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I recently posted an article sent to me by a fellow memo reader claiming it was written by Charles Krauthammer in 2017, which did not pass the smell test but I did not check for authenticity, which I admit I seldom do, and it was not written by C.K.
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I keep a copy of The Constitution on my desk published by the CATO Institute. It is 58 pages and includes all 27 Amendments. There are those who believe it is one of the most brilliant and greatest documents ever written by man that sets forth principles that have allowed a people, called Americans, to guide them in pursuit of self governance. I admit to being one of them.
Then there is a growing number who deem The Constitution is a diving board upon which smarter minds must bounce to challenge the wisdom of The Founding Fathers because change is always in the air and America is always improved when we are open minded and amenable to change.
Today, many are seeking to curtail the the presidency of Donald Trump citing the 25th Amendment to justify the change they are seeking. Let's examine some who are behind this outcry for change.
One is a former bartender and now a Rep. in Congress. Another is actually The Speaker of The House who tore up the very president's latest State of The Union Address when he handed it to her and refuses to take another member of Congress off an important committee apparently in order to secure his vote so she could remain Speaker. This representative allegedly had an affair with a Chinese spy who has left the country. Then we have a Senator who is a pathological liar and who headed a committee seeking to find evidence why this same president should not be driven out of office knowing the basis for doing so was a false document conceived by the president's former challenger.
There are others but the point is they seem driven by personal and questionable motives and are using The Constitution to suit their own agenda and not serve the best interests of the nation by supplanting their own desire to bring about change because they know better than our Founders.
Then we have a technology tycoon who has chosen to bar this same president from using his company's social media platform to reach the nation's citizens because this corporate executive has concluded he is saving the nation from sedition. This same technology wizard seems to have taken it upon himself to be the arbiter of who has free speech in America. Perhaps he will prevent this memo from being sent. (See below.)
Time will tell.
We also have another wealthy billionaire who has seeded various entities with untold sums , one of which he uses to finance campaigns of radicals seeking to become state attorneys and local district attorneys in order that they are in a better and more powerful position to decide which lawsuits will be filed and what laws will be obeyed, others ignored or not enforced.
So there is much afoot to change America to suit the interests of those who apparently know better than our Founders and they seem willing to go to extreme lengths to prove such.
Nearly 23% of America's "Deplorables" chose to vote for this "renegade" president based on their belief he had carried out his commitments to them and had been generally successful and were equally willing to disregard his unorthodox style of management and boorish persona. They also had been warned by this same president to distrust the motivation for changes in the voting laws because of the pandemic and they seemed to believe there was some truth in his assertion.
Post the election, every legal appeal was rejected on various grounds and this same president refused to accept the fact that there would be no effort to at least allow his attorneys to present their evidence and encouraged a protest which got out of hand for which he is being blamed.
This is the current scene in a nation that has been the democratic leader of the Western World for many decades.
As for Trump, I always sought to separate the person from the accomplishments. In the end he failed because of his human frailties. Sad for him, for the nation.
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This is an off color joke my father used to tell which I find apropos in characterizing Trump's failing, ending behaviour. Even in the darkest of periods, being the cynic I am, I find equally dark humor:
" A kid from the wrong side of the tracks had a romance with a girl from the right side of the tracks and she invited him for dinner. His folks were mortified and wondered how he would get through the evening so they told him to just simply say yes mam, no sir etc.
Stay tuned.
And:
Trump Erases His Legacy
He also destroyed any chance of a political
future, all on a single Wednesday afternoon.
By Kimberley A. Strassel
A politician has to work hard to destroy a legacy and a future in a single day. President Donald J. Trump managed it.
By this Wednesday afternoon, media outlets had called both
Georgia Senate runoffs for the Democratic candidates, handing Sen. Chuck
Schumer the keys to that chamber. We now have a Democrat-controlled Washington.
The Georgia news came as a mob of Trump supporters—egged on by the president
himself—occupied the U.S. Capitol building. Now four people are dead, while
aides and officials run for the exits.
