Rep. Eric Swalwell (D., Cal.) will not be outdone again. Recently, Swalwell was outvoted in Congress by a colleague who had died months earlier. Now, he is ensuring that, when it comes to violating the Constitution, no one is even close. This week, Swalwell pledged that, if elected California governor, he will arrest ICE officers and take away their driver’s licences.
On MS NOW’s “All In,” Swalwell was asked by host Jason Johnson: “What would you do if you are able to be elected as governor of California? … What would you bring to the table as a governor of California?”
Swalwell responded:
“Well, you have immense powers as governor of California and your responsibility to protect the most vulnerable in the state. So if the president is going to send ICE agents to chase immigrants through the fields where they work, what I’m going to do is make sure that they take off their masks and show their faces, that they show their identification. And if they commit crimes that they’re going to be charged with crimes, if it’s falsely imprisoning people, if it’s kidnapping, if it’s assault battery, they’re going to be held accountable. I also think if the governor has the ability to issue driver’s licenses to people in California, if you’re going to wear a mask and not identify yourself, you’re not going to be eligible to drive a vehicle in California. There’s a lot you can do, but most importantly, you have to go on offense. Otherwise, the most vulnerable in our community will always be on defense.”
Democrats appear to be morphing into predecessors like Gov. George Wallace (D., Ala.), pledging to defy federal authority and bar federal agents from their states. Wallace also reportedly threatened to arrest federal officers (and then later backed down when he was threatened with court action).
In an “age of rage,” the most irate and irrational reigns supreme.
From demanding that any Democratic nominee pledge to demolish the new Trump ballroom to opposing parental rights in schools, Swalwell has struggled to find traction with far-left California voters.
However, he is now promising to violate the Constitution. That did not take long. We do not even have a clear idea of who will be the frontrunners in the election. It is like a game of chicken where Swalwell immediately drives off the cliff before anyone gets into their cars.
Ironically, it is precisely what he has accused Donald Trump of doing: disregarding the Constitution when it suits his political agenda.
In case it matters to anyone left in California, he cannot do this. Seizing federal agents sort of went out of constitutional style after the Civil War. The “immense powers as governor of California” do not include dictating what federal officers can wear on their faces or bodies.
The first tiny barrier to Swalwell’s antebellum policies is the Supremacy Clause, which prevents states from “interfering with or controlling the operations of the Federal Government.” United States v. Washington (2022). Since McCulloch v. Maryland in 1819, the Supreme Court has consistently struck down state laws that impede federal enforcement.
Moreover, immunity under the Supremacy Clause (Article VI, Clause 2) bars criminally charging officials who are properly carrying out their lawful federal duties. For example, in 1890, the Supreme Court ruled In re Neagle that a U.S. Marshal had immunity when a state tried to charge him with murder after he shot and killed an individual attacking a justice.
While the Supreme Court has also stressed that federal immunity does not afford federal employees carte blanche to violate any and all state laws, it has made clear that such state limits must be incidental and nonintrusive. In Johnson v. Maryland (1920), Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes explained:
“It very well may be that, when the United States has not spoken, the subjection to local law would extend to general rules that might affect incidentally the mode of carrying out the employment — as, for instance, a statute or ordinance regulating the mode of turning at the corners of streets. Commonwealth v. Closson, 229 Mass. 329. This might stand on much the same footing as liability under the common law of a state to a person injured by the driver’s negligence. But even the most unquestionable and most universally applicable of state laws, such as those concerning murder, will not be allowed to control the conduct of a marshal of the United States acting under and in pursuance of the laws of the United States. Ex parte Neagle, 135 U. S. 1.”
None of this really matters to Swalwell. He is moving from democrat to demagogue in pledging unconstitutional acts to be sure that no one is farther to the left in the California race. It is the same “politics of contempt” that he has displayed as a member of Congress. Swalwell has always distinguished himself by doing things that few others could stomach, such as mocking a female senator over the death threats that she was receiving from irate liberals.
He also may be right about California voters. While others are struggling to come up with ideas for a state that is facing a crushing debt crisis and top taxpayers fleeing the state, Swalwell is promising chest-pounding theatrics…more jester than governor. He will entertain and distract with measures that will be struck down in courts.
It is the modern equivalent of the Roman games, promising combat with federal officers to thrill the crowd. From California and New York, there is an insatiable appetite for lawfare and disruption. Swalwell will promise chaos and confrontation … and many California voters will love him for it.
Don’t be so hard on him. He probably has late stage syphilis he got from Fang Fang.
X says: Failure? Surely you jest. Shakur died a free woman and that is what meant most to her.
X, like SCOTUS Justice Jackson, can’t even define what a woman is. That aside, X (formerly Propagandist George), is not joking in the slightest when he proclaims that real freedom is living under communist control as an avowed communist in Cuba.
X claims Shakur lived in freedom where, unlike the USA she fled, if she had engaged in non-violent free speech criticism of the homophobic, mass murdering, communist narco-dictator Castro, she would have died in a communist Cuban gulag. So she went from bold black racist activist (prior to becoming a vicious murdering terrorist) to subservient peon serving as a useful American display monkey for Castro.
She lived in freedom where she could no longer travel to any free nation in the world under the protection of an American passport.
The only real question remaining this: why is this (finally) dead racist communist terrorist’s choice of freedom not been the same choice for the racist communist that posts here as X, George, etc?
Reading X defending the communism of the murderous homophobic, mass murdering narco-dictator Castro leaves you wonder why he too hasn’t also fled the oppression of life in the USA and the ability to travel on a US passport.
But that’s a rhetorical question: X/George is what Lenin referred fondly to as his communist Useful Idiots.
Democrats lie 25/8. Vicki Dillard reminds viewers that Joe Biden made sure to eulogize his Klan member friend, Robert Byrd.
don’t you ever forget the history of the Dixiecrats because the Democrats were the worst racists of all time
– Vicki Dillard
Turley: do you hold your nose when you write crap like ths: “Now, he is ensuring that, when it comes to violating the Constitution, no one is even close. ” That perfectly describes Trump. With MAGA media, when they can’t defend Trump, the next best thing they can do is to go after Democrats. Trump is the one who has never cared about the Constitution, as numerous courts have so ruled, including the SCOTUS that noted that his BS DOJ couldn’t even come up with a cogent argument against the Posse Comitatus Act to justify sending the National Guard to Chicago. He thinks he can use the military against citizens anyway, help himself to the Treasury and spend our money any way he likes, blow up boats on the high seas without any proof that the people aboard have committed any crimes, and pardon anyone he wants to. Then, there’s the endless lying, the weaponization of the FBI and DOJ and he thinks he can just bluster and bloviate and make the Epstein Scandal go away. It won’t, and Americans are sick of him.
Trump is underwater on public disapproval for his immigration policies and handling of the economy. People have taken to the streets, and are physically blocking ICE agents from grabbing people and hauling them away. If you polled Californians, I’d bet they would be in favor of doing exactly what Eric Swalwell has suggested.
I live in CA. No one I know supports what Swallow well is talking about!! YOU LOSE THE BET!!!!
K. .. you’ve got to go outside and talk to people.
*regardless of Trump’s constitutional authority to deploy Fed agents, ICE/Troops, etc., to California, most sane people would hold them accountable for any unlawful actions.
What they are doing isn’t unlawful DF!! I’m sane unlike YOU!!! BOZO!! Maybe you should GET LOST!!
ICE isn’t doing anything ILLEGAL DF!! I am sane UNLIKE YOU!! DEMS like to make up crimes! Go outside and talk to MORONS like SWALWELL???
dgsnowden should talk to normal people – rather than sucking at the YouTube teats of the Democrats’ communist Young Turks.
*regardless of dgsnowden’s communist protectionist proclivities during his bouts of excessive day drinking, does anyone remember him ever similarly insinuating that Democrats in public office have actually been committing unlawful actions? Perhaps Biden as well as Obama deploying their Attorney Generals and FBI to commit felonies that dgsnowden, if he were normal, would similarly say they should be held accountable for?
