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Our Founding Fathers Got it Right
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| 'Let's not give so much power to one man!' |
Adventures like our attack on Iran were anticipated by our country’s Founding Fathers. Here’s an excerpt from Professor Heather Cox Richardson’s ‘Letters from an American’ dated March 3.
"The Framers of the Constitution placed the power to declare war in the hands of Congress and not in the president above all because they did not trust that much power in the hands of one man.
But they also wanted to make sure the American people would have robust debates about the value of the money and lives lost in combat. So determined were they for the American people to have those debates that they put into the Constitution that Congress had the power to declare War…and…to raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years.
In Federalist #26, one of the newspaper essays Alexander Hamilton wrote to encourage the ratification of the Constitution, Hamilton explained that people shouldn’t fear the strength of the new government outlined in the Constitution, because the necessity of debating war, alongside the two-year limit on government funding for the military, would force Congress to debate military actions. He expected members of the opposition to attack those in power over military appropriations, so that if those in power were “disposed to exceed the proper limits, the community will be warned of the danger, and will have an opportunity of taking measures to guard against it.”
But Trump has now taken that power away from the people and their representatives. He has launched a military action that by his own admission is not an emergency situation like those anticipated by the War Powers Act, and thus he should have asked Congress for authorization to send troops and money to Iran. Members of Congress, in turn, would then have had to answer to their constituents.’
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But the President doesn’t care very much about the Constitution and neither do his followers in Congress which has ignored the necessity of his adhering to the War Powers Act. I suspect Trump thinks Hamilton was just another terrorist immigrant from somewhere in the Caribbean, or a Broadway show by some left-wing composer.
Once he is out of office and sanity reappears in our government, think of the cost of scraping his name off of all of the street signs, and government buildings and institutions, on which this wannabe tyrant, and his followers, will have affixed it.
There is precedent for doing so. But it will be a far bigger job than what the Democrats did in 1933, changing the name of the dam on the Colorado River from Hoover Dam, given to it by Republicans in 1930, back to Boulder Dam, after the canyon where it had just been completed and originally named.
President Hoover’s heritage is the Great Depression. President Trump’s heritage will be far worse. Neither deserves to have anything named after them.
JL
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Deep In the Heart of Texas
James Talarico’s victory in the Democratic Senatorial primary in Texas hopefully is a big step toward a win over whoever wins the Republican runoff election there, incumbent four term Senator John Cornyn or ultra right-winger, and indicted, Ken Paxton. Democratic participation in these primaries far exceeded that of Republicans and that is a good sign. Some observers say that in the near future, election to the presidency without Texas’ electoral votes will be impossible.
Although I preferred Jasmine Crockett in the Democratic race, Talarico’s economic and social positions are not too different from hers, and she will remain a strong voice in her House seat anyway.
My only possible misgiving about Talarico is his dependence upon ‘faith in God,’ despite his criticism of those who wear their religion on their sleeves for political purposes. It is reassuring that Talarico has even referred to today’s Christian Nationalists as having ‘a mouth full of Scripture, but hate in their hearts.’ His turning to ‘faith’ may actually serve to help him among Texas voters whom also, I suspect, are not yet ready to elect a Black person to the Senate.
If I were a Texas Democrat, I probably would have taken a deep breath and voted for Talarico because Crockett would have been a weaker candidate, lessening the opportunity to flip that seat in the Senate from red to blue.
JL
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Why Heather?
One thing that the attack on Iran has accomplished is removing the Epstein file investigation from the spotlight. This is one of the items covered in Professor Heather Cox Richardson’s ‘Letters from an American’ dated March 4.
For those new to Jackspotpourri, you can follow her thoughts by clicking here or copying and pasting https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ on your browser line.
The reason that I refer so frequently to Professor Richardson’s daily free postings is that she usually sums up what many other online observers are reporting on their individual sites. Referring to each of them separately, or providing links to them, including those of the New York Times (which has a ‘paywall’) would be a very demanding task for Jackspotpourri to take on.
Professor Richardson comes close to digesting them all each day in her posting, leaving very few (two follow) for Jackspotpourri to approach. Most of her site is available ‘for free’ unless you wish to make comments.
Dependence on most other online news or opinion sites, without paying for a subscription, leaves the reader with just the headlines. This is not the case with 'Letters from an American.' Even though they are fading into history, I still prefer to also receive the print version of a real newspaper.
JL
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Dragons?
Even stronger than Professor Richardson’s commentary on the present political scene is that of UCSD Professor Barbara Walter. Check it out (‘Here be Dragons) by clicking here or by copying and pasting https://barbarafwalter.substack.com/about on your device’s browser line.
She makes it clear that ‘everything Trump does between now and November is about keeping a Republican majority in Congress. That’s the whole game. Keep that in mind, and everything else will make sense.’
JL
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Thinking About … ‘Strong Men’
The other day, Professor Timothy Snyder wrote about the danger of believing in a ‘strong man.’ Here is a challenging quote from his ‘Thinking About …’ posting:
‘Once you accept that Trump is strong, you are accepting that you are weaker than Trump. And once you accept the strongman form of politics, you no longer have recourse to laws, or norms, or even basic ideas of decency. When the strongman dishes it out, you have to just take it.’
JL
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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri
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More on the Sources of Information in Jackspotpourri: The sources of information used by Jackspotpourri include a delivered local daily ‘paper’ newspaper (now becoming the South Florida Sun Sentinel) and what appears in my daily email; that includes the views of many contributors, including the New York Times and other respected journals.
Be aware that when I open that email, I first quickly glance at and screen out those sent to my very old former email address and those considered ‘promotional’ by Gmail’s system as no more than advertisements or requests for donations.
Besides these sources, I also utilize the Google search engine where I can look up any subject I want. Lately, these search results have been headed by a very generalized summary clearly labeled as being developed by AI (Artificial Intelligence). On occasion I might use such search results, but when I do, I will say that I am doing so. Generally, however, I try not to use such summaries in preparing Jackspotpourri.
Following such ‘AI’ search results, there follows the other results of my search. Unlike the anonymous AI-generated summaries, the sources of these results are clearly indicated, giving them a greater credibility than any AI summary. I feel that It comes down to who YOU want to be in the driver’s seat in seeking information: yourself or something else (Artificial Intelligence), the structure of which somewhere along the way had to have been created by others, with whose identity I am neither familiar nor comfortable. At least when I read a column by Timothy Snyder, for example, I know from where it comes, and to some extent, what to expect.
Caution should be exercised in using Artificial Intelligence.
JL
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