” how it was that a “liberal” would see the world, to wit:

   RLA2 wrote: People who do not want to see equalitarian democracy flourish tend to define it as something bad.

   INTERLOCUTOR: Athens became the most successful democracy of ancient Greece during the 400’s BC.

   Athenian democracy granted all male citizens the rights to vote on government policies, hold political office, and serve on a jury.

   However, it was restricted to male Athenian citizens.

   Non-Athenians living in Athens, women, and slaves had no political rights.

   So HISTORY defines democracy as something bad, not people.

   In a democracy, the majority, or those with muscle, exclude from the protection of law those they don’t want to have it.

   And your metaphors keep changing, rla.

   Now you are over into an “equalitarian democracy.”

   What, pray tell, is that now?

   How many kinds of democracy are there, anyway?

   Is there a non-equalitarian democracy, as well?

   RLA2 wrote: People with a committment to the rule of law define democracy as something good.

   INTERLOCUTOR: The Aftermath of Solon’s reforms:

   After completing his work of reform, Solon surrendered his extraordinary authority and left the country.

   According to Herodotus the country was bound by Solon to maintain his reforms for 10 years, whereas according to Plutarch and the author of Athenaion Politeia (reputedly Aristotle) the contracted period was instead 100 years.

   A modern scholar considers the time-span given by Herodotus to be historically accurate because it fits the 10 years that Solon was said to have been absent from the country.

   Within 4 years of Solon’s departure, the old social rifts re-appeared, but with some new complications.

   There were irregularities in the new governmental procedures, elected officials sometimes refused to stand down from their posts and sometimes important posts were left vacant.

   It has even been said that some people blamed Solon for their troubles.

   Eventually one of Solon’s relatives, Pisistratus, ended the factionalism by force, thus instituting an unconstitutionally gained tyranny.

   In Plutarch’s account, Solon accused Athenians of stupidity and cowardice for allowing this to happen.

   So much for rule of law, anyway.

   RLA2 wrote: We have a republican form of government, the state-federal structure.

   This republican structure facilitates the process of democracy in that it allows for more decentralization.

   Democracy vs republic is a false dychotomy.

   RLA2 wrote: We have a republican form of government, the state-federal structure.

   INTERLOCUTOR: COMMONWEALTH: It generally designates a republican frame of government – ONE IN WHICH THE WELFARE AND RIGHTS OF THE ENTIRE MASS OF PEOPLE ARE THE MAIN CONSIDERATION, rather than the privileges of a CLASS or the will of a monarch.

   – Black’s Law Dictionary

   TEDDY ROOSEVELT wrote:

   New Nationalism Speech, 1910

   The true friend of property, the true conservative, is he who insists that property shall be the servant and not the master of the commonwealth; who insists that the creature of man’’s making shall be the servant and not the master of the man who made it.

   That is conflating, I think, rla.

   A REPUBLIC does not imply the relationship between levels of government, it is about the relationship between the people and the government.

   INTERLOCUTOR: What Is Federalism?

   Historical Examples of Things Like Federalism

   Primitive leagues: leagues of nations (when they had more than military duties).

   “Confederacy.” Calling these leagues federal may seem anachronistic: using our current term to describe something in the past.

   Yet these primitive leagues (e.g. the Achaean League) resemble the Articles of Confederation in some ways.

   • Early modern leagues: e.g. Swiss.

   They were a league of groups to defend against Habsburgs and Holy Roman Emperor.

   USA: began as a league of rebellious provinces, but was transformed in Philadelphia in 1787.

   A new kind of confederacy: “as much a single centralized state as it was an alliance of states.”

   The word federalism was coined largely to describe this new mix, and still refers to systems like the USA.

   Latin American federalism: mostly modeled after US.

   Former English colonies: since most were small, they have often combined into a federal structure after independence (much as USA’s thirteen colonies did).

   Examples: Canada, Australia, India/Pakistan, Malaysia, Nigeria, etc. (though not all remained federal).

   Communist federalism: unique form, designed to ease absorption of new republics, then abandoned for party domination once the new republics were firmly absorbed.

   Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia after 1968, etc.

   Federalism elsewhere: Africa (Ethiopia, libya, others for a while), but balkanization keeps them from lasting long.

   Conceptual Definition of Federalism

   “Federalism is a political organization in which the activities of government are divided between regional governments and a central government in such a way that each kind of government has some activities on which it makes final decisions.”

   Federalism comes in many flavors, which can be thought of along a continuum from minimal (loosely allied) to maximal (highly centralized) federalism.

   In minimal federalism, the central rulers have at least one (perhaps narrowly restricted) area in which it can act without approval of the federal units.

   (Otherwise, it’s an alliance like the UN, not a federal union.)

   In maximal federalism, the central rulers can make decisions in all but on (perhaps narrowly restricted) area without approval of the federal units.

   (Otherwise, it’s a fully centralized government, not a federal union.)

   http://wikisum.com/w/Riker:_Federalism% … al_Science

   INTERLOCUTOR: Measuring Federalism

   A strongly centralized party system can undermine federal divisions of authority.

   Thus, fully centralized (“maximal,” see above) federalism is often accompanied by a strong governing party, rendering federal divisions “quite meaningless.”

   Examples: USSR, Yugoslavia, Mexico (under PRI).

   Thus, measuring the degree of federalism requires measuring the degree of party centralization.

   And Riker measures party centralization according to (1) whether the party that controls the central government also controls the regional governments and (2) the strength of party discipline.

   (Note that, in practice, looking at both party strength and institutional divisions is analogous to the veto players approach, which looks for both institutional and partisan veto players.)

   http://wikisum.com/w/Riker:_Federalism% … al_Science

   RLA2 wrote: Who or what made Henry Cambell Black the ultimate authority on government in the human social system.

   Born 1860, growing up in a devout religious context, receiving a BA and MA from Divinity College, studying Greek and Roman classics, he then attended law school and practiced law for about six years.

   He remained a nerdish scholar, spending his time writing and editing the Constitutional Review, from its beginning to his death in 1925.

   He lived with parents Until they died and at age 50, married a woman who had been a border in his family’s house hold for many years.

   The Black’s Law Dictionary was an out growth of many years of editing the writings of law professors.

   The Dictionary is in its 9th edition.

   The 1910 second edition is now in the public domain and available free on the internet and is thus the edition most often quoted.

   RLA2 wrote: Who or what made Henry Cambell Black the ultimate authority on government in the human social system.

   INTERLOCUTOR: Black’s Law Dictionary

   From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

   Black’s Law Dictionary is the most widely used law dictionary in the United States.

   It was founded by Henry Campbell Black.

   It is the reference of choice for definitions in legal briefs and court opinions and has been cited as a secondary legal authority in many U.S. Supreme Court cases.

   The latest editions, including abridged and pocket versions, are useful starting points for the layman or student when faced with an unfamiliar legal word.

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black%27s_Law_Dictionary

   I believe the United States Supreme Court did, rla.

   Shouldn’t they have?

   RLA2 wrote: Black’s definitions of the basic terms for a theory of government did not come from a summary of court cases but rather from his own personal construct system, which was a product of his time and his particular history.

   He apparently used his role and status as an professional insider to popularize his particular world view.