**That is a rhetorical question, as dgsnowden doesn’t have a normal thought left in what is left of his alcohol addled brain. Don’t blame his self-inflicted illness on Trump Derangement Syndrome.
And what unlawful actions is ICE taking ?
I know you, Karen S, and you live in a MAGA bubble, surrounded by your own kind, absorbing MAGA media–if Swalwell is so unpopular, why does he keep getting elected?
Ummm, cheating?
Swallwell is a US rep in a deep blue district.
Trump was elected by the entire country – red and blue alike.
237 words and not a single truth spoken, bravo!
It’s so bad even some of the punctuation appears dishonest. Not sure how you did that but you did so with aplomb!
Yes! Bring on the Epstein scandal! Can never get enough pictures of Bill Clinton getting all friendly with all those young girls!
it’s gigi trying to get the last word in, but even her vile screed is not her own; even her “colon:” style is copycatted. We have taught her and georgie so much.
Anon 2:47pm – “If you polled Californians”, Americans think that President Trump has been doing a great job, while democrat-voters continue to snivel and whine about their being exposed for the traitors they actually are.
What color is the sky in your world and why is Rachel Maddow your only source for opinion?
“MAGA media, when they can’t defend Trump”
What actions of Trump are indefensible ?
Nearly everything he is doing has 70-80% popular approval ?
“the next best thing they can do is to go after Democrats.”
Nope – two things can be done at once.
I would note that Trump PROMISED as part of Agenda 47 to
“End the weaponization of government against the american people
Secure our elections, including same day voting, voter identification, paper ballots, and proof of citizenship”
That means going after the democrats who went after the american people.
“Trump is the one who has never cared about the Constitution, as numerous courts have so ruled, including the SCOTUS that noted that his BS DOJ couldn’t even come up with a cogent argument against the Posse Comitatus Act to justify sending the National Guard to Chicago.”
The lower court rulings against Trump have been confined to a small number of judges in a tiny number of districts. Even there Trump has won 50% of those on direct appeal, and 90% of those that went to the supreme court.
When Trump has lost – he has followed the law, and the courts.
He may rail at the courts, but he obeys them.
Something that Biden and Obama did not.
Posse Comitatus does not apply to the NG, Until very recently it only applied specifically to the army.
Furthher Posse Comitatus was NOT an issue in the current SCOTUS decision.
SCOTUS made a very bad interprettion of a federal law allowing the president to call up the NG when “Regular forces” were unable to maintain order. SCOTU*S decided that Congress meant “the Army” when they wrote Regular forces – that is despite the fact that all lower courts and the plaintiffs and DOJ in this case all agreed that “regular forces” meant ordinary Law Enforcement forces.
What Trump is being encouraged to do is to invoke the insurrection act which supreceeds Posse Comitatus and allows the use of the military to keep the peace.
It is not likely that Trump does that unless the violence by the left gets worse.
But that is likely to happen.
Regardless should that happen it will go to SCOTUS and in all likelyhood SCOTUS will reverse themselves on this decision.
When there is sufficient lawlessness that ordinary law enforcement can not maintain order neither SCOTUS nor any rational person is going to conclude that the president must invole the insurrection act and call up the Army rather then bring in the NG.
There is good reason NOT to bring in the Army – this is NOT their mission and they do not train for it.
Maintaining order is one of the legitimate roles of the NG and they are trained for it.
” He thinks he can use the military against citizens anyway”
No he is using the NG – which is NOT regular military and actually trains for specifically this role, to protext regular law enforcement when lawlessness is more than they can manage.
If you do not want the NG in your city – let ICE do their job without interferance.
Protest all you want, but no violence and no obstruction.
“help himself to the Treasury and spend our money any way he likes,\”
He is not spending federal money – he is cutting wasteful and fraudulent spending.
That is what 90% of Americans want.
“blow up boats on the high seas without any proof that the people aboard have committed any crimes”
ATS there is massive evidence these people were trafficking drugs.
US intelligence litterally tracked the drugs at every step through Venezuealla onto the boats and out into the ocean.
That said – US criminal law does not apply “on the high seas”
“and pardon anyone he wants to.”
Every president does that.
I am fine with nearly all Trump pardons and the few I am not are minro compared to biden, and Obama.
And atleast Trump signed his pardons.
“there’s the endless lying,”
Yes – by the left.
“the weaponization of the FBI and DOJ”
Against those who weaponized the FBI and DOJ under Biden and Obama.
Regardless if you did not committ a REAL crime – you are not goinng to be targeted by the Trump DOJ and FBI
“he thinks he can just bluster and bloviate and make the Epstein Scandal go away.”
The Epstain scandal is taking out lots of people – NOT Trump.
You are free to hope that you will eventually find a smoking gun. But if that existed it would have been used long ago.
There is no Pee Tape, The Hunter Biden laptop and Biden syndicate corruption in Ukrain was real. Bill Clinton is a Pedo,
the collusion delussion is a hoax, and the Epstain files will not implicate Trump, but it will damage alot of others, mostly democrats.
It all will come out eventually – and you will be claiming that DOJ hid or destroyed the actually damnaging stuff.
” It won’t, and Americans are sick of him.”
Rassmussen has Trump at 44% – that is higher than Bush or Obama at the start of the 2nd year of their 2nd term and higher than Biden at the start of the 2nd year of his only term.
Only 19% of americans approve of the Democrats, only 42% of Democrats approve of the democratic party.
“Trump is underwater on public disapproval for his immigration policies”
Per a Harvard/Harris poll 56% of registered voters support deporting all illegal aliens, and a whopping 78% support deporting criminal illegal aliens.
Likewise, a New York Times/Siena poll found that 54% of registered voter support “deporting immigrants living in the United States illegally back to their home countries.”
“handling of the economy.”
He is still rated above democrats on the economy, and the polls have not yet reflected the rapidly growing improvements in the economy.
If you are betting on the economy to win you the midterms your in trouble
“People have taken to the streets, and are physically blocking ICE agents from grabbing people and hauling them away.”
Those would be criminals.
If you do not like US immigration law – go to the Capital as J6 protestors did and address immigration with those who can change the law.
ICE and the Trump administration are enforcing laws that were passed by democrats and republicans.
ICE agents are not violating the law, they are not violating anyones constitutional rights.
They are tolerating massive amounts of left wing nut violence and abuse.
You are free to disagree with the law – but you do not take that out on Law Enforcement – you address that with congress.
Do you have any evidence that ICE agents are routinely acting outside the law ?
I am sure that of the nearly 1M ICE deportations this year that there have been a tiny number of instances of misconduct – and those shoul dbe punished – just as all the misconduct and violence of “protestors”
No one is seeking to limit your right to protest or speak. If you wish to defend TdA or Abrego-Garcia or drug lords – or Hamas
you are absolutely free to do so.
What you may not do is initiate violence against those enforcing the law.
We protest law enforcement when law enforcement acts outside the law.
We protest the legislature when law enforcement acts within the law in ways we do not like.
Anything else is anarchy.
” If you polled Californians, I’d bet they would be in favor of doing exactly what Eric Swalwell has suggested.”
Yes the peoples republic of California is a idiotic failed communist state.
To no surprise Swalwell is seeking a position of power without a clue as to the nature of that power — despite holding a law degree. The governor does not have arrest powers, and his/her ability to direct those who do is limited to well-defined emergency situations. This guy is a clown seeking to succeed another clown and continue to prove that, in California, nothing brings out fools like an election.
“[W]ell-defined” emergency situations like sitting on a public beach or bench, taking your mask off and on between bites, and closing whole industries as inessential during the current governor’s administration in 2020.
Swalwell reminds us of how easily the darkest periods of history might relive themselves.
History repeats not because we forget facts, but because we never form citizens capable of responding to recurring pressures with restraint rather than tribalism.
Speaking of tribalism, Eric Swalwell reminds me of a womyn who’s seχμal advances have been repeatedly rejected, then out of desperation throws
herselfhimself at Donald Trump for a cheap feel. Eric is one sad sack, but Amber’s 2001 song, Yes! was great tribal music in the Miami clubs back in the day. Great weight lifting music too for the gym!🎶💪🏾
And then I asked him with my eyes
To ask again (yes)
And then he asked me would I?
