This morning I ran a column in the Washington Post on the President’s claim that he has “total” and “absolute” power to order all states to lift their pandemic orders and re-open the economy. Both Republicans and Democrats have objected to the President’s statementsin last night’s press conference. The fact is that our Constitution was designed expressly to bar such claims. Absolutes find little sanctuary in a Constitution designed for limited government with shared powers.
President Trump shocked many by his declaring that “When somebody is president of the United States, the authority is total. The governors know that.” If they “know” that, they know little about the Constitution. As I have previously written, the states and their governors hold the primary responsibility to prepare and deal with pandemics. President Trump spent weeks correctly stating that basic principle of federalism — statements that I supported. Now he appears to have done a 180 on the issue and claiming that, while governors can put these orders in place, he has absolute authority to lift them. He stated yesterday that he allowed the governors to make these decisions but that they did so only because he let them. He maintains that he always had total authority over these decisions. That position in constitutionally incomprehensible.
What is more interesting is why the President felt the need to trip this wire and draw the ire of not just Democrats but a broad array of conservative and libertarian leaders. It is also entirely unnecessary. If the federal government calls for loosening these restrictions, many governors will follow suit. Moreover, it will put huge pressure on others.
The problem is that President Trump is losing that persuasive authority with such unnerving statements about absolute power. This is a baffling and alarming claim. At a time when the President’s team is being praised for real progress on a number of fronts (and the virus appears to be generally declining or leveling off), the President quashed on the good press by triggering a debate over his claim of “ultimate,” “absolute,” and “total” power. The only thing that is clear is that these claims are not even aspirational; they are incomprehensible under of our constitutional system.
I almost wish Trump would cite the commerce clause to quash a governor’s lockdown order. We may finally have a Supreme Court with the balls to use the case to overrule the obscene Wickard v. Fillburn decision.
HaGew3 we may yet see it come to that although I seriously doubt Trump would try and over-rule a governor. That would be a stupid move. But there may be a lot of other ways in which the feds eclipse states in the coming mess. I would not be surprised if this thing eventually does lead to the terminal decline of federalism and the rise of Napoleonic centralization. If I were a betting man, and I am, that would be my bet for 3 years out.
Trump was legally wrong but given the buffoonery of Dim governors like Virginia BlackFace, Gretchen “No Second House for You” Whitmer, Gavin “Trump Might Not Be So Bad” Newsome and Larry ” I Want To Be Alone” Hogan (See I’m bipartisan), maybe we’d be better off.
My local Federal/local liaison “doctor” has told us that the Federal government will require a digital certificate that one’s antibodies to Covid 19 are at the level the govt. requires before you may leave your home to work or for any other purpose. Further, this will require mandatory periodic tests to make certain that your antibodies are at the level required by the govt. Otherwise you will be locked inside your home until your antibodies comply! Neither the “doctor” nor “judges” in my area thought there was a thing wrong with this. Fascism, it’s what’s for dinner!!!
This is confirmation of what many had thought.
Jill:
“Fascism, it’s what’s for dinner!!!”
****************************
Okay, quick, let’s get you on the next train out and then a steamer to Oran and on to Casablanca!!
“MI Residents Call For Gov Whitmer’s Impeachment After Reports Of Police Helicopters Hovering Over Private Golf Clubs, Citizens Prohibited From Purchasing Baby Car Seats, Garden Supplies, Home Improvement Items
Apr 11, 2020”
Now I don’t consider golf a sport, but it is a mild form of exercise! I think flying helicopters over golf courses is a great use of taxpayer money to stop Covid 19! And we can’t have people growing their own food now can we???! From Victory Gardens to Victory over Gardens. This governor leads the way!
Jill:
“Now I don’t consider golf a sport, but it is a mild form of exercise!”
******************
Okay, I’ll watch you walk 28,000 yards (a mile is 1760 yards) over 4 days swinging a club over 280 times with pressure and you can tell me then it’s not a sport.
It’s fantastic exercise.
