Sadly, the core constitutional provisions that were meant to prevent the trashing of our democracy—separation of powers, checks and balances, impeachment, and three independent branches of government—failed dismally.

Alexander Hamilton worried that “a mob of uninformed voters would elect a tyrant who would steer the country astray and command dangerous amounts of power with dangerous results.” In response, the Founders gave the power to elect the President to state legislators whom they thought would be more responsible and put country first. They, however, took partisanship to a higher extreme. They disempowered minority voters, who tend to vote for Democrats, through racial gerrymandering with the blessing of the Trump-favoring Supreme Court majority. They then gave that authority to the uninformed public and exploited their lack of knowledge with a blizzard of misinformation, validating Hamilton’s concern.

The Founders mistakenly expected:

• that the Supreme Court justices would protect the constitutional boundaries rather than their political interests and those of the patrons who put them on the bench. That became a fiction at the Supreme Court, where moneyed Republicans installed majority justices who butchered the Constitution to turn their patrons’ priorities into law.

• that members of Congress would fulfill their constitutional responsibilities rather than surrender them to President Trump. That expectation became a joke as the Republican majorities abdicated much of Congress’s legislative responsibility to Trump due to threats of violence against them and their families and the fear of losing their congressional seats to a Trump-backed primary candidate.

• that presidential corruption and tyranny would not be tolerated by the Department of Justice, Congress, or the Supreme Court. Wrong on every count. All three have become instruments of President Trump, and they enabled his corruption and tyranny to infect the blueprint of American government. Indeed, Trump has so much confidence in the cowardice of his obedient Republicans that he commits his treacheries and corruption in broad daylight.

• that the Supreme Court justices, members of Congress, and the President would, at least, abide by their oaths of office. Instead, many of them brazenly shattered their oaths.

o Supreme Court justices swore to administer justice without respect to persons—it didn’t say “except for President Trump”—and to faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon them under the Constitution and laws of the United States.

o Members of Congress swore to bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution and faithfully discharge the duties of their office. Notably, the oath did not say “except that Congress can abdicate its legislative responsibility to President Trump.”

o President Trump solemnly swore to preserve, protect, and defend his constitutional duties, including:

enforcing federal law. The Constitution, however, did not give him the authority to use his Justice Department for revenge against those who oppose him or his policies.

granting pardons. It didn’t say “including to convicted insurrectionists and other criminals whom he wants to hire as his personal militia.”

to act as a check on Congress and the judiciary within the system of separation of powers. It didn’t say, “except that Trump can seize authority given exclusively to Congress.”

Impeachment may be a drastic step, but it is more necessary now than ever. Allowing the Republicans to continue to enable Trump is knowing homicide. Impeachment is the only meaningful way to repair the damage Trump has wreaked on the country and to restore the honor, trust, and respect that Republicans helped Trump strip away, reducing a once-respected global leader to a nation widely mocked, distrusted, and increasingly shunned.

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The post THE CONSTITUTION FAILED TO PREVENT THE TRASHING OF OUR DEMOCRACY first appeared on Inside The Political Chaos.

The fallout is likely to  upend the entire region, produce significant civilian casualties, cause major losses to the U.S. military and our allies in the region, result in major economic disruption in the United States and throughout the world, and leave the region destabilized for years to come.

The attack is also unlikely to lead to regime change. That and denuclearization of Iran are Trump’s stated missions. Regime change failed before – even backfired. Like Trump’s mission in Iran, the invasion of Iraq was aimed at regime change. We killed their leader and triggered a power vacuum, a brutal, decade-long civil war, regional instability a “dysfunctional kleptocracy,” and increased hatred towards America. 

Worse, the attack heightens the risk of a nuclear event, either by intention or mistake. A nuclear attack could originate right here at home with a President who wanted to nuke North Korea in the last month of his first administration. Fortunately, General Mark Milley was there to stop him. There’s no Milley now, only an alcoholic, unqualified Fox News co-host shocking confirmed by Republican Senators.