Yes, Yes
I put my arms around him, yes
And drew him down to me so he can feel my brεαsτs
And his heart was going like mad
I mean yes, I said yes, I mean yes…
Swalwell is all talk and no substance. The most impressive thing about him is his official photo. He will never outdo that.
He’s one of those guys that takes a shower and he still looks like he’s dirty… I remember reading something about STDs…
Seems most every day there are instances of the Democratic Parties lawless behavior and ideas, as exampled today, we’ll arrest federal law enforcement, or of recent in the Upper US, welfare fraud. They promote lawless ideas and applaud actual occurrences where there is proof of criminality. They ware fake honor badges overflowing with spite towards the Constitution, the laws there under and half the population not in infatuated with their concept of governance.
This morning, I came across something new in the Democratic Quiver of poison arrows, an article by Net Barnett in The News & Observer of Raleigh, N.C., titled “Trump’s biggest lie about the economy: ‘I inherited a mess’
Quoting:
“…. Under Biden, unemployment was near a historic low. Inflation had dropped from 9% to 3%. Wages were rising especially for low earners. The stock market and corporate profits were strong. The government was making massive investment in infrastructure and low-cost renewable energy….” Of course, there was no mention of the transitory falsities belched repeatedly by Biden administrative figures.
Reading this thread makes me wonder whether we’re treating symptoms instead of causes.
Turley’s posts are very good at identifying discrete problems—lawfare, executive overreach, constitutional contempt—and the comments usually follow with debates over fixes. But I keep coming back to a more foundational question: is there a common root beneath many of these failures?
A constitutional republic presumes a certain kind of citizen—not just legal status or voting, but an understanding of limits, federalism, and self-government. If that formation becomes rare, do downstream failures become inevitable regardless of which party is in power?
Answering that question probably requires a fair amount of humility. It asks each of us to examine not only what leaders or institutions are doing wrong, but whether our own understanding of citizenship actually matches what the system assumes of us.
So I’m genuinely curious how people here define citizenship in the American sense—and whether we think we’re forming citizens capable of sustaining the system we’re arguing about.
Maybe this is too abstract for a comment thread, but it seems relevant to nearly every controversy we discuss here.
Olly, could it be the movement, the warp of individual rights and not common rights. Rights =freedoms and I know my rights emphasis on “my” and not the common good, common welfare? It pits the individual v. Group citizens. It spreads things like cannabis. I like cannabis so everyone can use it if they want or pornography because I like it and you can too is the tail wagging the dog. If all people used pornography then legality can be a common, general welfare idea.
OLLY,
” It asks each of us to examine not only what leaders or institutions are doing wrong, but whether our own understanding of citizenship actually matches what the system assumes of us.”
Well, I think we have to start back at the beginning of when did the understanding of citizenship take place and what that meant. I can recall standing, placing my hand over my heart and pledging allegiance to the flag. I can recall what it was to be proud as an American. I can recall learning about how the government works. The Constitution and what it means. Capitalism vs communism and comparisons to America to the Soviet Union. I do feel we glossed over some parts, such as slavery, and the native Americans were never discussed in a negative light. And aside from when WWII, the Korean war, Vietnam started and ended that was pretty much all that was covered. But back to your question, at some point, being patriotic, pride, responsibility of being a citizen, understanding what the Constitution meant, all changed. Somewhere along the line, America became evil, founded by a bunch of wealthy, slave owning white men and the Constitution was racist. People who “feel” want the power to force their ideals on the rest of us, and when we try to debate their ideals, we get shouted down, called racists, or shot. When my grandparents came to America, they were proud to be Americans, learned English, paid their taxes, abide by the law. They did not take handouts as they were too proud. They worked hard, saved their money, made good decisions and they achieved the American dream of home ownership despite not having a college education, being blue collar workers. Some how, somewhere we lost that. And that has trickled through out parts of society to the point where we are today, with people like Swalwell who blatantly goes on TV and declares he will disregard the Constitution. The man knows full well, or he should he does not have the authority. IF, ICE were doing something illegal, okay, then that is different. But to imply ICE is, by carrying out their Federal duties as mandated by Congress as illegal, he is in the wrong. As we know, it is all rage theater to play to the leftist base. Okay, he scores some points in that department. Overall is amounts to nothing. And if he really does get elected as governor of CA, and really does try it, it goes to the SC and they turn him down, then what? Insurrection? Seems more and more like the leftist Democrats want to go there.
What is the fix? I would say a through teaching of American history, the good, the bad and the ugly. A through teaching of civics, the responsibility of a citizen to not only themselves but to society. The rule of law, corruption and fraud. The economics of capitalism vs socialism. Logic, reason, critical thinking vs “feelings” in governance and economics. Biology.
Oh, and learn how to cook at home.
Did you see this one, 40-year Harvard professor pens scathing piece on school’s ‘exclusion of white males,’ anti-Western trends
https://www.foxnews.com/us/40-year-harvard-professor-pens-scathing-piece-schools-exclusion-white-males-anti-western-trends
I think you’re pointing to something real, especially the shift in how citizenship was formed, not just taught. Pride, responsibility, and knowledge used to be reinforced together. What changed wasn’t merely curriculum or tone—it was the loss of the conditions that actually cultivated those habits.
Salutary neglect played a major role early on. For decades, the colonies were largely left to govern themselves in practice. That experience formed citizens through responsibility, consequence, and restraint long before independence was declared. People didn’t just learn about self-government; they lived it.
When that kind of formation erodes, emotion fills the gap—sometimes nostalgia, sometimes rage, sometimes moral certainty. That’s why I hesitate to frame this solely as a left-right or “America became evil” story. The deeper failure is that we stopped forming citizens capable of responding to pressure constitutionally rather than tribally.
Trying to understand how that original formation occurred—and how it was later lost—is what eventually pushed me to dig much deeper into the history and write it out in long form. Once you trace the pattern, figures like Swalwell stop looking anomalous and start looking predictable.
I agree entirely that we need serious history and civics taught honestly. But without formation—without lived responsibility and limits—education by itself can’t sustain a constitutional republic.
But I keep coming back to a more foundational question: is there a common root beneath many of these failures?
I have answered that question on here many times via quoting Fr John Courtney Murray, SJ book that was published in 1960 where he catalogued the decline of America.
We Hold These Truths: Catholic Reflections on the American Proposition
Sheed and Ward, Publisher, 1960
ISBN-13: 978-0742549005
https://library.georgetown.edu/woodstock/Murray/whtt_index
Be honest though. Who wants to read theoretical philosophy or an intellectual analysis of the decline of America? Few
The comments on this forum, like elsewhere in our public squares, including academia, are bereft of intellectual depth. Snark, opinions (without references to support them) and insults are the way Americans address each other, to their great poverty. Yes, America has fallen and the downward acceleration has increased. Turley does not help in the slightest, only offering, well, rage. Pot. Kettle. Black.
Read Murray’s book. Ive read it twice and still find it prophetic. 1960!
Estovir, thank you for the link to Father Murray’s book; I will look into it. Learning is, to me at least, far more productive than snark and insults, as you note.
You’re quite welcome, RussAmGirl. I’ll be the first to admit that reading Murray is difficult for the untrained. I recently acquired a hefty theological book entitled, Mercy: The Essence of the Gospel and the Key to Christian Life by theologian Cardinal Walter Casper. It is not a page turner. Just reading 3 pages are enough for me to put the book down and reflect. Reading this type of material is learned. It’s unlike what most content is like today on the internet, e.g. Foxnews, NYTimes, MS NOW, social media, et al. However, it is a skillset well worth developing. That applies to OLLY’s question vis a vis formation
OLLY,
the last chapter of Murray’s book provides the answer, namely a return to natural law. Oddly enough, Turley granted someone an interview posted on Youtube, another attorney I believe from Univ of North Carolina. Hard to believe but JT stated he also believed, more or less, in natural law. You’d never know it from reading his articles though.
