Democrats are becoming the party of secession
By Michael Goodwin
January 31, 2017
Lets agree that President Trumps travel ban on visitors from seven nations was a sensible idea hobbled by flaws, especially regarding green card holders and dual citizens. Lets also agree we havent seen a rollout this clumsy since the debut of ObamaCare, which was far more serious because it penalized millions of Americans while Trumps order inconvenienced hundreds of foreign nationals.
Still, we can assume, based on past performance, that Trump will learn from the mistakes. His fierce determination to be a successful president cannot co-exist with rookie blunders.
But what about the other players in the drama? Can we say the media will now correct its excess of bile and cover Trump as a legitimate president and not as an invasive species?
No, no, no. On the contrary, we must say that Trump aide Steve Bannon was on target when he called the Washington media the opposition party.
Dont take his word for it. Stick a toe into the toxic sludge that passes for straight-news coverage in the Washington Post, the New York Times and others. Look for the use of tell words like Muslim ban to describe an executive order that is no such thing. Look for hero worship of protesters, immigrants, refugees, lawyers rushing to the barricades and congressional critics.
Look, too, at the Twitter feeds of editors and reporters from those papers and the major networks. Youll see their embrace of everything anti-Trump, further evidence they are part of a movement to obstruct the president, not cover him. Consider, too, their rediscovered love for Republican Sen. John McCain, a man they ignored during the eight-year reign of their savior, Barack Obama. McCain is again the good maverick because he is bucking the medias permanent enemy, Republicans.
Yet if the media is the opposition party, what is the Democratic Party? Its supposed to be the loyal opposition, using checks and balances to restrain the president and the excess of one-party rule.
Unfortunately, the Dems are following a dangerously different path. Starting with a wide boycott of the inauguration and including their boycott of committee votes on Trumps cabinet and their pledge to filibuster any Supreme Court nominee, Democrats resemble a party fomenting a secession movement.
Some call it Trump Derangement Syndrome, but thats too kind. Its not a temporarily insane reaction, its a calculated plan to wreck the presidency, whatever the cost to the country.
Things never seen in the modern era are now rapidly becoming common. Impeachment talk already is rumbling in the partys hothouses, and Trump was met with a lawsuit the minute he took the oath.
Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, the top Dems in Congress, led a raucous demonstration Monday night, as if they are community organizers. And Obama couldnt bear the irrelevance after eight days out of office and felt compelled to encourage disruptions.
This is Third World behavior and its now the M.O. of one of Americas two political parties.
Then theres California, the epicenter of Dem strength. Radicals there, spurred on by pro-Mexico immigrants, are ginning up an effort to split from the United States and they might get a proposal on the ballot. I say we take their wine and let them go. SEE ALSO
Schumer vows to fight Trump's immigration order
If California secedes and its 55 electoral votes come off the board, Dems will never win another American election. On the other hand, Hillary Clinton could become president of the breakaway state and the rest of us would be free of the Clinton stain.
Secession is one way the swamp could drain itself. Sally Yates way is another. The acting attorney general was rightfully sacked the instant after she climbed a soapbox and refused to defend Trumps executive order in court. It would have been a more admirable gesture if she had the decency to resign. Instead, she thought she could defy the president and keep the job.
Her choice was not a minor act of insubordination. It was a public challenge to the constitutional authority of the president, a power left to Congress and the judiciary.
As a result, she was shunned and hid in disgrace. Oh, wait, thats what would happen in a better world.
In this one, Democrats hailed her as a patriot amid predictions a political star is born.
My prediction is that Dems are digging their own grave and their revolt against his legitimacy will, in the short term at least, boost Trumps popularity. Most Americans will conclude he is honestly trying to fulfill the mandate he won and that the fevered rush to destroy him is neither principled nor patriotic.
There is a catch: Our cultural impatience wont give Trump endless time or big room for error. He must pick his fights with discretion and wage them with smart, methodical moves that bring clear results.
