Tag Archives: constitutional crises

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Now, a word about the Constitution

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I feel the need to offer an encouraging word as we grapple with tumult and trepidation in these so very trying times.

We have a president of the United States who is threatening to stay in office if the election results don’t turn out his way. He is going to challenge the results. He has determined that electing Joe Biden as president would mean the election is rigged.

I am going to place my entire faith in the U.S. Constitution to protect us against the madman who masquerades as the current president.

President Ford took office in 1974 after crisis that saw another president, Richard Nixon, resign from office. “Our Constitution works,” Gerald Ford told us immediately after taking his oath of office. He was right.

We are facing another set of potentially frightening circumstances. Donald Trump is threatening to do actual harm to our system of government.

He is challenging the integrity of our electoral system. He actually suggested that “getting rid of ballots” would ensure his re-election. Trump has suggested that he very well might seek a third term were he to win a second term in office; he says the first term was spoiled by “witch hunts” launched by Democrats.

I happen to believe in the strength of the Constitution, which has endured many crises over the years. We have gone through three presidential impeachments and the Constitution served as the guiding beacon for all of those endeavors.

There was the aforementioned Watergate scandal of 1972-74. A vice president resigned, was replaced by the man who would succeed the president. It was all done under the auspices of the nation’s governing document.

Yes, these are perilous times. I am concerned about our future. However, my faith in the Constitution and the limits it places on executive authority gives me hope that it will see us through this current spasm of chaos and confusion.

I get that the founders didn’t create a perfect governing document back in the 18th century. It’s been made “more perfect” over time. However, what they did create has worked well enough to hold this country together during the most trying of times.

I am banking on the U.S. Constitution keeping us whole as we seek to find our way out of the darkness that Donald Trump has brought.

Uncategorized

Another ‘Gate’ scandal joins the ranks

Now it’s become “Bridgegate.”

Please.

Now many “gate” scandals — or controversies, if you will — must we endure?

I refer, of course, to the boiling mess involving the lane closures on the George Washington Bridge this past year. Did the Republican governor of New Jersey order the lanes closed to get back at the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee, N.J. because the mayor didn’t endorse the governor for re-election? If so, what will be the consequences? If not, will the media let the story die?

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/01/chris-christies-bridgegate-guide-102033.html?hp=l6

It’s become yet another in an interminable line of “gate” stories.

I feel compelled to remind everyone there is only one “gate” scandal that matters. The Watergate scandal of 1972-74 brought down the 37th president of the United States, Richard Nixon.

On June 17, 1972, a team of bungling burglars broke into the Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate Hotel and office complex in Washington. They got caught. Then over the course of the next few days — we would learn later — the president of the United States ordered federal authorities to quash the investigation into whether the president’s re-election campaign or the White House were complicit in any way.

Therein launched a constitutional crisis of enormous proportions. The debate has swirled ever since ass to whether it merited the attention it got. I believe it did. President Nixon used the power of his office to stymie a federal criminal probe. That’s a very big deal indeed.

He quit the presidency on Aug. 9. 1974, thus ending the Watergate scandal for keeps … or so we all thought and hoped.

The “gate” part of that terrible time lives on as goofballs attach the suffix to every political controversy large and/or small that comes along.

I’m weary of it. There can be only one “gate” scandal. It was enough of a doozy to stand alone forever.