Where the Hell is the Congress?
Article I, Sec. 8 –
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
The Founders established a balance of power that limited the power of the Executive, the Legislative, and the Judicial branches. Until gerrymandering, the terminal cancer on democracy, the system worked well. Now, the legislative branch is fossilized, full of ignorant, corrupt morons who see their only job as keeping their job. In the House, the ruling party picks its constituents. In the Senate, protections of the minority have been stripped away. The resulting political Frankenstein is a Congress that literally does nothing, including setting international trade policy and war-making. Because of this abrogation of constitutional authority, our entire governmental stability now depends on the character and basic decency of the person sitting in the Oval Office.
And then came Trump. Because our system of government depends completely on the basic decency of the person occupying the office of president, as well as an adherence to over two centuries of tradition and custom, we’re not prepared to counter the actions of a president completely devoid of character and who is corrupt to the core. Combine that corruption with the abrogation of congressional authority, we are now completely exposed to the catastrophe that we witnessing today. The President of the United States, unchecked by offsetting institutions, is actively undermining longstanding alliances, destroying trade relations among allies, and advocating alliance with our biggest enemy, Russia.
And ALL of these actions by Trump and his enablers are based on lies. Our allies are NOT trading unfairly. The markets among the major economic powers are open and free. All trade agreements, at least before the regime of Cheeto Jesus, were openly negotiated. Trump is poking our longstanding allies in the eye for no other reason than propping up the support of his ignorant, mouth-breathing, bigoted base.
If our members of Congress don’t stand up on their hind legs and stop this lunatic, he’s likely do set off a global trade war…FOR NO REASON. Call your senator and congressman and tell them to stop screwing around and do their goddam job. Our democracy depends on it.
The repubs in texas are doing their goddamn jobs unfortunately!
1I live in MA. That should say it all…
2Apologies for beating the same drum repeatedly, but IMHO it’s at the core of this problem, and every other plague threatening our democracy.
3El Jefe, I agree with everything you’ve said about this. But it’s only become possible because of the infrastructure that the right has put in place over decades. Manipulating reality for the weak-minded by taking advantage of the massive expansion of media (social and traditional). It’s like Aaron Sorkin said in The Newsroom. People don’t just choose the news they want. They choose the reality they want. And the infrastructure is in place to provide just that. Remember Kellyanne and alternative facts? That was totally ridiculous to me. It should’ve been terrifying. This was a representative of the most powerful man in the world, on video, in front of the White House. Normalizing the process of changing reality.
And not with a sinister, threatening scowl. With a toothy, friendly smile.
I know it’s been talked about a lot. But not enough. It’s the mechanism by which democracy has been destroyed in the past, and if we don’t figure out a way to combat this defilement of our country, it’ll be the way Vlad the Donnie Impaler destroys our democracy now.
With an unhinged tweet-storm from Air Force One, Trump went nuclear on the G-7 nations that the United States has led for more than four decades and essentially declared open political war on America’s closest neighbor and long time ally Canada. The President’s behavior is alarming and the performance of well known war monger Navarro and super toady Kudlow today wasn’t just unnerving it was was downright frightening.
All the reports regarding the Trudeau news conference say he went out of his way to try to downplay tensions. He didn’t attack Trump in any way, other than to restate that Canada would retaliate for tariffs. So I’m not sure what Kudlow means when he says Trudeau “stabbed” US in the back or when Navarro consigns Trudeau to Hell. Frankly it smacks of Gaslighting.
Not that facts matter but in spite of what Trump says, tariff rates charged by our allies (G7 nations) are not massive. Average tariff rates charged by EU nations vs the US
USA: 1.6%
EU: 1.6%
UK: 1.6%
Italy: 1.6%
Germany: 1.6%
France: 1.6%
Japan: 1.4%
Canada: 0.8%
Source: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/TM.TAX.MRCH.WM.AR.ZS?end=2016&start=2016&view=bar
What I also know is that in 2016, Canada was the largest foreign supplier of crude oil to the U.S., accounting for 41% of total U.S. crude oil imports and for 20% of U.S. refinery crude oil intake. Maybe a trade war with our biggest supplier of oil benefits Putin but it doesn’t benefit us.
Conservative former PM, Stephen Harper had this to say on Fox today: “Canada is the biggest single purchaser of US goods and services in the world…This is the wrong target. And from what I understand of American public opinion, I don’t think even Trump supporters think the Canadian trade relationship is a problem.”
As to Republicans in Congress, I agree with Dan Pfeiffer, “SAD TWEETS ARE NOT CHECKS OR BALANCES!”
4Deb:
5Thanks for those stats.
And in regards to your first paragraph, the guests on Bill Maher’s latest show made a great point. Donnie Douchebag aka the Golgothan is destroying the world order we’ve cultivated in the decades since WW2.
Whether by sheer stupidity and arrogance, or as a result of the machinations of Vlad the Donnie Impaler, the results are the same.
Which benefits Vlad the Donnie Impaler.
6Smells like treason to me.
@ P.P.
The stench of treason is really strong in DC.
7Starting Tuesday Kimmy Jong-Un is going to roll Donnei Dinkydong up like a dung beetle rolls up a juicy stinky pile of bullshit.
8Donnei will be getting outfoxed by the vicious wily DPRK Doughboy, and the ROK’s and us are going to all get shafted.
The Red Chinese will reap some mighty strategic and economic bennies too. Let alone Vlad Putin and the Russkis.
I just heard Kim is only allowing 5 hours for the meeting on Tuesday and his return transport is set to leave Singapore.
9Perhaps once meeting a sitting president* has been accomplished & off his to-do, there could be something special in the water?
One could only wish he was as ‘kind’ to drumpf as he is to his own kin.
There was a short video showing a Fox talking head reporting on “the two dictators”. Maybe it was dubbed, but oh so delicious. The “special place in Hell” will be very crowded someday, becoming the eternal home for Trump, McConnell, Ryan, a host of viperous preachers, and others. One ring above would include the Evangelical voters. They are too stupid to be purposely evil.
10And the little “gift” to the Golden Gibbon outing his grandfather as the owner of a brothel he personally managed had nothing to do with the above referenced primate’s behavior on leaving for Singapore? Nah. The GG is the GG 24/7.
11@ Linda Phipps:
If it looks like a dict, acts like a dict and talks like a dict, it’s a dict.
12I is painfully obvious that Putin, the Puppeteer, is pulling Dump’s strings to get back into the G-8, alienate our closest allies and destroy the western economies with tarrifs. This is the quid for the quo: getting Dump “elected” president*.
13The Rethugs are doing just what you described: “..just keeping their jobs…” We are witnessing the last stages of our dying democracy and, short of a full fledged revolt, may ultimately see its demise.
@ maryellen,
I’m not so sure that ordinary citizens would be able to pull off a revolt. Although the one percenters are vastly outnumber, most of main street is too distracted just trying to survive in a gig economy and not angry enough to act…yet.
Perhaps more likely, a coup led from the inside by the secret keepers that understand that our democracy is threatened by it’s own leadership. Either way, something is going to give eventually.
There was an article a couple days ago, that Wall Street is not at all amused with Rump playing chicken with tariffs.
14If things proceed according to plan, we should soon see the dissolution of Congress by Twitler, who will then replace both houses with appointees. Watch for it, especially if the democrats can take back one or both houses this fall.
This is no longer a representative government; who the f**k needs representatives, amiright?
15El Jefe, all rhetorical questions considering this seditious Senate led by *itch McConnell. The jig was up the day they confirmed Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education.
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