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Eliot Rosewater

(31,106 posts)
2. Others will follow, civil ACTION will be necessary if GOP goes along with this when many others
Tue Nov 17, 2020, 09:18 PM
Nov 2020

do it too.

Celerity

(43,070 posts)
6. I see very little discussion of the monster ace up Trump's sleeve that complicates the fuck out of
Tue Nov 17, 2020, 09:25 PM
Nov 2020

everything and will create an intense fog of war chaos at a multiplicity of levels. And to use it, all it takes is a the stroke of his sharpie.


The Alarming Scope of the President's Emergency Powers




https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/01/presidential-emergency-powers/576418/

snip

But will they? Unknown to most Americans, a parallel legal regime allows the president to sidestep many of the constraints that normally apply. The moment the president declares a “national emergency”—a decision that is entirely within his discretion—more than 100 special provisions become available to him. While many of these tee up reasonable responses to genuine emergencies, some appear dangerously suited to a leader bent on amassing or retaining power. For instance, the president can, with the flick of his pen, activate laws allowing him to shut down many kinds of electronic communications inside the United States or freeze Americans’ bank accounts. Other powers are available even without a declaration of emergency, including laws that allow the president to deploy troops inside the country to subdue domestic unrest.

This edifice of extraordinary powers has historically rested on the assumption that the president will act in the country’s best interest when using them. With a handful of noteworthy exceptions, this assumption has held up. But what if a president, backed into a corner and facing electoral defeat or impeachment, were to declare an emergency for the sake of holding on to power? In that scenario, our laws and institutions might not save us from a presidential power grab. They might be what takes us down.

1. “A LOADED WEAPON”

The premise underlying emergency powers is simple: The government’s ordinary powers might be insufficient in a crisis, and amending the law to provide greater ones might be too slow and cumbersome. Emergency powers are meant to give the government a temporary boost until the emergency passes or there is time to change the law through normal legislative processes. Unlike the modern constitutions of many other countries, which specify when and how a state of emergency may be declared and which rights may be suspended, the U.S. Constitution itself includes no comprehensive separate regime for emergencies. Those few powers it does contain for dealing with certain urgent threats, it assigns to Congress, not the president. For instance, it lets Congress suspend the writ of habeas corpus—that is, allow government officials to imprison people without judicial review—“when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it” and “provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.”

Nonetheless, some legal scholars believe that the Constitution gives the president inherent emergency powers by making him commander in chief of the armed forces, or by vesting in him a broad, undefined “executive Power.” At key points in American history, presidents have cited inherent constitutional powers when taking drastic actions that were not authorized—or, in some cases, were explicitly prohibited—by Congress. Notorious examples include Franklin D. Roosevelt’s internment of U.S. citizens and residents of Japanese descent during World War II and George W. Bush’s programs of warrantless wiretapping and torture after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Abraham Lincoln conceded that his unilateral suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War was constitutionally questionable, but defended it as necessary to preserve the Union.

The Supreme Court has often upheld such actions or found ways to avoid reviewing them, at least while the crisis was in progress. Rulings such as Youngstown Sheet & Tube Company v. Sawyer, in which the Court invalidated President Harry Truman’s bid to take over steel mills during the Korean War, have been the exception. And while those exceptions have outlined important limiting principles, the outer boundary of the president’s constitutional authority during emergencies remains poorly defined.

snip

Eliot Rosewater

(31,106 posts)
11. Simple, we make them know that NO peace if they do this shit.
Tue Nov 17, 2020, 11:26 PM
Nov 2020

It will be an act of war against the USA by an enemy, and we will have to deal with that accordingly.

Celerity

(43,070 posts)
12. Trump will still be the CiC, he will be, in all effect, the USA, at least until January 20th. But
Tue Nov 17, 2020, 11:41 PM
Nov 2020

the powers he receives after invoking a national state of emergency are extraordinary, almost dictatorial. All these defence/surveillance/security state firings he has been doing have my spidey sense on hyper mode. It is like he is clearing the decks before he goes NatStatEm, and who the fuck knows what happenings after that. We are already in uncharted waters even now.

Eliot Rosewater

(31,106 posts)
13. And the GOP cant be counted on to oppose him, spineless babies.
Tue Nov 17, 2020, 11:59 PM
Nov 2020

I fully expect him to do what you are suggesting. He will use Iran as the excuse.

hadEnuf

(2,172 posts)
7. Trump is going on. He is a dictator that is being peacefully deposed according our Constitution,
Tue Nov 17, 2020, 09:26 PM
Nov 2020

which is a document that he and his supporters care nothing about.

Celerity

(43,070 posts)
8. I know all this, but my point is that this a signalling act, it likely can cause others all across
Tue Nov 17, 2020, 09:29 PM
Nov 2020

the fruited plain to act in a similar fashion. Anything to create FUD, to muddy the waters, to toss as many spanners into the works as possible.

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