   A world view that came primarilly from ancient history and theology–not from science or the kind of experiential learning that develops street smarts.

   INTERLOCUTOR: JAMES MADISON wrote:

   Do not separate text from historical background.

   If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government.

   INTERLOCUTOR: COMMONWEALTH: It generally designates a republican frame of government – ONE IN WHICH THE WELFARE AND RIGHTS OF THE ENTIRE MASS OF PEOPLE ARE THE MAIN CONSIDERATION, rather than the privileges of a CLASS or the will of a monarch.

   – Black’s Law Dictionary

   Are you then saying that a REPUBLIC is really something other than what Black’s Law Dictionary says it is?

   Are you saying that science or the kind of experiential learning that develops street smarts have come up with some kind of different definition for what a REPUBLIC is as defined by the U.S. Constitution, and that we should use that alternate definition for what a REPUBLIC is over that expressed in Black’s Law Dictionary?

   Are the dudes with the street smarts now saying that a REPUBLIC should be a frame of government in which the privileges of a class, say, the MIDDLE CLASS, and the will of our monarch are the main consideration, rather than the welfare and rights of the entire mass of people?

   Is that what science is saying as well?

   RLA2 wrote: No, I’m saying do not conflate the US Constitution and Black’s Law Dictionary.

   I would take that a step further to say don’t allow the constitution to be transformed into scripture.

   It has a process for being amended.

   INTERLOCUTOR: U.S. CONSTITUTION Article IV, Section 4:

   The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government.

   http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/cons … article04/

   I’m hardly conflating anything here, rla.

   To the contrary, I am employing a two-step rational, logical process here.

   And I am doing exactly what James Madison, himself a member of the Constitutional Convention and an American president to boot, told us to do when reading and interpreting the wording and language of the U.S. Constitution – Do not separate text from historical background.

   Or you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government.

   Which is what this present discussion is all about so our readers can follow along in here.

   Sooo …

   FIRST, I go to the U.S. Constitution, which happens to be scripture, or law of the land, until such time as it might be lawfully amended, where in Article IV, Section 4, that document informs us that:

   The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government

   THEN, to find out what a REPUBLICAN FORM OF GOVERNMENT is, I go to Black’s Law Dictionary, since the Constitution does not separately define a republican form of government itself.

   Put them together and what you have is that Article IV, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution as written states clearly and unambiguously that the United States SHALL guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government – one in which the welfare and rights of the entire mass of people are the main consideration, rather than the privileges of a CLASS or the will of a monarch.

   I know that pisses you off to no end, rla, but so be it.

   It is what it is until it is LAWFULLY changed.

   RLA2 wrote: The constitution specifies a republican FORM of government and Black’s Law Dictionary specifies a republican FRAME of government and a process in which the welfare and right of the entire mass of people are the main consideration, rather than the privileges of a CLASS or the will of a monarch, which is what democracy means.

   The republic-democracy dychotomy is a distinction without a difference.

   The US Constitution laid the ground work for a democratic republic and the Amendments have for the most part have made it more democratic.

   INTERLOCUTOR: First off, rla, Black’s Law Dictionary does not specify anything at all; rather it DEFINES what words being used elsewhere, such as the U.S. Constitution, actually mean.

   Secondly, FORM and FRAME are interchangeable, and you see me using both, because they are interchangeable.

   And DEMOCRACY most certainly is not the same as the REPUBLICAN FORM or FRAME of government.

   DEMOCRACY is all about class, and in a DEMOCRACY, the dominant class disenfranchises the minority classes.

   INTERLOCUTOR: The liberal-popular and the conservative-aristocratic emerged as the two dominant factions in Athenian democracy.

   The spirit of the agon (competition), fame, glory, honor and the desire to surpass all others were values enshrined even in the Homeric poems, particularly the Iliad.

   “It was widely accepted as ‘natural’, that the members of the community were unequal in resources, skills and style of life.”

   In Herodotus’ prime, Athens was the dominant naval and imperial power.

   It offered military protection to members of the Athenian (Delian) league in exchange for tributes, euphemistically called contributions – other euphemisms include protection for military occupation; prison was dwelling; an Athenian military defeat was to have a misfortune.

   Athenians were granted homesteads in the colonies, cementing further their hold on them and squelching any moral objection from the participants.

   Athens relied on imports of fruits and merchandise from distant lands to supplement local produce like corn and salted fish, and maintained permanent garrisons abroad to ensure a steady supply.

   Many of the colonized though, even when they resented the politics of Athens, found its popular culture irresistible.

   The professed objective of Athenian foreign policy was to aggressively promote democracies abroad in direct opposition to the more muted Spartan confederacy’s preference for oligarchies.

   But exceptions to high principle were frequently made for illiberal ends.

   At times, foreign territory was grabbed in the name of goddess Athena herself.

   In reality, wars were used to acquire wealth, to keep the economy humming, to flex their muscle of growing power, and to distract citizens from domestic issues.

   Classical Athens soon turned into a wartime economy.

   Special interest groups in popular assemblies cloaked their impassioned speeches in the rhetoric of national interest and glory – deemed acceptable grounds for hostile military action even when others’ legitimate rights were mauled.

   Athens began asserting itself in all manner of allied causes and interfered in other nations’ internal matters.

   It had shrewd orators – demagogues, idealists, pragmatists, with the ability to manipulate public opinion to catastrophic ends – illustrated by the Mitylene debate when the popular assembly, following the frenzied instigation of the demagogue Cleon, rashly voted to condemn all men in the rebellious colony to death to set an example.

   In greater Hellas, Athens repeatedly invoked its role in the Persian wars as moral justification for present domination, backing it up with militant aggression, much to the exasperation of the second-rank powers and other ‘inward-looking’ city-states.

   A generation after Herodotus, the great historian Thucydides thought the Peloponnesian war inevitable: Athens had become an unprincipled bully; they had to be checked.

   Their cultural effulgence had a dark side; they were victims of their own cupidity and recklessness.

   Their conduct towards other city-states, with its own self-serving logic and momentum, had set them on a road to disaster.

   Some Athenians believed that a just society needed an inspired combination of philosophy and real-politick in a leader – a philosopher-king, but the production and predictable supply of such men proved utopian.

   Their democracy, too, depended on public awareness, responsibility, and participation to provide a bulwark against any willful abuse of power; conscious citizens were vital for its success in their asking – who are these men making decisions for me and my people?

   The disparity between the rich and the poor, and the knowledge gap between the civilized few and the superstitious many, had become enormous in Athens.

   Class conflict between wealthy landowners and less fortunate craftsmen, sailors and small traders became pervasive; the poor began asking awkward questions when reminded of their obligation to the polis.

   Thucydides portrays the fragile and corruptible nature of popular government and noble institutions, the twin spectacle of the juggernaut of history and an endlessly vulnerable humanity, egocentric leaders lusting for power and glory, and at times inevitability, in light of the often blind and contending cultural instincts of peoples – his is a stage portrait of man, the political animal.

   http://www.shunya.net/Text/Blog/DemocracyAthens.htm

   INTERLOCUTOR: MARKETWATCH wrote:

   America is no longer a democracy, not even a plutocracy.

