American Vet

What did 'he' say?

Peaver Bogart Loc: Montana

Hey A$$hole, give us a list of things Trump did that did not follow the Constitution. Then list the things that FJB does and did that did not follow the Constitution. FJB could and should be charged with treason.

Airdale Loc: Spartan Nation West Michigan

Two wrongs never make a right, Jackass. Dims like you will never understand that t***h.

Peaver Bogart Loc: Montana

I never said anything about two wrongs. And I'm definitely NOT a D-Rat. What I was saying, is he cannot list anything Trump did against the Constitution, but there's an entire laundry list of FJB doing things that should land him in prison

permafrost Loc: Minnesota

I did not find anything about Joe, but lots and lots about that orange POS.. but chose a mild one so you would not have hurt feelings..


https://www.cato.org/commentary/exit-survey-trumps-constitutional-misdeeds

here are eight of Trump’s worst constitutional violations, plus a couple of other worrying developments from his term.

* * *
1. Acting Officials

The Constitution’s appointments clause gives the president power to appoint federal officers, with the Senate’s advice and consent. There are often delays in the confirmation process, however, so Congress enacted the Federal Vacancies Reform Act (FVRA) to allow the president to appoint “acting” officers, people already holding certain positions within the federal government who can serve in a vacant office for a maximum of 210 days after it becomes vacant. Keeping an officer in such an “acting” position past the statutory limit violates the appointments clause. Although past presidents have employed a handful of unlawfully serving officers, Trump made the creative use of “actings” into an art.

Take the Department of Homeland Security, where until his recent resignation, Chad Wolf had served as acting secretary since November 2019 — well more than 210 days since the last permanent secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, resigned. Several courts have ruled that Wolf's actions as acting secretary are void because he wasn't eligible for the role, without even broaching the timing issue. The authority of the man serving as acting deputy secretary, Ken Cuccinelli, was even more clouded. With little chance of confirmation as director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Cuccinelli was instead appointed by Trump to the newly created position of principal deputy director, which would supposedly allow him to then be named acting director, which in turn would allow him eventually to be named acting deputy secretary. Cuccinelli's directives have likewise run into legal trouble.

2. Steel Tariffs

The Trump administration also violated the separation of powers in March 2018, when it issued a 25 percent steel tariff under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act (TEA). The purpose of the TEA is to grow foreign commerce by opening trade up, but it effectively allows the president to unilaterally restrict imports in the name of national security. The president's security justification was undermined by the fact that military requirements for steel represent only 3 percent of the commodity's domestic production. It's also unclear how the round 25 percent figure was calculated or how it relates to national security. Courts were unwilling to question executive discretion, or congressional delegation of the power to regulate international commerce, though one judge asked and failed to receive an answer to the question of whether the president's authority would extend to tariffs on peanut butter.

3. Border-Wall Funding

Trump once again violated the separation of powers when in February 2019 he repurposed funds from the military budget to build his border wall without congressional approval. The Constitution's appropriations clause states that no money may be drawn from the treasury unless appropriated by law, which means that the executive can't spend money that Congress hasn't authorized it to spend. When Congress appropriated some but not all of the money Trump wanted for his border wall, the president found what he thought was a workaround: he declared a national emergency, which in part gave him the power to shift Defense Department funds appropriated for drug-war activities and military-construction projects. The Supreme Court is hearing a challenge to this executive reappropriation next month (Full Disclosure: I filed a brief supporting the challenge), and even if the justices rule in Trump's favor, there's a serious constitutional problem with Congress's delegation of such plainly legislative authority.

In early 2017, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that he would be punishing states and local governments for refusing to help the federal government enforce its i*********n l*ws. This denial of a slew of federal law-enforcement grants to so-called sanctuary cities violated the “anti-commandeering doctrine,” among other principles of federalism. That is, states are independent sovereigns that can’t be forced to assist the federal government, and although they can be enticed to help willingly with the promise of federal funds, the federal government can’t place additional strings on those enticements without congressional approval. Numerous courts around the country have blocked Sessions’s plan, which has gone unenforced.

5. Bump-Stock Ban

I’ll let my Cato colleagues Trevor Burrus and James Knight explain this one:

A bump stock is firearm accessory that allows the user to fire a semi‐​automatic gun more quickly by harnessing its recoil. After the tragic 2017 mass k*****g in Las Vegas, it was reported that the shooter used guns equipped with bump stocks to carry out his crime, leading to a backlash against the devices. Despite considerable bipartisan support in Congress for passing a bill banning bump stocks, President Trump told members of Congress not to address the issue. Instead, the president directed his administration to ban bump stocks by reinterpreting existing laws that ban fully automatic guns. Thus, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms reinterpreted the word “machinegun” to include bump‐​stock devices, despite a longstanding determination under both the Bush and Obama administrations that bump stocks did not fit within the legal meaning of “machinegun.”

As a result, possession of a bump stock is now a crime, even though Congress has never passed a law criminalizing the devices. Before the ban was enacted, members of the president’s own administration had expressed concerns about this approach, saying that only Congress has the power to ban bump stocks.

Litigation in the matter is ongoing.

6. Bombing Syria

Another instance of Trump’s ignoring the separation-of-powers doctrine to do what he pleases is his air strikes in Syria. In April 2017, the Trump administration ordered the bombing of a Syrian military base to “save” Syrians from the Assad regime. Regardless of the humanitarian justification, Trump did not inform Congress of this bombing mission, much less ask for authorization. He then ordered another air strike in Syria without congressional approval in 2018. A bipartisan group of members of Congress questioned its constitutionality.

