My Constitutional question, a question that came to me on 11/10 and I articulated on

[AmericanActivist]

11/12 after the "election" my question is this:

There are people in government who swore an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the USA and the US Constitution. How does upholding this sworn oath work when transferring power to a man that threatens entire groups of American people?

How is that possible? Obviously some government officials could care less about this solemn oath, their word means nothing, they have no integrity or values, perhaps they are sold out to the highest corporate bidder, or being blackmailed by Russia, or whatever but some, who are honorable, honest people have sworn this oath and tRump is a one man constitutional crisis who literally threatens Americans and the Constitution.

So, how does this work? If tRump is allowed to violate laws, threaten groups of people, refuse to comply with releasing tax returns, violates nepotism regs, basically does whatever he wants while tweeting threats about union leaders, nuclear weapons, dissenting opinions, and manipulating stock prices.

[GP6971]

1. the reality is

that they are all concerned for their jobs. Especially the ones outside of Defense like energy and EPA.

[elleng]

2. 25th Amendment

'Section 4.

Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.'

https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxxv

[LonePirate]

4. Is the Cabinet loyal to Pence or to the Racist-in-Chief? That's the big question.

[tinrobot]

15. Maybe that's why he's appointing such oddballs.

They're the only ones loyal to him.

[AmericanActivist]

23. Good point nm

[AmericanActivist]

6. Your point in posting this is...? nm

[elleng]

7. 'There are people in government who swore an oath to preserve, protect, and defend

the USA and the US Constitution. How does upholding this sworn oath work when transferring power to a man that threatens entire groups of American people? . .

So, how does this work?'

[AmericanActivist]

16. I expected more of a reply from you then to repeat what I said. Apparently you aren't

Interested in discussing your point of view. Got it. This is not a helpful response. Thanks anyway.

[elleng]

18. My point of view is derived from the Constitution, the 25th Amendment.

Sorry I wasn't clear about that.

It would take some action by cabinet members if/when the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties. That's 'all' it would take; no small feat.

[unblock]

3. the constitutional duty requires them to give toxic trump a chance.

they've got a constitutional duty to transfer power to the duly elected successor. there haven't been any convictions regarding election tampering and he'll have the proper evidence to have been duly elected.

he's made statements that are obviously disturbing, but again, he's not been convicted of anything, and he lies like he breathes, so again, until there's a conviction, we have no basis to stop him from becoming president.


now, if the president orders something horrible, would others follow that order? that's another question, and it depends on the circumstances and the individuals involved. mostly, though, it's disturbing that he's surrounding himself with loyalists without conscience.

hopefully there bureaucracy and the armed forces will do the right thing if called upon to do so.

[AmericanActivist]

5. tRump is unqualified and unfit that is nothing new. He has threatened Americans and allied with

Russia repeatedly defending Russia and Putin. The Constitutional duty is to protect, preserve & defend the US Constitution and there is a duty to defend the Constitutional
Rights of Americans. I disagree that there is a Constitutional duty to tRump or to transferring power. 17 US Intel agencies, meaning all of them, agree Russia intentionally interfered in our election in order to elect tRump. So, respectfully disagree re him being "duly elected successor" and he has already broken laws and violated the Constitution while demonstrating being mentally unfit.

[unblock]

10. I don't disagree in substance

But he's not officially been diagnosed with a mental illness as far as we know. The 25th amendment has a procedure in case he is unfit for office. There's no legal basis to preempt that.

I agree he's aligning with Russia, but we're not at war with them and presidents are allowed to try to make alliances and whatnot even if the rest of the country thinks it's horrible policy. Again, there's impeachment and voting him out in four years. No legal basis to preempt that.

Even as to breaking laws, there's nothing in the constitution that says he can't be president after having committed crimes. In theory he could continue to hold office from prison. One would hope any congress eould impeach and remove if he were convicted, though with this gang of thugs, even that's doubtful. In any event, there's a process that in theory handles all this.

As Ben franklin said, it all comes down to the actual people involved.

[AmericanActivist]

17. Future "elections" are irrelevant because our voting system remains unsecured it can

be hacked and the American public cannot get a verified vote count. Also, districts are being Unconstitutionally rigged with GOP Gerrymandering and Americans are being denied their Constitutional Right to vote due to GOP Vote Suppression. Therefore, we cannot "vote them out" as a remedy anymore. As Josef Stalin said, "it's not who votes that counts, it's who counts the votes that matters."

[unblock]

19. I agree.

The constitutional remedies are only as good as the people involved. This congress won't consider the good of the country in any impeachment decision. They will impeach and remove only if it's apparent that it would be political suicide not to.

And given how most of them are from safely republic gerrymandered districts, that's a tall order. Toxic trump would pretty much have to seriously piss off the 1% in order for that to happen. Not likely. Most of the stuff people are outraged about doesn't even come close to doing that. They're just laughing and drooling about their tax cuts.

[WillowTree]

8. What action that would not violate the Constitution do you propose that they take.......

.......to prevent him from taking office now that he's been elected?

[AmericanActivist]

9. I propose that they defend the USA & the US Constitution from

ALL enemies foreign and domestic. I propose that tRump is an UNPRECEDENTED occurrence and that the 2016 "election" was also UNPRECEDENTED especially with Russian interference.

[WillowTree]

11. But what do you propose they actually DO?

[AmericanActivist]

13. I'm not sure what you mean. I am not a legislator, or Pres or VP I've never held public office

yet I do not need to know exactly what they should do. Surely there are procedures in place to defend the USA & the US Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic. Use the letter of the law, use the spirit of the law, use case history, I don't need to know details they do. I know that Americans can resist but we have no power to stop tRump. There is evidence to support that tRump is unqualified, unfit, mentally unstable, that he has already violated law and the Constitution. The Electoral College failed in their duty to prevent an unfit Pres who is not qualified, who is an autocrat/demagogue under foreign influence, all 3 criteria tRump fails yet they didn't stop him now it falls to the US Government and clearly not Republicans because they have been working against America and Americans for decades.

So, do you have any thoughts? Or just questions?

[WillowTree]

21. Nope.

You're the one who's so sure that that someone must be able to do something to prevent a duly elected president elect from taking office, so I thought.......hoped really.......that surely you'd have researched the subject and could tell us how. I have no idea.

[Thor_MN]

12. I grew being told anyone could become President.

I didn't know they meant just fucking anyone...

[True_Blue]

14. It is a Constitutional Crisis

We have a hostile foreign power that interfered in our democracy to get an obviously mentally unstable candidate elected that will undoubtedly bring down the US. There should at least an investigation into whether our democracy was subverted by a foreign power before Trump is sworn in. I'm afraid once he's sworn in that he'll be uncontrollable and no one will be able to stop him.

[AmericanActivist]

20. I agree we are in a Constitutional crisis and if they do not halt transfer of power to

tRump before Jan 20th the USA is doomed. tRump cannot be trusted and he is already abusing power and destabilizing America. He's intentionally causing foreign policy problems and manipulating stocks. He is mentally unfit and completely unqualified.

[COLGATE4]

22. Conclusory statements are unfortunately not evidence.

In the real world you would have extreme difficulty (so as not to say impossible) in substantiating any of these allegations.