A nuclear disaster could also come in the form of Iran’s final retaliation. Most Western observers view Iran’s conduct through the lens of protecting their national interest, but its priorities are more consistent with the Mahdist religious doctrine,  which dictates that military might is central to its doctrines, and many jurists maintain that the deployment of nuclear weapons is permissibleas a last resort.

An unintended nuclear launch has always been more likely than an intentional one. Of the 24 close calls where nuclear war was narrowly avoided, only the Cuban missile crisis involved one nuclear power threatening another. The other incidents often resulted from faulty technology, misinterpreted data, human error during the Cold War and beyond, the 1983 Soviet false alarm, and the 1983 Nato military exercises. Eight of the closest calls stand out as among the most provocative of a  launch in the in the Middle East.

Iran still has lethal military power. Since last June, it has moved to rebuild its ballistic missile arsenal at what an Israeli military assessment described as “a rapid pace.” It can fire hundreds of missiles at U.S. bases and other facilities and awaken its regional network of partners and proxies, namely Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian who share Iran’s animosity toward Israel the United States and oppose the Jewish state’s existence. Support from Tehran has also enabled Yemen’s rebel Houthis to fire missiles at Israel and attack its commercial ships in the Red Sea — actions the Houthis called a show of solidarity with Hamas. 

Iran has sent missiles and drones to attack U.S. and UK facilities in Qatar,the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman, Jordan, Iraq and Cyprus, raising the danger of bombing nuclear power plants, reactors and fuel storage facilities in many of those countries.

Each of the countries under attack indicated high levels of preparedness to retaliate for the actions of Iran.

Iran has many ways it could respond to Trump’s attack, including cyber operations. Between 2012 and 2014, Iran targeted U.S. financial institutions, Saudi Aramco oil, and the Las Vegas Sands Corporation. It could also to attack critical infrastructure. 

Intelligence assessments indicate that Iran poses a threat in the U.S. through networks believed to be operating as sleeper cells.

If hostilities continue to escalate, Trump’s war could plunge the global economy into an inflationary crisis led by the price of oil. The conflict has disrupted shipping, leaving at least five tankers damaged and around 150 ships stranded around theStrait of Hormuz. Marine insurers are cancelling war risk coverage for vessels and oil shipping rates are set to surge further.

Trump’s reasons for the attack conflict with Marco Rubio’s and are contradicted by the facts, raising suspicions as to Trump’s motives. Heightening those suspicions, just days before Trump bombed Iran, his FBI Director, Kash Patel, fired the counterintelligence unit tasked with monitoring threats from Iran and its proxies, hobbling the United States ability to detect and subvert retaliatory actions against the United States, raising suspicions as to Trump’s motives.

Truth is who the hell knows why Trump bombed Iran? His denuclearization motive is contradicted by his claim that his attacks last summer obliterated Iran’s nuclear weapons capacity, a claim he repeated during his recent State of the Union address. Regime change is fruitless – witness Iraq. He also bizarrely accused Iran of interfering in 2020, 2024 elections to try to defeat him.

Was it to give the Republican party an edge in the midterms? Or to create a state of emergency in an attempt to delay them? Or to rev up his base? You decide. 

The post THE PRICE OF CONTEMPT FOR THE CONSTITUTION first appeared on Inside The Political Chaos.

The Supreme Court’s Trump-favoring majority (“Trump’s Majority”) blocked both injunctions which freed Trump to replace Democrats with Republicans in the hundreds of agencies created by Congress in the face of Congress’s express prohibition against such firings without cause – something Trump never raised. The agencies were created to perform legislative policies with more expertise than Congress had. The majority’s holding also violated 90 years of  Supreme Court precedent in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States in 1935, followed by a unanimous decision in 1957 holding that Congress intended to create an agency that was “‘entirely free from the control or coercive influence of the Executive.”