   Today our middle class is in a rapid trickle down into Third World status, while the rich get richer and the “gap” between the super-rich and the rest steadily widens.

   It is now irrelevant who wins the 2012 race, because money corrupts and Obama is already a puppet of this system favoring lobbyists and wealthy donors.

   http://www.marketwatch.com/story/2011-2 … e_carousel

   The experiment of a REPUBLIC in America was an abject failure, thanks to democracy, which sold out the REPUBLIC to the highest bidders, as democracy always does, in the end.

   RLA2 wrote: DEMOCRACY is all about class, and in a DEMOCRACY, the dominant class disenfranchises the minority classes …Yes.

   FORM and FRAME are interchangeable because they both refer to how the government is structured.

   Every system has both structure and process.

   The founding fathers and Mr. Black came along before general system’s language became available to scholars.

   The US Constitution structures the US government in the form of a constitutional democratic republic.

   The people are still struggleing to establish and maintain a democratic process.

   There have always been a large gap between theory and practice.

   This gap has been maintained because leadership has been allowed to emerge only from among the elite who controlled banking and comerce, organized religion and higher education, government bureauracy and the military.

   Henry Black, because of his insider position with Trinity College, the Episcopal Church and the Journal for Constitutional Review was uniquely positioned to reinforce the prevailing perspective of the most elite who gave lip service to democracy while carrying on bidness as usual.

   end quotes

   That is a conversation that went on and on and never went anywhere or got to anywhere because the self-proclaimed liberal RLA2 would not accept Black’s Law Dictionary as a source for the meaning, of words in the Constitution, and yes, that is a real conversation from back in February of 2012, which is an indication of how long this inability to have a rational discussion about government in America with a self=proclaimed liberal has existed.

   Maybe it is just me, but when words no longer have common meaning, and history becomes what you want it to be, then do we still have a nation?

   Reply

3. Paul Plante says

   November 18, 2018 at 7:36 pm

   And getting back to the false and specious claim of the pompous (affectedly and irritatingly grand, solemn, or self-important) windbag Joseph Eugene Stiglitz (born February 9, 1943), a.k.a. “Bad Boy Joe,” because he dared to question the World Bank and was fired by the World Bank for expressing dissent with its policies, in his recent essay courtesy of Marketwatch entitled “Opinion: The fight to preserve democracy has come home to America” published Nov. 6, 2018, where “Bad Boy Joe,” who is making up American history as he goes for partisan political reasons, given that the dude self-identifies on his Wikipedia page as a notorious Democrat, that “(T)he U.S. was founded as a representative democracy,” which we have previously identified as a hog**** statement, because it is false, one has to wonder how he thinks he can simply sail that blatant falsehood past us without it being questioned.

   “Bad Boy Joe,” the notorious Democrat, is using his considerable influence as one of Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world to feed us a snow job here, and but for the Cape Charles Mirror, he would be getting away with it, scot-free, as they say, completely unchallenged.

   So why is he lying to us, telling us “(T)he U.S. was founded as a representative democracy,” when any schoolchild knows that when we say the Pledge of Allegiance, we say, “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands.”

   What, pray tell, is his agenda, beyond sowing confusion among the American people on behalf of the Democrats who have just taken back control of the United States House of Representatives?

   And that thought takes us to a NBC News article entitled “Democrats’ investigative dreams to meet cold, hard congressional reality – Democrats conducting presidential oversight will soon have legal authority to demand answers from the Trump administration. That doesn’t mean they’ll get them.” by Rebecca Shabad on Nov. 12, 2018, where we are told as follows:

   WASHINGTON — When Democrats take control of the House next year, they will find themselves with new powers to investigate and embarrass the Trump administration.

   end quotes

   Oh, really, Rebecca!

   And tell us, Rebecca, where in the United States Constitution does it give the Democrats in the United States House of Representatives, that branch of our national government most dangerous to our liberty, any authority, jurisdiction or discretion to waste our national resources in an obviously partisan effort intended to embarrass a sitting American president?

   Oh, but you are a member of the American press, so you probably don’t know, and further, don’t have a clue, since you are there not to question, but to write it down as you are told to write it, which takes us back to the NBC News article, as follows:

   But their ability to use those powers may be more limited than many progressive voters may imagine.

   The liberal wish-list has been circulating for months, and Democratic base voters are hungry for results.

   end quotes

   And there we see it, people, the passions of the mob controlling what the Democrats in the House of Representatives are going to do, as opposed to what the United States Constitution says they are there to do.

   In FEDERALIST No. 62, The Senate, for the Independent Journal to the People of the State of New York by either James Madison or Alexander Hamilton writing as Publius circa 1788, it was stated thusly about our national government, to wit:

   A good government implies two things: first, fidelity to the object of government, which is the happiness of the people; secondly, a knowledge of the means by which that object can be best attained.

   end quotes

   In that same essay, Publius stated as follows:

   No government, any more than an individual, will long be respected without being truly respectable; nor be truly respectable, without possessing a certain portion of order and stability.

   end quotes

   When we today some 230 years later put those two together, can we say that the Democrats in the House of Representatives using our national resources in a partisan effort to embarrass Donald Trump is worthy of respect?

   Does it contribute to order and stability in our national government?

   Or is it a blatant effort by the Democrats in the House of Representatives to disrupt our national government?

   In FEDERALIST No. 62, The Senate, for the Independent Journal to the People of the State of New York by either James Madison or Alexander Hamilton writing as Publius circa 1788 stated thusly, to wit:

   Another defect to be supplied by a senate lies in a want of due acquaintance with the objects and principles of legislation.

   end quotes

   And right there, Publius is making a direct reference to what we are seeing taking place here in America as the Democrats take control of the U.S. House of Representatives – quite simply, they are totally unacquainted with the objects and principles of legislation, so they don’t know what the **** it is they are doing, other than lashing out on behalf of the howling mob, which is a blatant misuse of our national government resources, which takes us back to FEDERALIST No. 62, as follows:

   The necessity of a senate is not less indicated by the propensity of all single and numerous assemblies to yield to the impulse of sudden and violent passions, and to be seduced by factious leaders into intemperate and pernicious resolutions.

   Examples on this subject might be cited without number; and from proceedings within the United States, as well as from the history of other nations.

   end quotes

   And here is yet another blatant example of it, 230 years later, where we see our House of Representatives, now that the Democrats are taking power, yielding to the impulse of the sudden and violent passions of the howling, shrieking and screaming mob, and being seduced by factious leaders into intemperate and pernicious resolutions, which again takes us back to FEDERALIST No. 62, as follows:

   It is a misfortune incident to republican government, though in a less degree than to other governments, that those who administer it may forget their obligations to their constituents, and prove unfaithful to their important trust.

   end quotes

   And there, people, 230 years later, Publius is talking about Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats in the House of Representatives when he says it is a misfortune incident to republican government that those who administer it. like Nancy Pelosi as speaker of the house, forget their obligations to the nation and prove unfaithful to their important trust, which takes us back in time a bit to a Tribune Washington Bureau article entitled “Embattled Pelosi’s big survival weapon: money” by Anshu Siripurapu on 6/22/2017, as follows:

   WASHINGTON — Here’s a huge reason Nancy Pelosi maintains her iron grip on House Democrats, even after another bruising — and in many party circles embarrassing — election loss: her ability to raise lots and lots of money.