Here’s Murray in brief, but read the last chapter of his book to get a better understanding than my selective quote. Note, Murray references John Locke many times in this chapter
NATURAL LAW 1N THE NEW AGE
This is the point to which I have been coming. However, I have been so long in coming to it that there is now no time or space to develop it! I shall have to be content with some brief comments on the vital resources inherent in the idea of natural law, that indicate its new validity.
https://library.georgetown.edu/woodstock/murray/whtt_c13_1950a
I’ve argued on this forum many times for years, that education starts at home. If parents are unwilling to teach their children the classics or at least encourage them to read them, as my uneducated, 3rd grade, 6th grade parents from Cuba did, then we get what we have today. My parents were unlearned people but wiser than most educated parents. They knew right from wrong and made sure I did as well. Enter the Jesuits.
I mentor several medical students, PhD / MS STEM students, medical residents and a few faculty members. I do so because they are hungry and want someone to mold them. I take the place of their parents in forming their conscience.
Medical schools and many STEM graduate programs have a required course for their students. It’s entitled “Medical Ethics” or something along those lines. Ethics was a required course because, in part, of the American Medical Association. My point: you can’t teach ethics to adults. Ethics are taught at home when you have young minds, your children. By the time a student gets to medical school, they already have a formed conscience. You can’t teach them ethics. Ditto for a society of adults. This is why Karl Marx & Friedrich Engel targeted children in their Communist Manifesto because they knew you had to get them young to form their conscience. The Catholic Church teaches likewise in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
The duties of parents
2221 The fecundity of conjugal love cannot be reduced solely to the procreation of children, but must extend to their moral education and their spiritual formation. “The role of parents in education is of such importance that it is almost impossible to provide an adequate substitute.”29 The right and the duty of parents to educate their children are primordial and inalienable.30
2222 Parents must regard their children as children of God and respect them as human persons. Showing themselves obedient to the will of the Father in heaven, they educate their children to fulfill God’s law.
2223 Parents have the first responsibility for the education of their children. They bear witness to this responsibility first by creating a home where tenderness, forgiveness, respect, fidelity, and disinterested service are the rule. the home is well suited for education in the virtues. This requires an apprenticeship in self-denial, sound judgment, and self-mastery – the preconditions of all true freedom. Parents should teach their children to subordinate the “material and instinctual dimensions to interior and spiritual ones.”31 Parents have a grave responsibility to give good example to their children. By knowing how to acknowledge their own failings to their children, parents will be better able to guide and correct them:
He who loves his son will not spare the rod…. He who disciplines his son will profit by him.32
Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.33
2224 The home is the natural environment for initiating a human being into solidarity and communal responsibilities. Parents should teach children to avoid the compromising and degrading influences which threaten human societies.
https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P7U.HTM
If American parents taught their children as they should, we wouldn’t have most of the degradation we have taking place in our society today.
What Turley gets wrong, is that the US Constitution was never meant to be a moral code. Thomas Jefferson edited the New Testament to his liking, but even then he said the Bible was the best moral code known to man. The Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution to run a government not form an individual conscience. Turley never tells us the source of his personal moral code. He laments daily on this forum about x, y and z, including people like Swalwell. But what is Turley’s rubric? He doesn’t say. Life doesn’t work that way. You don’t get to lob online molotov cocktails at society at large, while never stating what the right path is. Even you have stated that Turley doesn’t provide answers, only critiques. That’s like coming to me as a physician and I provide you a diagnosis, but never provide you a treatment plan. That’s malpractice. Turley does likewise with his incessant complaining (rage) but no treatment. Laws change. They are not a treatment for a people who lack a conscience. Murray suggests a return to natural law.
Turley detests John Adams. He lauds James Madison but Madison too had his personal hypocrisies, e.g. owning slaves in spite of his Quaker wife. Here’s John Adams:
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
FROM TO THE OFFICERS OF THE FIRST BRIGADE OF THE THIRD DIVISION OF THE MILITIA OF MASSACHUSETTS, 11 October, 1798
Happy New Year to all. We have been hit with the flu at home, so we are hunkering down.
peace
Estovir, thank you for this additional reference for my reading list, and for another calm, civil, well thought comment. I did not agree with all of it, but it was refreshing after the plethora of snide, snark, nasty, angry, name-calling and presumptive (i.e., presuming facts) comments and replies which, alas, generally populate the Comments. There are those who should consider the effects which incessant anger can take on mental, often in turn physical, health – understanding that I might again be accused of being an internet psychologist.
Your mentoring work is fascinating; keep it up, and Happy 2026! (But then, constructive work and other activity tend to make one happy, rather than constant anger.)
Estovir,
Murray is a serious thinker, and I agree with much of his diagnosis. We Hold These Truths captured the moral prerequisites the American proposition depends on, and he was warning about their erosion long before it became fashionable.
Where I think the unresolved problem remains is that correct diagnosis alone doesn’t form citizens. Murray explained what was being lost. The harder question is how those civic habits were originally formed in practice—and what replaced them when they disappeared.
That distinction is what pushed me away from purely theoretical analysis and toward tracing the lived mechanisms of formation that actually produced constitutional citizens in the first place. Without that, even prophetic warnings tend to remain accurate but inert.
In that sense, the decline isn’t just intellectual. It’s formative.
Estovir says: Read Murray’s book. Ive read it twice and still find it prophetic. 1960!
I am one of those who are agnostics who are indifferent to the world’s religious faiths (including Marx’s atheism) and start from the position that if they produce positive results within individuals who follow those faiths then all is good.
However, given this and the previous Catholic Pope, I’m not all that interested in what “Fr John Courtney Murray, SJ” (deceased) or any other member of the ordained clergy have to say about America when not a single one of the Catholic clergy appears capable of writing a book about today’s Pope’s to similarly analyze them for any faults they might have as the leaders of their faith.
Where are their books on the decline of the Catholic faith under the two latest Popes?
Doesn’t mean what they wrote about America is wrong… but I believe the Catholics’ Jesuits would recognize a passage telling them to deal with the log sticking out of their own eye first – rather than informing others they have a speck of dust in their own eyes. At least start with the honesty of recognizing and dealing with your own failures as a faith, popes, etc first. Or even multitask and do both at the same time.
Dealing first with their own shortcomings first before writing books on the failures of others might be called by some high fliers around here “intellectual depth”.
Good question, Olly. A person doesn’t really understand what it takes to maintain and improve a free civilization until they realize that power should be:
1) earned through responsibility-taking and learned capacity to discharge it wisely
2) distributed as widely as possible among that demographic, avoiding the risk of over-centralization of power in the hands of incompetents and psychopathic personalities
I have to admit, I didn’t understand this until I was 65 years old. Prior to that, I imbibed naive idealism (Obama-think) in which citizenship is defined by superficials such as birthplace and 18th birthday. It took 6 decades for me to appreciate the degree to which I was being opinion-shaped by mass-media and its cunning use by sophisticated actors.
Now in my ’70s, I can point to specific reforms that can undo some of the cultural damage and reverse the decline:
– Repeal Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, so that all modalities of publication (platforms, social media) may be held liable via lawsuit for harms their operators refuse to correct
– To reform the outsized influence of prof. lobbyists on government policy, pass federal “sunshine” law that makes all government-policy advocacy public domain, outlawing lobbying behind the veil of secrecy.
– To return leadership accountability to the Speaker of the House, the Presiding Officer of the Senate, and the President, pass law that these Offices are non-partisan leadership positions, and that political party affiliation must be renounced as part of taking the Oath of Office.
– To return accountability to Congress, impose consequences on missed statutory deadlines of 10% of members rendered ineligible for re-election to Congress, chosen by random selection; an additional 10% random purge for each missed legislative deadline during that Congress.
– To deter illegal immigration as a “de facto” means of partisan competition for future votes, pass law whereby citizenship rights may never be conferred en masse by legislation (except through addition of territories).
The US society of the 1990s was a peak of civilizational competence. Looking back, the infosphere was responsibly curated by mature adult humans. Misanthropes, paranoid zealots, and psychopaths were not given access to spew garbage into the public arena. The curation function was widely dispersed enough to prevent over-centralization and propagandizing. The dissolution of curation has been very corrosive, allowing negative thinking and unproductive venom to flood the public square, crippling the nation’s ability to navigate complex problem-solving. The result has been “sides-taking” and the dichotomization trap (forced choice of extremes A or B).
