Judge Andrew Napolitano: Trump violates Constitution – Spends unappropriated funds, raises taxes on own

[bostonangler]

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Trump violates Constitution – Spends unappropriated funds, raises taxes on own

Does the president of the United States have too much power?

That question has been asked lately with respect to President Trump's planned use of federal funds to construct 175 miles of sporadic barriers along portions of the nearly 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico common border.

After Congress expressly declined to give him that money, Trump signed into law – rather than vetoed – the legislation that denied him the funds he sought and then spent the money anyway.

The question regarding presidential power has also been asked with respect to Trump’s imposition of sales taxes – Trump calls them tariffs -- on nearly all goods imported into the United States from China. These are taxes that only Congress can constitutionally authorize.

And the question of presidential power has been asked in connection with the presidentially ordered mistreatment of families seeking asylum in the United States by separating parents from children – in defiance of a court order.

This question of presidential power is not an academic one. Nor is it a question unique to the Trump presidency, as it has risen numerous times before Trump entered office. But the audacious manner of Trump's employment of presidential powers has brought it to public scrutiny.

Here is the backstory.

The Constitution was written in the aftermath of the American Revolution, a war fought against a kingdom, most of whose domestic subjects articulated that the king had been chosen by God to rule over them.

The colonists in America, prodded by radicals like Sam Adams, Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson, profoundly rejected that idea. They argued that each individual was sovereign and a repository of natural rights. Jefferson articulated as much in the Declaration of Independence.

So, when it came time to craft a new government here, the drafters of the Constitution, led by Jefferson's friend James Madison, made certain that there would be no king. Congress would write the laws. The president would enforce them. The judiciary would interpret them. This separation of powers is what the late Justice Antonin Scalia called the most unique and effective aspect of American government.

Why is that?

For starters, Madison feared the accumulation of too much power in any one branch of the government. With the exception of the uniqueness and violence of the Civil War, for 130 years, the branches remained within their confines. For that matter, the federal government did so as well.

Congresses and presidents accepted the Madisonian view that the federal government could only do what the Constitution affirmatively authorized it to do, and all remaining governmental tasks would be addressed by the states. This, too, was part of Madison's genius in order to impede the concentration of too much power in the hands of too few.

All that changed when a former professor of constitutional law -- who was not a lawyer -- entered the White House. Woodrow Wilson believed and behaved as though Congress could legislate on any problem for which there was a national political will, except that which was expressly prohibited by the Constitution.

The Wilsonian view of government and the Madisonian view of government are polar opposites.

At the same time that Wilson was turning the Constitution on its head, he was also signing legislation that created the agencies of the administrative state. These agencies, he argued, should be filled with experts in their fields -- the Food and Drug Administration, the Federal Trade Commission, to name a few -- because experts would bring better government.

The agencies were authorized to write regulations that have the power of law, to enforce those regulations and to interpret them. This slippage of constitutional authority to creatures alien to the Constitution -- which branch of government are they in? -- masked a parallel slippage of power from Congress to the presidency.

Just as Wilson persuaded Congress that the feds needed experts to run parts of the government, he and his successors persuaded Congress that the presidency should be the repository of emergency powers.

The Constitution does not authorize any emergency powers; nevertheless, the War Powers Resolution lets the president fight any war for 90 days without congressional authorization, even though the Constitution makes clear that only Congress can declare war. Other national emergency statutes give presidents short-term near-dictatorial powers -- like imposing taxes by calling them tariffs -- without defining what is an emergency.

Scalia railed against all this -- and the Supreme Court often struck down power transfers from Congress to the president. It did so not to preserve the institutional integrity of Congress but to uphold the principle of the separation of powers that Madison crafted as a bulwark against tyranny. The constitutional allocation of power among the branches is not for them to alter.

Its equilibrium was intended to maintain tension and even jealousy among the branches -- and thereby undergird personal liberty. Madison's articulated fear was "a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same" branch. Scalia called this gradual concentration of power in the presidency a wolf in sheep's clothing that became a bare naked wolf.