Equally key, he cant become a prisoner of Washington. While social media is important, he must get out of town regularly to meet people where they live and remind them that hes fighting their fights.
He should continue to court core Democrats, especially members of manufacturing unions and open-minded black and Latino voters.
If he does all that, and if hes lucky, America will be great again. Thats what matters.
part I
Poster Comment:
in
a
very
short
time
liberals
will
be
back
under
ground
water
Permanently
too
#1: BorisY To: Willie gangGreen, fredbot, hondope, zulu, mau mau, hutus, lice, druids, morloks, 666ers (#0)
mean
while
we
are
attacked
from
with
out
for
the
past
20
years
we
are
being
attacked
distracted
from
with-
in
thanks
to
... liberals
the
country
has
been
... dead
ended
over
discrimination
affirmative
action
crazy
race
gay
rights
via
pc
sharia
jihad
govt
brainwashing
indoctrination
Nazi
fascist
social
engineering
major
issues
now
facing
the
ussc
catholic
schools
using
public
play
grounds
also
gender
bathrooms
in
public
schools
preceeding
the
911
attack
the
grid
lock
senate
in
the
news
the
head
republican
said
they
were
in
an
intense
national
crisis
over
classroom
sizes
in
public
schools
the
same
thing
is
happening
now
over
immigration
maga
masa
love
boris
BorisY posted on 2017-02-01 17:45:04 Reply Private Reply
#2: Hondo68 To: BorisY, BortardYes, Fred Mertz (#1)
Hondo68 posted on 2017-02-01 17:59:55 Reply Private Reply
#3: nolu chan To: BorisY (#0)
If they keep hemorrhaging sales, one may have to search for the failing papers themselves.
nolu chan posted on 2017-02-01 18:47:58 Reply Private Reply
#4: nolu chan To: BorisY (#0)
It would be interesting to see how many millions would flee the Democratic Republic of Kookifornia. They could stay and officially become Kooks, or leave and remain Americans. If they officially become Kooks, just think of all the Federal bennies they would lose.
nolu chan posted on 2017-02-01 18:53:55 Reply Private Reply
#5: calcon To: hondo68, other democrat lowlifes (#2)
Enjoy the new "conservative" judge nominated to the supreme court, and kiss your dem plans for gun control.
calcon posted on 2017-02-01 18:56:29 Reply Private Reply
#6: Fred Mertz To: hondo68 (#2)
Fred Mertz posted on 2017-02-01 20:25:48 Reply Private Reply
#7: Vicomte13 To: nolu chan (#4)
1861-1865 demonstrated that, no, California can't secede.
They can try to secede. They can pass a law that says they're independent, but they'll still be arrested for not paying their taxes, and federal law will still be enforced.
And if they attempt to resist the federal authorities, they will be met with force.
Vicomte13 posted on 2017-02-01 20:56:09 Reply Private Reply
#8: buckeroo To: Fred Mertz, hondo68 (#6)
Hondo is one of our best posters on LF!
buckeroo posted on 2017-02-01 22:11:38 Reply Private Reply
#9: nolu chan To: Vicomte13 (#7)
1861-1865 demonstrated that the North was mightier than the South.
The prolonged failure to prosecute Jefferson Davis, or any of the other charged officials, underscored the rightful fear of losing the argument in court. Instead the concocted case of Texas v. White was brought and the matter was wordsmithed by Chief Justice Chase (he whose name is enshrined in the name Chase Bank).
This sophistry loses a bit of oomph when one realizes that when the indestructible union that existed under the AoC was abolished by the Constitution, and George Washington was immaculated, the previous indestructible union of thirteen states became a union of eleven states, shedding two states from the indestructible union, who only significantly later joined the new union.
The dissenting opinion of Justice Greer rather laid bare in inanity of the entire case and the majority opinion. Justices Swayne and Miller also dissented.
The Justices who formed the majority were Salmon P. Chase, Samuel Nelson, Nathan A. Clifford, David Davis, and Stepen J. Field.
Lincoln appointed Chase, Swayne, Miller, Davis, and Field. Field was appointed as a tenth justice to stack the court.
