New World Order - Trudeau, Biden - Collapse of Canada & USA With thanks to The Absolute Truth with Emerald Robinson.

"Trying to make fun of myself." The post Poking fun at motherhood: The lighthearted song Björk co-wrote with her daughter first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

The Constitution and the President In the great debate over the Constitution, the powers of the president were a focal point of controversy. Antifederalists passionately objected to the entire federal system, seeing it as antithetical to republican freedom. The inability of the government established under the Articles of Confederation to lead a competent foreign policy moved the Framers. But many citizens of the thirteen former colonies who had paid a great cost to preserve their liberty from the concentrated power of the British Crown and Parliament feared that, in the presidency, we were creating a new tyrant and betraying the Revolution. Here’s an extract from a letter in a Philadelphia newspaper from 1787, published over a pseudonym: The election of a King whether it be in America or Poland, will be a scene of horror and confusion; and I am perfectly serious when I declare that, as a friend to my country, I shall despair of any happiness in the United States until this office is either reduced to a lower pitch of power…. We are certainly about giving our president too much or too little; and in the course of less than twenty years we shall find that we have given him enough to enable him to take all. The more things change, the more they stay the same. The well-considered opinion of the Supreme Court in the just-decided Trump v. United States deferred to law and the Constitution in establishing both strong powers and limits to those powers in America’s Chief Executive. The modern heirs to the Antifederalists have predictably unleashed the charge that the Court has sanctioned the establishment of a tyrannical king. Unlike the author of the above letter, though, they are not making a reasoned response to the Trump decision, but either in ignorance or with malice, build a straw dog which enables them to sustain the extreme charges of enabling tyranny against a sober and sane set of rules that set out both the scope and the limitations of one of the considerable powers the Constitution invested in the presidency. (READ MORE from Shmuel Klatzkin: Tyrants Don’t Get Humor) Writing for the two-thirds majority, Chief Justice Roberts sets out a three-part categorization by which to analyze any acts of a president and determine whether immunity from criminal prosecution applies. To secure the powers of the administrative branch of government as co-equal, the president is given absolute immunity in his core constitutional functions, just as Congress is immune in its functions and the Supreme Court in its. Acting unofficially, though, the president has no more immunity than any citizen. And there is a grey area in which, when it is not clear, the president is given presumptive immunity which can be overcome given evidence. Anything less than this would make the Executive Branch less than equal to the other two. The Court’s majority preserved our Constitution. Now it is up to we the people to make ourselves adequate to its magnificent vision. Under English law tradition, the absolute immunity that applies to a sovereignty devolves with some limitations on those who exercise its offices. Parliament vigorously asserted its immunity from prosecution in their deliberations and debates and in their travels to and from its sessions. America’s constitution establishes similar immunities for members of Congress, and to a lesser degree, local authorities enjoy some immunity from lawsuits when they lawfully discharge their duties. Wokeists don’t recognize precedent and have sought often to repeal such immunities in the heady high-water days in the summer of 2020, when CHAZ seemed to be the driving ideal of the Jacobin left. But those who gained office by catering to the wokeists’ votes have been as zealous about their prerogatives as any of those they fought. So, it is no surprise that, though they have loudly complained about the legal action they imagine Republicans will take against them on regaining power, and fulminate loudly about the death of democracy, they are furious when immunities of any sort have been upheld in Trump. Woekists aren’t big on principle.  The Trump decision, though, was carefully crafted by Roberts to be about the constitutional issue as it will apply to any president. It rejects the Democrats demand that the only issue before the court was the uniquely despicable character of the man they allege Trump to be. In sticking to principle, the Court has provided a precedent for how the law can negotiate the unexplored territory opened by this shameful violation of the 235-year norm of refraining from determining the presidency through criminal prosecution. In The Federalist, Alexander Hamilton fought for the balanced but strong set of powers reserved for the Constitution’s president against the misrepresentation of those seemingly as impatient with principle and balance as today’s angry opponents of the Roberts majority. He writes in The Federalist 67: There is hardly any part of the system which could have been attended with greater difficulty in the arrangement of it than this; and there is, perhaps, none which has been inveighed against with less candor or