   The House Democratic leader has few current peers when it comes to pumping money into colleagues’ campaigns.

   No other potential up-and-coming Democratic challenger to her leadership comes close.

   Since 1990, she’s raised more than $9.2 million for party candidates, including $739,000 in the 2016 election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks contributions from candidate committees and affiliated PACs.

   Pelosi’s office claims even loftier triumphs, saying she’s raised more than $500 million for Democrats since entering the party leadership in the early 2000s, including $141.5 million in the 2015-2016 cycle.

   The totals, her office says, include money raised for the party not directly controlled by her committees.

   Big donors to the party’s congressional campaign committee were also available to Pelosi through her “Speaker’s Cabinet” program, which gave them special access to the Democratic leader.

   end quotes

   That is what we just got back in control of OUR United States House of Representatives – somebody and a party with a history of selling out the American people to the highest bidders.

   What a swamp, but it doesn’t end there, so please, stay tuned for further installments of Making It Up As they Go!

   Reply

4. Paul Plante says

   November 21, 2018 at 10:35 pm

   As we children learned when young up here where I am, this country is ours, like all other countries, only so long as we can hold it, and there is always going to be someone somewhere waiting to take it away from us to make it their own.

   That was the big threat of Communism when I was young, that the dreaded Commies from Russia would come over here to take over the country to take away our freedoms.

   Now the threat is from within this country, instead, but then, it always really has been.

   Consider FEDERALIST No. 65, “The Powers of the Senate,” from the New York Packet to the People of the State of New York by Alexander Hamilton on Friday, March 7, 1788, to wit:

   THE remaining powers which the plan of the convention allots to the Senate, in a distinct capacity, are comprised in their participation with the executive in the appointment to offices, and in their judicial character as a court for the trial of impeachments.

   A well-constituted court for the trial of impeachments is an object not more to be desired than difficult to be obtained in a government wholly elective.

   The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust.

   end quotes

   That last sentence about the subjects for a well-constituted court of impeachments here in the United States of America, regardless of how it might be done in Kenya or Zimbabwe or Pakistan being those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust are words each and every one of us here in America who remain loyal citizens of the Republic should keep in mind as the impeachment-for-the-sake-of-impeachment minded Democrats take over control of OUR United States House of Representatives, and God help the nation for that.

   If these Democrats who are making it up as they go in an effort to impeach Trump because that is what their screeching, howling mob that put them in power (NO, I am not a Republican and I don’t vote for Republicans) actually move to impeach Trump, then what they owe us as American citizens is a clear case of Trump abusing or violating some actual public trust, and not something hoaky that they pulled out of their *** and hope to sail by us as if we were all too stupid to realize the difference!

   Getting back to FEDERALIST No. 65:

   They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself.

   The prosecution of them, for this reason, will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community, and to divide it into parties more or less friendly or inimical to the accused.

   end quotes

   Regardless of when this was written, Hamilton was describing the times we find ourselves in right now where the Democrats’ talk of impeaching Trump has agitated the passions of the whole community, and divided it into parties more or less friendly or inimical to the accused, and that is by Democrat design, following the tenets of Saul Alinsky, which takes us back to the Alinsky article as follows:

   Michelle Obama echoed Alinsky’s words in her speech at the Democratic Convention.

   Michelle Obama:

   “Barack stood up that day,” talking about a visit to Chicago neighborhoods, “and spoke words that have stayed with me ever since.”

   “He talked about ‘The world as it is’ and ‘The world as it should be…’”

   And, “All of us driven by a simple belief that the world as it is just won’t do – that we have an obligation to fight for the world as it should be.”

   end quote

   Now, think about that for a moment, people.

   Does Barack Obama, or anyone for that matter, know “the world as it is?”

   Or is that just some more horse****?

   And what about “the world as it should be?”

   Whose decision is that?

   And obviously, Barack and Michelle Obama, so much higher than us on the intellectual plane, feel it is theirs as they talk about having an obligation to fight for the world as it should be, which makes those of us in this country who don’t agree with their vision for our future their enemies, which in turn takes us back to the Alinsky article, as follows:

   Saul Alinsky, “Rules for Radicals,” Chapter 2:

   “The means-and-ends moralists, constantly obsessed with the ethics of the means used by the Have-Nots against the Haves, should search themselves as to their real political position.”

   “In fact, they are passive-but real-allies of the Haves …”

   “The most unethical of all means is the non-use of any means …”

   “The standards of judgment must be rooted in the whys and wherefores of life as it is lived, the world as it is, not our wished-for fantasy of the world as it should be.“

   Alinsky is making a strong case in this quote for the abandonment of morals and ethics as nothing but impediments to political success.

   For Alinsky, as for Michelle and Barack Hussein Obama, morality and ethics prevent the world from being what “it should be.”

   The Alinsky end game is likely a global utopia in which the “people” have “power.”

   Unfortunately, this utopianism has been the foundation of several über-violent movements of the last century which have resulted in over 100 million deaths.

   end quotes

   And that takes us back some 230 years in time to Federalist No. 65, as follows:

   In many cases it (the court of impeachment in the USA) will connect itself with the pre-existing factions, and will enlist all their animosities, partialities, influence, and interest on one side or on the other; and in such cases there will always be the greatest danger that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of parties, than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt.

   end quotes

   Political agitation, people.

   The Democrats taking over the House of Representatives are doing their utmost to enlist all the animosities, partialities, influence, and interest of their faction on their side so that an impeachment of Trump would be regulated more by the comparative strength of parties than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt, which takes us back to FEDERALIST No. 65 as follows:

   The delicacy and magnitude of a trust which so deeply concerns the political reputation and existence of every man engaged in the administration of public affairs, speak for themselves.

   The difficulty of placing it rightly, in a government resting entirely on the basis of periodical elections, will as readily be perceived, when it is considered that the most conspicuous characters in it will, from that circumstance, be too often the leaders or the tools of the most cunning or the most numerous faction, and on this account, can hardly be expected to possess the requisite neutrality towards those whose conduct may be the subject of scrutiny.

   end quotes

   There Hamilton is talking about the Democrats taking over the House of Representatives when he makes mention of “the leaders or the tools of the most cunning or the most numerous faction,” which is now the Democrats in the House of Representatives, which takes us back to Saul Alinsky as follows:

   Many Americans have read Alinsky’s books and understand his methods; this is excellent as so few read Mein Kampf, and fewer still have read the Koran, Sira, and Hadith.

   These are the foundational texts of existential opposition to the existence of the United States in its present form.

   The fact that our current President and Secretary of State (wannabe President Hillary Clinton), are followers of Alinsky is beyond disturbing.

   That so many Americans know Alinsky is heartening but few know the motivations behind the agitation that is so central to the Alinsky method and further what it means when a professional agitator acquires the power that they claim to require.

   What kind of effective governance is possible from the permanent agitator when the reins of power are handed to him/her?

   We have seen the results.

   The problem with the Alinsky method is that the end game is amorphous; the end game is the acquisition of power but little is said of what to do with that power once acquired.

   The core of Alinsky’s method is destruction, destruction of the “system” that allows a disparity of wealth.