After years of faithless Congresses legally but unconstitutionally ceding power to the presidency, we have arrived where we are today -- a president who spends unappropriated funds, raises taxes, defies courts and changes immigration laws on his own. I have written before that the Republicans who rejoice in this will weep over it when a Democrat is in the White House. No president should have unconstitutional powers.

I have also written that the guarantees of the Constitution -- separation of powers foremost among them -- are only effective when the folks in whose hands we repose the Constitution for safekeeping are faithful to their oaths to uphold it.

When they are, our freedoms flourish. When they aren't -- power abhors a vacuum -- the temptation of tyranny arises.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/judge-andrew-napolitano-temptation-tyranny

 

 

Constitution? We don't need no constitution.... Said no one ever... 

B/A

[bostonangler]

Wow someone negged the constitution.... Who is the nameless Kommie who puts one man before our nation?

Come out come out wherever you are.

 

B/A

[yota691]

Your the head kommie, bring the video on this article an the Judge will state how many past president have done the same thing. The Judge talks about Barrack Hussein Obama did the same thing. In the Video the Judge states that Congress relinquish the power to the President...DAz

[bostonangler]

Wow those who hide in the shadows to attack are the ones who are in fear... I think they are starting to understand this fallacy of a presidency is coming to an end...

 

B/A

[bostonangler]

1 minute ago, yota691 said:

Your the head kommie, bring the video on this article an the Judge will state how many past president have done the same thing. The Judge talks about Barrack Hussein Obama did the same thing. In the Video the Judge states that Congress relinquish the power to the President...DAz

 

You back a clown who thinks he is above the constitution. Thinks he knows more than the general. Thinks it's okay to manipulate the markets. Thinks it's ok to put out fake hurricane tracks. Thinks it's okay to say he trusts Putin over our own people. Thinks it's okay to turn his back on allies. Thinks it's okay cheat at golf and you call me a Kommie... I'm really beginning to believe Trump and his supporters want to destroy the American way of life.

 

B/A

[bostonangler]

16 minutes ago, yota691 said:

the Judge will state how many past president have done the same thing. The Judge talks about Barrack Hussein Obama did the same thing.

 

Really? I didn't know any president diverted military funds to build a wall that Mexico was going to pay for. Thanks for sharing.

 

B/A

[yota691]

It was Obama Care, if you took the time to actually research this article an watch the video. You would have known this. But your about defaming POTUS. 

[bostonangler]

4 minutes ago, yota691 said:

It was Obama Care, if you took the time to actually research this article an watch the video. You would have known this. But your about defaming POTUS. 

 

Obama Care or as it is actually called "The Affordable Care Act" has been great for my family... Instead of slamming the past president maybe you should use the proper name. Unless you just want to defame him. As a business owner I needed help with insurance. I'm not a trust fund baby or in the inheritance business.

 

B/A

[MyLadiesDaddy]

34 minutes ago, bostonangler said:

Wow those who hide in the shadows to attack are the ones who are in fear... I think they are starting to understand this fallacy of a presidency is coming to an end...

 

B/A

I don't hide in the shadows, I freely and proudly shoot you in the face with rubies on EVERY SINGLE HATE FILLED POST YOU MAKE.

So quit yer dang cryn and Suck It Up Buttercup 

 

 

 

[bostonangler]

Just now, ladyGrace'sDaddy said:

I don't hide in the shadows, I freely and proudly shoot you in the face with rubies on EVERY SINGLE HATE FILLED POST YOU MAKE.

So quit yer dang cryn and Suck It Up Buttercup 

 

 

 

Thanks for your honesty. I know you are not hiding. It's not your style. But I am surprised you don't agree with a constitutional expert and judge. He makes a pretty good case.

 

B/A

[Shabibilicious]

3 minutes ago, ladyGrace'sDaddy said:

 

 

 

 

 

Beard butter, brother....try it, works like magic.  

 

GO RV, then BV

[MyLadiesDaddy]

Just now, bostonangler said:

 

Thanks for your honesty. I know you are not hiding. It's not your style. But I am surprised you don't agree with a constitutional expert and judge. He makes a pretty good case.

 

B/A

In fact most of what he says here is TRUE. However,  what he's leaving out is that because of the War Powers Act by Congress we are NOT operating under the Constitution. Haven't been for decades. That is why every flag you see around a POTUS has gold fringe which represents that you are under Admiralty Law.

