[Vision2020] What if . . .

Tue Mar 24 19:15:50 PDT 2020

Just to set the record straight, Thomas Jefferson didn't say the quote
attributed to him:
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2019/jun/06/facebook-posts/no-thomas-jefferson-did-not-say-big-government-str/

A researcher did locate the origin of the quote about big government:
This is usually attributed to Gerald Ford, but researcher *Barry Popik* has
found it earlier, in *Paul Harvey*‘s 1952 book *Remember These Things*.
https://freakonomics.com/2009/10/01/quotes-uncovered-big-government-and-peculiarities/

And that's the rest of the story...

Ron Force
Moscow Idaho USA

On Mon, Mar 23, 2020 at 9:06 PM Ted Moffett <starbliss at gmail.com> wrote:

> Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
> ------------------------------------
> MAR 19, 2020
>
> https://www.truthdig.com/articles/if-trump-declares-martial-law-due-to-coronavirus-can-he-suspend-the-election/
>
> If Trump Declares Martial Law Due to Coronavirus, Can He Suspend the
> Election?
> Excerpt from article:
>
> If our self-proclaimed “wartime president” were to declare martial law to
> fight the pandemic, would he have the authority to suspend the election in
> November? Josh Douglas, an election law scholar at the University of
> Kentucky Law School, doesn’t believe so. “Even [martial law] would likely
> not give him power to postpone election or delay end of his term on Jan.
> 20, 2021,” he tweeted
> <https://twitter.com/JoshuaADouglas/status/1238875671386034176?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1238875671386034176&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.businessinsider.com%2Ftrump-cant-cancel-or-postpone-the-november-election-over-coronavirus-2020-3>.
> “As Supreme Court said in ex parte Milligan (1866), martial law does not
> suspend the Constitution.”
>
> But Ian Millhiser, a senior correspondent at Vox, where he covers Supreme
> Court issues, points out that the courts usually defer to national security
> decisions made by presidents, citing the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold
> Japanese-American detention camps during World War II and, more recently,
> President Trump’s Muslim travel ban. “American election law was not written
> with a pandemic in mind,” he writes
> <https://www.vox.com/2020/3/18/21183492/election-coronavirus-ohio-pandemic-supreme-court-speweik>.
> “Extraordinary measures may be necessary to control the spread of
> coronavirus for many months — possibly continuing well into the November
> election season. And if those extraordinary measures do disrupt the general
> elections, courts are likely to defer to public health officials even if
> those officials act with partisan motivation.”
>
> John W. Whitehead, founder and president of the Rutherford Institute, a
> nonprofit civil liberties organization based in Charlottesville, Virginia,
> views the coronavirus pandemic not as a test of our ability to come
> together as a nation in a time of crisis, but rather as “a test to see
> whether the Constitution—and our commitment to the principles enshrined in
> the Bill of Rights—can survive a national crisis and a true state of
> emergency
> <https://www.globalresearch.ca/how-constitution-fare-during-nationwide-lockdown/5706172>
> .”
>
> Today in America, we find ourselves caught in the crosshairs of two
> powerful, unpredictable and dangerous forces—Trumpism and coronavirus. The
> stock market has lost all its gains since Trump took office
> <https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-bump-flattened-post-inauguration-163524922.html>,
> a 20 percent unemployment rate
> <https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/17/politics/steven-mnuchin-unemployment-warning-coronavirus/index.html> is
> in the offing, and Americans are dying
> <https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/>. Will we pass
> this test? Will the Constitution survive?
>
> New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, agrees with the wartime
> footing that Trump has initiated. “This is a war, we have to treat it like
> a war,” Cuomo said
> <https://www.nydailynews.com/coronavirus/ny-coronavirus-cuomo-respirator-20200319-xuimmmxatjcnpnvhvntqkp6mle-story.html>.
> “In a war, you need the federal government.” Sure, states need help from
> Washington to deal with the pandemic, from the health crisis itself to the
> economic crisis it has spawned. But before tanks start rumbling down New
> York’s Fifth Avenue and the Army Corps of Engineers cordons off
> neighborhoods with bollards and barbed wire, Cuomo might consider the
> warning of one of Trump’s more eloquent and sagacious predecessors, Thomas
> Jefferson: “A government big enough to give you everything you want is big
> enough to take away everything you have.”
> On Sun, Mar 22, 2020 at 1:13 PM Ron Force <ronforce at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Here's a recent discussion from the blog* Marginal Revolution:*
>>
>>
>> Will the November 2020 elections be postponed? It's not impossible, as
>> the law for Nov elections only dates to the 1790s and is a law passed by
>> Congress, it's not in the US constitution. Stay tuned...
>>
>> Me and mine are fine, in GR and PH at the moment and in self-sufficient
>> farms (both of us). 1% always survive.
>> JeremyMarch 16, 2020 at 11:13 am  Hide Replies
>> <https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/03/a-report-from-the-hospital-front-from-a-reliable-source.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+marginalrevolution%2Ffeed+%28Marginal+Revolution%29#>
>> 3
>> <https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/03/a-report-from-the-hospital-front-from-a-reliable-source.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+marginalrevolution%2Ffeed+%28Marginal+Revolution%29#blog-comment-160049781>
>>
>> The U.S. Constitution makes it very clear: on January 20th, at noon, if
>> there hasn't been an election and nobody has voted, Nancy Pelosi becomes
>> President of the United States.
>> IgnacioMarch 16, 2020 at 11:57 am  Hide Replies
>> <https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/03/a-report-from-the-hospital-front-from-a-reliable-source.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+marginalrevolution%2Ffeed+%28Marginal+Revolution%29#>
>> 4
