I frequent another blog, well worth the visit; called LEGAL INSURRECTION run by Professor William A Jacobson of Cornell Law School. Yeah, Ivy League; but he really is one of the good guys and has been a major thorn in the side of faux-Cherokee Democrat Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren.
Professor Jacobson has been talking about Obama’s claim today of Executive Privilege to protect Reichsjustizminister Holder from subpoena’s concerning the “Fast and Furious” supplying of guns to the Mexican drug cartels by the US government. Dr. Jacobson thinks it is merely a stall to get Obama through to the election. I am far more cynical by nature.
So I answered. But I think that the Citizens of the Empire might be as cynical as I am. So I thought I would post a version of it here.
Those who think that the claim of Executive Privilege is only a stall till the election are in denial. They are assuming that we have a functioning Constitutional system and something approximating a rule of law. We have been forced outside that, and this latest act makes it clear if we will but see.
Step back, and look at the sequence of events in the notational “Republic of Liberty”.
1) A president of the “Socialist Workers’ Party” [SWP] is elected. Said president’s background is murky, unexamined, and a combination of a unanimously pro-SWP media and a less than enthusiastic Opposition Party that is more concerned with Political Correctness and preserving its own privileges leads to a refusal to seriously vet the SWP candidate. Amongst the things that remain unexamined are his constitutional qualifications to be president [ see MINOR v. HAPPERSETT, 88 U.S. 162 (1874) 88 U.S. 162 (Wall.) See 23rd paragraph, counting 1-sentence paragraphs, beginning “The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens.”]. His very birthplace is in question; with at least one foreign country claiming the honor, his birth certificate in the US being first concealed, then a version that was an obvious forgery being released, then the state of his purported birth [totally controlled by the SWP] passing a law making it a state secret and a felony to release the original long form birth certificate.
From his own writings, during a period of foreign residence as a child, he attended a school that by law was only open to that country’s nationals. And by those same writings he may have traveled on the foreign country’s passport; said passport requiring swearing full allegiance to the country and no, there is no dual-citizenship possibility under either Liberty or the foreign nation’s laws.
2) His secondary education was at schools in political subdivisions under the long-term control of the SWP, and which schools themselves have been under the long-term control of the SWP. All of his records there have been classified and will/can not be released. In his undergraduate schooling, NO ONE from his major field remembers him being there during the years of his supposed attendance. He has no friends or acquaintances from that time, no known sexual partners of either gender [at the time when hormones are raging], either serious or casual, and no one even falsely claiming to have known him, even after he became famous and powerful.
3) His graduate education is classified, except for the curriculum vita released on his resume, with no corroborating information. He is documented to have used a number of Social Security Numbers, none of which are registered to him.
4) His following career was in politics, or SWP politics-connected endeavors. This entire time [including his time as a legislator in a SWP controlled state] is classified and no corroborating details can be found.
5) When running for President, he was the first to refuse to be limited by campaign finance laws, his campaign funding apparatus deliberately disabled the donor verification software for electronic donations, and he was shown to have taken large amounts of money from nationals of hostile foreign nations in violation of the law. At the same time the SWP made a concerted effort to insert false voter registrations into the voting system nationwide. None of this was covered by the national media, which is controlled by the SWP. During the voting, armed thugs supporting him were outside polling places threatening those who would vote for his opponent. They were charged, and convicted, of felonies after the election. However AFTER conviction and before sentencing the president’s administration dropped all charges and freed them. Thus validating and approving of such intimidation.
6) The Opposition Party chose a candidate who was known primarily for being the SWP’s best friend in the Opposition Party. He did not make any real attempt to win, or protest the SWP candidate’s illegal acts. His one positive move was selecting a running mate who inspired the Opposition Party. His, and his Party’s, reaction was to turn on the running mate and join in the SWP’s attacks on her.
7) The SWP’s candidate was elected. It is interesting that the Oath of Office was botched. There is even question as to whether he properly swore the Oath and is bound by it.
8) One of his first acts was to overturn centuries of commercial law and seize the two largest automakers in the country from the stockholders who owned them, void the rights of their secured creditors, and turn them over to his supporters and in one case a foreign company. And to subsidize them from the national treasury. And to decide their production and marketing.
9) After a long legislative battle, of highly dubious constitutionality, he seized 1/6 of the private economy for the government. There is a court battle that has climaxed, and a Supreme Court decision is expected at any moment.
10) There has not been a constitutional budget passed as per law, before the spending, for his entire term. His party controls the Upper House of Parliament and refuses to pass one. The government is financed by chicanery and printing money outside the control of the legislative branch. In the process, the president has done more deficit spending than the sum total of the entire country’s history before he took office.
11) In the last week he has asserted the power to overturn and refuse to enforce duly passed statutes by decree. There has been neither vocal nor legal resistance to this arrogation of absolute power, including from the Opposition Party leadership. In the latest polling, he is below 50% approval rating and in many cases behind his likely election opponent.
12) Now, when his Chief Law Enforcement Officer is under subpoena by a committee of the Lower House of Parliament for documents relating to a series of felonies by his agents that resulted in deaths of US and foreign nationals, when the evidence revealed so far goes up to the Chief Law Enforcement Officer’s immediate subordinates and may well go above him; the president claims the unilateral right to withhold the documents from investigators on his own word, despite prior attacks on that concept.
With all due respect; if you were a Political Science professor presenting this scenario to your students for analysis, would you be sure, absolutely sure, that the president in question and his supporters were merely thinking all they care about is pushing the bad news off until after the election.? Or would it not be rational for any student of political science and the history of the mankind for the last few centuries to consider that there was a measurable, and not inconsequential, likelihood that this notational president does not intend to obey the constitution or the law and ever permit the risk of losing an election?
After you return from this little Gedankenexperiment, Constitutional DEFCON’s may be changed as you deem appropriate.
LC Subotai Bahadur, Lord Pao An