Well said. Please post on Facebook? Everyone should read this.
Have you heard a recent piece by Laurie Anderson "Waiting for the Barbarians"? I play it over and over, because it feels like what is happening. https://youtu.be/MEoiyKzwN7A?si=5P9IfJIQOiaJzsdw
Thanks! I did post to Facebook--not sure how the idiot algorithm will handle it. I do think a showdown with congress would move things along. And if there is any juice at all left in the other two branches they are the best hope to pull us back from the brink. At least enough for real midterms and a real general election in 2028.
If the judicial and congress are lost it will take another level of pushback. And that has been my fear all along.
Annabel, Thanks for this and ... I'd like to send you new stories of anti-tyrant heroes but they go out via email. Would you message me an email address that would work for you?
It seems that the main problem in the American Republic is the unbalancing of the three branches, heavily weighting the other two branches -- the Legislature and the Judiciary -- under the tonnage of a Plenary Executive.
From my own review of history, traces of this centralization of power originated with President Andrew Jackson, which is somewhat understandable in the role the Congress placed in elevated his predecessor, John Quincy Adams, to the Presidency, when Mr. Jackson had won the popular vote.
Certainly, concentration in the executive may be found in the Presidency of FDR for the New Deal, but especially President Harry S Truman both in his attempts to unilaterally crush the steel strike and, for the first time -- to my knowledge -- in American History, setting the Precedent with the Korean War of bypassing the Congress. This Precedent has been followed ever since with the Vietnam War and the various wars in the Middle East.
Under the Administration of George W. Bush, the Doctrine of the "Unitary Executive" went on steroids, and we are living under the consequences and the dominance of that subversive theory. See:
The only solution is, as you well point out, Congressional intervention to assert its Article I powers and to strengthen the Article III powers of the Judiciary to weaken the monopolistic exercise of powers under Article II by the Presidency.
When this occurs . . .
And ONLY when this occurs, will Presidential elections cease to be the fire-alarm, Code-Blue life alert that Presidential elections today are.
We cannot have a situation, as we have had for scores of years, where we hold our breath for the survival of nation and liberties hanging on which of two fallible human beings is to be elected as President.
We need a situation where both Congressional Parties battle for the middle, and majorities keep shifting in the House and Senate, and where the Legislature and the Judiciary are so very strong that it will be of consequence only at the margins, who is elected President.
Until Constitutional balance is restored, we will be always catching our breath and mourning over the possible loss of our democracy and our freedoms.
Well said. Please post on Facebook? Everyone should read this.
Have you heard a recent piece by Laurie Anderson "Waiting for the Barbarians"? I play it over and over, because it feels like what is happening. https://youtu.be/MEoiyKzwN7A?si=5P9IfJIQOiaJzsdw
Thanks! I did post to Facebook--not sure how the idiot algorithm will handle it. I do think a showdown with congress would move things along. And if there is any juice at all left in the other two branches they are the best hope to pull us back from the brink. At least enough for real midterms and a real general election in 2028.
If the judicial and congress are lost it will take another level of pushback. And that has been my fear all along.
Annabel, Thanks for this and ... I'd like to send you new stories of anti-tyrant heroes but they go out via email. Would you message me an email address that would work for you?
Annabel Asher: You state the case exactly right.
It seems that the main problem in the American Republic is the unbalancing of the three branches, heavily weighting the other two branches -- the Legislature and the Judiciary -- under the tonnage of a Plenary Executive.
From my own review of history, traces of this centralization of power originated with President Andrew Jackson, which is somewhat understandable in the role the Congress placed in elevated his predecessor, John Quincy Adams, to the Presidency, when Mr. Jackson had won the popular vote.
Certainly, concentration in the executive may be found in the Presidency of FDR for the New Deal, but especially President Harry S Truman both in his attempts to unilaterally crush the steel strike and, for the first time -- to my knowledge -- in American History, setting the Precedent with the Korean War of bypassing the Congress. This Precedent has been followed ever since with the Vietnam War and the various wars in the Middle East.
Under the Administration of George W. Bush, the Doctrine of the "Unitary Executive" went on steroids, and we are living under the consequences and the dominance of that subversive theory. See:
https://markrozell.gmu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Rozell_and_Sollenberger_UE_and_Bush_Legacy_Chapter_2013.pdf
The only solution is, as you well point out, Congressional intervention to assert its Article I powers and to strengthen the Article III powers of the Judiciary to weaken the monopolistic exercise of powers under Article II by the Presidency.
When this occurs . . .
And ONLY when this occurs, will Presidential elections cease to be the fire-alarm, Code-Blue life alert that Presidential elections today are.
We cannot have a situation, as we have had for scores of years, where we hold our breath for the survival of nation and liberties hanging on which of two fallible human beings is to be elected as President.
We need a situation where both Congressional Parties battle for the middle, and majorities keep shifting in the House and Senate, and where the Legislature and the Judiciary are so very strong that it will be of consequence only at the margins, who is elected President.
Until Constitutional balance is restored, we will be always catching our breath and mourning over the possible loss of our democracy and our freedoms.