>> <https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/03/a-report-from-the-hospital-front-from-a-reliable-source.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+marginalrevolution%2Ffeed+%28Marginal+Revolution%29#blog-comment-160049814>
>>
>> But, if there had been no elections, Nancy's term will also have expired.
>> Then, wouldn't the president be the President pro tempore of the Senate?
>> Bob from OhioMarch 16, 2020 at 2:15 pm  Hide Replies
>> <https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/03/a-report-from-the-hospital-front-from-a-reliable-source.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+marginalrevolution%2Ffeed+%28Marginal+Revolution%29#>
>> 5
>> <https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/03/a-report-from-the-hospital-front-from-a-reliable-source.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+marginalrevolution%2Ffeed+%28Marginal+Revolution%29#blog-comment-160049930>
>>
>> Yes, and since a majority of the 2020 senate class is GOP, the Dems will
>> elect the pro tem so it will be Leahy.
>> John MMarch 16, 2020 at 2:59 pm  Hide Replies
>> <https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/03/a-report-from-the-hospital-front-from-a-reliable-source.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+marginalrevolution%2Ffeed+%28Marginal+Revolution%29#>
>> 6
>> <https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/03/a-report-from-the-hospital-front-from-a-reliable-source.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+marginalrevolution%2Ffeed+%28Marginal+Revolution%29#blog-comment-160049968>
>>
>> Not necessarily. The Presidential Succession Act doesn't have primacy
>> here; the 12th and 20th Amendments do. On January 6, when Congress convenes
>> to count the electoral votes, if there is no candidate that receives 270
>> votes then the House of Representatives chooses a President with one vote
>> cast by each state delegation. The Constitution specifies that a quorum
>> requires at least one Member from two-thirds of the states, and votes from
>> a majority of the states to be elected.
>>
>> Now, what happens if there *is* no House of Representatives because every
>> single one's term expired is an interesting question, or if the House can't
>> seat members from at least 34 states on January 3 when the new Congress
>> begins. That's the point at which I would assume the Presidential
>> Succession Act takes hold, and we start talking about President Leahy or
>> President Grassley.
>>
>> This also assumes, of course, that states don't take some alternate route
>> to select Presidential electors. There's no Constitutional requirement that
>> they do so via public vote; the Constitution only says that "Each State
>> shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a
>> Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and
>> Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress" so in
>> theory state legislatures could bypass popular elections and simply select
>> electors by gubernatorial fiat, by legislative vote, by wet t-shirt
>> contest, etc. This doesn't solve the issue of seating a House of
>> Representatives -- which *does* have to be selected by popular vote -- but
>> it's at least theoretically an option.
>> Ron Force
>> Moscow Idaho USA
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Mar 22, 2020 at 12:47 PM Nicholas Gier <ngier006 at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>
>
>> My understanding is that the states run the elections, and they would
>>> decide to postpone or cancel.
>>> nfg
>>>
>>> On Sun, Mar 22, 2020 at 12:42 PM Kenneth Marcy <kmmos1 at frontier.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 3/22/20 6:39 AM, Tom Hansen wrote:
>>>>
>>>
>
>> > . . . Trump suspends the November presidential election due to
>>>> > national emergency?
>>>> >
>>>> > Could . . . Would . . . this happen?
>>>> >
>>>> > (jus’ curious)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Not constitutionally.  There are time limits on one person's service as
>>>> president, and the separation of powers to the states for setting dates
>>>> for elections of senators, representatives, and to the electoral
>>>> college
>>>> to achieve election results in time for winners to begin their new
>>>> terms
>>>> at the constitutionally mandated dates. This means that no president
>>>> may
>>>> extend terms of office beyond the two now allowed without
>>>> constitutional
>>>> amendments approved by three-quarters of the states.
>>>>
>>>> Despite the fact that Vladimir Putin is now allowed to rule Russia
>>>> until
>>>> 2036, Donald Trump is allowed to be president of the United States of
>>>> America until noon on January 20, 2021, unless individual and electoral
>>>> college voters allow him a second term, which would end, according to
>>>> the current U.S. constitution, January 20, 2025.
>>>>
>>>> If Trump wanted to cancel elections for president and vice president,
>>>> the House of Representatives would choose a president, and the Senate
>>>> would choose a vice-president to serve until the next set of elections
>>>> to be held to choose officers and electors to meet the next
>>>> constitutionally-mandated set of terms of office.  Trump's fantasies
>>>> about following Chinese and Russian leaders into an American presidency
>>>> for life are just that -- fantasies.  Yes, one might fantasize a
>>>> dystopia with appropriate constitutional amendments in place, but I
>>>> doubt even horror writers such as Stephen King would attempt such a
>>>> fiction.  Not only are horror writers unlikely to write such fiction,
>>>> voters are even more unlikely to approve such constitutional amendments.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Ken
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>
>>> A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know
>>> they shall never sit in.
>>>
>>> -Greek proverb
>>>
>>> “Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity.
>>> Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance
>>> from another. This immaturity is self- imposed when its cause lies not in
>>> lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without
>>> guidance from another. Sapere Aude! ‘Have courage to use your own
>>> understand-ing!—that is the motto of enlightenment.
>>>
>>> --Immanuel Kant
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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