UnPresident Sunday
From SNL last night. I liked it better than the Alec Baldwin/Vladimir Putin cold open skit which you can see here.
More drama over the Colorado electors who want to vote for someone other than Hillary or Trump. The 10th Circuit denied their Emergency Motion for Injunction Pending Appeal yesterday. Some are taking hope from a footnote about the 12th Amendment. The case is Baca v Hickenlooper, Tenth Circuit, Case No. 16-1482. [More...]
Plaintiffs argue that Colo. Rev. Stat. §1-4-304(5) violates Article II and the Twelfth Amendment by rendering electors superfluous. In making this argument, however, plaintiffs fail to quote any of these provisions of the Constitution. And, more importantly, they fail to point to a single word in any of these provisions that support their position that the Constitution requires that electors be allowed the opportunity to exercise their discretion in choosing who to cast their votes for.2 We conclude that this failure is fatal at this stage of the litigation ....By failing to point us to any language in the Constitution that would support their position, we conclude they have failed to meet their burden.3
Footnote 2:
Instead, plaintiffs point primarily to statements made by Alexander Hamilton in The Federalist No. 68. E.g., Dist. Ct. Docket No. 2 at 6; Emergency Motion at 10. Although we turn to external sources when unable to discern the meaning of the Constitution from its plain language, we begin our analysis with careful examination of the words used. Here, plaintiffs make no textual argument, at all.
Footnote 3:
This is not to say that there is no language in Article II or the Twelfth Amendment that might ultimately support plaintiffs’ position. See Ray v. Blair, 343 U.S. 214, 232 (1952) (“No one faithful to our history can deny that the plan originally contemplated, what is implicit in its text, that electors would be free agents, to exercise an independent and nonpartisan judgment as to the men best qualified for the Nation’s highest offices.” (emphasis added)). For example, there is language in the Twelfth Amendment that could arguably support the plaintiffs’ position. E.g., Michael Stokes Paulsen, The Constitutional Power of the Electoral College, Public Discourse (Nov. 21, 2016) (available at www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2016/11/18283/). But it is not our role to make those arguments for them.
My view: The electors will elect him, Congress will confirm his appointees. The only way to get rid of Donald Trump is by impeachment. The only way to stop his policies and block his agenda is by lawsuits.
There will be no unity here for UnPresident Donald Trump or his equally unqualified children, advisers and appointees. I expect him to fail on a massive level and I hope he does. He has irreparably divided and damaged our country with his campaign lies. His unprecedented boorishness, narcissism, lack of class, and incompetence will make America a laughing stock all over the world.
We used to be viewed as a beacon of liberty throughout the world. But Donald Trump follows the beacon of authoritarianism, militarism and oligarchs. His only achievement will be to drag our country into his infested swamp (and claim credit for anything good that happens, even when those things happen regardless of him, like some Carrier plant jobs staying in the U.S.)
The one thing every child learns about the Presidency by kindergarten is George Washington's "I cannot tell a lie." For the first time in history, we have a President elect who either doesn't know what the truth is or purposely tells lies. For the first time, we will be led by a man who instills shame rather than pride.
We have four long years to go before another election. It will take a generation, not four years, for America to recover from its Trump fiasco, if it does at all. During that time, the wealthiest of Americans, and companies that make military equipment and build prisons will get richer and everyone else will suffer. Millennials will get another chance during their lifetime (assuming his inexperience and ignorance don't cause the world the blow up.) Their parents, and baby boomers will not, if Republicans tinker with Medicare and Social Security.
Rather than spend my time or money trying to assist in rebuilding the broken Democratic party, I will support the organizations filing lawsuits against the UnPresident and his policies, like the ACLU and Center for Constitutional Rights, and immigrants and prisoners' rights groups. I will also support efforts by Congress to block his federal judicial appointees.
Donald Trump will never make America great. He will only make it toxic.
Added: Here's an interesting article in Salon about a linguistic study showing Trump's intelligence level and his allegedly false claims about his school grades.
Also added: Garrison Keillor: The damage that 80,000 Trump Voters in....
. And now we sit and watch in disbelief as the victor drops one piece of china after another, spits in the soup, sticks his fist through a painting, and gobbles up the chocolates. Not satisfied with the usual election-night victory speech, he stages a post-election victory tour and gloatfest, a series of rallies in arenas where he can waggle his thumbs and smirk and holler and point out the journalists in their pen for the mob to boo and shake their fists at. He puts the Secret Service through their paces, highways are closed, planes diverted, cities disrupted, just so the man can say how much fun it was to defeat Hillary Clinton....
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