We need to roll back to a system where mature humans of sound mind are deciding what content is fit for public consumption (and which is not) acting as editors, producers and referees. Algorithms must be expelled from their misplaced function intermediating published content. Repealing Section 230 will force demotion of algos, and undermine those business plans.
All of your proposals would require constitutional amendments.
I appreciate the candor in this, especially the acknowledgment that understanding citizenship as something earned through responsibility and capacity is not intuitive and often comes late, if at all. That admission alone reinforces my suspicion that the system assumes a level of formation that most of us never consciously received.
Where I’d draw a careful distinction is between root cause and downstream repair. Many of the reforms you outline are responses to the consequences of breakdown—media manipulation, over-centralization, captured institutions. Those may or may not be wise remedies, but they all presuppose something more basic: a citizenry capable of exercising judgment, restraint, and accountability in the first place.
My concern is that without restoring the formative conditions that produce citizens who understand power as something to be earned, limited, and shared, reforms risk becoming technocratic substitutes for self-government. We end up trying to engineer outcomes that were once sustained by habit, culture, and lived responsibility.
In that sense, I agree with your broader point about the infosphere and mass opinion-shaping. But I see those less as the original disease than as accelerants acting on a citizenry already insufficiently formed. When formation is weak, manipulation becomes easy—whether by algorithms, media, or politics.
That’s why I keep circling back to the same foundational question: before we decide what to fix, do we agree on what kind of citizen the system requires—and whether we’re still producing one?
“do we agree on what kind of citizen the system requires—and whether we’re still producing one?”
Olly, thanks for the stimulating discussion: what a relief. Prior to a discussion of citizenship, I believe we have to start with first principles. They come from the Declaration of Independence because it clarifies them. There is no discussion of citizenship in the Declaration, and it didn’t declare it. Instead, a moral and philosophical boundary was set where citizenship would later reside.
The Declaration spoke of a people with natural rights and moral order. There was no state, though political authority existed. The state, along with citizenship, would come later, existing as a two-way street securing our natural rights, but with the need and requirement of obligations that would become apparent when self-government appeared.
For us, the American people, morality is a necessity not created by citizenship. It defends our natural rights and other rights, but citizens must understand power, its limitations, and a citizen’s duty within the moral framework.
When I started writing this reply, I was more optimistic that we were still producing such citizens. It gets less clear as I think about what the prerequisites are. Morality, doesn’t seem to exist sufficiently in the burgeoning bureaucracy that detaches us from our responsibilities. I do not have a cure, but recognize that when the nation was founded, religion shaped civic morals and social norms more than the bureaucracy itself and provided a framework (outside of the government) that influenced the administration of the nation. To a great extent, that was replaced by more government bureaucracy.
pbinca
You are responding to what you see as the issues of the moment.
It is a mistake to try to change our law or worse our constitution to address some immediate policy issue.
You also seem to think that you can change human nature or change those in power by changing the rules.
This is a permutation of the fallacy of the left that socialism would work if only we could get the right leaders.
If a system requires good leaders to work – that system is doomed. We will sometimes get good leaders but more often bad ones.
Not on the nature of people seeking power – but of the electorate assures that.
If you wish to make effective tweaks – look to Madisons observations in Federalist 51.
Men are not angels and the electorate is NOT sufficient to constrain them.
Our founders wisely made it very hard for govenrment to do anything.
What Madison missed is that it is equally hard to UNDO anything and that is error.
That means that govenrment inexhorably expands SLOWLY.
If you want to address something – don’t address issues, address the meta structure of government that empowers poor choices and then locks them in amber forever.
Olly
I am not sure that many have given this much thought since our founding.
Our founders absolutely thought of this. The federalists and anti-federalist ppers are full of debates over these issues.
Further to a large extent the federalists and anti-federalists agreed on what they wanted – just not how to acheive it.
Some posters – including Turley address what is and is not lawful or constitutional.
But almost no one addresses WHY the law or the constution are as they are.
I frequently refer to the declaration of independence as it is far more important in expounding on WHY government is as it is, and what is and is not legitimate.
Most of the posters here on the left – atleast based on their arguments would have been british loyalists.
They have no concept of what constitutes legitimate government beyond their personal interests and gaming what power they have to acheive those.
They do not accept any moral foundations – beyond their own whim.
Trump commits treason all the time.
Trump violates the Constitution whenever he adheres to an enemy of the United States, Russia, in violation of Article 3, Section 3.
Trump the traitor should execute himself by putting a shotgun in his mouth and pulling the trigger.
Trump commits treason all the time.
Is this Clinton, Obama, or Biden? Yous who wrote the 2016 fictional and felonious “Trump Russia Dossier” – and then sent your Attorney Generals and FBI Directors out to repeatedly perjure themselves to Judge Boasberg’s FISA courts in order to deprive THOUSANDS of Americans of their civil rights by color of law?
All with the traitorous intent to take out the president that Americans had just elected.
Police state fascist Democrats like these three – and their voters – don’t even know the elements of the crime of treason, never mind recognize the massive felonies committed by those they vote for in hopes they’ll end up in the Oval Office.
I won’t suggest they should put down as an act of mercy as they have all the intelligence of a pithed frog in a high school biology class. But they should ask themselves what their mommy’s intent is when she gives them her hair dryer, the kitchen toaster, and her vibrator collection for their yearly bath.
Lol
Obama/Biden Democrat says: Trump violates the Constitution whenever he adheres to an enemy of the United States, Russia, in violation of Article 3, Section 3.
Now do Obama/Biden giving Iran’s Mad Mullah terrorists, an enemy of the USA that was engaged in killing American and allied troops in Afghanistan, billions of dollars in unmarked bills to fund their terrorism and continued killing of American troops. Permitted by an unseen Article and Section of the Constitution?
Or how about instead, Sec State Clinton taking $30+ MILLION from Putin while in office? Got an Article or Section for that?
One more try: when Clinton, Obama, and Biden adhered to an enemy of the USA, Putin and Russia, by illegally hiring one of Putin’s FSB agents to write their fictional and felonious “Trump-Russia Dossier”? Where is amnesty for doing that found in your special copy of the Constitution?
You failed before you began: nobody believes commie Democrats and their commie Democrat Useless Idiots have ever read the Constitution.
I just reported you to the Secret Service.
For what? Wishing the president dead is protected speech. A president is not a king.
Well, then they should not have a problem with it! Whew, just think of all those hateful accusations and slanderous posts…oh well, I am sure there’s nothing to worry about. 🤡
It’s adorable that there are still people in 2025 who don’t understand that IP addresses are always logged and geofencing is a thing. 🙂
It’s almost impossible for a president to adhere to the USA’s enemies, because to a large part it’s up to him to determine whether a country is an enemy of the USA. He determines the policy of the USA regarding foreign countries, and whether they should be termed enemies. It’s also his duty to conduct relations with our enemies, which includes negotiating with them and making concessions in order to advance US interests.
Even 0bama giving Iran pallets of cash with which to sponsor terrorist activities around the globe can be argued not to have been treasonous, because he claimed to have done it in what he perceived to be the USA’s interests. We all know that’s BS, but a court would have to find for him.
“Trump commits treason all the time.”
Then you would have specific examples.
Our constitution defines Treason – the ONLY crime defined in the constitution.
Our founders did so because they were well aware that political enemies bandied about claims of treason whenever their policy wishes were thwarted.
“Trump violates the Constitution whenever he adheres to an enemy of the United States, Russia”
Who would be our Enemy ?
We face many nations that are both competitors and collaborators. But they are not enemies, just nations we disagree with on many issues.
Is there even the slightest chance that even one representative from the Mainstream Media-Democrat Propaganda Complex are going to ask Swalwell what should be an obvious question to normal adult Americans:
As Governor Swalwell of California, how are you going to successfully revoke the drivers’ licenses of ICE agents sent from other states to arrest and deport your violent criminal Illegal Aliens you’re attempting to provide sanctuary to in California? Going to ask the states they’re from to help you out by doing those drivers’ license revocations for you?