It didn’t have to be this way. The president had every
right—even an obligation, given the ad hoc changes to voting rules—to challenge
state election results in court. But when those challenges failed (which every
one did, completely), he had the opportunity to embrace his legacy, cement his
accomplishments, and continue to play a powerful role in GOP politics.
Mr. Trump could have reveled in the mantle of the one-term
disrupter—the man the electorate sent to Washington to deliver the message that
it was tired of business as usual. He could have pointed out just how
successful he was in that mission by stacking his cabinet with reformers,
busting convention, and overseeing policy changes that astounded (and
delighted) even many warrior conservatives.
The withdrawal from the Paris climate accord and the Iranian deal. The greatest tax simplification and reduction since Reagan. The largest deregulatory effort since—well, ever. Three Supreme Court justices and 54 appellate court judges. Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve. The Jerusalem embassy. Criminal-justice reform. Opportunity zones. He could have noted that the greatest proof of just how much Democrats and the establishment feared his mission were the five years of investigations, hysterical allegations and “deep state” sabotage—which he survived.
Mostly, he could have explained that all this was at
considerably heightened risk if Democrats win the Senate—and invested himself
fully in Georgia. Every day needed to be about fundraising, rallying the
troops, making clear to his supporters that the only way to preserve this
legacy was to keep the Senate in GOP hands.
That isn’t what happened. Obviously. Following court losses, Mr.
Trump, in his own words, devoted “125% of my energy” to his own grievances. He
declared the Georgia Senate races “illegal and invalid,” discouraging voting.
He actively undercut Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler with late-game
demands for $2,000 stimulus checks and with his veto of a defense authorization
bill that provided pay raises and support for Georgia’s military bases. His
denial of the presidential results energized Democrats and depressed
Republicans. Turnout in Trump counties lagged, while turnout in some Democratic
areas nearly reached that of the November election.
Mr. Trump is leaving, and thanks to his final denial of reality,
Mr. Schumer will now methodically erase his policy history. Democrats need only
51 votes to eliminate the Trump tax reform, 51 to use the Congressional Review
Act to undo his final deregulations; 51 to wave through liberal judges to
counter Mr. Trump’s picks. And this is before Mr. Biden gets busy reversing
Trump policy by executive fiat, and assuming Democrats forbear from abolishing
the legislative filibuster.
So that’s his legacy, largely gone. As for his future, Mr.
Trump’s role in inflaming the Capitol mob has likely put paid to that, as well.
Dedicated members of his administration are resigning. Longtime supporters in
Congress are turning. Millions of Americans who for years were willing to
tolerate, often even celebrate, Mr. Trump’s brash behavior in the pursuit of
reform or good policy, are less amused by the wreckage he has visited on party
and policy. And they’ll be unwilling to go there again in 2024.
Trump loyalists may well condemn anyone who speaks honestly of
all this as RINOs or spineless Beltwayers who care nothing of “election fraud.”
But to quote the incoming president, “C’mon, man.” It’s one thing to scorn a
Mitt Romney. But many of the senators throwing up their hands are the ones who
fearlessly rooted out the false Russia collusion accusations, who defended Mr.
Trump through baseless impeachment proceedings, and who understand the need for
voting reform. Many of the officials resigning are bold conservatives,
attracted to an administration they knew would let them break china. They too
are stunned, and demoralized, by the president’s decision to tank their work.
“We signed up for making America great again. We signed up for
lower taxes and less regulation. The president has a long list of successes
that we can be proud of. But all of that went away yesterday.” That was Mick
Mulvaney talking to CNBC Thursday. Mr. Mulvaney, the tea-party supporter,
founding member of the House Freedom caucus, and the onetime Trump chief of
staff. Hardly an establishment weenie.
The pity is that Mr. Trump’s conflagration will mostly burn the
Americans he went to Washington to help. They will bear the higher taxes, the
higher costs of regulation, the higher unemployment, the loss of freedoms.
America became less great this week. And that’s fully on the guy at the top.
Write to kim@wsj.com.