Whitmer has been fiddling with her order since Western and Central Michigan thrives on agriculture and she’s hamstringing whatever little support she has from there if she totally suppresses it.
https://www.michiganfarmnews.com/farm-bureau-asks-gov-whitmer-to-allow-garden-center-sales
It’s ho-hum exercise for those who actually walk. For those who ride, like President fat ass – he drives across greens according to Rick Reilly – it’s none.
““Donald Trump is the worst cheat ever and he doesn’t care who knows,” Rick Reilly says as he describes a man he has known for 30 years. “I always say golf is like bicycle shorts. It reveals a lot about a man. And golf reveals a lot of ugliness in this president.”
Reilly, the former Sports Illustrated columnist, has written a book called Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump. It’s rattling good fun which also depicts the startling duplicity of the president as a golfer. “You’re mostly laughing,” Reilly says, “but at times you’re crying – how did this happen? As a golfer he really offends me. Cheating? Hate that. Driving carts on greens? Hate that. Wearing old dockers two sizes too small for him? Give me a break. Kicking your ball so often the caddies call you Pelé? I so hate that. Most of all I hate how stupid he’s making my country look. I hate what he’s doing to my planet. I hate what he’s doing to kids at the border. I don’t mind Republicans. I just can’t stand this guy. I love golf and he has set the game back 30 years. Just when it was becoming cool with Rory McIlroy and Rickie Fowler we get this fat bozo cheating his ass off.”
Sean Illing
Why should anyone care that Trump cheats at golf?
Rick Reilly
I can only speak for myself. I grew up in the game. My dad taught me the game. He taught me that we don’t cheat each other, you don’t cheat your friends, because the space of golf is so huge, it’s the very easiest game to cheat at. So it’s absolutely a Rorschach test for your morality. You could say it doesn’t matter, and I certainly understand that reaction. But in a weird way, it says as much about Trump as almost anything else we know about him, because it cuts to the core of his character.
Sean Illing
I’m curious why you decided to write this book. You don’t really wade into politics that much, so why put this out into the world?
Rick Reilly
Because of my dad, who passed away. My dad taught me that golf was a gentleman’s game, that you never cheat a guy. To see a guy cheating and telling people he won tournaments he didn’t even play in, and telling people he won tournaments that weren’t even held — it just bothers me. He’s leaving a big orange splotch all over my game, and that’s why I wrote the book.
And the consequences for Reilly if he’s lying are just what?
Absurd, would Trump ‘not’ cheat at golf? Does he strike ‘you’ as a tower of integrity?
How exactly would Reilly gather this information? And what are the mechanics of his cheating and why would his golf partners put up with it?
We live in a world where there is no defamation law to speak of. The media behave accordingly.
The book has no index, no footnotes, and no bibliography. The Guardian is passing him off as someone who has ‘known Trump for 30 years”, which is interesting as Reilly has spent his life in Denver and Los Angeles. He’s also known as a columnist, not a reporter.
You’re being obtuse and Gainesville’s being his usual repulsive self.
He played golf with Trump numerous times. Google it.
No, he claims to have played golf with Trump.
Well, if Trump denies it, we’ll have to decide which one of them is a liar.
Seth, TIA enrolled at Trump U. He’s not going to admit he’s been fleeced.
Absurd is insanely cynical except in regards to Trump.
I can imagine trump kicking the ball and driving on greens. so what? i’d be kicking the ball and laughing too. it would be awesome kind of like playing with rodney dangerfield in Caddyshack.
but. I’m not a serious golfer, I’m no good at it, people get tired of me going so slow when i rarely play. Now maybe this offends the stuffed shirts. So, I think. this article by this Reilley guy is something that would horrify people in the nursing home. but not me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0X-oA2l-1E
you guys remind me of judge smails
I don’t take reporters seriously, because there are no professional sanctions for making sh!t up.
Dictatorship is local, state and federal. It is also nearly world wide. https://off-guardian.org/2020/04/14/50-headlines-welcome-to-the-new-normal/
While i believe Trump’s statement was over-broad and erroneous, please observe that in 1942 the SCOTUS theorized that nearly everything can come under federal “commerce clause” authority even how to grow corn in one’s own backyard
People that have endeavored to grow hemp in their own backyards for household use are defying a law that’s been passed and still is good law under the federal supremacy clause, at least if Wickard V Fillburn is credited, and will attest to the very broad powers of the federal government I am sure.
https://fee.org/articles/wickard-v-filburn-the-supreme-court-case-that-gave-the-federal-government-nearly-unlimited-power/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIjtais5Po6AIVZf3jBx1nogO3EAAYASAAEgIj-vD_BwE
Trump’s statement in question, was wrong, over-broad and not constitutionally well founded.
