Tag Archives: presidential term limits

Time For Some Snarky Snippets!

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry

I’ve got a few bits of angst that need to be neutralized, and I can think of no better way than to share them with you, my friends!  No major rants here, just snippets of snark, though I will have a major rant soon, so be forewarned!  Here are just a few of the things that have raised my hackles this week and made me howl at the moon …

First, the one tidbit of good news …

“I’ve been on the bench for over four decades.  I can’t remember another case where the question presented is as clear as this one. This is a blatantly unconstitutional order.” – Senior U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour during his ruling to block Trump’s revocation of birthright citizenship.

Score one for We the People … let’s hope there are many, many more such victories over the evil in the Oval!

But meanwhile, back in the House of ‘Representatives’, Andy Ogles, a 2nd term representative from Tennessee, is also determined to change the Constitution to accommodate Felon Trump.  Ogles has proposed changing the 22nd Amendment to allow the Felon to serve a third term!  SHEESH!!!  🤬

I’m not too concerned about the success of his venture for a number of reasons.  First, it’s rather difficult to get an Amendment changed … Congress cannot do it alone.  Second, Felon Trump is unlikely to even finish his current term, as he is already showing signs of dementia and … and, the powers that be, such as the Heritage Foundation, already have plans to move on from the emotional megalomaniac unless he toes the line of Project 2025.  First time Trump refuses to do their bidding, I think the process to remove him will begin.  But as re Ogles proposal … funny thing about the way it’s worded … it’s written so that any president who served two consecutive terms will not be eligible for a third term, meaning that the far better President Barack Obama would not be eligible for a third term, only the Felon.  I sure hope the people of Tennessee wake up before 2026 and oust Mr. Ogles!!!

Oh, do you buy much fruit?  Better stock up now if you like oranges, lemons, limes, etc., for the California citrus harvest has come to a screeching halt.  The people who pick that fruit off of the trees for your enjoyment are scared to go to work, given that Felon Trump is threatening their very lives, so they are staying home rather than picking fruit.  90% of the citrus fruit sold in this country comes from California and is picked by migrant farm workers.  You know what this means, right?  For those who were bitching about the price of eggs, you will soon be bitching about paying $5 for a single lemon, and that’s if you can find one on the grocery shelves!

So, the old lecherous drunken former Fox ‘News’ talking head, Pete Hegseth, is getting his confirmation vote today.  At the preliminary vote yesterday, he barely cleared the bar, with two Republicans, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, voting against Hegseth’s confirmation.  My hope is that Mitch McConnell and at least one other will dig deep and find their conscience somewhere in their underwear drawer and also vote against Mr. Hegseth’s confirmation to the position of Secretary of Defense.  🙄

If anything happens to John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, or Dr. Anthony Fauci at some point in the future, their blood will be on Felon Trump’s hands.  He has revoked their security details, even though all three have been the subject of credible threats of harm and even death.  Why?  Because they have criticized him.  You criticize Herr Trump, and he throws you to a pack of hungry lions.  Bolton and Pompeo served as Trump loyalists during the Felon’s first term, until their consciences would no longer allow them to remain quiet.  Dr. Fauci probably saved more lives than anyone else during the Covid pandemic, and for this Trump and the Republicans have demonized him.  These three men and their families have received many death threats and need the security protection, but today their lives are in serious danger.  Will Trump care if one or more of them or their family members are killed.  Obviously not.  Let this serve as a warning for all those who think they are in Trump’s good graces today … one wrong word can change your status in the blink of an eye.

A Prescient Warning From 227 Years Ago

Posted on by under History, Law and justice, Political commentary, Social commentary

Yesterday, a timely article in History.com caught my attention.  It delved into George Washington’s farewell speech in September 1796, just prior to the end of his second term in office.  At that time, there were no term limits and President Washington could have run for a third term and likely won.  But he had been in poor health for some time, and he felt that if he sought a third term, then died in office, it would set a precedent that the presidency was a lifetime appointment.  His commitment was to democracy rather than power, and as it happened, he would have died in office had he sought a third term, for he died in 1799.