Thus while some may not like it Trump has done nothing wrong here. 

3 minutes ago, Shabibilicious said:

 

Beard butter, brother....try it, works like magic.  

 

GO RV, then BV

Sorry but I gave up trying to be as perfect as you some time ago. 

[Shabibilicious]

1 minute ago, ladyGrace'sDaddy said:

Sorry but I gave up trying to be as perfect as you some time ago. 

 

Just a suggestion.....My son introduced it to me and I like how it softens my wiry beard, that's all.  Honestly I wish I could grow a ZZ Top worthy beard like yours.  

 

GO RV, then BV

[bostonangler]

3 minutes ago, ladyGrace'sDaddy said:

Trump has done nothing wrong here.

 

That's a bit of a stretch... Faking a hurricane map is strange if not wrong. LOL

 

B/A

[new york kevin]

57 minutes ago, bostonangler said:

Wow someone negged the constitution.... Who is the nameless Kommie who puts one man before our nation?

Come out come out wherever you are.

 

B/A

Wow BA. You are sinking lower than ever before. You calling anyone a kommie is like antifa intimidators calling people Nazis . IE: for the learning disabled - that means you yell at folks and accuse them of being the very bastards you are. 

[Shabibilicious]

1 minute ago, new york kevin said:

Wow BA. You are sinking lower than ever before. You calling anyone a kommie is like antifa intimidators calling people Nazis . IE: for the learning disabled - that means you yell at folks and accuse them of being the very bastards you are. 

 

Bad form Kevin.

 

 

GO RV, then BV

[bostonangler]

11 minutes ago, new york kevin said:

Wow BA. You are sinking lower than ever before. You calling anyone a kommie is like antifa intimidators calling people Nazis . IE: for the learning disabled - that means you yell at folks and accuse them of being the very bastards you are. 

 

I'm bit confused. I posted a constitutional expert's opinion from FOX NEWS  about abusing the constitution and some clown negged it. I only used Kommie because that is a popular term here on DV... Day in and day I read where people here are all for the constitution, until their cult leader does something questionable, and then they choose him over the  ideals of our foundering fathers. Geez

 

B/A

Edited September 6, 2019 by bostonangler

[new york kevin]

11 minutes ago, Shabibilicious said:

 

Bad form Kevin.

 

 

GO RV, then BV

Perhaps bad form Shabs perhaps not. Truth hurts. Such as the truth that the SOCTUS recent ruling the it is not illegal for POTUS Trump to re-appropriate the unappropriated military money to build the wall. This Pres is addressing the problems of this country that the Dems always promised to fix, campaigned on to fix, and never ever intended to fix. So BA and NA supporters should

 

45 minutes ago, ladyGrace'sDaddy said:

 

 

 

 

 

[MyLadiesDaddy]

25 minutes ago, Shabibilicious said:

 

Just a suggestion.....My son introduced it to me and I like how it softens my wiry beard, that's all.  Honestly I wish I could grow a ZZ Top worthy beard like yours.  

 

GO RV, then BV

Appreciate it but if my beard was any softer it would be like baby  oil on a strippers booty

 

 

25 minutes ago, bostonangler said:

 

That's a bit of a stretch... Faking a hurricane map is strange if not wrong. LOL

 

B/A

I don't believe he faked it, more likely he was just trying to show what he was thinking when he saw it.

 

 

6 minutes ago, bostonangler said:

 

I'm bit confused. I posted a constitutional expert's opinion from FOX NEWS  about abusing the constitution and some clown negged it. I only used Kommie because that is a popular term here on DV... Day in and day I read where people here are all for the constitution, until their cult leader does something questionable, and then they choose him over the  ideals of our foundering fathers. Geez

 

B/A

I'll say it again, 

 

 

[Muleslayer]

14 hours ago, ladyGrace'sDaddy said:

Appreciate it but if my beard was any softer it would be like baby  oil on a strippers booty

 

 

I don't believe he faked it, more likely he was just trying to show what he was thinking when he saw it.

 

 

I'll say it again, 

 

 

LOL! DA MAN!