Alan Keyes
Lindsey Graham's unconstitutional threat
By Alan Keyes
I heartily agree with Bradlee Dean's criticism. Someone at Graham's office "told Mediaite...that Graham was employing over-the-top-humor to win over his audience." However, we're presently in the midst of the most open and deliberate assault on the authority of the U.S. Constitution by any president in our history.
What kind of politician expects true Republicans to laugh at the prospect of a future GOP occupant of the White House advancing Obama's dictatorial agenda to the point of using military coercion against the Congress of the United States to do something the Constitution explicitly forbids in Article I.6, paragraph 1?
Graham delivers his supposed "humor" in a tone that makes it appear deadly as a heart attack. His serious demeanor reminded me of the fact that, in every respect, its anti-constitutional content is consistent with the elitist faction's agenda for the demise of American liberty. In that respect, the "humor" might just be the carrier frequency that conveys (to those who have ears to hear) the notion that he's the sort of Republican to complete the agenda Obama has thus far so treacherously advanced.
Graham was speaking out against cuts in our defense and national security budgets. Because I hate the damage Obama has done to America's preparedness, I heartily support the goal of undoing it. But unlike some people who profess to be conservative, I'm not a "pragmatist" who thinks it makes sense to pretend we can defend America's way of life by shredding our Constitution of liberty. I leave that pretense to Obama and the GOP quislings who work with him in pursuit of the elitist faction's tyrannical agenda.
Their pervasive collaboration is the reason everything that happens in government and politics these days is a two-edged sword. For example, it's in our interest to signal a dramatic break with the racism of our past, so we must elect someone to the White House with a lifelong hatred of America's principles and positive achievements. It's in our interest to defeat the terrorists in the war they make against us, so we must pass laws that authorize the systematic abrogation of the rights and due process essential to our integrity as a free people. It's in our interest to prevent the collapse of our productive economy, so we must implement reverse Robin Hood bailouts, funded by astronomical debt that destroys the good faith and credit of the American people.
Much more such progress and we shall be undone. Yet and still, it does not stop. Speaker John Boehner invites Prime Minister Netanyahu to address the U.S. Congress, ostensibly to counter the Obama faction's efforts to secure Netanyahu's defeat in the upcoming elections in Israel. People like myself are cheered by, and inclined to cheer, what appears to be a courageous demarche to signal the American people's unflagging support for the U.S.-Israeli partnership.
Now comes the report that Boehner and Pelosi made a "deal to use the hoopla around...Netanyahu's...address to Congress over Iran's nuclear ambitions as political cover" for the quisling/Obama faction vote to fund Obama's anti-constitutional amnesty for illegal immigrants. As Michele Bachmann says, "They've given the appearance of pushing this wildly unpopular vote under the cover of a wildly popular speech by a wildly popular leader...."
Tragically, this poisonous double-edged quality seems now to infect even the most sincere efforts to counter the fatal damage Obama's foreign and domestic policies aim to inflict on our nation. I strongly support the understanding and purpose that informed the letter Sen. Tom Cotton and his colleagues in the U.S. Senate addressed to the leaders of Iran, but their action was inconsistent with the prudential requirements of America's international stature. It sent a blatant signal of exploitable disunity to friend and foe alike. It pushed the limits of the "advise and consent" role of the U.S. Senate when it comes to our nation's international affairs, opening the door to the self-defeating plurality of voices our founders deliberately sought to avoid when they rejected the institution of a plural executive for the Constitution of the United States.
The letter's signatories were well advised to look for a way to make it clear that Obama's treacherous surrender to Iran's ambition to develop and deploy nuclear weapons will not stand. But they delivered that message by means that imprudently set a constitutionally erosive precedent for the future. The key to prudent statesmanship is to do what's necessary in each given instance in a way that respects what's necessary on the whole.
The failure to do so in this case is the direct result of the fact that the GOP's quisling leaders have adamantly refused to call Obama to account for his anti-constitutional actions. Why do GOP senators need to write open letters to foreign leaders informing them of the fact that, under the U.S. Constitution, Obama's agreement can be repudiated by the U.S. Congress? If effective GOP actions taken in accordance with the Constitution made that point clear in the record of Congress' activities, there would be no need to make it with words addressed to foreign leaders during an ongoing negotiation which, at the very least, violates the prudential logic of the Constitution's unitary executive.
It's long past time for Americans to re-examine our tolerance for a sham political process that saddles us with elected government officials who seem unwilling or unable to look out for our safety, our security, and the effective integrity of the constitutional sovereignty of the American people, all at the same time. That's the challenge of competent statesmanship, and the elected officials on both wings of the elitist faction's sham party system every day prove themselves unwilling or unable to meet it.
March 17, 2015
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Here is the first thing I would do if I were president of the United States: I wouldn't let Congress leave town until we fix this. I would literally use the military to keep them in if I had to.
