Government By National Emergency Is Unethical

Over the past week, much has been written about the legalities of President Trump’s national emergency. The debate has focused on whether the president has the right to divert money that has already been appropriated by Congress and use it for his pet projects when legislators refuse to fund his requests. As the debate rages, much of the country seems so blinded by the legal forest that they don’t see the trees right in front of them.

There are two questions regarding the diversion of funds to subvert congressional intent with regard to the wall. The first question, the obvious one, is whether it is legal for President Trump to move money authorized by Congress from one account to another. A question that is perhaps more important is whether the president should divert the money, even if it is legal.

The question of legality is far from settled, but the letter of the law seems to contradict Trump’s purposes, at least with regard to the military construction funds where much of the $8 billion for the wall is slated to be taken. There is also the constitutionalist view that Congress is not permitted under the Constitution to delegate its legislative duties to the president. Nevertheless, right now, I’d like to look past the question of legality, which is unlikely to be settled before Trump leaves office in 2020, and focus on the ethical question at hand.

When President Trump announced his declaration of emergency last week, he said, “I didn’t need to do this.” That’s a true statement.

As I’ve pointed out before, there is no national security crisis from illegal immigration. Illegal border crossings are near a 50-year low and, despite a few high-profile cases, the evidence is that on average immigrants, both legal and illegal, commit fewer violent crimes than native-born Americans. The government’s own data show that the 90 percent of drug shipments come through ports of entry rather than across the unfenced borderlands. The Trump Administration has not produced any firm evidence of terrorists crossing the border illegally and the statistics that the Administration has cited show that more suspected terrorists were apprehended crossing from Canada than Mexico.

Isn’t it unethical to declare a national emergency when there isn’t one just because you believe it would provide you with a loophole to achieve your policy goal? Republicans would certainly answer in the affirmative if Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton had used the tactic.

So why did he do it?

There seem to be two answers to that question. The first is that Trump’s own base was beginning to fracture after the president’s miscalculation on the government shutdown. Trump lost leverage and was handed an ignominious defeat with the compromise funding bill. The president had no choice but to sign the bill, but his base was still angry at the fact that he caved. Trump needed a gesture to show the base that he was still a fighter.

The second reason was simply to “own the libs.” In the absence of great legislative successes, the Republican raison d’etre has become triggering the left for the sake of making Democrat heads explode. Never mind that owning the libs makes it more difficult to bridge the partisan divide and less likely that Republicans can entice Democrats to cross the aisle to pass good legislation for the betterment of the country, these days it’s all about feeding red meat to the base and retweeting the latest Twitter takedown.

While President Trump’s emergency declaration was a move that was destined to be popular with the base, it does lasting damage to what is left of Mr. Trump’s credibility. By signing a spending bill that he had no intention of abiding by, the president failed to act in good faith. In addition to ensuring that no congressional Democrats will ever trust President Trump again, the president’s actions undercut the efforts of serious Republicans to achieve workable compromises as well. Whether Republican negotiators were aware of the White House’s subterfuge or not, Democrats will assume that they were complicit and the incident will have a chilling effect on future negotiations. It is likely that no more significant legislation will come through Congress until after the 2020 elections, almost two years away.

Further, it was clearly not the intent of the Framers that the president should abuse his emergency authority to subvert the will of the people and their elected representatives in Congress. Trump supporters will answer that Donald Trump won the election. That’s true, but he did so while losing the popular vote. That hardly represents a clear mandate from the people to build the wall or do anything else except not be Hillary. At any rate, winning an election does not entitle a new president to a blank check.

This argument also conveniently forgets that Republicans lost the most recent election. The drubbing that the party received in the House during the 2018 midterms was due in large part to the Trump Administration’s heavy-handed immigration policies. Mr. Trump’s final argument prior to the 2018 elections was fearmongering about migrant caravans. Voters rejected this line of appeal. Notably, many of the seats lost by Republicans last year were in states on or near the southern border.

Since the 2010 Tea Party wave, Republicans have preached the line that the House of Representatives holds the purse strings of government. It took just over a month of Democratic control of the House to have President Trump’s GOP decide that House appropriations were superfluous to the business of spending money on something that they wanted. The Republican attempt to free themselves from constitutional restrictions when they held Democrats to those same limitations is unethical on its face. Another word that applies is “hypocritical.”

The precedent that Trump is trying to set here is arguably much more damaging to the country than anything that the Democrats are proposing. Seventy percent tax rates can be lowered and the Green New Deal could be repealed, but presidential power grabs are forever.