His farewell speech is lengthy, some 7,641 words, so I won’t replicate it here, but there are two parts that I think are extremely relevant today that I’d like to look at.

From the History.com article …

Importance of Unity

After opening with an explanation of his choice not to seek a third term, Washington’s farewell address urged Americans not to put their regional and sectional interests above the interests of the nation as a whole. “You have in a common cause fought and triumphed together,” Washington declared. “The Independence and Liberty you possess are the work of joint counsels, and joint efforts, of common dangers, sufferings, and successes.”

Regions such as North, South, East and West should see their common interests rather than their differences, he continued. “Your Union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty and…the love of the one ought to endear you to the preservation of the other.”

The ‘Worst Enemy’ of Government: Loyalty to Party Over Nation

According to Washington, one of the chief dangers of letting regional loyalties dominate loyalty to the nation as a whole was that it would lead to factionalism, or the development of competing political parties. When Americans voted according to party loyalty, rather than the common interest of the nation, Washington feared it would foster a “spirit of revenge,” and enable the rise of “cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men” who would “usurp for themselves the reins of government; destroying afterward the very engines, which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”

Some prescient warnings, don’t you think?  If only those who came after Washington had listened.

It Couldn’t Happen Here … Could It?

Posted on by under Election 2020, Free Press Issues, Global Issues, Law and justice, Political commentary

In Russia, the term for a president is twelve years (compared to four years in the U.S.), with a limit of two terms, or twenty-four years total.  But that may soon be changing … and no, not for the better.  Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is serving his 20th year as president, has announced his support for a constitutional amendment that would allow him to seek another two terms in the Kremlin.  This would mean that Putin could serve as long as 48 years in total and would be 95 years old when he finally stepped down from the throne.PutinThe proposal began in parliament, where a member of Russia’s ruling party, Valentina Tereshkova, proposed amending the constitution in a way that would reset Putin’s presidential term count back to zero, meaning Putin could run twice more for the presidency.

“I propose that we either lift the restriction on the number of presidential terms or indicate in an article of this bill that the incumbent president, just like any other citizen, has the right to run for president after the updated constitution takes effect.”

Parliament, of course, needed Putin’s approval to move forward with the proposed amendment, and he was more than happy to comply in a 30-minute speech before Parliament.

Now, I hear you saying, “So what?  We’ve got troubles enough here at home, so why should we worry about Russia?”  But now, I ask you to think back … how many times has Trump made statements like …

“He’s [Chinese President Xi Jinping] now president for life. President for life. No, he’s great. And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot some day.”

“The disastrous IG Report on James Comey shows, in the strongest of terms, how unfairly I, and tens of millions of great people who support me, were treated. Our rights and liberties were illegally stripped away by this dishonest fool. We should be given our stolen time back?”

Or this tweet he posted last summer …Trump-foreverSure, we have a Constitution that says he is limited to two terms.  So does Russia.  Sure, we have a Congress that would have to pass such a measure.  So does Russia have a Parliament.  Sure, we have safeguards in our system of checks and balances, separation of powers … or do we?   The system is only as good as those who enforce it … such as the likes of Attorney General William Barr.

As long as there is a democratic majority in at least one chamber of Congress, as there is at the moment, then no, I do not think it could happen here.  But, just ponder for a moment.  What if, as was the case for Trump’s first two years in office, there was a republican majority in both the House and the Senate?  And what if that majority was large enough to garner a super majority (67%) in both chambers?  Then are we so certain it couldn’t happen?  I’m not.

Our system works only so long as everyone agrees to abide by the law.  As we have seen over the past three years, Trump not only refuses to abide by the law, but openly flaunts it on a day-to-day basis.  Not only that, but he has loaded his administration with sycophants who will do his bidding, and is on a mission to purge any who might be given to an attack of conscience.

All of which points up the necessity … nay, the urgency … of the upcoming elections.  Vote to ensure that our laws, our Constitution, will hold, that the foundation will not crumble.  Vote as if your life depends on it … for just maybe it does.