Nelson was appointed by Tyler, Clifford by Buchanan.
nolu chan posted on 2017-02-01 23:39:07 Reply Private Reply
#10: Vicomte13 To: nolu chan (#9)
That will then leave the "seceding sovereigntists" with two choices: (A) continue to pay their taxes, obey federal law, and in fact BE part of the United States while pretending they're not, or (B) stop paying their taxes, in which case they will be arrested, stop obeying federal law, and be arrested, or actively impede the enforcement of federal law, in which case they will be beaten down by force and arrested.
That's reality. One can paper that over with legal principles if one wishes, but in the end might makes right, or at any rate might determines the conditions on the ground, and THIS ground, the USA, will remain the USA regardless of what the locals in any particular part of it may pretend.
Vicomte13 posted on 2017-02-02 13:21:32 Reply Private Reply
#11: BorisY To: Vicomte13 (#10)
two
thirds
majority
Can
do
anything
Maga
Love
boris
Ps
California
can
be
the
new
Puerto
rico
haiti
BorisY posted on 2017-02-02 14:56:57 Reply Private Reply
#12: nolu chan To: Vicomte13 (#10)
That was true in the 1860's. It's the 21st century.
Let any state have the military within the state side with them and seize control of nuclear weapons and whole equation changes. The potential for actual secession is greater today than it was in the 19th century, if the people of a state, or group of states, organize to do it.
It also depends on the other states resisting the departure. Many states may support assisting departure rather than resisting it, letting ~50 million ultra liberal fruits and nuts depart.
The notion that "entry into the Union is a one-way door. American states cannot leave," does not have an historical legal basis. Several of the ratifying documents say very much the opposite, and did so at the time that the states North Carolina and Rhode Island, part of the explicitly declared perpetual union, were being left out of the newly forming constitutional union, which omitted the phrasing about being a perpetual union.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/ratny.asp
Under Article 4, Section 4 of the Constitution:
The constitutional authority of the Federal government to send troops into a State is limited to cases of invasion.
Only upon application of the State for Federal assistance does the Federal government obtain constitutional authority to send armed forces into a State.
nolu chan posted on 2017-02-02 18:35:23 Reply Private Reply
#13: Vicomte13 To: nolu chan (#12)
Law is not the ultimate arbiter of human affairs. Firepower is.
If any actors seized a nuclear weapons facility, US Special Forces would be swarming the place within the hour.
There would be no standoff. There would be a slaughter.
If some group got possession of a base with nuclear missiles, or grabbed a submarine with them, it would take them more than a few hours to be able to make an override to the national command systems. You can't arm nuclear warheads and launch them without various codes. Just having the weapon doesn't give you the ability to use it.
With time, you could take it apart and use the nuclear material. Nobody will be given any time. If a sub is seized in a harbor by some state actors, special forces will shoot their way in. If a sub is seized at sea, we will sink it. If a base is seized, we will swarm it.
There will be no internal nuclear blackmail of the United States by some rogue element seizing some nukes. We won't respond with negotiation, we will respond with seizure, torture and slaughter - RAPIDLY - and very RAPIDLY secure the situation, using highly illegal "whatever it takes" methods.
And in the aftermath, we will not hold the officials who do what they need to do to maintain ultimate command and control over nuclear weapons accountable to any law, because the information will be suppressed.
Hillary and Bill Clinton were never held accountable to the law, and probably never will be. Barack Obama was probably born foreign in Kenya and therefore arguably not eligible for the Presidency at all. When even partisan political power is at stake the laws are not supreme. When existential matters are at stake - and the seizure of nuclear weapons by radical groups is an existential matter - then the answer will be the immediate application of pure power for immediate effect with no regard whatever for any limit of law. And nobody will ever be held accountable to the law for what they do to stop it.
Law has no power on its own. All power ultimately flows from the barrel of a gun, or of course from God, but God is not predictable.