criticised with less judgment. Here the writers against the Constitution seem to have taken pains to signal their talent of misrepresentation. Calculating upon the aversion of the people to monarchy, they have endeavored to enlist all their jealousies and apprehensions in opposition to the intended President of the United States; not merely as the embryo, but as the full-grown progeny, of that detested parent. To establish the pretended affinity, they have not scrupled to draw resources even from the regions of fiction. How the Woke See the President Hamilton might have been writing about the fantasy and misrepresentation of Justice Sotomayor’s dissent in Trump. Few are surprised one appointed for diversity rather than merit would have little mastery or use of legal precedent. But in this opinion, she is contemptuous of even the judge’s duty to read the opinion she objects to carefully and honestly. Writing as if she were a party chair rather than a jurist, she pretends as if the majority had awarded presidents complete and total immunity on all things. Ignoring the unprecedented turn to lawfare to dispose of a rival for power, she pretends as if all was well and unchanged until the majority leapt into the fray and crafted an illicit revision favoring Trump, and pretending that what they carefully laid out would allow the president immunity from, say, hiring hitmen to dispose of his political opponents. Such a straw-man argument would have gotten me a reprimand from my seventh-grade teacher. (Perhaps the Honorable Justice might want to read the classic dissents of Brandeis and Holmes, in which they read and responded to what the other justices actually said and crafted powerful arguments that commanded the respect of their peers and of future generations.) At least it has in common, though, what the majority is shielding our country against, namely, using the law to intervene in political issues, as is exactly the crux of what is being done in the various Trump prosecutions, and about which Sotomayor and Jackson are silent. It is not surprising that the same people who passed us the Russian collusion lie, the Hunter Biden laptop lie, and the lie that all evidence of Biden’s cognitive decline were cheap fakes are trying to make a go of Sotomayor’s own brand of less-than-the-full-truth. (READ MORE: All Are Bound by the Law) What may surprise us, post-debate, is that many more people have become aware of how much they have been lied to. Most people don’t want to be fooled again. As for we who recognized the lies a long time ago, let us not turn to cynicism. Sometimes it takes a long time for truth to out. But its power is sure, and we must stand the tests that befall us in truth’s service, trusting in that its power will always manifest in the end. Let’s welcome in those folks who only now are beginning to realize how corrupt our American narrative had become. Let’s keep them in by holding fast to truth and honest discussion, even as we engage passionately, inspired by our faith. The Framers of the Constitution placed their faith in God at work in the People. It is the People who are sovereign, and only they, as a whole, have absolute sovereignty under the law. They have chosen to invest a large part of that sovereignty in the powers of the Chief Executive, and only as a whole can it be revoked — not a handful of people in locations hand-picked for their political hostility to a political figure. The People’s sovereignty in turn devolves from God. And thus, as Adams reminded us, “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” The Court’s majority preserved our Constitution. Now it is up to we the people to make ourselves adequate to its magnificent vision. The post A Brilliant Rendering of Presidential Power appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

On Thursday, while Americans were celebrating our proud heritage of liberty and courage, the Vatican was concluding an ecclesial trial. Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the former papal nuncio to the United States, was accused of the delict of schism, tried, and found guilty. Heretics are allowed to sow doubt and dissent … to flirt with abolishing the moral order decreed by Almighty God, with little to no consequence. According to a press release from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), the Vatican’s official doctrine office, Viganò has been automatically (latae sententiae) excommunicated. “His public statements manifesting his refusal to recognize and submit to the Supreme Pontiff, his rejection of communion with the members of the Church subject to him, and of the legitimacy and magisterial authority of the Second Vatican Council are well known,” the press release announced. (READ MORE from S.A. McCarthy: Archbishop Viganò and the Schismatic’s Pride) This decision is certainly a blow and perhaps even a surprise to many Catholics, especially those who call themselves traditionalists, but is nonetheless just. As the DDF noted, Viganò has spurned and rejected the rightful authority of both the Supreme Pontiff — Pope Francis, in this case — and the Second Vatican Council. While the archbishop may have been inspired by good intentions — his love of the grand traditions of the Catholic Church and hatred of heresy are palpable — these good intentions, unbridled from rightful authority, resulted in his prideful, obstinate rejection of the very organs of the Body he