Democracy

The Progressive-Democratic Party and the Left in general no longer believe in democracy, whether republican or popular.  Here’s Robert Reich, Labor Secretary in the Clinton administration:

The title of his piece is the gist of the position: Don’t Impeach Trump, Annul His Presidency.  Read past the irrational hysteria in his first several paragraphs, hysteria like this:

Even if he loses in 2020, we’ll be fortunate if he concedes without being literally carried out of the Oval Office amid the stirrings of civil insurgency.
Oh, and let me remind you that even if he’s impeached, we’d still have his loathsome administration—Pence on down.

and you get to the meat of his—and their—demand.

Suppose, just suppose, Robert Mueller finds overwhelming and indisputable evidence that Trump conspired with Putin to rig the 2016 election, and the rigging determined the election’s outcome.
In other words, Trump’s presidency is not authorized under the United States Constitution.

What then? Impeachment isn’t enough.

He went on:

Impeachment would remedy Trump’s “high crimes and misdemeanors.” But impeachment would not remedy Trump’s unconstitutional presidency because it would leave in place his vice president, White House staff and Cabinet, as well as all the executive orders he issued and all the legislation he signed, and the official record of his presidency.
The only response to an unconstitutional presidency is to annul it. Annulment would repeal all of an unconstitutional president’s appointments and executive actions, and would eliminate the official record of the presidency.
Annulment would recognize that all such appointments, actions, and records were made without constitutional authority.
The Constitution does not specifically provide for annulment of an unconstitutional presidency. But read as a whole, the Constitution leads to the logical conclusion that annulment is the appropriate remedy for one.
After all, the Supreme Court declares legislation that doesn’t comport with the Constitution null and void, as if it had never been passed.
It would logically follow that the Court could declare all legislation and executive actions of a presidency unauthorized by the Constitution to be null and void, as if Trump had never been elected.
The Constitution also gives Congress and the states the power to amend the Constitution, thereby annulling or altering whatever provisions came before. Here, too, it would logically follow that Congress and the states could, through amendment, annul a presidency they determine to be unconstitutional.

[The Trump Presidency] should be annulled.

Here are the Party and the Left—anyone from either of the two heavily overlapping groups—decrying their man’s demands.  By their studied silence are they known to agree.  That Reich’s piece is so irrational does not bother them in the least.  Nor does his desire to completely rewrite history to a depth and breadth that would shame the leadership of the erstwhile Soviet Union and the ongoing People’s Republic of China.

That irrationality, however, is a threat to our great republican democracy.  Remember this in the fall.

Irony

Her name is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D, NY), a candidate for the House of Representatives.  Recall that Ocasio-Cortez is an ardent supporter of minimum wage laws, and as a start wants the minimum to be $15/hr.  New York City already has mandated that minimum wages in the city rise to $15/hr by the end of this year.

She went by her favorite coffee shop, The Coffee Shop in Union Square (which employs 150 folks), over the weekend to shoot the breeze because, she says, she used to work there. Then she discovered the place is closing this fall…because it can’t afford the rising labor costs on top of high rent and high regulation costs.

Free Stuff

In some places, that apparently includes free labor.  At least that’s Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro’s view.  He’s going to

raise wages by nearly 6,000% and…devalue the already-embattled currency by 96%….

Let me get this straight.  The bolívar fuerte (ironic name, that; it translates to “strong bolívar”) already is next door to worthless, Maduro is going to replace it with the sovereign bolivar that’s as much closer to worthless as he can get it (taking five(!) zeros off the face value of each piece of paper, which the sovereign bolivar does—the mechanism of the devaluation), and then he’s going to give workers even more of this useless “wage.”

I’m here to tell you, multiplying a nearly zero value by some number gives an answer that’s still right beside zero.  Maduro is expecting Venezuelans to work for nearly free, and he intends to make their pay even more worthless, so that they work even more nearly for free.

Such a drastic devaluation only fuels inflation: the supply of anything that can be bought is relatively fixed compared to demand, especially so in Venezuela, and making the currency used for purchase even less valuable only requires even higher prices to make the buys.  Throwing lots more money (of any value) at the supply only drastically potentiates the inflation.  The 1,000,000% [sic] inflation that Venezuela has for this year will look stable next year.

On the other hand, Maduro is reaching one of Communism’s two goals: eliminating money altogether and getting from each according to his ability.  Maduro does need to work a little harder on the needs goal, though.

Distractions

Mark Warner (D, VA), Ranking Member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has objected to President Donald Trump’s revoking ex-CIA Director John Brennan’s security clearance.

This might be a convenient way to distract attention, say from a damaging news story or two. But politicizing the way we guard our nation’s secrets just to punish the President’s critics is a dangerous precedent.

This is neither politicization nor punishment, but a safeguard of our nation’s secrets.  No one, regardless of rank, once they leave government service should have a security clearance.  They neither have a need to know nor a need for access, the two Critical Items—both of which must be present, not just one of them—for granting clearances.  Trump’s only error here is in not ordering the revocation for all persons who have left government service.

No, what’s happening is that Progressive-Democrats like Warner are using this manufactured kerfuffle over Brennan’s security clearance revocation to distract from the fact that their Party has no message whatsoever other than that America is not, and never has, been great and never will be until there’s free stuff for everyone, paid for by taxing the rich, taxing the energy engine of our economy, cutting back our ability to defend ourselves, and on and on.

“We’ve Never Been Great”

The soul of the Progressive-Democratic Party is Bernie Sanders’ and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’ blatant, enthusiastic socialism.  Now the Party’s heart is revealed, as well.  Here’s New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) at a bill-signing event for, ironically enough, an anti-human trafficking measure:

We’re not going to make America great again. It was never that great[.]

Of course, Cuomo has denied what he meant, but keep in mind: he’s a talented, smooth politician for whom words are stock in trade.  He knew what he was saying.

The fact is that the first time he spoke, he spoke from his heart.  He’s just speaking politically with his corrections.

Notice another aspect of his claim: Cuomo plainly does not feel like he’s a part of our great nation.  “It was never that great,” not “We were never that great.”

Remember what Progressive-Democrats believe about, and want to do to, our great nation this fall.