– Sen. Lindsey Graham, March 7, 2015
I heartily agree with Bradlee Dean's criticism. Someone at Graham's office "told Mediaite...that Graham was employing over-the-top-humor to win over his audience." However, we're presently in the midst of the most open and deliberate assault on the authority of the U.S. Constitution by any president in our history.
What kind of politician expects true Republicans to laugh at the prospect of a future GOP occupant of the White House advancing Obama's dictatorial agenda to the point of using military coercion against the Congress of the United States to do something the Constitution explicitly forbids in Article I.6, paragraph 1?
Graham delivers his supposed "humor" in a tone that makes it appear deadly as a heart attack. His serious demeanor reminded me of the fact that, in every respect, its anti-constitutional content is consistent with the elitist faction's agenda for the demise of American liberty. In that respect, the "humor" might just be the carrier frequency that conveys (to those who have ears to hear) the notion that he's the sort of Republican to complete the agenda Obama has thus far so treacherously advanced.
Graham was speaking out against cuts in our defense and national security budgets. Because I hate the damage Obama has done to America's preparedness, I heartily support the goal of undoing it. But unlike some people who profess to be conservative, I'm not a "pragmatist" who thinks it makes sense to pretend we can defend America's way of life by shredding our Constitution of liberty. I leave that pretense to Obama and the GOP quislings who work with him in pursuit of the elitist faction's tyrannical agenda.
Their pervasive collaboration is the reason everything that happens in government and politics these days is a two-edged sword. For example, it's in our interest to signal a dramatic break with the racism of our past, so we must elect someone to the White House with a lifelong hatred of America's principles and positive achievements. It's in our interest to defeat the terrorists in the war they make against us, so we must pass laws that authorize the systematic abrogation of the rights and due process essential to our integrity as a free people. It's in our interest to prevent the collapse of our productive economy, so we must implement reverse Robin Hood bailouts, funded by astronomical debt that destroys the good faith and credit of the American people.
Much more such progress and we shall be undone. Yet and still, it does not stop. Speaker John Boehner invites Prime Minister Netanyahu to address the U.S. Congress, ostensibly to counter the Obama faction's efforts to secure Netanyahu's defeat in the upcoming elections in Israel. People like myself are cheered by, and inclined to cheer, what appears to be a courageous demarche to signal the American people's unflagging support for the U.S.-Israeli partnership.
Now comes the report that Boehner and Pelosi made a "deal to use the hoopla around...Netanyahu's...address to Congress over Iran's nuclear ambitions as political cover" for the quisling/Obama faction vote to fund Obama's anti-constitutional amnesty for illegal immigrants. As Michele Bachmann says, "They've given the appearance of pushing this wildly unpopular vote under the cover of a wildly popular speech by a wildly popular leader...."
Tragically, this poisonous double-edged quality seems now to infect even the most sincere efforts to counter the fatal damage Obama's foreign and domestic policies aim to inflict on our nation. I strongly support the understanding and purpose that informed the letter Sen. Tom Cotton and his colleagues in the U.S. Senate addressed to the leaders of Iran, but their action was inconsistent with the prudential requirements of America's international stature. It sent a blatant signal of exploitable disunity to friend and foe alike. It pushed the limits of the "advise and consent" role of the U.S. Senate when it comes to our nation's international affairs, opening the door to the self-defeating plurality of voices our founders deliberately sought to avoid when they rejected the institution of a plural executive for the Constitution of the United States.
The letter's signatories were well advised to look for a way to make it clear that Obama's treacherous surrender to Iran's ambition to develop and deploy nuclear weapons will not stand. But they delivered that message by means that imprudently set a constitutionally erosive precedent for the future. The key to prudent statesmanship is to do what's necessary in each given instance in a way that respects what's necessary on the whole.
The failure to do so in this case is the direct result of the fact that the GOP's quisling leaders have adamantly refused to call Obama to account for his anti-constitutional actions. Why do GOP senators need to write open letters to foreign leaders informing them of the fact that, under the U.S. Constitution, Obama's agreement can be repudiated by the U.S. Congress? If effective GOP actions taken in accordance with the Constitution made that point clear in the record of Congress' activities, there would be no need to make it with words addressed to foreign leaders during an ongoing negotiation which, at the very least, violates the prudential logic of the Constitution's unitary executive.
It's long past time for Americans to re-examine our tolerance for a sham political process that saddles us with elected government officials who seem unwilling or unable to look out for our safety, our security, and the effective integrity of the constitutional sovereignty of the American people, all at the same time. That's the challenge of competent statesmanship, and the elected officials on both wings of the elitist faction's sham party system every day prove themselves unwilling or unable to meet it.
To see more articles by Dr. Keyes, visit his blog at LoyalToLiberty.com and his commentary at WND.com and BarbWire.com.
© Alan KeyesThe views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