Vicomte13 posted on 2017-02-03 09:18:42 Reply Private Reply
#14: Vicomte13 To: nolu chan (#12)
Some people might allow that the war WAS illegal. I might. But very few people really CARE that it was illegal or not. Maintaining the territorial integrity of our country is simply more important than the "rule of law" that would allow the country to fall apart.
As Lincoln put it: "Shall just one law be respected, and the government go to pieces?" Most people, myself included, do not respect the concept of law itself, or the "rule of law", enough to stand by and allow our country to be destroyed. National integrity is of higher importance than the law. If the law would require us to simply let our nation be destroyed, then to hell with the law, break it, win, and - if we have to soothe the legalists - pass a law after the fact that makes what we did legal. That's good enough for the lion's share of humanity.
You think that today secession would be easier. For example, you think that a state has to ask federal forces to come within a state. But actually, there are thick federal forces already within every state. And they will enforce federal law, and have plenary federal power to do so. So, if some local yokels attack the federal authorities, the federal government will simply send reinforcements. It will not ask the state permission to do so. If the state tells the FBI to leave, the FBI will ignore the state and stay. Ditto for the IRS.
The Federal government will not behave like James Buchanan, and quietly dither on the sidelines while a rebellion ramps up over months and months. They will move in as at Waco, and they'll do it on their own authority. The state has no ability to stop them. All it can do is whine about it and maybe sue. And while the lawsuit grinds through the federal courts (assuming it is not summarily dismissed) federal power will be crushing out the rebellion.
It would be much harder to get a head of steam on for a secession in 2017. The Feds would be all over it from the beginning, and leaders would be swept up for "child porn" charges on their computers, or drug possession, or any of the other serious felonies that are easy to stage. And the serious hard core leaders will simply be murdered at night when they try to change their flat tires. And that will be that.
Dreaming of secession is an unhealthy business. The federal authorities of this country will never, ever let one get started. Trying to set one up is a good way to die or rot in prison for some morals offense - even if you did not really commit it.
So it becomes purely a mental exercise about what the law would be IF the world were actually governed by law. Mental exercises are fun, to a point. But they are not realistic.
Nor do I see any value of a rule of law that does not preserve the organic life of the country that makes those laws. It has been said "The Constitution is not a suicide pact", and that is just so. If the law, including the Constitution, back us into a corner such that we cannot keep the country together by following it, we save the country by breaking the law and then change the law after the fact. The preservation of the nation is ultimately more important than respect for the law.
Vicomte13 posted on 2017-02-03 09:32:43 Reply Private Reply
#15: Vicomte13 To: nolu chan (#9)
The judge's view did not prevail, and the guy didn't get his money back.
Vicomte13 posted on 2017-02-03 10:43:14 Reply Private Reply
#16: BorisY To: Vicomte13 (#15)
can
be
the
new
Puerto
rico
haiti
yemen
somali
too
cultural
rot
USA
love
boris
ps
look
at
watts
bezerkly
they've
passed
up
gaza
Tijuana
too
BorisY posted on 2017-02-03 18:41:25 Reply Private Reply
#17: nolu chan To: Vicomte13 (#13)
The captain keeps to codes locked in a safe. After receiving and verifying the launch authorization code, he has authority to launch. It takes more than one person to physically enable a launch.
The authorization must be able to be transmitted to deeply submerged submarines.
nolu chan posted on 2017-02-03 19:11:00 Reply Private Reply
#18: nolu chan To: Vicomte13 (#14)
Yes, you would find an unlawful, unconstitutional, usurping Union action to be permitted if you find that more important than the rule of law. You have a fascinating way of viewing the law so that you are always right when you agree with the law, and when you disagree with the law, the law is always wrong and it is your moral imperative to hold yourself above the law and to ignore it.
I do not think it. The U.S. Constitution says it in no uncertain terms, and I quoted them to you. While on a Federal base, they are not considered within the State. You may notice that State taxes are not collected at a base exchange. You may recall that George W. Bush delayed sending troops after Katrina until the governor sent the required request.