This Is A Speech???

Posted on by under Environmental Issues, Global Issues, Political commentary

The Idiot-in-Chief spoke to a group of people outside of Pittsburgh yesterday.  We paid the costs for him to go there and give a speech, the title of which was “America’s Energy Dominance and Manufacturing Revival.”  The title is a joke anyway, for the U.S. in no way dominates energy, and in fact we are failing to do what we need to in promoting renewable energy over fossil fuel energy.  But, beyond that, the entire speech was a joke.  Let’s look at a few of the things he said … my own snarky remarkys are in blue.

On the supposed benefits of natural gas over renewable energy: “When the wind stops blowing, it doesn’t make any difference does it? Unlike those big windmills that destroy everybody’s property values, kill all the birds. One day the environmentalists are going to tell us what’s going on with that. And then all of a sudden it stops. The wind and the televisions go off. And your wives and husbands say: ‘Darling, I want to watch Donald Trump on television tonight. But the wind stopped blowing and I can’t watch. There’s no electricity in the house, darling.’”  Is it clear to everybody now that Trump has no conception of how wind and solar energy work, and that he is in the pockets of the fossil fuel industry?

On his love of trucks: “I love cranes, I love trucks of all types. Even when I was a little boy at 4 years old, my mother would say, ‘You love trucks.’ I do, I always loved trucks, I still do. Nothing changes — sometimes you know you might become president, but nothing changes — I still love trucks. Especially when I look at the largest crane in the world, that’s very cool. You think I’ll get to operate it? We’ll put the media on it and I’ll give them a little ride, right?”  This is relevant to anything … how?

On pundits suggesting he might not leave office willingly: “Can you imagine if I got a fair press? I mean, we’re leading without it; can you imagine if these people treated me fairly? The election would be over. Have they ever called off an election before? Just said, ‘Look just let’s go, go on four more years.’ You want to really drive them crazy? Go to #ThirdTerm, #FourthTerm — you’ll drive them totally crazy.”  Be afraid, my friends, for this is not the first time he’s alluded to overstaying his welcome.

On what Trump perceives as a trade imbalance with Japan: “They send us thousands and thousands — millions of cars, we send them wheat. Wheat. That’s not a good deal. And they don’t even want our wheat. They do it because they want us to at least feel that we’re OK, you know, they do it to make us feel good.”  This remark is just so utterly stupid that I’m left stuttering.  No nation is buying anything just to “make us feel good”!  We’re talking international trade, not a game of checkers!

On the price tag of the presidency: “This thing is costing me a fortune, being president. Somebody said, ‘Oh, he might have rented a room to a man from Saudi Arabia for $500.’ What about the $5 billion that I’ll lose — you know, it’s probably going to cost me, including, upside, downside, lawyers, because every day they sue me for something. These are the most litigious people. It’s probably costing me from $3 to $5 billion for the pleasure of being — and I couldn’t care less, I don’t care. You know if you’re wealthy, it doesn’t matter. I just want to do a great job.”  Trump is profiting “bigly” from being president!  First, he and his children travel all over the world at our expense.  Foreign dignitaries stay in Trump hotels when they visit the U.S.  And here’s one for you … just yesterday, an article in Politico said that the U.S. Secret Service had spent some $20,000 at a Trump hotel in Canada when they had to accompany Trump’s eldest son on one of his hunting trips.  Trust me, Trump is racking in the dough from this gig. He went on to ramble about such things as the Academy Awards, Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren, once again referring to Warren as “Pocahontas”.  It was, for all intents and purposes, naught more than a campaign rally, though it was intended to be a presidential speech at a new Shell facility that is nearing completion in Pittsburgh.  And here’s the kicker … he took credit for Shell building the facility, but Shell actually announced the facility back in 2012, when Barack Obama was president.  It had not a thing to do with Donald Trump.

The stock market is taking a hit today.  I wonder who he will manage to blame for that … Hillary Clinton?Shaub