Trump’s Majority’s holding allowed Trump to take the next step towards king status. He can now stack the agencies with his loyalists and usurp Congress’s policymaking authority. Take, for example, two feared possibilities: 

• Trump takes control of the NLRB which protects the rights of workers to organize and bargain collectively. Good bye unions …that is that don’t vote for MAGA Republicans.
• The worst calamity would be if Trump’s Majority allows him to fire  Federal Reserve Board members without cause, which they’d have to to be consistent with their holding that let Trump fire the two board members. A hearing on the matter is scheduled for January. If the Court finds for Trump, he would control interest rates, the money supply flowing through the economy, and when to print money. He will have gained extraordinary power to reward his friends and destroy his enemies. 

The prohibition against a president’s firings reflects Congress’s belief that knowledgeable people from both parties [emphasis added] would make decisions that advance the long-term public good. Its intent couldn’t be clearer. 

Trump however dreads bipartisanship. So, confident that the Supreme Court Majority is on his team, he got it to stay the order reinstating the two board members on their boards. Trump’s Majority mangled the Constitution to accommodate him, holding that Congress’s restrictions on the President’s firing authority violated the Constitution’s separation of powers requirement.

The majority Justices also stated their hollow belief that the government faces more risk than the removed officer from allowing the removed officer to remain on their boards. The majority’s belief is credible only if the risk the majority referred to arises from Trump replacing Democrats with the type of unqualified sycophants Trump chose for his cabinet. 

The majority also omitted the obvious – allowing a president to fire employees without cause is as clear a violation as the Constitution’s separation of powers and of its mandate for the independence of the government’s three branches and its blueprint for checks and balances.

The majority Justices violated their Judicial Oaths  “to administer justice without respect to persons and .… impartially [emphasis added] perform all duties incumbent upon me under the Constitution…. So help me God.” By the way,  Its not the first time  Trump’s Majority butchered the Constitution to favor Trump.

In another recent case, the Supreme Court heard  oral arguments  regarding  whether Trump’s firing of Commissioners of the FTC, another independent bipartisan agency created by Congress with legislation prohibiting the President from firing its employs without cause. Sadly, Trump’s Majority is more than likely to overrule its own decision in the Humphrey’s case which would have prohibited Trump’s firings. 

If you’re wondering why Supreme Court Justices would enable Trump’s path to a dictatorship, here’s an answer: 

Every Majority Justice  (John Roberts, Brett Karnaugh, Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Amy Coney Barrett), was funded and masterminded by the Federalist Society, piloted by reactionary billionaire Leonard Leo.  It’s not a stretch to say that these Justices repeatedly ruled in favor of their patron’s priorities rather than the Constitution. Take a look: 

• Keeping Trump in office: Trump’s Majority gave him broad immunity and delayed Jack Smith’s criminal trial against him for eleven months, until his win in 2024 election, after which the case was dismissed. In contrast, the Supreme Court took just 16 days to unanimously decide that Nixon wasn’t immune from prosecution and one day to decide Bush v. Gore. 
  
• Rolling back prohibitions against racial discrimination in voting: In Alexander v. South Carolina NAACP Trump’s Majority upheld a Republican legislature’s removal 60% of Black voters from their Congressional district into a White-denominated district to ensure a Republican win.
• Deregulation of corporations. For decades courts deferred to an agency’s interpretation of unclear legislation. The Trump’s Majority held that only the courts can decide if an agency’s interpretation of an unclear statute is correct. The holding transferred enormous amounts of policymaking to the Judiciary, which lacks the expertise and personnel to do the job — an indirect form of deregulation. 
• Restricting access to abortion.  Enough said.

Tragically, America has lost its last stop to unencumbered justice. If the country wants it back, either Trump-coddling Republicans need to find their true patriotism, or they must be replaced by Republicans not enslaved by Trump, or  Democrats must recapture their Congressional majorities. Then, Trump’s Majority can be replaced by justices – Republican or Democrat — with allegiance to the Constitution.

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The post SUPREME COURT ADVANCES TRUMP TO DICTATORSHIP. MANGLES CONSTITUTION TO LET HIM REPLACE AGENCY DEMS W/REPUBLICANS first appeared on Inside The Political Chaos.