   There is no discussion of what is to replace this system once it is brought down.

   However, there is little doubt that Alinsky’s idea of a better “system” is one that brings forced equivalence or Marxism.

   Fundamentally, the struggle to get power is the essence of Alinsky, what to do with the power once acquired is another matter altogether.

   end quotes

   Yes, people!

   The future is now.

   The struggle for power is on.

   Which way will it take us as a nation and as a people?

   All I can say is please, stay tuned!

   Reply

5. Paul Plante says

   November 24, 2018 at 7:55 pm

   And in all seriousness, people, should we really be surprised that we have these hack politicians in America making it up as they go, in order to divide us as a people for their benefit, by making people in America confused, blind, shrouded with hate, anger, racism, and mommy issues, so that they are easy to manipulate?

   Is this “making it up as they go,” which most certainly includes the main-stream media in this country, something new?

   Or has it always been going on?

   For an answer to that question, let us drop back in time some 230 years as we can do in here to FEDERALIST No. 67, The Executive Department, from the New York Packet to the People of the State of New York by Alexander Hamilton on Tuesday, March 11, 1788, where we find as follows, to wit:

   THE constitution of the executive department of the proposed government, claims next our attention.

   There is hardly any part of the system which could have been attended with greater difficulty in the arrangement of it than this; and there is, perhaps, none which has been inveighed against with less candor or criticised with less judgment.

   Here the writers against the Constitution seem to have taken pains to signalize their talent of misrepresentation.

   end quotes

   Two hundred and thirty years later, that phrase “taken pains to signalize their talent of misrepresentation,” where “misrepresentation” is defined as “the action or offense of giving a false or misleading account of the nature of something,” still applies to people in this country who hate our present Republican frame of government and wish to replace it with a democracy with them in power and able to deny protection of law to their political enemies, as the Roman dictator Sulla did in Rome in 81 B.C. with his proscriptions.

   Consider this excerpt from an article in the Spokane Conservative Examiner on October 10 2014, for example:

   If actress Gwyneth Paltrow had her way, Barack Obama wouldn’t just be the president — he’d be a full-fledged dictator with all the power to do whatever he wanted without Congress.

   “It would be wonderful if we were able to give this man all of the power that he needs to pass the things that he needs to pass,” she said of Obama during an introduction the Associated Press said was “punctuated by ‘ums.'”

   She also told Obama, “I am one of your biggest fans, if not the biggest, and have been since the inception of your campaign.”

   When she handed Obama the microphone, she told him, “You’re so handsome that I can’t speak properly.”

   end quotes

   And not only does Gwyneth Paltrow get to vote, despite that inability to speak properly, but she commands big dollars as well with which to try and make that happen, whereas the rest of us don’t, which takes us back to FEDERALIST No. 67, as follows:

   Calculating upon the aversion of the people to monarchy, they have endeavored to enlist all their jealousies and apprehensions in opposition to the intended President of the United States; not merely as the embryo, but as the full-grown progeny, of that detested parent.

   end quotes

   Today, as we can see from the Spokane Conservative Examiner on October 10 2014, there are many powerful and important people in this country like Gwyneth Paltrow with access to the main-stream media we the common people do not enjoy who no longer have an aversion to monarchy, and who have no scruples about using the main-stream media to advocate for monarchy, despite our history, because to them, it is past time to scrap this Republican frame of government bequeathed to us by people Alexander Hamilton and Virginia’s James Madison, and to replace it with a borderless “democracy” pursuant to Democrat “Bad Boy Joe” Stiglitz’s vision as a member of Collegium International, an organization of leaders with political, scientific, and ethical expertise, whose goal is to provide new approaches in overcoming the obstacles in the way of a peaceful, socially just and an economically sustainable world, a vision that requires the United States of America to give up its national borders and sovereignty to become a part of a one-world government ruled by technocrats like Democrat Joe Stiglitz.

   Getting back to FEDERALIST No. 67 and the propensity of political people in this country like Barack Hussein Obama to make it up as they go, we have:

   To establish the pretended affinity, they have not scrupled to draw resources even from the regions of fiction.

   end quotes

   Thus we can see that “making it up as they go” is a tried and true time-tested method of politically manipulating the mindless, unthinking and just plain gullible in America like so much putty for partisan political gain, as Joe Stiglitz is doing above here, so we should not be surprised to see the Democrats still resorting to the practice today.

   And as an aside, today, the regions of fiction include the main-stream media in this country which prints narratives, not facts, which takes us back to FEDERALIST No. 67, as follows, and “making it up as they go,” to wit:

   He (the U.S. president) has been decorated with attributes superior in dignity and splendor to those of a king of Great Britain.

   He has been shown to us with the diadem sparkling on his brow and the imperial purple flowing in his train.

   He has been seated on a throne surrounded with minions and mistresses, giving audience to the envoys of foreign potentates, in all the supercilious pomp of majesty.

   The images of Asiatic despotism and voluptuousness have scarcely been wanting to crown the exaggerated scene.

   We have been taught to tremble at the terrific visages of murdering janizaries, and to blush at the unveiled mysteries of a future seraglio.

   Attempts so extravagant as these to disfigure or, it might rather be said, to metamorphose the object, render it necessary to take an accurate view of its real nature and form: in order as well to ascertain its true aspect and genuine appearance, as to unmask the disingenuity and expose the fallacy of the counterfeit resemblances which have been so insidiously, as well as industriously, propagated.

   In the execution of this task, there is no man who would not find it an arduous effort either to behold with moderation, or to treat with seriousness, the devices, not less weak than wicked, which have been contrived to pervert the public opinion in relation to the subject.

   They so far exceed the usual though unjustifiable licenses of party artifice, that even in a disposition the most candid and tolerant, they must force the sentiments which favor an indulgent construction of the conduct of political adversaries to give place to a voluntary and unreserved indignation.

   It is impossible not to bestow the imputation of deliberate imposture and deception upon the gross pretense of a similitude between a king of Great Britain and a magistrate of the character marked out for that of the President of the United States.

   It is still more impossible to withhold that imputation from the rash and barefaced expedients which have been employed to give success to the attempted imposition.

   end quotes

   “Indignation” has as synonyms resentment, umbrage, displeasure, anger, annoyance, irritation, exasperation, vexation, offense, and pique, all of which should be directed at Democrat Joe Stiglitz who is using his political influence to mislead us and further divide us, which again takes us back to the conclusion of FEDERALIST No. 67, as follows:

   Here is an express power given, in clear and unambiguous terms, to the State Executives, to fill casual vacancies in the Senate, by temporary appointments; which not only invalidates the supposition, that the clause before considered could have been intended to confer that power upon the President of the United States, but proves that this supposition, destitute as it is even of the merit of plausibility, must have originated in an intention to deceive the people, too palpable to be obscured by sophistry, too atrocious to be palliated by hypocrisy.

   I have taken the pains to select this instance of misrepresentation, and to place it in a clear and strong light, as an unequivocal proof of the unwarrantable arts which are practiced to prevent a fair and impartial judgment of the real merits of the Constitution submitted to the consideration of the people.

   Nor have I scrupled, in so flagrant a case, to allow myself a severity of animadversion little congenial with the general spirit of these papers.