A final defense offered by some Republicans is that the Democrats would do the same thing if they had the chance. This is a perverted version of the Golden Rule that could be summed as, “Do unto others before they get the chance to do unto you.” This argument has nothing to do with the Constitution or the rule of law or ethics. This is the law of the jungle where it’s kill or be killed. The problem with this logic is that Democrats didn’t take the chance when they had it.

The strategy of fomenting a national emergency to advance a policy goal is closer to the philosophy of Rahm Emanuel, who never let a crisis go to waste but who also never faked one, than to the Founding Fathers. If the best that Republicans can offer is an unconstitutional and unethical course of action, then the Grand Old Party can no longer call itself a party of law and order or respect for the Constitution. If Republicans insist on attempting to push through funding for the wall based on President Trump’s emergency order then they are just as lawless and lacking in character as the Democrats.

In a case of destroying the village to save it, the GOP has become what it hates, a party that is willing to twist the meaning of the law and push the boundaries of propriety to further its aims. As Walt Kelly wrote in the classic comic strip, Pogo, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

Originally published on The Resurgent

Two Quotes That Show How Much The Parties Value Character

The past week laid bare the deepest motivations of many people in American politics. While both parties claim to be the champions of morality and virtue, people paying attention were disabused of the notion that either party is more concerned with character than votes.

On Friday, Kate Harding, a self-described “feminist and the author of a book on rape culture,” wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post offering a partisan defense of Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.). Harding doesn’t defend Franken’s bad behavior. Instead, she defends his political affiliation.

“It would feel good, momentarily, to see Franken resign and the Democratic governor of Minnesota, Mark Dayton, appoint a senator who has not (as far as we know) harmed women,” Harding writes. “If I believed for one second that Franken is the only Democrat in the Senate who has done something like this, with or without photographic evidence, I would see that as the best and most appropriate option. But in the world we actually live in, I’m betting that there will be more. And more after that. And they won’t all come from states with Democratic governors and a deep bench of progressive replacements. Some will, if ousted, have their successors chosen by Republicans.”

Yes, you heard that correctly. Harding is openly admitting that the only reason that she doesn’t want to see Franken punished is that it would set a precedent in which other Democrats, ones who might be replaced by Republicans, might also be forced to resign.

Harding’s position is obviously partisan and hypocritical, particularly from a feminist in the party that five years ago claimed that Mitt Romney and Republicans were waging a “war on women.” What is shocking is how blatant Harding’s hypocrisy is. In her world, political affiliation means more than justice for women who were harassed or abused by Democrats. Republicans rightly denounced the political calculations of Democrats like Harding.

But wait, as they say, there’s more!

The very same day, at the same moment that Republicans were denouncing Kate Harding’s hypocrisy, the Republican governor of Alabama was making a remarkably similar statement. “I believe in the Republican Party, what we stand for, and most important, we need to have a Republican in the United States Senate to vote on things like the Supreme Court justices, other appointments the Senate has to confirm and make major decisions,” Gov. Kay Ivey (R) said on AL.com. “So that's what I plan to do, vote for Republican nominee Roy Moore.”

At the same time, Ivey acknowledged that the allegations made against Moore were credible. “I certainly have no reason to disbelieve any of them,” she said. “The timing is a little curious. But at the same time, I have no reason to disbelieve them.”

Ivey says that she believes in what the Republican Party stands for, but what does the party stand for if it refuses to condemn a man who is credibly accused of molesting a 14-year-old girl and harassing numerous others? It seems that what the new Republican Party stands for is electing Republican candidates at all costs.

Republicans and Democrats finally have found something that they can agree on. They both believe that party politics trumps concerns about character. Unfortunately for the rest of the country, the point of agreement found by the two parties will only serve to further divide the country.

Democrats and Republicans stand united in their hypocrisy. Both seem only too willing to compromise their core beliefs in order to support politicians that represent what they purport to hate. Any man who forces himself on a woman would be rightfully condemned by the left… as long he isn’t a Democrat official. The right would be ready to castrate a 30-year-old man who cruised malls trying to pick up teenage girls… as long as he wasn’t a Republican candidate.

In a perfect world, our politicians would be held to a higher standard than the people they govern. In the real world, the two parties excuse their own members by pointing to the bad behavior of those on the other side. It is a race to the bottom in which both sides claim, “Your pervert is worse than ours.” The truth is that when feminists back misogynists and Christians support an alleged child molester, they have already lost, regardless of whether their candidate wins. 

Originally published on The Resurgent

Time to step back from the brink

With this morning’s shooting at the congressional practice field in Virginia, it is fair to say that our political discourse has finally sank too low. After watching rhetoric on both sides become more incendiary and violence slowly escalate over the past few years, someone has really gotten hurt.