claimed to be defending. Pope Francis may be a poor Pope, his leadership of the Church over the past decade has been a catastrophe, but he is still the Pope. For a Catholic to reject the Pope’s authority is to reject the very words of Christ Himself: “And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 16:18-19). This is a grave offense, against both the Church and against Christ Himself. Furthermore, Viganò and others of the same stripe defend tirelessly the ecumenical (meaning “world-wide,” not “inter-denominational”) councils of Nicaea, Constantinople, and Trent — even the provincial councils of Baltimore. On what grounds, then, is the weight and authority of the Second Vatican Council rejected? What right does a lay YouTuber, a popular priest, or even an archbishop have to reject the official, world-wide magisterium of the Church, without rejecting the Church entire? Others Have Done Worse Than Viganò Thus, the penalty incurred by Viganò is a just one. But it does not seem to be an act of justice. In his voluminous Summa Theologica, Doctor of the Church Thomas Aquinas explained that heresy is a graver sin than schism. The schismatic, Aquinas noted, adheres to the same faith and worship as other Catholics, but “refuse[s] to submit to the Sovereign Pontiff, and to hold communion with those members of the Church who acknowledge his supremacy.” The heretic, however, doubles the offense of the schismatic by not only rejecting the authority of the Church but its very Faith. “Now heresy results from something being added to schism, for it adds corrupt doctrine…. Therefore schism is a less grievous sin than unbelief,” Aquinas wrote. While Viganò is justly prosecuted and penalized for his crimes against the unity of the Church, heretics abound in the upper ecclesiastical echelons and go about their damnable business with seeming impunity. Germany’s bishops have repeatedly clashed with the Vatican, arguing that the Pope and indeed the whole Church is wrong to condemn homosexual acts and bar women from becoming priests. While Pope Francis has personally issued several strongly-worded letters urging the Germans to give up their sexual schemes, not one has been excommunicated and no direct warning of schism has been issued from Rome. Even Pope Francis’s own aides and appointees flirt with (and arguably even indulge in) outright heresy. Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, whom Pope Francis appointed to lead the DDF and elevated to the College of Cardinals, ghostwrote the current Pontiff’s most controversial works, including Amoris Laetitia, which was perceived upon its publication as endorsing sexual immorality — namely, homosexual relationships and divorce and remarriage. Four cardinals — Carlo Caffarra, Walter Brandmüller, Joachim Meisner, and former prefect of the Apostolic Signatura Raymond Burke — wrote a letter asking the Pope to clarify ambiguities in Amoris Laetitia, warning that Catholics may be misled into believing these sins to no longer be sinful. That letter was delivered in 2016: two of the cardinals are now dead and Pope Francis has still offered no answer regarding the letter, nor has Fernández. Before taking office in the DDF, Fernández also teased the notion of reversing the Church’s teachings on homosexuality. Although Dignitas Infinita, issued by his office, clearly rejected that idea, the controversial Fiducia Supplicans was widely seen as an official approval for priests to bless same-sex unions. Other friends of Pope Francis, such as the rabidly pro-LGBT Jesuit James Martin, took advantage of ambiguities in Fiducia Supplicans to bless same-sex relationships. Martin, notably, was handpicked by Francis to serve in the Vatican’s communications office and to participate in the final stages of the global Synod on Synodality. One of the leaders of Pope Francis’s pet synodal project, Luxembourg’s Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, has actually suggested that the Church’s moral teachings on homosexuality were the erroneous result of a misunderstanding of what homosexuality is. “When the Church doctrine was being created, the concept of homosexuality did not even exist. Homosexuality is a new word; even in St. Paul’s time, people had no idea that there could be men and women attracted to the same sex,” the cardinal claimed. He argued that homosexual acts were condemned by the Church early on due to their association with pagan cults, further asking, “But how can you condemn people who can only love members of the same sex?” (READ MORE: The Apostasy of the Jesuits) This is a mere sampling. Under Pope Francis, the Vatican and the College of Cardinals have been packed with homosexuality apologists, advocates of priestesses, climate change hysterics, and all manner of those who openly question or subtly reject crucial, perennial theological and moral teachings of the Catholic Church. None of these men have been condemned or censured for their dissent against the Catholic Faith. Viganò came to prominence in the public square in 2018, when he revealed that he had repeatedly warned Pope Francis and the Vatican over the past five years about the homosexual predation of then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. For decades, McCarrick groomed, molested, and raped boys and young men, from ten-year-olds at the local parish to men in their early twenties studying at seminary. McCarrick was quickly laicized