Monthly Archives: November 2020

Some Thoughts on Europe’s Defense

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French President Emmanuel Macron has one and so does German Chancellor Angela Merkel (through her Defense Minister, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer). And so do I.

Macron strongly favors a Europe that is strategically autonomous in its defense. After all, he notes (OANN‘s paraphrasing),

the United States would only respect a Europe that was more self-reliant in defence.

AKK, on the other hand, says that (again, OANN‘s paraphrasing)

Europe [will] remain dependent on Washington for its defence for a long time to come.

They’re both right, although Merkel/AKK is a bit pessimistic. It will take some time for the member nations of the European Union and for the EU as a whole to make the necessary adjustments for a Macron-esque defense autonomy, but it shouldn’t take as long as Merkel envisions. That simply requires more commitment to Europe’s own responsibilities than currently exists.

The US can, and should, do everything we can to support European defense (and that includes a newly freed from the EU Great Britain), but we should not—we cannot—take on Europe’s responsibility in their stead; they must act on their own responsibility. All we can do is stand with them.

An Adjacent Issue

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A group wants to paint the message “Black Pre-Born Lives Matter” on a street outside a Planned Parenthood site near Capitol Hill in DC. The city’s government has refused to issue the necessary permit, and police arrested two folks who tried just to chalk the message rather than paint it. The group now has sued in Federal court over the refusal and subsequent prevention of painting; the suit reads, in pertinent part,

Your original decision to paint “Black Lives Matter” on the street is government speech. However, your decision to allow protestors to paint “Defund the Police” opened the streets up as a public forum. You are not permitted to discriminate on the basis of viewpoint in making determinations relating to public assemblies in public fora[.]

That raises the adjacent issue. Government speech wants citizen speech in answer, also, or what’s a First Amendment for?

Tyranny and the First Amendment

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On the matter of Target’s initial attempt to ban a book (Irreversible Damage: the Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters for those following along) because some folks objected to it, followed by Target’s reversal and decision to sell the book after all, a letter-writer published in The Wall Street Journal‘s Thursday Letters had this remark:

Lobbying the government to make a book illegal is pro-book banning. Lobbying Target to take a book off the shelves is pro-capitalism.

This is not even close to correct. Lobbying Target to take a book off the shelves is suppression of speech, even when done by private citizens.

Not buying the book is capitalism. Encouraging one’s fellows to not buy the book—boycotting the book—is capitalism.

Demanding the book not be sold denies others those same choices, along with denying them their opposing choice to buy the book. That’s at the core of tyranny.

Rule By Law

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Rather than Rule of Law, which is how we do things here.

The men and women of the government of the People’s Republic of China change the nation’s laws whenever convenient to their personal aims and whenever convenient to their personal power. This is how those men and women have acted, have preserved their power, since the beginning of the days of Chinese emperors.

Two current examples: their enactment in 2017 of an intelligence cooperation law that requires all PRC companies, whether state-owned or “private,” to cooperate with any intelligence community request for information, including about any company affiliate or customer wherever in the world that affiliate or customer might be.

There’s also the just-enacted law that permits the PRC government to remove—outside of the courts—anyone in the Hong Kong governance apparatus of whom the emperor’s men the men and women of the PRC government might decide to disapprove.

Now we come to the Progressive-Democratic men and women of the Wisconsin State government.

At a special meeting that lasted more than five hours, [Progressive-]Democrats on the state elections commission sought to change recount guidelines after the Trump 2020 Campaign filed a petition to review the state’s votes in Dane and Milwaukee counties.

Existing State law on the matter had become inconvenient to those Progressive-Democrats, so—time to change the rules. As Reince Priebus noted,

The Trump campaign sent the Wis Election Comm. $3 mil and filed its petition for a recount. Then the WEC immediately called a special meeting to change certain recount rules that deal with the issues brought up in the petition? You can’t make this up!

Here are Progressive-Democrats in action.

Pocket Vetoing

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Consider this scenario: in 2022, Republicans sweep to veto-proof majorities in both the House and Senate. (I agree, but work with me here.)

Let’s say that one of the bills that Republican Congress passes—late in the year after much debate—is either a tax reduction bill that permanently reduces even further both corporate and personal income taxes or (especially after much debate) a spending cut bill that cuts actual spending (not just slows increases) and that includes material reform of Social Security and Medicare.

Let’s say further that one of those bills is presented to a President Joe Biden right before Congress adjourns (not merely recesses) for the year-end holidays, an adjournment that will last for more than 10 days (as even many Congressional recesses do).

Biden doesn’t like the bill, never-minding its general popularity among Americans, or that it was passed by a veto-proof Congress. He can’t veto it outright, or it will simply be passed over his veto. So he pocket vetoes it—he takes no action at all.

Here’s what Article 1, Section 7 of our Constitution says:

If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law.

Leo Fisher has argued that such a “veto” wouldn’t hold up in court (in fact, the courts have never ruled directly on the matter) because this would be an absolute veto—Congress having no opportunity to attempt to override it as otherwise specified in our Constitution—and so would go directly against the Constitution’s authors’ intent. This, he intimates, flows from the otherwise not-signing for 10 days making the bill law, or the veto of the bill within those 10 days with an explicit Congressional override making it law that are provided for in the immediately prior sentences:

If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated…. If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law.

Fisher’s argument fails because of that categorical and uncaveated clause: unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law. That’s precisely an absolute veto, and it was written into our Constitution by its authors.

Thus, it strikes me that the matter is quite clear on two grounds (and yes, I’m aware of conflicting Supreme Court rulings that hint at the matter). One is that when Congress is adjourned, it is explicitly not in session, as opposed to merely taking a break for a bit, which is what a recess is. When Congress is not in session, it cannot receive anything—it’s simply not available. That decision creates the condition for an absolute veto.

The other ground is this: it’s easy for Congress to remain in session for the extra period needed to consume those 10 days within which a President must explicitly veto a bill and return the veto to Congress. By adjourning during those 10 days and not returning before the 10 days are expired, Congress is consciously creating the condition for a pocket—absolute—veto.