There is no grand alarm necessary however, it’s clear that he respects the governors and is working well with them.
Im praying for the POTUS and the governors, they have difficult choices ahead of them. We will all be affected, and lives will be lost in either direction– either from social distancing which will have an increasingly dramatic impact, or from a lack of social distancing, which will spread the virus.
Remember the “Kobayashi Maru” simulation in Star Trek? This is kind of similar.
“There is no grand alarm necessary however,…” – you trust the goat on this? Are you sick?
I don’t know who Hutom means by the goat
and I dont know why Hutom won’t answer my question, are you an American just out of curiosity if so why would one choose a nom de plume of a Bengali author?
I’ve said before more than once here, why I chose mine, so maybe you can “share” likewise?
I agree just said that to husband need to look that up
“Now he appears to have done a 180 on the issue and claiming that, while governors can put these orders in place, he has absolute authority to lift them. “
That type of statement can make a sleepy person wake up but after listening to Trump’s complete statement and following his past actions I don’t think it is time to jump and scream. I hope Turley didn’t do that in his op-ed. He would be more effective in writing about the distinction of what Trump means in the heat of the moment and what he actually does. That doesn’t mean I was satisfied with the exact words of the President because I strongly believe in Federalism. However, I recognize that politics sometimes makes clear things blurry.
I very much doubt this will become a significant Constitutional issue. We have seen Democrats creating Constitutional issues over and over again for political gain and have also seen them mostly lose in the higher courts. We all saw how certain Democratic officials wished to do political harm to Trump when he made sensible decisions to prevent the spread of the disease which doesn’t recognize state boundaries. What gives the President more power today than normal is the idea of national emergency and war, the war on the virus.
We saw Pelosi encouraging people to get together in China Town and the same from officials in NYC. That type of action probably increased the spread in NY and caused the people of the United States to spend tremendous amounts of their money buying ventilators, providing hospital beds, a hospital ship and personal.
Was the above a federal or a state issue? Along with rights comes responsibility. We the people are paying for Pelosi and NYC officials that were stupid and acted not for safety but to hurt the nation and thus Trump. That makes one see a blurring of the lines between the states and the federal government.
When the President said what he did he remembered those stupid actions by Democratic leaders and he remembered that the people and federal government was paying for that stupidity. If one listens more carefully one could hear the President making a distinction between legal rights and reality. Let’s not forget that the President has a certain moral authority that he can exert even if it is not written in the Constitution.
Trump does have the authority to open Federal Gov’t and all Depts, which directly effects the states. People want to get out and go back to work and move around. the States will be forced to follow, especially the ones the Dem’s control. Who is going to stop people once they hear Trump opens things up, even the Trump haters will go out. The Governors will be forced to follow. If they don’t, would suggest they will suffer in the Elections.
Also, that also goes for the DEM’s in the House and Senate, those who continue to try to keep closed down will suffer at the ballot box. People want to get out.
Two observations:
1. The terms “reopening the country” and “reopening the economy” are imprecise and distracting. Obviously, the President can do certain things to “reopen” the country and the economy. He can lift travel bans. He can rescind executive orders. He can do things to affect interstate and foreign commerce. Certain entities engaged in economic activity are quasi-public. There are federal fundings that can be adjusted. By restricting interstate and foreign commerce, Trump can do things which would make it very difficult for state and local authorities to “reopen” their local economies.
2. Many of the liberal pundits who today criticize the comments Trump made at yesterday’s news briefing are the same people who claim that the President should have done more to contain the virus. Essentially, these pundits are claiming that Trump does not have the power to do what they said he should have done. They, too, have done 180s.
“The terms “reopening the country” and “reopening the economy” are imprecise and distracting.”
That is a real good point.