How do you plan on even getting their identifying biometrics to tie them to the state issuing them their drivers’ licenses?
Maybe call Fang-Fang and ask her to do you a solid in return for what you gave her: get the ChiCom spy assets to get that information for you?
X projects: Turley sure loves to exaggerate and mislead.
Swalwell Protégé Alert!!!! X is now cosplaying that HE’S the new Swalwell – exaggerating, misleading, and lying about Professor Turley, just as Swalwell has made a career about doing the same about the fictional and felonious Clinton/Obama “Trump-Russia Dossier”. Which X (then George), desperately lied and mislead about on this forum for years, just as Swalwell was doing as his mentor.
X absolutely loathes and hates Professor Turley with the heat of a thousand suns… it’s another day of BBBBUUUTTTT…. MUH TURLEY!!!!!
The overwhelming singular failure of the American republic rights and freedoms experiment has been voters allowing the continued existence of the vile and violent, seditious DNC and their equally vile members like Swalwell and his protégé X, The Racist Democrat Communist Formerly Known As George.
This is so insane at first I thought it was a Babylon Bee parody.
Dear Prof Turley,
Homework for the Holidays: Posse Comitatus Act
“The Posse Comitatus Act is a United States federal law (18 U.S.C. § 1385, original at 20 Stat. 152) signed into law on June 18, 1878, by President Rutherford B. Hayes that limits the use of federal military personnel to enforce domestic law by the federal government or by other government entities such as county sheriffs and justices of the peace. Congress passed the act as an amendment to an army appropriations bill following the end of Reconstruction and updated it in 1956, 1981 and 2021.”
It is deceptive, to say the least, to say Swalwell “pledged, if elected California governor, he will arrest ICE officers and take away their driver’s licences (sic)”.
Swalwell said “So ***if*** the president is going to send ICE agents to chase immigrants through the fields where they work, what I’m going to do is make sure that they take off their masks and show their faces, that they show their identification. And if they commit crimes that they’re going to be charged with crimes, ***if*** it’s falsely imprisoning people, ***if*** it’s kidnapping, ***if*** it’s assault battery, they’re going to be held accountable. I also think if the governor has the ability to issue driver’s licenses to people in California, ***if*** you’re going to wear a mask and not identify yourself, you’re not going to be eligible to drive a vehicle in California.”
(emphasis mine)
You simply can’t have masked, unidentifiable and unaccountable federal agents/troops roaming the streets dragging people out of cars and houses. .. that way lies madness.
*the mob is fickle my friend .. .
Sure, and the people murdered were citizens, too. Here’s a novel idea: get a passport and visa you dumb f7ucks. F8ucking ret9rds
dgsnowden rambled: Homework for the Holidays: Posse Comitatus Act
ICE agents are not military troops. Americans (who aren’t already dead drunk by noon) know this – even if they don’t cosplay that they’re legal/constitutional experts on Professor Turley’s blog.
And where else to get your legal analysis than obsessively following the Obama/Biden commie Democrats “Young Turks” YouTube postings and then putting links to those Young Turk Communists into your drunken posts! Commies of a feather flock together – drunk or not!
* if dgsnowden weren’t desperately day drinking anything he can lay his hands on which contains alcohol and won’t kill him, perhaps – just perhaps – he wouldn’t feel such an obsession to defend Eric “I got conned by a commie spy while on a Congressional Intelligence Committee” Swalwell. And at the same time defend the criminal Illegal Aliens like those from MS-13 preying on Californians – just like dgsnowden’s bestie Swalwell is doing.
** dgsnowden, in an earlier bout of day drinking, claimed that we couldn’t have the DOJ doing criminal referrals to prosecute his best felon friend (for today at least), Eric Swalwell:
Rep. Eric Swalwell’s $1.2 million DC home results in DOJ mortgage fraud criminal referral
https://nypost.com/2025/11/13/us-news/eric-swalwells-1-2-million-dc-home-target-of-doj-mortgage-fraud-criminal-referral/
dg—Don’t forget the consorting with Chinese spies. How quickly the righteousness and forgiveness flows, right from the honeypot….
Your memory for lese majesty is quite selective and self-serving, to the point of ludicrous.
It all speaks to a return to Jesus Christ. 50/50 time period as half lawful / unlawful. Most fled the United States if they had the resources. That’s a form of rapture.
Bec. You’re going to have to speak American .. . if we’re all going to live as one.
Pls excuse my ignorance, I’m not familiar with the story of Swalwell consorting with Chinese honeypots? .. . I’d have to take a look at this ‘fang-fang’ before I could comment sensibly about honeypots.
Forget the ‘commie’ invasion, kiddo. Speaking as the ruler of a small country (Appalachia), whatever China is doing seems to be working! China’s trade surplus just hit a Trillion dollars (Yaun) a few weeks ago. Their ‘market-based economy’ really is the Hottest in the world.
China is building new Silk Roads around the world .. . while we dither with honeypots and anarchy.
*everybody wants to rule the world .. .
I do speak American—the kind of which spoiled, diseducated, young Americans, who can’t read history or write in cursive, need to be exposed. One of my aims here is to push the ignorant to their dictionaries and thesauri. It could help.
On a less wholesome note, the Swallwell-McBang-Fang sexcapade was an appalling chapter in exposing the underbelly-filth of congressional parasites like Eric, who keep getting elected despite the most dishonorable behaviors—goes to show the poor moral fiber in your voting bloc.
Astonishing that you don’t know the biography of Swallwell-McBang-Fang’s treason—goes to show how efficient your leftist politburo is, at keeping you ignorant and obedient.
dgsnowden replied Bec. You’re going to have to speak American .. . if we’re all going to live as one.
If you’re going to cosplay as being an informed American about Swalwell – or Trump – the first thing you’re going to have to do is sober up. That first – then go to sources other than the Democrats’ communist Young Turks for information before posting your defenses of Swalwell and other Democrats.
*dgsnowden wants to be taken seriously as he dreams of ruling Professor Turley’s blog.
Posse Comitatus does not apply to the National Guard, Further it does not limit the use of the military for law enforcemwnt where authorized by congress, and congress has through numerous laws authorized specifically that.
Further, Posse commitatus applies ONLY to the use of forces for Law enforcement.
It does not apply to many other uses – such as in response to natural disasters, acts of terrorism or the protection of federal property or personnel.
There are even exceptions that allow the military to be used for law enforcement under some circumstances.
Regardless, so long as forces are not used to arrest, search or detain, Posse comitatus does not apply.
Trump running for president in 2028 would violate the Constitution.
Both we, and he, know that. He says it, puts on a Trump 2028 hat to get dupes like you riled up. And you fall for it. Every time. Trump is playing you, just like he does MSM. It is fun to watch!
If this came to be, would you object?
It would not come to be and I would object if your absurd idea were too. Vance/Rubio 2028! Or Vance/Gabbard 2028!!
I would object. Under the 22nd Amendment he could not be elected even if he got 100% of the vote. His running would only take votes away from someone else who would be eligible to be elected.
OldManFromKS,
Well said!
Vance/Rubio 2028!
Or Vance/Gabbard 2028!! Two successful terms of Vance, then two for Gabbard. Put all those Democrats who said “This country is not ready for a woman president!” No. We are. Just not Hillary Clinton or Kamala Harris.
Upstate – what would you think of Vance/Trump? That is not constitutionally prohibited,* and having Trump on the ticket could be a similar kind of draw of voters – such as young men and minorities – that occurred in 2024.
*There is also no constitutional prohibition to Trump becoming president again if (God forbid) anything were to happen to Vance.
OldManFromKS,
I think we need new, younger blood. Like to see Trump go out with his usual pomp and flair and hand off the baton to the next generation to great fanfare.
Ron DeSantis and Ted Cruz
Grace Penn or Kate Wyler.
No way, Ted Cruz…or DeSantis.
Vance/Gabbard 2028
Old Man from Kansas, yes, it is prohibited. The constitution explicitly says that anyone ineligible to the presidency is also ineligible to the vice presidency. So no, there is no way that Trump can ever become president for even one minute after noon on Jan-20-2029, even if he wants to.