And:
This from a friend and fellow memo reader:
American Democracy Triumphant
By Sherwin Pomerantz
Last week I wrote that I have had the privilege of living in
Israel for almost 37 years and this is one of the times when I am most proud
and most grateful for the opportunity to be here. This week, after seeing
what went on in the U.S. since the election on November 3rd, I am
equally proud of America and the privilege of being a U.S. citizen as well.
You may think my response is counter intuitive given the debacle in Washington this week that was witnessed by people worldwide. To see the U.S. Congress and Senate, the symbols of democracy for the entire world, ravaged by angry mobs egged on by a selfish and self-indulgent president unable to handle his loss, was one of the worst sights that this writer has ever seen.
Enough people have already likened what went on in Washington to what we would normally see (and criticize) in third world countries, not what we expect to see in the hallowed legislative halls of the world’s most successful experiment in democracy. In addition, all of this after nine weeks of almost 60 legal challenges to the election results in multiple states along with an unsuccessful attempt to have the Supreme Court of the U.S. pass judgement on this charade as well.
Given all of this, how can I possibly be proud of being a citizen of the United States today? Very simple, because the system of checks and balances conceived by the founders and ratified by the states 233 years ago (12 years after the Declaration of Independence) proved its mettle.
The courts at every level, state, federal, district and supreme, all found no validity in the poorly presented claims by elements of the Republican Party who screamed election fraud. Many of the judges involved were themselves appointed by the Trump administration, including three on the Supreme Court. Yet none of them let that influence their judicial responsibilities to uphold the relative state and local constitutions. The standards were upheld, and the judiciary performed admirably.
Yet the mob, egged on by a president who urged them to march on the capitol, was not assuaged by the judicial decisions. Hearing for four years from the leader of the country that the election is going to be rigged, is going to be fraudulent, and may very well be stolen from him, the mob could not internalize the facts and accept the loss. Therefore, they rioted and moved on the U.S. capitol in an effort to cause havoc, as well they did.
However, what the mob did not count on was that many of the legislators who they believed were with them in their struggle, also had a conscience. That conscience was inexorably connected to the way each of them was raised. They believe, as do I, that governance by an elected majority over the disappointed minority is the bedrock of the democratic system and cannot be overruled by a disappointed mob. When the mob became uncontrollable, the conscience of many of those legislators kicked in and they said, plainly and simply…enough!
So, once again, the values of America proved too strong to be bent by the mob and that makes me so very proud.
Yet, although the legislative branch has now formally confirmed the election of a new president and vice-president, and the current president has even conceded (albeit continuing to claim that the election was stolen and the people who did so are evil) there remains a significant concern. The current president still has 13 days remaining to his term with incredible power to do serious damage without the permission of congress. He has his fingers on the nuclear codes, he can start a war on his own, and he can still sign executive orders with abandon. Those powers coupled with the fact that so many of his cabinet members occupy “acting” positions (i.e. not having been confirmed by the Senate) should create a level of discomfort for every thinking citizen.
Let us hope that when the president finally said that there will be a smooth transition of power that he internalized that as well for the good and welfare of the republic.
America has been through a very troubling period. It is not the first time this has happened and will not be the last. To be sure, the polarization that has manifested itself in the creation of two camps seemingly unable to speak with each other threatens to pull the country apart. We can only pray that over the coming years cooler heads will prevail and the core of America’s citizens will understand that the most successful experiment in democracy in the history of the human race is something that is simply too valuable to lose.
Thomas Paine is quoted as saying: “Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it.”
America’s freedom has, once again, been challenged and, once again, has met the test…the framework has proved its mettle. Yet there is more fatigue ahead as the country must now coalesce into a governable entity whose members will, hopefully find a way to cooperate for the common good. Else, the framework may not hold if tested similarly yet again.
Sherwin Pomerantz has lived in Israel for 37 years, is CEO of Atid EDI Ltd., a Jerusalem-based business development consultancy, Chair of the American State Offices Association and former National President of the Association of Americans & Canadians in Israel.
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More commentary from a dear friend and fellow memo reader:
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