   I hesitate not to submit it to the decision of any candid and honest adversary of the proposed government, whether language can furnish epithets of too much asperity, for so shameless and so prostitute an attempt to impose on the citizens of America.

   end quotes

   Do you hear that, Joe Stiglitz?

   You should, because there, he is talking about you when he talks about “so shameless and so prostitute an attempt to impose on the citizens of America.”

   Reply

6. Paul Plante says

   December 6, 2018 at 8:31 pm

   Were someone to ask me what it means to be a Democrat, my response after all these years of observing them as an American citizen, and this is since JFK, would be that you are free to pull anything you want out of your ***, and call it truth or fact, even when it is neither, and blatantly so, and you can simply make it up as you go, which brings us to a Washington Examiner article entitled “Some experts believe Trump can be impeached for conduct performed before becoming president” by Melissa Quinn on 6 December 2018 where we are treated to the following, to wit:

   Michael Cohen’s recent plea deal with special counsel Robert Mueller revealing more about President Trump’s involvement in a possible real estate project in Moscow has sparked whispers of impeachment from Trump’s critics once again, and some legal experts say a president can be ousted, at least under certain circumstances, for conduct performed before taking the oath of office.

   end quotes

   Now, to call yourself a “legal expert” in this country today, especially with respect to the main-stream media, which likes to tell us “some legal experts,” as if that empty statement has rational meaning, especially when these so-called “legal experts” are pulling their expert legal opinions from out of their ***, making it up as they go, do you really have to be one?

   Or is it only necessary to have an embossed business card identifying the holder as a “legal expert?”

   Which takes us back to the Washington Examiner article, as follows:

   “My view, which represents the decisive majority opinion, is that President Trump can be impeached for conduct before he took office if there is an exceptionally close connection between that conduct and his acquisition of the office,” Joshua Matz, an author of To End a Presidency: The Power of Impeachment, told the Washington Examiner.

   end quotes

   The “decisive majority opinion?”

   Of what?

   His bowling buddies?

   And who exactly is this Joshua Matz, besides an author of a To End a Presidency: The Power of Impeachment?

   And actually, for the sake of veracity all around, I checked out the book on Amazon and it was really written by Laurence Tribe, with Matz as a co-author, and the review of the book is quite informative, as follows, starting with this very line, to wit:.

   The definitive book on presidential impeachment and how it should be used today.

   end quotes

   Ah, yeah, well, hmmmmmmm, okay, let me see if I am getting the picture here!

   First of all, and this is important, of course – today is not yesterday; today is today.

   So, regardless of how the founding fathers might have established it, back then, which is so yesterday it isn’t funny, that no longer counts, precisely because this isn’t yesterday – this is today, so we need new rules, not old rules, when it comes to Democrats impeaching a Republican president they and their followers simply cannot stand.

   How do I know that?

   Why from the review of the Matz book the Democrats are relying on to whip up their followers into a foam-at-the-mouth frenzy to impeach Trump, as follows:

   To End a Presidency is the definitive book on presidential impeachment and how it should be used today.

   Impeachment is our ultimate constitutional check against an out-of-control executive.

   end quotes

   There you have it, people – the Democrats say Trump is out of control, and then they find some dude who will write them a book they can rely on as “an expert opinion” saying that in the case of an “out-of-control” president, impeachment is the way for them to go to remove the out-of-control president from office, for being out of control, which is something the Democrats cannot tolerate in an American president, having God-like perfection on their side, as they do, which God-like presidential qualities were so recently on display in the person of Hillary Rodham Clinton, which takes us back to the review, as follows:
   .
   But it is also a perilous and traumatic undertaking for the nation.

   In this authoritative examination, Laurence Tribe and Joshua Matz rise above the daily clamor to illuminate impeachment’s proper role in our age of broken politics.

   Now revised with a new epilogue, To End a Presidency is an essential book for anyone seeking to understand how this fearsome power should be deployed.

   end quotes

   Pretty powerful stuff, isn’t it?

   **** the Constitution!

   **** the Federalist Papers!

   The mob wants a lynching, and the Democrats are the party to give them one!

   Having been the target of mob violence being whipped up by the Democrats back when I was a public servant attacking Democrat public corruption to the north of here, I can well appreciate that, given that min FBI records involving my case, there is a photo of me being hung in effigy outside of a venue where the Democrats were whipping up a mob frenzy against myself min an effort to intimidate and coerce me, which is what the Democrats are doing here with their talk of impeachment.

   And speaking of whipping up the howling, shrieking, yowling Democrat mob, this Joshua Matz, who is an attorney based in Washington, DC., and who from 2014 to 2015, served as a law clerk to Justice Anthony M Kennedy of the United States Supreme Court, has quite a few articles about Trump in the British publication, The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/profile/joshua-matz , to wit:

   June 2017 Trump is ushering in a kleptocracy. That’s why he is being sued

   The public will not stand idly by as Trump turns America into a banana republic. Recent lawsuits – the latest by 196 members of Congress – are trying to stop him

   Published: 14 Jun 2017

   Donald Trump’s panoply of abuses demand more than a special counsel – The public needs a quick, transparent investigation into the president’s foreign entanglements. Robert Mueller will not be able to deliver that

   Tue 23 May 2017 11.54 EDT

   Many want to know Donald Trump’s state of mind. So do the courts – You’ve probably asked yourself: what is Trump thinking? You’re not alone. Lawyers and judges, too, are taking an interest in just this question

   Tue 16 May 2017 12.47 EDT Last modified on Thu 5 Jul 2018 16.50 EDT

   Yes, the courts ‘second-guessed’ Donald Trump’s motives. That’s their job – Some say its irresponsible of courts to probe the president’s motives. Here’s why it’s not

   Tue 9 May 2017 11.54 EDT First published on Tue 9 May 2017 11.44 EDT

   April 2017 No one sabotages Donald Trump better than Donald Trump – Yet another executive order by the US president was blocked by the courts, in part because of his own words. His tweets are a political doomsday device

   Published: 26 Apr 2017

   March 2017 – The aura of lawlessness around Trump is a struggle for us all – The president’s executive order on immigration and refugees is the site of one of many legal battles that will define our new political age

   Published: 9 Mar 2017

   end quotes

   So no wonder the Democrats are relying so heavily in this dude as their “legal expert” as they move to impeach trump for being out of control.

   They are a marriage made in Democrat heaven!

   Reply

7. Paul Plante says

   December 7, 2018 at 7:51 pm

   And getting back to that Washington Examiner article entitled “Some experts believe Trump can be impeached for conduct performed before becoming president” by Melissa Quinn on 6 December 2018, it continues with a Democrat party bull**** spew as follows, to wit:

   In addressing whether a president can be impeached for conduct prior to assuming office, legal experts point to the 2010 impeachment of former U.S. District Judge G. Thomas Porteous.

   Porteous was convicted of four articles of impeachment, which included conduct while he was a state-court judge.

   Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, cited Porteous’ case when discussing whether sitting officials can be ousted for offenses committed before acquiring higher office.

   “We now by constitutional terms — in a country that rarely has impeachment trials — have a precedent that you can be impeached and removed from office both for prior crimes and for lying under oath,” Schiff said during an event in October.