in an extrajudicial process, but has not been excommunicated. He is still, even after the gross extent of his brutal and horrific sex crimes have been revealed, allowed to call himself a Catholic. The trial of Viganò was just, as was its inevitable outcome. But the management of the Vatican and, indeed, of the whole Catholic Church under the reign of Pope Francis has been unjust. Heretics are allowed to sow doubt and dissent, to poison the hearts and minds of otherwise faithful Catholics, to flirt with abolishing the moral order decreed by Almighty God, with little to no consequence. It is indicative of the state of the present pontificate when a just act, such as the excommunication of Viganò, must be explained as justice, simply because injustice proliferates in every other quarter. The post Viganò Justly Excommunicated, but There Is More To Do appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

WASHINGTON — Ever since Thursday’s debate, it has been clear to the American public that a mentally compromised President Joe Biden has put his own ego ahead of the country — a charge the left has hurled at Donald Trump from his first day in office. Biden had no problem raking Thomas over the coals for the essentially uncorroborated charge that Thomas had sexually harassed attorney Anita Hill. Now the big-media mantra is that it is such a shame that Biden isn’t up to the job because, while he shouldn’t be in the Oval Office, he really is such an incredibly good guy. A New York Times headline for a Thomas Friedman column captured big media’s lamentations: “Joe Biden is a Good Man and a Good President. He Must Bow Out of the Race.” (READ MORE from Debra J. Saunders: Debate Over Isis Bride’s Citizenship Not About Trump) I don’t think Biden is as good as he likes to portray himself. I don’t think he’s a good president. So I’m only buying the last part of that statement. To start, Biden has stayed in office past his due date, with little regard for what’s best for the country or the American people. Our national security rivals see how weak our president is, which makes the world a more dangerous place. Not good. Biden likes to say that he devoted his life to public service, but he wasn’t putting the public first. What’s more, Biden’s inner circle was limited to people who played along with the charade — yes, people who wouldn’t challenge him. (Hmmmm. When did we hear that before about a U.S. president?) Not good for a president. Biden has failed to live up to his promise to voters who were led to believe that if elected, the former vice president would govern as a steady hand and a moderate. In office, Biden has governed further to the left of the man who picked him to be his running mate. Barack Obama didn’t open the border. Biden did. Until it hurt him politically. Not good. In 1991, when then-President George H. W. Bush nominated Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court, Biden was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Biden had no problem raking Thomas over the coals for the essentially uncorroborated charge that Thomas had sexually harassed attorney Anita Hill when she was a subordinate in the Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Biden was one of 48 senators to vote against the justice’s confirmation. Yet Biden had no problem palling around with the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., who was notorious for, as the late Michael Kelly wrote in GQ, “his obsessive public womanizing and his frequent boorishness,” not to mention manhandling waitresses. Later according to Politico, Biden offered that the Thomas hearings brought up the issue of “sexual harassment,” an issue “no one wanted to touch.” Like he was so good. When he wasn’t. (READ MORE: Ex-FBI Deputy Director Has History of Misleading Statements) In 2012, then Vice President Biden warned a racially mixed audience that, if elected, GOP nominee Mitt Romney would “put y’all back in chains.” A cheap shot against a good man. I don’t like to kick a man when he is down. But really, that never stopped Joe Biden. Contact Review-Journal Washington columnist Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com. Follow @debrajsaunders on X. COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM The post Is Joe Biden Really Such a Good Guy? appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Okay, I know, maybe “perfect” is too strong a word. It’s certainly not a word that one writer uses lightly to describe another writer’s work, even that of a respected colleague on the pages of The American Spectator. But I don’t know of a lesser word that would capture my feelings this morning as I read Nate Hochman’s “All America Lies at the End of the Wilderness Road.” As soon as I finished it, I shared it with my wife, who is notably impatient with most political writing — and she loved it. It’s a concrete vision of the America that lies “at the end of the wilderness,” something real, something as solid as Lambeau Field. I’m just a contributor here at TAS, with no say in editorial decisions, but I hope that the editors leave Hochman’s essay on the main page, perhaps as an “Editor’s Pick,” at least throughout the balance of the 4th of July weekend. Regardless, dear readers, if you’ve missed it, and don’t see it in the coming days, look for it in the author archive. (READ MORE: ‘All America Lies at the End of the Wilderness Road’) Why, then, the lavish — and