Even if the House were to elect him speaker, and the president and vice president were then to resign, he would only become ACTING president, never actually president. He’d have all the power of the president, but not the position. He’d be “Mr Acting President”.
milhousevh many people have constructed actual secnarious in which Trump could become president for a 3rd term.
The 22nd amendment precludes Trump from being ELECTED president for a 3rd term.
He can not run for president.
He can not run as Vice president.
But in theory he could be made speaker of the house and the president and VP could resign,
Or the president or vp could resign and Trump could be appointed VP and then the president could resign.
None of these or other complex scenarios are ever going to happen.
But it is great fun watching those on the left froth and fume at the possibility.
2028 is a long way away. But presuming little changed and the 22nd amendment was repealed.
Trump WOULD win in 2028 – and that is REALLY the issue.
Democrats Know that Trump is actually extremely popular – far more so than his polls indicate,
and he terririfies you.
No, John, in none of these scenarios can Trump ever be president again.
He can’t become vice president, whether by election OR appointment. So that’s out.
Even if the House were to elect him speaker, and the president and vice president were then to resign, he would only become ACTING president, never actually president.
Yes, if the 22nd were repealed then Trump would be a strong contender for a third term — as would have been Reagan, Clinton, and 0bama.
I would not need to. It will not come about.
Trump running for president in 2028 would violate the Constitution.
Trump, Obama or Bill Clinton running for president in 2028 would violate the Constitution. There, fixed your supposedly inadvertent oversight for you – and you’re welcome.
Meanwhile, to continue on with your chosen theme: in 2028, water will still be wet.
Clinton has never trolled by saying he’d run for a third term. Obama takes a different approach of saying, in effect, “I realize I can’t run for a third term, but I want a meat puppet in there so that it looks like someone else is president but I’m actually pulling the strings. I’m the one making the decisions.” That is much more sneaky that Trump, and equally unconstitutional. But Obama said it, did it, and got away with it, for four years.
No, what 0bama did was perfectly constitutional. A president is entitled to take anyone’s advice, including that of someone ineligible to the presidency. Except that he wasn’t pulling the strings in the Brandon administration. We’re still not clear on who was, but it wasn’t him. (It certainly wasn’t Biden.)
“No, what 0bama did was perfectly constitutional. A president is entitled to take anyone’s advice, including that of someone ineligible to the presidency. Except that he wasn’t pulling the strings in the Brandon administration. We’re still not clear on who was, but it wasn’t him. (It certainly wasn’t Biden.)
So first you say Obama was acting within the constitution, and then you say he was not ?
Biden was not competent to be president in 2016, he certainly was not in 2020.
Obama can only direct a competent ACTUAL president.
But if you wish to blame Obama for Biden’s disasterous 4 years – be my guest.
What OMFK suggested: that 0bama got around the 22nd amendment by having a meat puppet elected and pulling his strings, would have been 100% constitutional.
But the fact is that he wasn’t pulling Biden’s strings. Maybe he thought he would be, but in fact he wasn’t. Someone was, because Biden certainly wasn’t pulling his own strings, but it wasn’t 0bama.
Biden was not competent to be president, but competence is not a constitutional requirement. He was eligible, and the electoral college duly elected him, and that’s all the constitution requires. Whoever was advising him was acting within the constitution.
He is not running. He can not run, He can not get elected.
He is very effectively trolling you.
I do not support Trump running in 2028.
I 100% support Trump working left wing nuts into a lather by suggesting he will.
Lin said:
Currently pending in Congress is Senate Bill S.1952, the Protecting Law Enforcement from Doxing Act, “To amend title 18, United States Code, to establish a criminal prohibition on the public release of the name of a Federal law enforcement officer with the intent to obstruct a criminal investigation or immigration enforcement operation.” (it’s been held up to work on some language deemed to potentially conflict with First Amendment rights.)
This is interesting. To comply with 1A, I suppose the prohibition has to be limited to when the doxing is done with an intent to obstruct law enforcement.
I personally agree that people who dox federal agents to bring physical harm to them and their families, or interfere with law enforcement, have stepped outside of 1A’s protections. 1A is not absolute. For example, fraud, terroristic threats, and incitement to imminent lawlessness, are crimes, but they are done through speech. Disorderly conduct can also be done through speech known as “fighting words” which are outside 1A’s scope. Defamation is actionable at the state level, notwithstanding 1A, and it is done through speech.
Someone was saying the other day that 1A means defamation is never actionable because speech rights are absolute. But consider: if I hire someone to throw a brick through your business’s front window, causing you $10,000 in damage, you can sue me and recover your losses from me. But my hiring was done through speech. If a mob boss puts out a “hit” on someone, that is done through speech, but the mob boss has hired a hit man to kill someone. He can be criminally punished for solicitation to murder. Back to business harms: if I write a letter to the editor saying I personally saw you torturing puppies to death and, later, raping an 11-year-old girl, and your business suffers because your reputation is damaged: if I made it all up, you can sue me for defamation and recover the economic damages to your business. Is that any different than me hiring someone to throw a brick through your window, thereby causing economic damage to your business? Both are done through speech.
Isn’t already aiding and abetting?
OMFK
There are limits to the first amendment – nearly all are that some speech that is also conduct, and the conduct is criminal are not protected.
Defamation should not be a legitimate tort in the US, while it offends 1A the more important problem is that ultimately it is politicized arbitrary and caprecious.
I would happily toos all the defmation verdicts that I support to get rid of all the bad ones.
This isn’t just unconstitutional. It’s unserious.
Swalwell is engaging in pure performative defiance, the kind Turley has written about for years: promising actions that any first-year constitutional law student knows cannot survive contact with the Supremacy Clause. A governor does not get to arrest federal officers lawfully executing federal law, dictate their attire, or revoke licenses as political punishment. That theory of power died decisively in 1865.
What stands out isn’t the radicalism but the civic illiteracy. He speaks as if executive passion can override settled doctrine, as if McCulloch, Neagle, and Johnson are optional footnotes instead of foundational guardrails. That suggests not principled resistance but a basic failure to grasp federalism itself.
The irony, of course, is thick. Swalwell routinely accuses others of contempt for the Constitution while openly campaigning on its violation. George Wallace made the same error from the opposite direction. Demagoguery is not ideological—it’s what happens when constitutional limits are treated as inconveniences.
Turley has warned repeatedly about lawfare and performative governance. This is a textbook example: big promises, zero lawful authority, and guaranteed courtroom losses. It’s not leadership. It’s theater for an “age of rage.”
Perhaps Swalwell believes that, when addressing California voters, civil illiteracy is a feature not a bug, in the sense that it enhances one’s electoral prospects. I’ve yet to see any evidence that he’s wrong.
That’s a sharp way to put it Oldman, and I think it points to a deeper problem of civic formation.
We tend to talk about ignorance as a lack of information, when it’s really a lack of internalized limits. Being a citizen in a constitutional republic isn’t just about holding opinions or passions; it requires an understanding of where authority begins and ends—especially one’s own.
What Swalwell displays isn’t just poor judgment but the absence of that formation. He speaks as if power flows from moral certainty rather than from law, and as if office confers authority independent of constitutional structure.
If voters reward that posture, then yes—civil illiteracy becomes an electoral advantage. But the cost is that citizenship itself gets hollowed out. You end up with officials who don’t merely ignore constitutional limits—they don’t seem to recognize them as real.
That’s how a republic degrades without anyone formally abolishing it.
Olly – agreed, and well said.
Yes, what has happened identifies the swine.
OLLY,
Great comment. As put on full display with the massive fraud in MN and now in other states, leadership is not a trait of Democrats. All they have is theater for “rage.”
Upstate, I don’t think this is uniquely a Democrat problem—it’s a formation problem. Demagoguery appears wherever civic literacy collapses.
What’s often missed is that voters cannot demand what they’ve never been taught to recognize. The expectation that the electorate will “hold leaders accountable” assumes a level of civic formation that likely exists in only a small minority. Most voters don’t evaluate constitutional competence; they evaluate performance, tone, and perceived alignment with their immediate concerns.