Good point Vince, the imprecision of this terminology is maddening
Uh. . . there is a FEDERAL declared state of emergency. Somebody should look up Presidential powers under that act. I suspect Trump is in total control under that act. Which is what he said yesterday, that he had control for this particular issue.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
You are correct, the forthcoming economic disaster caused by the left’s over reach is a greater threat than the virus. It ‘trumps’ the dem governors and they should have been astute enough to know that before they began this political trick (see Nancy Pelosi for substantiating data).
“[T]he left’s over reach”? Who made the decision that we should do nothing? Then reversed himself and said we should distance and shut down? Then started grumbling about the shutdown? The answer is: El Presidente.
Deepening partisan bickering over these imprecise and overbroad words by Trump is not helpful. There is no need to raise an undue alarm. It’s sufficient to point out that the federal government is a government of enumerated and limited powers and the powers of his office while impressive, are certainly not “total.”
Kurtz, specifically the president has the Defensive Products Act to address supply problems plaguing the response by the states and the feds and has done nothing with it. NOTHING. He has the political power to tell admitted Trump hacks like Gov Desantis of Florida to shut it down and didn’t. Now he claims the sole power to take an ego-trip at the country’s expense and that he will do. He’s been doing it for 3+ years.
The feds have done various things, it’s not clear if they did all of what they should, and they may have done some things that are inexplicable that have not quite surfaced into the news., Such as seizing supplies of masks from warehouses en route to health care providers. Yes I heard that from a credible source but i have not verified it. Some things out there could be disinformation and possibly that is one of them. Here is the link:
https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-04-07/hospitals-washington-seize-coronavirus-supplies
But if it is accurate then that was a particularly wrong and stupid idea executed by some faceless idiot of a bureaucrat. The federal government is a maze of bureaucracies and powers and they’re up to their usual incompetence. I would guess FEMA is thickly populated with third rate losers who should have never been hired in the first place. And has been that way all along under every president.
Trump can give whatever orders, and then these underlings may or may not even try and do their jobs and even if they try they may fail. And he may have been too slow to give some orders, moreover.
And he may be slow on giving other orders which need to be issued. There’s a lot of armchair quarterbacking going on and not all of it is in good faith. Nonetheless his leadership is imperfect.
Understandably, Trump is projecting a face of power and authority at a time when the country probably needs it but the reality is that the federal government is a mess of competing bureaucracies and incompetent clerical hacks who should be decimated the old fashioned Roman way. This would be a good start to fixing some of the arrogance of the Deep State. if Trump suddenly believes he is “in control” or “all powerful” over the Deep state then he’s forgotten all the muck that he’s been through since the election when the FBI was blatantly violating the 5th amendment rights of his campaign staff by spying on them with bogus FISA warrants premised on false oaths.
Again I think he is just showing what a good leader does which is a strong and confident face in the midst of the storm. That’s welcome even if he’s made overbroad, wrong and constitutionally incorrect statements in these specific premises above referenced.
Kurtz. No comment. If this is what you think is a strong and competent face we literally have nothing to talk about.
Hey btb (even if I don’t really) I think it too!! Me too!!
Strong face helps keep people calm. If panic erupts you will see a whole other level of disaster unfold.
Executive competence in this situation is probably just avoiding the worst outcomes in favor of the less bad ones.
Bureaucratic competence is at the stratum below him and he’s responsible for it even after 3 years of constant foot dragging, resistance, and open sabotage. But the federal agencies are notoriously poorly managed and staffed. In every single administration one after another. The situation is worse than ever under Trump who has failed to rectify the incompetence. Drain the swamp is the singular most unfulfilled campaign promise that he made. Now he is pretending to command the swamp, which is perplexing. And all the country hopes the swamp, isn’t one. But we can see that it is and remains so.
Now if Trump has ordered the seizure of masks from hospitals, or he has approved of some lesser bureaucrat taking such a horrible action, then that is clearly incompetent executive leadership. If this was FEMA than the FEMA management needs to be summarily fired and replaced. I can’t fathom why this specific story which is a week old hasn’t been more a subject at the pressers. Have the vaunted press watchdogs mentioned it at all?
https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-04-07/hospitals-washington-seize-coronavirus-supplies
The seizure of masks doesn’t tell us about the story. Apparently some middlemen (and possibly manufacturers) were shipping the masks out of the US and Trump was putting a stop to that.