for me entirely uncharacteristic — praise. It’s simple really, and has less to do with the clean, clear exposition than it does with Hochman’s message. He calls out, bluntly, the tendency to locate “America” as nothing more than a philosophical abstraction, a confection of high-sounding phrases easily uttered and impossible of attainment. We can — and should — thrill to the message of the Declaration of Independence, and to all the other expressions of what we wish of our country. And we can accept, proudly, that in living up to these expressions, always substantially if not always completely, we have served as an inspiration to people across the globe. As Hochman correctly notes, the Left would simply reduce American patriotism to adherence to their interpretation of this aspirational document, something transactional, something scarcely tethered to the reality of the nation we’ve become over 248 years. In their reading, anyone who buys their interpretation of our foundational documents becomes a good American, or “adjacent” thereto. Such an expansive reading might make, say, Emmanuel Macron a “good American,” or Angela Merkel, or Tony Blair. Once upon a time, in the 1960s, there were Americans quite willing to confer “good American” status on Fidel Castro or Che Guevara and, at their silliest, good old Chairman Mao. I chuckled when I read Hochman’s acknowledgement that he only came of political age in 2016, at the end of Obama’s presidency. I’m afraid I have a few years on him. I came of political age watching the Nixon-Kennedy debates in 1960, and voted for the first time in 1968. He locates the 1960s as the onset of a “concerted and intentional campaign” to “abstract America out of existence,” and in this, from my direct observation, he is entirely correct. The tendency, to be sure, existed much earlier than this. Woodrow Wilson’s “progressivism” partook of the poison, and so too did many aspects of FDR’s “New Deal.” But the anti-Vietnam war radicals of the 1960s took this to an entirely new level. Picking up on the narrative of the civil rights movement, the insistence that the U.S. live up to “all men are created equal,” the anti-war movement moved directly from “end the war” to “America fails to live up to its promise” without passing Go or collecting $200. This was the message of Howard Zinn’s appalling A People’s History of the United States and its even more appalling follow-up A Young People’s History of the United States, which, together, have wreaked intellectual havoc on several generations of Americans. There was a time, during the Reagan years, when one might well have hoped that we’d gotten past this nonsense, that “morning in America” meant a fresh appreciation of all that was good in our nation. But the subversive forces continued their corrosive work, until they found their avatar, as Hochman persuasively contends, with the emergence of Barack Obama. Hochman correctly notes Obama’s “diabolical genius for smuggling radical ideas into seemingly blasé, vaguely patriotic sounding statements,” making America so abstract that it may well not exist at all.” As Hochman concludes, for the “progressives,” “America is good so long as it becomes more and more like the country that they wish it was.” It’s no accident that the progressives’ America fits so neatly into the grander globalist enterprise, no accident that, as I noted recently, Obama’s America — and Joe Biden’s — has made “leading from behind” the manner of our role on the world stage. It’s no accident that leading Democrats and their allies in corporate America walk so comfortably among the grandees of the World Economic Forum. It’s no accident that, once again during this most recent “Pride” month, American consulates across the world lit up with rainbow colors and website messages of endorsement for the LGBTQ+ enterprise. And, sadly, it’s no accident that one can draw a straight line from the 1960s chants of “Ho-ho-ho Chi Minh” or “Hey, hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill today” to “from the river to the sea.” (READ MORE from James H. McGee: We Must End the Democrats’ Failed Foreign Policy) Finally, and inspiringly, Hochman locates the antidote to all this in a much different vision of America, a vision that finds America in the everyday lives of Americans and the country that generations of Americans have built through hard work and protected through hard sacrifice. It’s a concrete vision of the America that lies “at the end of the wilderness,” something real, something as solid as Lambeau Field, as beautiful as our “amber waves of grain,” as admirable as the working men and women who have made — and every day go on making — America what it really is. By all means, conservatives should fight to reclaim our aspirational documents from the shallow and self-serving interpretation of the progressives. But we should never assume that the fight begins and ends as a matter of competing political philosophies. We have the advantage of being grounded in reality, and we should never lose sight of this, never lose sight of the fact — and it is a hard fact, not an abstract idea — that the glory of America has come through Americans working side by side to build a nation that works for each and every one of us. And so I return to the accolade with which I greeted Nate Hochman’s essay. How did I arrive at the word “perfect?” Perhaps appropriately, it didn’t come to me as a writerly