   Gene Healy, a vice president at the Cato Institute who focuses on executive power and the role of the presidency, said Porteous’ case provides a model for answering the question of impeachment for pre-presidential misconduct.

   “When you understand that the impeachment process fundamentally goes to fitness for office, you can’t draw a bright line that says anything that happened before this certain date when the president assumed office, you get a clean slate and the clock starts after an election or confirmation,” Healy told the Washington Examiner.

   “That’s not the way it’s supposed to work.”

   Because impeachment deals with whether one is fit for office, “it stands to reason that conduct that occurred before somebody assumes their post, when it’s exposed, is relevant to that kind of inquiry,” he added.

   end quotes

   Now, how many people out there in America recognize this above for what it really is, which is a mountain of pure bull**** being thrown at us by this Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, and his lickspittle (a person who behaves obsequiously to those in power) Gene Healy, a vice president at the Cato Institute, with this crap that a sitting American president can be impeached because a federal judge was impeached.

   Not hardly, people, is our response as loyal American citizens who know our history and so cannot be deceived by the likes of Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, and his lickspittle Gene Healy, a vice president at the Cato Institute.

   First of all, with respect to a federal judge, in FEDERALIST No. 79, The Judiciary Continued, from MCLEAN’s Edition, New York to the People of the State of New York, Alexander Hamilton informs us as follows with respect to the impeachment of federal judges, to wit:

   The precautions for their responsibility are comprised in the article respecting impeachments.

   They are liable to be impeached for malconduct by the House of Representatives, and tried by the Senate; and, if convicted, may be dismissed from office, and disqualified for holding any other.

   end quotes

   Note that word “malconduct.”

   Then search the Constitution for a similar provision with respect to the presidency, where the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives can allegedly impeach a U.S. president for “malconduct,” and you won’t find one, which takes us back to Federalist No. 79, as follows:

   The want of a provision for removing the judges on account of inability has been a subject of complaint.

   But all considerate men will be sensible that such a provision would either not be practiced upon or would be more liable to abuse than calculated to answer any good purpose.

   The mensuration of the faculties of the mind has, I believe, no place in the catalogue of known arts.

   An attempt to fix the boundary between the regions of ability and inability, would much oftener give scope to personal and party attachments and enmities than advance the interests of justice or the public good.

   The result, except in the case of insanity, must for the most part be arbitrary; and insanity, without any formal or express provision, may be safely pronounced to be a virtual disqualification.

   end quotes

   Now, let us be clear here, people – what the Democrats are saying is that Trump lacks the ability to be an American president, and therefore should be impeached.

   But the only authority they can hang their hats on is one they invented yesterday, by pulling it out of their ***, and making it up as they go, and that takes us to a New York Times article entitled “Senate, for Just the 8th Time, Votes to Oust a Federal Judge” by Jennifer Steinhauer on Dec. 8, 2010, as follows:

   WASHINGTON — The Senate on Wednesday found Judge G. Thomas Porteous Jr. of Federal District Court in Louisiana guilty on four articles of impeachment and removed him from the bench, the first time the Senate has ousted a federal judge in more than two decades.

   Judge Porteous, the eighth federal judge to be removed from office in this manner, was impeached by the House in March on four articles stemming from charges that he received cash and favors from lawyers who had dealings in his court, used a false name to elude creditors and intentionally misled the Senate during his confirmation proceedings.

   end quotes

   So when we American people hear Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, blathering on inanely about “(W)e now by constitutional terms — in a country that rarely has impeachment trials — have a precedent that you can be impeached and removed from office both for prior crimes and for lying under oath,” he is full of ****, because the Porteous impeachment is a one-off, which is no precedent at all with regard to a sitting U.S. president, who, unlike a federal judge, does not have to get confirmed by the Senate.

   Trump did not lie to the Senate during confirmation hearings, because there were none, so where is the precedent, besides in the fertile imagination of Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, who actually does not seem to be endowed with the requisite level of intelligence that would qualify him to sit on such a panel.

   And where is there any evidence, or even an accusation that Trump ever received cash and favors from lawyers who had dealings in his court, given he was never a judge to begin with, or used a false name to elude creditors?

   So again, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, where is the Constitutional precedent that the impeachment of Judge Porteous justifies the impeachment of Donald Trump?

   Getting back to the New York Times article:

   The behavior amounted to a “pattern of conduct incompatible with the trust and confidence placed in him,” according to the articles against him.

   All 96 senators present voted “guilty” on the first article, which concerned his time as a state court judge and his subsequent failure to recuse himself from matters involving a former law partner, with whom he was accused of trading favors for cash.

   end quotes

   Now, people, that is very specific, is it not?

   So where is there any proof demonstrating Trump has done the same?

   And if you answered that to date, there isn’t any, you would be right and Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, would be dead wrong, which is why the Democrats have him on the intelligence committee.

   Getting back to the New York Times, we have:

   On the other three articles, some senators did support Judge Porteous, with 27 voting in his favor on the article concerning meals, trips and car repair he was accused of receiving from a bail bondsman.

   The senators also voted 94 to 2 to disqualify him from holding future federal office.

   The process was meant to be as solemn as it was unusual.

   Still, it often seemed as if members were struggling to pay attention.

   Some fiddled with their smart phones, and Senator Dianne Feinstein of California had to be poked in the arm by Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, a fellow Democrat, to get her to vote on the third article.

   Mr. Porteous, 64, was appointed to the bench by President Bill Clinton in 1994 and has been suspended with pay since 2008.

   end quotes

   As an aside, we should not be surprised here to see that Judge Porteous was a Bill Clinton judge, and that thought takes us back to this Democrat lickspittle Gene Healy, a vice president at the Cato Institute who focuses on executive power and the role of the presidency, who said Porteous’ case provides a model for answering the question of impeachment for pre-presidential misconduct, which is absolute crap!

   Said the lickspittle Healy: “When you understand that the impeachment process fundamentally goes to fitness for office, you can’t draw a bright line that says anything that happened before this certain date when the president assumed office, you get a clean slate and the clock starts after an election or confirmation.”

   “That’s not the way it’s supposed to work.”

   Because impeachment deals with whether one is fit for office, “it stands to reason that conduct that occurred before somebody assumes their post, when it’s exposed, is relevant to that kind of inquiry,” he added.

   end quotes

   That people, is some poor misguided crack-pot speaking, because contrary to what this Democrat lickspittle is saying, the impeachment process of a sitting United States president most assuredly does not fundamentally go to fitness for office.

   The House of Representatives, a totally separate branch of government and the one most dangerous to our liberty as American citizens, especially now that Democrats are in charge, does not determine the fitness of an American president to be president, because they lack the Constitutional authority to do so.

   So when the Democrat lickspittle Healy says, “you can’t draw a bright line that says anything that happened before this certain date when the president assumed office, you get a clean slate and the clock starts after an election or confirmation,” he is talking through his hat, plain and simple, thinking we are as stupid as he is, and will take that crap as the gospel truth.

   But I for one am not that stupid!

   Are you?