It would be nice to know their names. That the press didn’t go further makes me very suspicious.
yes Allan, that’s why i say maybe it’s disinformation. The saboteurs have not all just magically gone away.
“…Executive competence in this situation is probably just avoiding the worst outcomes in favor of the less bad ones….”
Yeah, that’s how we won WWII and then went to the moon.
Unfortunately our incompetent president is failing to use tools at his disposal, lead the country in spirit or reality, and now will go to war with the governors doing the hard work for the “glory”.
we went to the moon in part because we crushed Germany and got the nazi scientist who was the master of ballistic rocketry, Werner Von Braun, to run the Saturn rocket program.
we crushed Germany in a war that the Axis started, stupidly for them. And winning it was a less bad choice than losing it. But a lot of people died for the US to win. Probably a less bad outcome than losing it– especially for America. but for all the interim since we nuked the Japs, and the Soviets got the bomb, we have to deal with a possibility of nuclear war that could end civilization in about an hour’s time, ever since. Lee Ellsberg says that even if Pakistan and India unloaded their hundreds of nukes on each other, let alone an exchange between the US and Russia or China, that might just do the trick at triggering a nuclear winter and cascading crop failures leading to a 90% population dieoff worldwide in a couple years following.
Let’s hope we avoid that more-bad outcome in the future as well.
don’t worry too much about Trump and the governors. I would guess that the states will get more of a haircut in 2021 once the economy is in tatters, and probably a Democrat president will be trying to implement nationwide program of something or other that Republican governors won’t like. We’ll see how much respect there is for federalism if that comes to pass.
One can almost bet that if the Democrats win federal elections in sufficient numbers, a national health care system is on its way. One that will make Obamacare look like a very modest system by comparison. I can just here it now: “THIS IS WHY WE NEED NATIONAL HEALTH CARE!”
the speeches are probably being drafted to this effect, readying them for Biden, who will be too demented to recall that he staked out the least-aggressive stance on that proposal in the Democrat primary.
“specifically the president has the Defensive Products Act to address supply problems plaguing the response by the states and the feds and has done nothing with it. NOTHING.”
Apparently you don’t follow the news.
“He has the political power to tell admitted Trump hacks like Gov Desantis of Florida to shut it down and didn’t.”
The President didn’t have to. DeSantis has done a great job and the President recognizes and likely is in full agreement with him.
“I am in charge, here in the White House.”
Anything to make Liberals Head explode is OKAY by me.
Apparently that includes declaring himself king and an end to states rights.
These are today’s GOP “conservatives”.
You need to study the Constitution a bit more. The President didn’t declare himself King. He said the Constitution gives him certain rights and so far he has stayed within those rights more carefully than the preceding Presidents.
Your hyperbole leaves you totally naked.
@bythebook there are medications that help the delusional lead a healthy, fulfilling life.
@Anon @ 10:56
Thanks for letting us know that medications have helped you.
Trump is again appealing to the base that he brags that he loves – “the poorly educated.”
I’d match my education against anybody’s. I support Trump as our national leader, even as this disaster worsens. You’ll get your chance to vote come November and try and not to glow too red hot with spite until then.
RDKAY is trolling with insults here. This is the hyper partisanship that subverts healthy conversation.
Perhaps you fellows need not gloat too much. The disaster of this disease is not only killing innocent people but it’s sure to wreck the economy in spite of how much hot air the Fed pumps into this punctured balloon. And that will kill people too.
So the odds are heavily against Trump to be re-elected. That is, assuming Biden’s dementia does not get appreciably worse. So. Have fun when your side takes the helm, dealing with a wrecked economy on top of a stack of corpses. See how well your side does with it, because the Sars-Cov-2 virus is probably not going away any time soon. It may or may not abate during summer, and is certain to return come winter, with no vaccine realistically expectable until next spring.
Teddy Roosevelt said:
““It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
I hope whomever takes the wheel come January, be it Trump or any rival, will project leadership which is as strong and confident as he has seemed to be, in spite of the ruin, because that person is really going to need it.