abstraction, but rather from a very concrete real world memory. My dad was no great handyman, but there were a few small things that he prided himself upon. One of these was the ability to drive a nail. Teaching me how to do this, watching with a grimace as nails kept bending under my haphazard strikes, correcting patiently until finally I could hit the head properly, not once, but repeatedly, driving it clean and true into that recalcitrant 2×4. The grimace became a smile and he said “That’s perfect — you’re hitting it right on the head.” So Mr. Hochman, from my dad, through me, my compliments to you. You’ve hit that nail right on the head and driven it straight and true. James H. McGee retired in 2018 after nearly four decades as a national security and counter-terrorism professional, working primarily in the nuclear security field. Since retiring, he’s begun a second career as a thriller writer. His recent novel, Letter of Reprisal, tells the tale of a desperate mission to destroy a Chinese bioweapon facility hidden in the heart of the central African conflict region. You can find it on Amazon in both Kindle and paperback editions, and on Kindle Unlimited. The post On America, Hochman Strikes the Nail on the Head appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Calls abound for the removal of President Biden over his objection, using the involuntary disability provision, with Vice-President Kamala Harris to then assume the presidency. What the text of Section 4 makes clear, however, is than under that provision, she can be Acting President only.  Section 3, covering voluntary disability, provides the same. Herewith the full text of Section 4, the “challenge” provision of the 25th Amendment, setting forth the rules and procedures for ascertaining presidential involuntary inability to discharge the “powers and duties” of the presidency: 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. (Emphasis added). A vice-president can only become President under Section 1, which states: In the case of the removal of the President from office, or of his death or resignation, Vice-President shall become President. An Acting President exercises the “powers and duties” of the presidency, but does not hold the office of the presidency. This means that Harris cannot nominate a new vice-president, as Section 2 states: Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice-President, the President shall nominate a Vice-President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress. Given the proximity of events to the upcoming election, this distinction may seem academic. But Harris, who ardently wants to become the first female president, must win the 2024 election to become president-elect, and then be sworn in on January 20, 2025 to become America’s 47th President. Put simply, Section 4 was not designed to forcibly remove a president from office. The Constitution’s procedure for such removal is impeachment by the House, per Article I, sec. 2, cl. 5; and then obtaining a conviction at trial in the Senate, per Article I, sec. 3, cl. 6. The distinction would hardly be academic, if a vice-president became Acting President with years left in the president’s term, as there would be a protracted vacancy in the office of the vice-presidency. The last vice-presidential vacancy that lasted over a year was 14 months between Lyndon Johnson’s November 22, 1963 ascension to the presidency, and Hubert Humphrey’s swearing in as vice-president on January 20, 1965. Since ratification of the 25th Amendment in 1967, there have been two brief vice-presidential vacancies: two months in 1973 while Gerald Ford was waiting for Congress to confirm his appointment by President Nixon; and four months in 1974 while Nelson Rockefeller was waiting for Congress to confirm his appointment by President Ford. During those intervals the next-in-line of presidential succession was House Speaker Carl Albert (D-OK). Signs of Biden’s cognitive impairment were substantial enough in mid-June 2021, for Rep. Dr. Ronny Jackson (R-TX), who had served as personal presidential physician for three presidents (Bush 43, Obama, and Trump), to call for President Biden to take a mental competency test — less than five months into his term. This could have become a huge succession problem during the current administration, were the president to have had a stroke and lapsed into a coma, unless he had prepared a memorandum to the vice-president akin to that authored by President Eisenhower, on March 3, 1958, which subsequently was adopted by presidents Kennedy and Johnson. It provided:  THE PRESIDENT and the Vice President have agreed that the following procedures are in accord with the purposes and provisions of Article 2, Section I, of the Constitution, dealing with Presidential inability. They believe that these procedures, which are intended to apply to themselves only, are in no sense outside or contrary to the Constitution but are consistent with its present provisions and implement its clear intent. (1) In the event of inability the President would — if possible — so inform the Vice President, and the Vice President would serve as Acting President, exercising the powers and duties of the Office until the inability had ended. (2) In the event of an inability which would prevent the President from so communicating with the Vice President, the Vice President, after such consultation as seems to him appropriate