   Reply

8. Paul Plante says

   December 8, 2018 at 8:20 pm

   And we loyal American citizens who are concerned about the direction the Democrats and Democratic Socialists who own U.S. Senator from New York City Charley “Chuck” Schumer lock, stock and barrel, are trying to take this nation of ours owe a debt of gratitude to the Cape Charles Mirror for having the courage to host these types of discussions in here, and the Washington Examiner in this case, as well, for taking the time to print that above story entitled “Some experts believe Trump can be impeached for conduct performed before becoming president” by Melissa Quinn on 6 December 2018, so we American people out in the countryside can see in detail exactly what kind of pure horse**** the Democrat party is spewing down in the pestilential swamp of Washington, D.C., that they are in the process of taking over, to our detriment as American citizens.

   And speaking of a load of pure horse**** being dumped on us by Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, and his lickspittle (a person who behaves obsequiously to those in power) Gene Healy, a vice president at the Cato Institute, with this crap that a sitting American president can be impeached because a federal judge was impeached, the Washington Examiner story continues as follows, to wit:

   “We need to go one level below or unpack by one level what it means to have a business deal with a foreign power,” Jeffrey Engel, co-author of the book Impeachment: An American History, told the Washington Examiner.

   “Obviously that means that the foreign power has some financial interest or financial sway and you could be influenced by money.”

   “And we certainly know the president is influenced by money.”

   end quotes

   We know the president is influenced by money?

   Are you kidding me?

   Are the Democrats proposing impeaching presidents because they are influenced by money?

   If that was the case, the GREAT FUNDRAISER Obama, who was jet-setting all over the country on our dime to attend fundraisers should have been impeached to set a real precedent here.

   And talking about being influenced by money, what about Democrat Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi?

   Are we supposed to actually believe that she is not influenced by money, that in the face of a Tribune Washington Bureau article entitled “Embattled Pelosi’s big survival weapon: money” by Anshu Siripurapu on 6/22/2017, where we are told as follows about our dear Nancy, to wit:

   WASHINGTON — Here’s a huge reason Nancy Pelosi maintains her iron grip on House Democrats, even after another bruising — and in many party circles embarrassing — election loss: her ability to raise lots and lots of money.

   The House Democratic leader has few current peers when it comes to pumping money into colleagues’ campaigns.

   No other potential up-and-coming Democratic challenger to her leadership comes close.

   Since 1990, she’s raised more than $9.2 million for party candidates, including $739,000 in the 2016 election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks contributions from candidate committees and affiliated PACs.

   Pelosi’s office claims even loftier triumphs, saying she’s raised more than $500 million for Democrats since entering the party leadership in the early 2000s, including $141.5 million in the 2015-2016 cycle.

   The totals, her office says, include money raised for the party not directly controlled by her committees.

   Big donors to the party’s congressional campaign committee were also available to Pelosi through her “Speaker’s Cabinet” program, which gave them special access to the Democratic leader.

   end quotes

   Here we have the person who is third in line to sit in the oval office, and the ramrod of thi8s impeachment effort, and she is seen here to have been openly selling access to her office to the highest bidders, which takes us back to the Washington Examiner article as follows:

   Healy and other legal experts also point to the Constitutional Convention in 1787, when George Mason argued a president who has obtained the office through corrupt means should not be allowed to escape punishment.

   end quotes

   That reminds of an account in “The Dark Side of Camelot” by Seymour Hersh where we were told the Kennedy’s were ready to bribe hold-outs in the electoral college in the southern states $10,000 apiece for their votes if Mayor Daley and the Giancana mafia in Chicago failed to deliver Illinois for Kennedy, which, of course, being good and loyal Democrats with a powerful political machine, they were able to do, which saved the Kennedy family over a hundred grand in bribes they didn’t have to make to get Jack into the white house.

   With respect to George Mason, at an internet site called the National Constitution Center, there is an article entitled “What the Founders thought about impeachment and the President”
   by Scott Bomboy, editor in chief of the National Constitution Center, on May 18, 2017, where we learn as follows concerning what the so-called founders really did think about when they formed the frame of government we are supposed to have in this country, as opposed to the sham version the Democrats and Democratic Socialists are trying to foist off on us, as follows:

   One of the most hotly debated clauses in the Constitution deals with the removal of federal government officials through the impeachment process.

   But what did the Founders who crafted that language think about the process and its overall intention?

   The need for the ultimate check, and in particular the removal of the President, in a system of checks and balances was brought up early at the 1787 convention in Philadelphia.

   Constitutional heavyweights such as James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, James Wilson and Gouverneur Morris debated the Impeachment Clause at the convention, and Alexander Hamilton argued for it in The Federalist after the convention.

   end quotes

   Having read the Federalist Papers through several times, the subject of impeachment is brought up not once, but in several of the papers.

   But to understand the intent of the framers of the Constitution, it is necessary to understand their thoughts on WHY the particular frame of government put forth in the proposed Constitution was sufficient to protect our liberty, which takes us to FEDERALIST No. 47, The Particular Structure of the New Government and the Distribution of Power Among Its Different Parts, from the New York Packet to the People of the State of New York by Virginia’s Jemmy Madison on Friday, February 1, 1788, to wit:

   HAVING reviewed the general form of the proposed government and the general mass of power allotted to it, I proceed to examine the particular structure of this government, and the distribution of this mass of power among its constituent parts.

   end quotes

   The distribution of the general mass of power allotted to the constituent parts of our national government.

   That, people, is really what is at issue here – the distribution of power between the House of Representatives, which has the power to concoct out of thin air whatever bogus charges against a sitting American president when the faction in charge of the House of Representatives, in this case, the Democrats and Democratic Socialists who are now on the ascendant in this country, thanks to the importation of political ideas and philosophies from foreign countries as a part of globalization and the elimination of our national borders, and the office of president, which takes us back to Federalist No. 47, as follows:

   One of the principal objections inculcated by the more respectable adversaries to the Constitution, is its supposed violation of the political maxim, that the legislative, executive, and judiciary departments ought to be separate and distinct.

   In the structure of the federal government, no regard, it is said, seems to have been paid to this essential precaution in favor of liberty.

   The several departments of power are distributed and blended in such a manner as at once to destroy all symmetry and beauty of form, and to expose some of the essential parts of the edifice to the danger of being crushed by the disproportionate weight of other parts.

   end quotes

   The edifice in danger of being crushed right now by the disproportionate weight of the House of Representatives, the most dangerous branch of our national government, is that of the executive, who the Democrats and Democratic Socialists in the House of Representatives would make into their neutered lackey, through misuse of the impeachment process as a club to inflict blunt-force trauma on the executive with, if he or she does not tow the Democratic Socialist party line, which takes us back to Federalist No. 47, as follows:

   No political truth is certainly of greater intrinsic value, or is stamped with the authority of more enlightened patrons of liberty, than that on which the objection is founded.

   The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.

   end quotes

   Ah, yes, people, just as Jemmy Madison tells us, the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, in this case, the Democrats and Democratic Socialists may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny, and that is really what this impeachment game being played by the democrats and Democratic Socialists is really all about – the imposition on the rest of us of a tyranny with the Democrats and Democratic Socialists in charge, like the pigs in Orwells’s novel “Animal Farm,” first published in England on 17 August 1945.

   And having established that essential point in this discussion on where the Democrats and Democratic Socialists are trying to take this country, to our detriment if we cherish our liberty, here for the moment I will rest.

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