Kurtz, we have experience working with a wrecked economy. From Hoover to W that’s what Democrats do.
I think Trump has the power to force the Feds open in those states which means the state will but follow. With the federal courts open, all those injunctions and TROs are just waiting to be heard.
When WWII began there were governor’s who wanted to lock up Japanese and German folks who were in their states. FDR locked up citizens and non citizens of Japanese or German descent. A case went to the Supreme Court. Korematzu.
Read it and be happy this was done.
No white Germans were interned, only spies caught. 135,000 Japanese-Americans were and even then many volunteered for the US armed forces.
Craig Nichols – you are very wrong.
In addition to the forced removal of Japanese Americans for purposes of confinement in War Relocation Authority (WRA) camps, the Justice Department oversaw the internment of more than thirty-one thousand civilians during the Second World War. This total included approximately 11,500 people of German ancestry and three thousand people of Italian ancestry, many of whom were United States citizens.[1] These detainees were housed in Justice Department and army camps scattered across the country, from Crystal City, Texas, to Ft. Lincoln, North Dakota, to Sand Island, Hawai’i. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), and a newly created Special Defense Unit (SDU)—at that time all under the Justice Department’s supervision—played crucial roles in the wartime confinement of ethnic Germans and Italians.
https://encyclopedia.densho.org/German_and_Italian_detainees/
The rest of the article breaks it down by group and camp.
My brother’s in-laws lived in the North Beach area of San Francisco. The Silver Shirts had been active there prior to the war. By his m-i-l’s account, that section of the city was under a species of martial law during the war.
The Silver shirts were fascists it’s true but is there a single act of espionage or sabotage attributed to any of them? i don’t think so. And William Dudley Pelley was imprisoned for “seditious statements and for obstructing military recruiting and fomenting insurrection within the military” all of which is now par for the course first amendment protected speech. When after the war he was tried along with others for “sedition” the outcome was a mistrial. A later trial for Sedition in the 80s against various racists resulted in an outright acquittal.
He may have been an Axis sympathizer, but he was not an Axis agent. Axis agents in America were few and far between.
I dont not know to what extent LA was under any form of martial law, but as to the Silver Shirts and their small numbers and specific geographic presence, Asheville NC was his HQ. What you refer to was likely just the Murphy Ranch and not much more. Some excuse for martial law. If there was illegal activity they just could have arrested the perpetrators and not stuck everyone else under restrictions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murphy_Ranch
Nearly a century of suppressing “racists” by various means has not really protected racial minorities in this country from various negative social outcomes, but it sure has protected a very small sliver of white skinned rich people who have grown very fat in the meantime. The big scare of the COVID disease is that suddenly they are not beyond the reach of harm from a virus which doesn’t care about gates, security teams, and who’s who.
I noticed the other day that there was a scare story circulating that “racists were advocating the spread of the virus” or some other contrived nonsense, as if they had any such opportunity from their dispersed locations scattered around the country in tiny numbers pecking away in cyberspace. There’s always a green-toothed klansman somewhere out in the sticks saying bad things in his backyard, who can be found and blamed when the going gets tough I guess.
Paul C Schulte, you are correct…. to a point. At the start of the war there were 1.6 million German nationals in the US. The 11,500 interned were sympathetic to the Third Reich and many were members of the New National German Party and the German-American Bund. While any number above zero is significant, 11,500 out of 1.6 million is miniscule and easily overlooked.
Craig Nelson – the important thing is I am correct.
JT asks why Trump made the claim. Who doesn’t know that? He’s not a theoretician and has almost certainly never read the constitution. Why would he?
Like the 5 year old he is, he wants the power and glory but not the responsibility. Every day of his presidency he has claimed the glory for what others have done while denying responsibility for anything.
JT hasn’t noticed this?
Hellooooo!
When was the last day Trump took off? I’d ask a congressperson, but there on recess during the greatest crisis of our lifetime until May 1. Hellooo! Here the echo in the halls of congress?
It is the press and the Democrats that can’t keep up with the facts and keep reversing themselves. The President has done a fantastic job and that has made unaware progressives, like yourself, to become politically schizophrenic.