What you mean is that they on Federal enclaves. They cannot come out, guns ablazing, without violating the constitution.
The same may have been said about allowing sanctuary cities or passing laws opening defying federal drug laws, or openly defying immigration law. The Trump administration may decide to crush that lawless crap.
The liberals, socialists, and communist rabble choose to talk law out of one side of their mouth and talk of some moral imperative that permits them to ignore the law when it pleases them.
In founding the constitutional union, in a rather dubious process, two states were left on the outside looking in. At the very founding, the holy grail of keeping the union intact at any cost, was bypassed. Evidently, this notion did not exist at the framing and only later descended as a mystical paraclete.
Note the first volume of the Congressional Register refers to:
The two missing states are Rhode Island and North Carolina. The Union did not perish due to suicide. North Carolina rejoined about six months later, and Rhode Island rejoined about a year later.
nolu chan posted on 2017-02-03 19:12:58 Reply Private Reply
#19: nolu chan To: Vicomte13 (#15)
On the facts of the case, many, many times the value of the bonds was spent litigating than the bonds were worth. Its singular achievement was to give Chase the opportunity to state that secession was unlawful, without actually confronting the issue in a contested case such as a prosecution of Jefferson Davis. They were scared to death to go up against the dream team of lawyers that had assembled. During the war, Stanton and later Lincoln suspended habeas corpus and jailed political prisoners, with the official records explicitly accounting for them as political prisoners. The best lawyers were helpless to act for their clients for several years. They were ready when the war was over. Heading up the team was famed New York attorney Charles O'Conor
Texas v. White was another civil war concocted case where Texas was the Federally appointed government of Texas, and attorney George Paschal was jailed during the war for union sympathies, and after the war set up shop as a Washington, D.C. lawyer.
Texas v. White is an entertaining legal case.
President Andrew Johnson, on June 17, 1865 appointed Andrew J. Hamilton as Provisional Governor of the State of Texas.
Mr. Hamilton appointed George W. Paschal, the financial agent of the state, to represent the state as counsel.
Mr. E.M. Pease, a subsequent governor appointed by General Sheridan, renewed the appointment of George W. Paschal as counsel.
The Federal appointee of the Military Government of Texas (provisional Governor Andrew J. Hamilton) appointed George W. Paschal, the financial agent of said Military Government of Texas, to represent said Military Government. And thus it came to pass that the attorney purportedly representing the State of Texas argued that said State had never left the Union.
When the case was over, all the bonds in question were turned over to the Texas representative. That would be George W. Paschal. Mr. Paschal then claimed the full value of the bonds, $47,325 plus another $17,577 for his legal fees.
Governor E.J. Davis refused Paschal's claim and then dismissed him as financial agent for the state.
Mr. Paschal sued and won. He not only got to keep the bonds, but also the added 17 thousand.
And so it came to pass that Texas would have saved 17 thousand bucks plus the cost of litigation to just pay White & Chiles. (And that only considers one attorney in one phase of the litigation.)
In "winning" this lawsuit, it is a bit difficult to see how the State of Texas benefitted. But it would appear that neither the State of Texas, nor the people of the State of Texas, were the intended beneficiaries.
Moreover, it did allow the Federal Military Governor the opportunity to go to Federal Court and obtain a Federal decision saying Texas never ceased to be a state.
And so it came to pass that when the State of Texas sued White & Chiles, the beneficiary was the Federal Government in Washington. George W. Paschal didn't do too bad either.
Mr. Grier, in dissent, capably analyzed the legal insanity perpetrated by the majority.
nolu chan posted on 2017-02-03 19:14:37 Reply Private Reply
#20: Hondo68 To: BorisY, Fred Mertz, Austin Texas (#16)
Governor of Texas has cut funding for the whole illegal alien sanctuary County, Travis.
http://rightwingnews.com/liberals/county-judge-who-wore-puy-hat-to-court-just-got-schooled-video/
Hondo68 posted on 2017-02-03 19:16:21 Reply Private Reply