7. Blocking Twitter Users

Although Twitter’s ban of @realDonaldTrump is currently in the news, the legal and policy issues raised by that decision are different than those raised by the president’s blocking of users who criticized him. While I was initially skeptical of the lawsuit filed in the first year of his presidency challenging such blockings, it subsequently became apparent that Trump had turned his Twitter feed into a public forum by announcing executive actions and policies there, from the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria to the se******n of Christopher Waller for the Federal Reserve Board to the goal of returning a citizenship question to the 2020 census to West Wing personnel decisions and so on and so forth. The White House also designated Trump’s tweets as official statements to be maintained by the National Archives, making his account far from a personal one. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that Trump’s blocking of unfriendly followers thus constituted viewpoint discrimination, in violation of the First Amendment, but the Supreme Court had since October been postponing a decision on whether to take the case, which now it won’t have to.

8. C****-** Executive Orders

Trump built on Obama’s pen-and-phone governance to bypass the constitutional structure when he short-circuited congressional negotiations over C***D relief in August 2020 by issuing four p******c-related executive orders. These orders extended unemployment benefits and placed the onus on states to top them up, suspended the payroll tax for many workers, facilitated an eviction moratorium later declared by the Centers for Disease Control (the extension of which President Biden is now pursuing), and suspended student-loan repayments. While these may or may not be sensible policies to provide relief to low-income people economically hurt by the global p******c, even leading progressive legal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky found them unconstitutional.

Dishonorable Mentions

There are two other types of constitutional dubiousness indulged by Trump that merit a dishonorable mention: corruption and unethical behavior, and the abuses that would’ve been perpetrated had his aides not disregarded his instructions.

The first category encompasses both official actions such as undermining and pushing out federal inspectors general to unofficial actions such as calling his political opponents “human scum” and journalists “the enemy of the people” (even if it’s true that the mainstream media is biased against Republicans and conservatives). The two actions for which he was impeached — pressuring a foreign leader to investigate a political rival and fomenting an assault on the Capitol — can also be included here. And although neither the foreign-emoluments clause nor the domestic-emoluments clause quite covers the benefits Trump got from owning a hotel in central Washington or China’s fast-tracking his daughter’s trademark applications, the Constitution’s framers did mean to preclude that sort of personal corruption and influence-peddling.

American Vet

#1:
Although past presidents have employed a handful of unlawfully serving officers, Trump made the creative use of “actings” into an art.
So he did nothing 'unconstitutional' - He simply did what other Presidents have done. Just an example of your selective hypocrisy.

#2:
Steel Tariffs
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a challenge by steel companies to former President Donald Trump's 2018 decision to double tariffs on steel imports from Turkey on national security grounds.
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-supreme-court-turns-away-challenge-trump-steel-tariffs-2022-03-28/
SCOTUS doesn't agree with you, PermaDummy

#3:
Border-Wall Funding
Trump once again violated the separation of powers when in February 2019 he repurposed funds from the military budget to build his border wall without congressional approval.

In a 5-4 v**e, the Supreme Court has for now sided with President Trump on his border wall with Mexico, allowing him to continue construction using more than $6 billion diverted from military funds.
https://nypost.com/2020/07/31/supreme-court-approves-trump-border-wall-construction/
And again SCOTUS doesn't agree with you, PermaDummy

#4:
Missing - don't you know how to count past 3, PermaDummy?


#5:
Bump stock ban
The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a lawsuit from gun rights groups to challenge a ban on bump stocks.
https://www.thet***haboutguns.com/supreme-court-denies-cert-in-suit-challenging-marylands-bump-stock-ban/
And again SCOTUS doesn't agree with you, PermaDummy


#6
Bombing Syria
Under the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), several Presidents have bombed other countries - obama did it 7 times.
https://edition.cnn.com/2014/09/23/politics/countries-obama-bombed/index.html
More of your pathetic hypocrisy


#7:
Blocking Twitter Users
Yep - he shouldn't have done that.
That's all you have?


#8:
C****-** Executive Orders
progressive legal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky found them unconstitutional.
Opinion - nothing factual

I tell ya, PermaDummy, my hand is sore from b-slapping you so much.

Airdale Loc: Spartan Nation West Michigan

Your trick is to bate and switch using what you think Trump did to justify d********g mistreatment of a federal prisoner because he does not politically agree with Marxist Democrats. I was talking about the inhumane manner the Dems treated a fellow-American who had cancer while detained in their dirty and unsanitary jail. That is the way f*****t animals do it. We were not talking about Trump or what he did. That is another unrelated topic big guy. Start another thread if you want to discuss it.

Peaver Bogart Loc: Montana

First of all, this post,

Peaver Bogart wrote:
Hey A$$hole, give us a list of things Trump did that did not follow the Constitution. Then list the things that FJB does and did that did not follow the Constitution. FJB could and should be charged with treason.

Wasn't addressed to you it was addressed to the 'woodpeckerhead dummy'. And #2, I didn't think you were a D-Rat, but I reckon I was wrong. You just made my ignore list!

permafrost Loc: Minnesota

Vet, even at your level, the pretend reading comprehension is near non-existent,, Are you playing games or are you truly as dumb as you project?

I would go over each point with you and try to explain them for you.. but what the hell, my office wall gives better feedback than you are capable of..

Go find that electric fence Vet...

American Vet

Typical weak-minded ELWNJ response from the OPP village i***t.

Can’t refute the post so she makes excuses why she can’t.

Now run to the basement and hide.

CLPOS (Cowardly Lying POS - just in case you forgot your nickname)