Not bruises, broken bones or damaged pride either. Congressman Steve Scalise (R-La.) or the other people at the practice, including the security officers, could have been killed. That was apparently the aim of the attack.

The Washington Post has identified the shooter as James T. Hodgkinson, 66, of Belleville, Ill. Hodgkinson was a campaign worker for Bernie Sanders whose Facebook page allegedly features a post that reads, “Trump is a Traitor. Trump Has Destroyed Our Democracy. It’s Time to Destroy Trump & Co.”

Political violence is not new to this country. We fought a War Between the States over our political differences. Groups like the Ku Klux Klan used violence and intimidation to further their political aims. There have been assassinations, from Abraham Lincoln to Huey Long. Radical anti-war groups in the 1960s used bombings to further their political aims.

In the last half-decade, things seemed to change. We have enjoyed a relatively peaceful period. There was violence against political figures, but for the most part, it was the work of the mentally ill, not political assassins. The attempted murderers of Ronald Reagan and Gabrielle Giffords were both crazy, not trying to make a political point.

While it is still too early to say for sure, the baseball field shooting feels different. The shooter reportedly asked which team was playing, the Republicans or the Democrats, before opening fire. If the reported Facebook posts are accurate, there seems to be a clear motive for the attack.

There will be plenty of anger against the liberal media and Democrats for stoking the fires of Hodgkinson’s anger. At this point, those charges seem to be legitimate. Much of the reporting about the Trump Administration has been sensationalist and over-the-top. The problem is that the liberals aren’t the only ones to blame.

Both sides are guilty of whipping up the anger of the base with outrage-of-the-day styles of reporting that focus on the most extreme and offensive actions of the opposition. For every action, there is an equal and opposite overreaction.

Hodgkinson’s Facebook post was repeated almost verbatim on many right-wing timelines over the past eight years. Just substitute “Obama” for “Trump.”

Liberals stage a play depicting the assassination of President Trump. Conservatives circulated internet picture of President Obama with his head in a noose. Liberal protesters riot and stop traffic. Conservative protesters stage armed revolts and occupy a federal building in Oregon and engage in standoffs with law enforcement on federal land. Businesses destroyed by riots had it coming according to the leftist narrative, but so did reporters and protesters who get beat up, if you listen to those on the right. President Trump is a Russian traitor? President Obama is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, so there!

The two sides barely even talk anymore. We listen to different media, read different newspapers and websites. We focus on our differences and they become magnified.

Originally published on The Resurgent

As David French recently wrote, we seem to be headed for a national divorce. If we really love our country, we need to look at what a spouse would do to prevent a divorce. Look to find the good in our political opponents. Look for common ground instead of nitpicking. Realize that we aren’t going to get everything on our political wish lists. The alternative is likely to be more political violence and national divorce that is unlikely to come amicably. 

Republicans and the problem of moral relativism

During the presidential campaign, a major theme of Donald Trump’s campaign was the corruption and bad judgment of Hillary Clinton. Trump frequently referred to “Crooked Hillary” and promised to “drain the swamp” of Washington, D.C. Trump’s supporters were enraged by the lies and crony capitalism emanating from Foggy Bottom and thrilled to the promises of reform.

Then came the last two weeks.

The president summarily fired the director of the FBI, admitted on national television that the firing was at least partly due to the Russia investigation, and then was alleged to have told visiting Russian diplomats that Director Comey was a “nut job” and that getting rid of him relieved “great pressure.” On top of that, government sources charged that President Trump relayed classified information on an “ad hoc” basis.

Suddenly everything seemed to change with even casual supporters of the president. The battle cry changed from “drain the swamp” to “Hillary was worse.” In other words, the pro-Trump argument has shifted from the claim that he is a reformer who can clean up Washington to the claim that his actions are not any worse than the actions of the woman he called “Crooked Hillary” or President Obama. Talk about lowering the bar.

The pro-Trump right isn’t the only faction that has shifted. The anti-Trump left has also flip-flopped on a number of issues from resetting relations with Russia to whether James Comey should be fired. In fact, it has been both amusing and disheartening to watch my pro-Trump friends and liberal friends shift 180 degrees in their political views.

This really isn’t new. Liberal dogma often shifts with the changing winds of who is in office. As a case in point, consider their support for Bill Clinton’s war against the Serbs and attacks against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. The Democrat Party became anti-war after many of its members voted to authorize George W. Bush to use military force and against Saddam and then became pro-war again when President Obama decided to hesitantly intervene in Libya.