Most people haven’t read the entire constitution until they go to law school, if even then, and he is not a lawyer.
Usually folks like that.
Tell me off the top of your head can you say what a bill of attainder is?
Can you say off the top of your head what difference there is stated in the body of the 1787 Constitution between the enumerated powers of Congress vis a vis the Army and the Navy?
what is the only part of the Constitution which restricts private property rights between people as opposed to the government?
I could go on and on with questions like this which most people short of constitutional specialists don’t know the answer or even understand the question. This does not mean the people fail to understand the general setup.
I’m sure Trump understands the federal government is a government of enumerated rights and not general ones, like the states, because, that’s what you need to know if you’re a business executive dealing in land, and he’s been a business executive dealing in land a long time before this.
This covid-19 crisis has reminded a lot of people of how the system is supposed to work. Refined statements which properly express our federalist system are often lacking from authorities not just Trump.
The Supreme Court in Wickard v. Fillburn (1942) also laid out an extreme position which said basically everything in the US is related to commerce even growing corn in your own backyard, and potentially subject to Congressional lawmaking, so, its not surprising that all these deacees later the POTUS has staked out a similarly overbroad position on his own authority.
https://fee.org/articles/wickard-v-filburn-the-supreme-court-case-that-gave-the-federal-government-nearly-unlimited-power/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIjtais5Po6AIVZf3jBx1nogO3EAAYASAAEgIj-vD_BwE
Yes Kurtz, we can’t expect all our presidents to have taught constitutional law at the U of Chicago. and no, we also don’t expect them all to know the finer points. Yes, we should be able to expect them to have knowledge of “the general set-up”, but there is no evidence Trump has ever spent a half hour considering matters deeper than loose shoes, tight p…y, and a warm w.c.. You keep acting like he has, when the evidence is the opposite.
H’es a man’s man and he certainly also likes golf. I don’t hold these attributes against him.
Not sure what that means, but is there a lower bar?
Maybe El Presidente should heed the advice of the administrations’ experts for once – including lawyers and epidemiologists. Instead he likes to create chaos and conflict and then back away from the stupid trial balloons that he constantly floats. Such erratic conduct does not reassure the country.
He is heeding epidemiologists that’s why he’s had them on his pressers the past month or so
the “trial balloon” of discussing re-opening of the economy is not specious. it is a matter of serious national importance. i am an early advocate of taking this deadly seriously, of social distancing, masks, etc., but people losing work, not being able to pay bills, not making rent, landlords not making mortgages, and banks going bankrupt is right in front of us now and it will end lives too. And not just from increased suicides but you can bet those are spiking too. The economy is a complex and somewhat resilient creature, but, the hyper-complex financialization of it makes a situation with unpredictable outcomes like this very very dangerous and not just one month out but 3, 6, 9 months out too.
So re-opening the economy, a vague but understandable notion, is something that must be discussed.
See this? Certain big pork plants closing indefinitely. This is a Cassandra call. Time to reckon the downside of social distancing too. Hunger is a possibility and like the other horsemen of the Apocalypse, it needs to be considered as a possible risk not just the covid disease itself which has precipitated that particular thing.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/12/business/meat-plant-closures-smithfield/index.html
Food insecurity is a real issue, especially with crops just going in the ground now. Not so much with super huge grain entities, but certainly with vegetables, things with shorter shelf lives.
It is time to finally have a reasonable testing effort. History will show it’s where government fell apart most re CV-19. And any effort to ‘open back up’ runs directly through it. Positive correlation.
JT hope you and family and mother are well
Where were those self anointed Governors
In January and February.
We have a National crisis which requires a
National response.
Thank you Mr President.
Trump is a narcissist and as such delegation of authority is the antithesis of his personality. That being said, what gives the Governor of Michigan the right to invoke draconian measures, i.e. such as no recreational boating unless by canoe or sailboat (what an excuse for invoking the green new deal!) or restricting travel to a second home? Doesn’t Michigan’s legislature have a say?
Even I, whose Constitutional knowledge is comes solely from 11th grade history knows he doesn’t have total power. That was just Trump being Trump. His advisors will tell him it “ain’t so” and that will be the end of it. I knew that there would be a brouhaha today, also.