September 20, 2021
Democrat leaders in America no longer believe in the rule of law.
President Donald Trump appointed three justices to the United States Supreme Court. Democrats are not happy about that. I was not happy watching then President Barack Obama appoint two justices that don’t share my judicial philosophy either. However, it never occurred to me that extraordinary action should be taken to negate the impact of Obama’s picks. I believe in the system.
Many on the left are unwilling to accept the fact that as president, Donald Trump had the right to appoint justices. Consequently, they want to increase the number of sitting justices so they can “pack the court” with leftist justices. In other words, when their team is winning, great! When their team is losing, then change the rules.
Reconciliation is a parliamentary procedure used by Congress to expedite passage of certain budgetary legislation in the U.S. Senate. The filibuster rule does not apply to the reconciliation process, so the legislation can be passed by a simple majority. The filibuster cannot be invoked. Reconciliation can be used on one spending, one revenue, and one debt limit bill each year. Reconciliation is supposed to have very limited scope and application.
Senate Democrats are now arguing that reconciliation should be used on the $3.5 trillion garbage bill that deals with numerous topics, including a path to citizenship for illegal aliens. This argument does not pass the straight-face test. However, the Democrats are not deterred. The proper method for passing legislation is getting in their way, so they should just be able to ignore it.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley allegedly went around President Trump to promote his own foreign policy objectives with China. This is wrong on so many levels that it is hard to know where to start. So, let’s just hit the big one. Our Constitution provides for civilian control of the military. The President of the United States is Commander in Chief. This structure is very important. It makes the people with the powerful guns accountable to the people with votes. Milley apparently sees this as a minor inconvenience, and believes it is just fine to circumvent the authority of the President of the United States.
Every single elected official and commentator should be outraged by Milley’s actions, if proven to be true. But no! All kinds of people within the Democratic power structure say that what Milley did was just fine, maybe even virtuous. They don’t like Donald Trump. Therefore, anything anybody does to thwart Donald Trump’s agenda is just fine. The rules don’t matter.
This is a terrible trend. One of the first things we used to teach in government class is that America is a government of laws, not a government of men. This is one of the things that separates us from the banana republics out there. If we are to live up to this standard, we must all be willing to accept outcomes we don’t like without attempting to throw out the rules to get our way. It is disturbing to me that many of our elected officials don’t support this basic tenet of American government.
This is so dangerous and wrong. What can we do before the next election?