In that sense, much of the electorate now resembles consumers rather than citizens—more like short-term tenants than stewards of a constitutional system. Leaders respond rationally to that reality. They perform for the audience they have.
One-party states make the pathology easier to see because there are fewer corrective forces. But the root issue isn’t ideology. It’s the erosion of citizenship itself.
So true, bullseye
Very well said, OLLY. Your comment is refreshing: calm, well-thought and well-worded, without the far too typical schoolyard-namecalling of commie, fascist, et al., and the related stylistics citing mommy, baths and enemies. Protected by the First Amendment, to be sure (with exceptions, albeit narrow: https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-1/fighting-words-hostile-audiences-and-true-threats-overview), but is not a calm, logical, civil statement more persuasive?
without the far too typical schoolyard-namecalling of commie, fascist, et al., and the related stylistics citing mommy, baths and enemies.
What a marvelous hat tip to your Russian heritage by ensuring you didn’t include the well-worn “MAGots” and other friendly Biden Democrat name-calling. And cleverly avoiding whether it begins in response to a post that’s all about name-calling and lying.
pbinca would be so proud of you!
I did not include MAGots because I was not aware of it. I read Professor Turley’s posts, and sometimes scan the Comments, but not always, and never in word by word detail, so am not versed on every negative, childish epithet. Regardless of which “side” the name-caller is on, the behavior, like references to ancestry despite native-born citizenship, tends to say more about the caller than the callee: https://www.psychmechanics.com/psychology-behind-name-calling/
In addition, listing every epithet, Democrat or Republican, conservative or liberal, or anything else or in between, would unfortunately likely make for a Comment longer than the post.
RussAmGirl says:I did not include MAGots because I was not aware of it.
Well if that’s actually true: welcome, on this, your very first day reading this blog! You’ll quickly get familiar with that and many other insulting terms you also aren’t yet aware of.
BTW, as a rookie, you are going to have to get in line behind some veterans here who like you, also cosplay as Official Internet Psychologists offering their expert professional analysis to the readers. However, you could try to gamble for first place by offering the residents of this blog your Internet Psychology Expert Analyst appraisal of Trump’s name calling!
Give it your best shot – swing for the fence by analyzing Trump’s insulting responses for everyone here!
Is it just Trump counterpunching when attacked with Democrat lies and insults rather than allowing the lies and insults to stand unchallenged?
Or do you (as a qualified internet expert on psychology) see a deeper mental problem?
If you’re easily offended, you are going to be no more comfortable here than you are going to be in Trump world or Obama/Biden/Swalwell/Democrat world.
Thank you RussAmGirl. Well said. The First Amendment protects speech, but self-government depends on citizens who can reason, restrain themselves, and persuade rather than merely provoke. Tone isn’t cosmetic—it’s part of what civic formation looks like in practice.
5150 him
Calling for a psychiatric hold isn’t an argument. The issue isn’t mental fitness—it’s constitutional authority
😂 I don’t think he’s competent Olly. It’s the idea of internalizing laws.
Really, Professor Turley, this is very easily resolved: tell Swalwell that all those illegal aliens are Russians, including about 5,000 students here legally, and he will lead the ICE parade:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2022/02/27/critics-reject-rep-swalwells-idea-to-expel-all-russian-students/
https://jacl.org/statements/representative-swalwells-calls-to-expel-russian-students-fails-to-learn-from-history
And by the way, did you hear the one about Christine Fang aka Fang Fang?
Good one. Swalwell, and the Democrats writ large, do have an extreme case, perhaps existential case, of ignorant hyper Russophobia. ..
None of this really matters to Swalwell. He is moving from democrat to demagogue
Professor Turley just started noticing his Democratic party, including those he identifies as close friends he admires such as Merrick Garland, are just now demagogues as being part of the Democrat party? Swalwell has finally attracted his noticing of Democrat demogogues?
How has he hung out making his living in the fetid environment of Washington DC for the last 15+ years and not noticed demagoguery is Democrat political strategy? Professor Turley voted for Obama TWICE – but never clued in that Obama was a deeply racist Democrat demagogue from practically his first day in the Oval Office? Nothing To See Here, Please Believe Me, Don’t Believe Your Lying Eyes™
Irrelevant. It doesn’t matter what one person’s party registration is. Since ballots are secret, we have no idea how he votes now. But regardless, what matters is the message, i.e., the issues raised in the above article. Talking about irrelevant characteristics of the messenger is a waste of time.
OldManFromKS,
Well said.
Fact is, the good professor is pointing out how far out of line and to the far left the Democrat party has become from their origins and from their own base. The DNC hired a company to do an assessment on the how and why they lost to Trump. I guess it was so bad the DNC chair is refusing to release the results. Reportedly it has many inside the DNC very upset.
You aren’t against ad hominem attacks when you make them yourself.
Speaking of irrelevant, I thought it was irrelevant for Professor Turley to bring up Swalwell’s voting attendance and his mocking a female senator — he should have simply focused on the constitutional issues surrounding Swalwell’s ICE related proposals.
I too would prefer a blog that stuck to the legal issues. But part of the article above is dedicated to showing that Swalwell is becoming increasingly unhinged. So it was arguably relevant in that sense.
Bottom line, although Professor Turley is a professor of law and not politics or psychology, his writings branch out into matters that are not strictly legal.
Irrelevant. It doesn’t matter what one person’s party registration is.
Claiming it is irrelevant while we’ve watched four years of how Professor Turley describes Trump and other Republican’s speech at times in comparison how he writes about Democrats like Jack Smith and his dear friend Merrick Garland, is a waste of YOUR time using the Democrat tactic of Nothing To See Here, Please Believe Me, Don’t Believe Your Lying Eyes™
You can believe that has absolutely nothing to do with how a person writes and criticizes those who are their friends/fellow members of their bar association, versus how they write to criticize those who are not. The opposite of damning with faint praise – saving with mild criticism.
A constitutional law professor simply can’t recognize when some of the actions of his Democrat associates are clearly criminal? You, like Professor Turley, also didn’t recognize that two Democrat Attorney Generals and three FBI Directors repeatedly perjuring themselves in FISA courts for fraudulent spy warrants was clearly criminal?
You, like Professor Turley, didn’t recognize that the later warrants obtained by Jack Smith et al under Arctic Frost were not criminal because you don’t believe they actually deprived hundreds of Americans of their civil rights by color of law?
You can believe that’s the reason why he can’t name them as criminal in all the columns he has published concerning just those two issues. I choose not to follow you down that road. Nor am I going to say that means there is nothing useful in his columns.
But, if you want to roll with that, I’ll point out where your vehicle is trying to run on obviously flat tires.
Your move… if you’re going to continue attempting to roll this way.
If ICE agents commit crimes, they should be arrested. How is this controversial?
If you’re talking about actual crimes, it’s not that controversial. But people like Swalwell define “committing a crime” to mean enforcing federal laws they disagree with.
If ICE agents commit crimes, they should be arrested. How is this controversial?
Rep. Eric Swalwell’s $1.2 million DC home target of DOJ mortgage fraud criminal referral
https://nypost.com/2025/11/13/us-news/eric-swalwells-1-2-million-dc-home-target-of-doj-mortgage-fraud-criminal-referral/
How is it NOT controversial when Eric “I banged Chicom Spy Fang-Fang” Swalwell desperately insinuates that ICE officers are actually criminals when they enforce federal laws in Kalifornia? All to deflect Democrat Useless Idiots’ attention from his own criminal indictments?
And how is it controversial that if Swalwell committed crimes, he should be referred for indictment and tried for those crimes?
Are you going to Democrat Deflect And Disappear now?
Because federal agents, while engaged in enforcing federal law, are not subject to state jurisdiction. A federal agent, who in the course of his duties shoots someone in Times Square in broad daylight, can’t be touched by state law enforcement; they must file a complaint with the FBI. Further, if any action is filed against him in state court, whether criminal or civil, he can have it removed to federal court. THAT is not controversial, it’s established law.