under the circumstances, would decide upon the devolution of the powers and duties of the Office and would serve as Acting President until the inability had ended. (3) The President, in either event, would determine when the inability had ended and at that time would resume the full exercise of the powers and duties of the Office. Alternatively, in event of inability of a president to communicate, a properly executed legal instrument (living will, power of attorney) can provide a basis for a surrogate decision on the president’s behalf. (During his two terms as vice-president under Bush 43, Dick Cheney prepared a March 28, 2001 pre-signed undated resignation letter in event of his inability to carry out “for a significant time” his responsibilities as vice-president, or to communicate the same after a triggering health emergency.) Bottom Line. If Constitutional formalities are observed, and absent a legal instrument designating a surrogate decision maker, Joe will have to agree — or be persuaded to agree — to step down. READ MORE on presidential succession from John Wohlstetter: The Summer 2024 Presidential Succession Crisis The Summer 2024 Presidential Succession Crisis Explodes John C. Wohlstetter is the author of Presidential Succession: Constitution, Congress and National Security (Gold Institute Press, 2024).   The post 25th Amendment: Acting President Is Not President appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

You could have been born in Paris and feeling that walking through its picturesque parks is like crossing Senegal. And hanging love locks on bridges. And having all of Europe look down on you for voting for Le Pen trying to get rid of the hell France has become. And having to share a city with people who find Macron attractive. You could have been born in London and seen how the Conservatives are incapable of conserving anything, not even their voters. You could have been born in Norway and live in the dark, get sick of taking selfies in the fjords, with an expression similar to that of a smoked salmon. You could have been born in Sao Paolo and run into Lula da Silva on the street and have him steal your wallet. And fall in love with all the women at once, and feel true terror in every slum. You could have been born in Polynesia, being French without the option of living in Cannes, and not know how the hell to find your island on a world map. (READ MORE from Itxu Diaz: Ignore the New York Times Killjoys. Enjoy Your Wedding.) You could have been born in China and spend the day eating pangolins and bat wings, dodging coronaviruses, living in prison for expressing your opinion, and writing in strange characters. Worse yet, you could not read The American Spectator without risking a conviction for being a subversive element. You could have been born in Afghanistan and, if you are a girl, have to wear mourning clothes, exchange fines for lashes, and celebrate holidays with non-alcoholic beverages. Plus, every ten years or so, you’d have to go shopping while dodging bombs. You could have been born in Mexico City, have a president even dumber than yours, and wake up kidnapped and unaccounted for every time you get carried away with the tequila at night. You could have been born in Monaco and cross the border every time you go for a jog, and work as a croupier in the casino watching the millions pass before your eyes while being unable to keep even a few coins in your pocket. You could have been born in Tehran and be dead for almost any reason; or, at best, tortured by the regime of the religion of love. You could have been born in Bern and pay $7 for a freaking Big Mac, only to find out that Swiss women, while hot, only marry Swiss men, who are boring as hell. You could have been born in Amsterdam and be offered euthanasia every time you have a cold. And, if you manage to escape suicide, live without knowing anything about what is going on around you because you are stoned all the time just to not draw attention to yourself. You could have been born in London and seen how the Conservatives are incapable of conserving anything, not even their voters; and, what’s more, live depressed surrounded by rain and fog. You could have been born in Germany and hear everyone speaking a language that sounds like an angry lion, and have cars stop you every few miles for lack of Ad Blue anti-pollution, and have normal people ask you why you don’t want to vote for someone as wonderful as Merkel (remember her wonderful “Welcome, refugees!”), or whatever the hell her successor’s name is. You could have been born in India, and … oh, no, probably not. I don’t see you in white robes chanting Ali Express guru chants, and reeking of curry. You could have been born in Spain and, frankly, you would be happy, but you would also have to put up with a government full of communists and incompetent ministers, who fight tooth and nail against your freedom, and whose biggest sexual fantasy is to raise your taxes. (READ MORE: The Confused Generation) But, dear friend, I was thinking this past 4th of July, Providence is on your side, you had the good fortune to be born in the United States, in the heart of the free world, and perhaps it is time to thank God for that. Only a great nation can survive someone like Joe Biden. Hope you had a happy 4th of July! The post After July 4th: You Could Have Been Born Elsewhere appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.