It was a bit of a rollercoaster ride this week.
It is clear to me that neither the president nor vice-president understand the Constitution and the role of the judiciary. When the Vice President makes the statement that: “judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power,” (NY Times) It is clear that he does not understand that it is the judiciary which gets to decide what are legitimate powers!
Talk about either trying to confuse the issue or being ignorant of the Constitution.
And then the president called for impeaching a federal judge because a ruling didn't go his way. I loved Justice Roberts' response: “For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” he said in a statement. “The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.” (The New Republic)
I am greatly concerned about the deportation of Venezuelans without due process. And the president and vice president think this is OK. The 4th Amendment to the Constitution is pretty clear--this can't be done. And the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 probably does not apply in this case and even if it does, there are other requirements. One discussion, from the Brennan Center for Justice is as follows:
The president may invoke the Alien Enemies Act in times of “declared war” or when a foreign government threatens or undertakes an “invasion” or “predatory incursion” against U.S. territory. The Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the power to declare war, so the president must wait for democratic debate and a congressional vote to invoke the Alien Enemies Act based on a declared war. But the president need not wait for Congress to invoke the law based on a threatened or ongoing invasion or predatory incursion. The president has inherent authority to repel these kinds of sudden attacks — an authority that necessarily implies the discretion to decide when an invasion or predatory incursion is underway.
As the Supreme Court and past presidents have acknowledged, the Alien Enemies Act is a wartime authority enacted and implemented under the war power. When the Fifth Congress passed the law and the Wilson administration defended it in court during World War I, they did so on the understanding that noncitizens with connections to a foreign belligerent could be “treated as prisoners of war” under the “rules of war under the law of nations.” In the Constitution and other late-1700s statutes, the term invasion is used literally, typically to refer to large-scale attacks. The term predatory incursion is also used literally in writings of that period to refer to slightly smaller attacks like the 1781 Raid on Richmond led by American defector Benedict Arnold.
I think, and this is my opinion, that given the sense from Town Halls around the country that the electorate believes that Trump was elected to do something different than what he is doing and that the "mandate" he believes he has was far more limited that he understands. I believe that those who voted for him wanted him to lower prices and inflation and not start a global trade war, or withdraw support our allies around the world, or even cozy up to Putin. And as for reducing the Federal Government--I don't think mass firings instigated by a non-elected and not confirmed by the Senate billionaire were in the mandate.
And don't get me started on where our support for medical research is headed and the fact that there won't be a likely viable flu vaccine next year.
-- Bob Doan, Tequesta, FL
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