It isn’t new for Trump Republicans either. It was only under Donald Trump that Republicans came to support tariffs over free trade, increased infrastructure spending, a childcare entitlement, universal healthcare, and higher taxes. The party of the Trump Republicans supports Donald Trump when he calls for the US to end nation building and put America first, but also applauds when he launches a symbolic, ineffective, one off strike on Syria and then moves on to other issues. The double standard of Trump supporters, especially those who professed to be Christian, was readily apparent in the campaign as well.

When Democrats shift with the prevailing winds on issues, conservatives like to call them “hypocrites.” When the shifting party is one that claims to be Christian and moral, another phrase applies as well: “moral relativism.”

Moral relativism is essentially situational ethics. Rather than believing that something is objectively right or wrong, regardless of the circumstances, moral relativists believe that an act, such as firing a subordinate who is doggedly pursuing an investigation, for example, can be right or wrong depending on the circumstances. Or depending on does it.

At one point, President Trump himself openly took this line of defense, exclaiming on Twitter, “With all of the illegal acts that took place in the Clinton campaign & Obama Administration, there was never a special counsel appointed!” As a parent, I hear this tweet in my children’s voices as they whine, “He/she didn’t get in trouble when she did it!”

Does anybody really think that Republicans would not throw a screaming hissy fit if Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama had fired James Comey as he was investigating Hillary’s private server? If a Democrat had referenced “the email thing” in the firing, most conservatives would be calling for his or her impeachment… if not their heads. There are a myriad of other instances, such as considering halting press briefings or jailing reporters that Trump supporters either justify or dismiss out of hand.

How about if a Democrat president had revealed classified information to the Russians? Before you answer, think back to how some conservatives accused Hillary of treason for discussing nuclear response times in one of the presidential debates.

A pro-Trump friend recently posted the video of President Obama telling Putin lackey Dmitry Medvedev, “This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.” The same friend is totally unconcerned about the myriad of links to Russia and Putin surrounding the Trump campaign.

The Trump supporters seem to discount anything negative about the president as “fake news” even when the Trump Administration openly acknowledges the truthfulness of the information. Michael Flynn admitted to lying about communicating with the Russians and was fired for it. President Trump acknowledged in tweets that he gave information to the Russians. Sean Spicer did not dispute New York Times claims that Trump told the Russians that Comey was a “nut job” whose investigation put “great pressure” on him. The fake news label used by the president gives his supporters the excuse they need to rationalize or deny his bizarre behavior.

In moral terms, it is like the excuse that you gave your parents that [insert forbidden behavior here] is okay because “everyone else is doing it.” Your mother probably answered that with the quip, “If everyone else jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?”

If Hillary and Obama are corrupt, does that mean it’s okay if Trump is corrupt too? Do we want a corrupt Republican or do we want something better? If you’re a Republican who excuses Trump and argues against holding him accountable, then you don’t want to drain the swamp. You just want to fill it with snakes of a different stripe.

In Christian terms, right and wrong are objective, not subjective. That applies to politics as well. If it is wrong for Barack Obama to fire the FBI director to impede an investigation (and it is, just so there is no question), then it is equally wrong for President Trump to do so. If national security is harmed by Hillary Clinton leaking classified information to the Russians, then the same standard applies to Donald Trump. If it is wrong for Hillary and Obama to insult their political opponents, then ditto for President Trump.

When the Republican defense of Donald Trump is “Hillary did it too,” they have already lost the argument for reform. At this point, the argument is merely a partisan squabble over whose corrupt politician should be at the national helm.

At some point, many Republicans will realize that Trump’s behavior is too outlandish, too corrupt for them to support. Meanwhile, a majority of conservative activists, many of them professing Christians, who spent the last eight years talking about the need to stand up for principles, are now twisting themselves into knots trying to justify the words and actions of a man whose words and actions are totally inconsistent. The Trump partisans seem to be standing up for a person, rather than principle.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Clinton and Obama Realize the Truth About Taxes

WASHINGTON — Both Democratic presidential candidates, who promise to curb the influence of corporate lobbyists in Washington, helped enact narrowly tailored tax breaks sought by major campaign contributors.
-USA Today


USA Today is reporting that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both used their influence as senators to win tax breaks for companies in their home states. The revelation that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama passed tax breaks for their contributors is proof of the fact that their desire to raise taxes would be harmful to the country.

Obama's campaign had it right when they said that tax breaks "lower costs for customers and create jobs." If they trule believe that to be the case, then why not allow the whole country to reap the benefits instead of select companies in their home states?

If tax breaks create jobs and lower costs, then tax increases must eliminate jobs, raise costs, and generally be bad for consumers. To raise taxes or let the Bush tax cuts expire would cause the economy to shrink and raise the chances of a recession.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-02-25-tax-breaks_N.htm