Archive for the ‘politics’ Category

Northam Can Order the VA Guard Around

Posted: December 14, 2019 by julietteochieng in News/opinion, politics, Uncomfortable Truths, war
Tags: , , , , ,

Or he can try to

by baldilocks

On Virginia, the National Guard, gun-grabbing, and Democrats wish-casting for civil war:

With dozens of Virginia counties declaring themselves Second Amendment sanctuaries, some Democratic lawmakers have said the governor should use the National Guard to enforce future gun control legislation — but can he?

Virginia Democrats, who control the legislature and governorship, have proposed several measures, including an “assault weapons” ban, universal background checks, and a red flag law. In response, 75 counties vowed they will not enforce future gun control legislation. Virginia Democratic Rep. Donald McEachin told the Washington Examiner on Thursday that Gov. Ralph Northam “may have to nationalize [sic] the National Guard to enforce the law” if local authorities refuse to do so themselves.

The president, as commander-in-chief of the armed forces, is the only person who can nationalize [sic] the Guard, but state governors have the latitude to use it to enforce state law, legal experts said.

“Until nationalized [sic],  it’s a creature of the state. So that’s what leads me to believe that, yes, the governor can activate the National Guard to enforce even a state law,” Gary Solis, a military law professor at Georgetown University, told the Washington Examiner.

Note to Rep. McEachin and to Russ Read, the author of this article: ‘nationalize’ doesn’t mean what you think it means.

Allow me to expand on who commands the National Guard.

The governor of each state is the Commander-in-Chief of his/her state’s National Guard. When a governor wants his state’s national guard to go somewhere within the state and do a thing, he is giving orders to mobilize, not nationalize. And when a president calls a guard unit to active duty, he is activating that unit, not nationalizing it.

(All this talk about “nationalization” makes me think we have a bunch of socialists in government, media, and academia. Nah, that can’t be true … )

People may remember that Guard units have served in many of our overseas conflicts. When they do so, they are on active duty and the POTUS is their CinC. Here’s how that happens.

When a POTUS wants to activate a Guard unit, he requests to do so in writing to the governor. Almost always, the governor says “yes” and the POTUS then becomes the CinC of the Guard unit(s) for the duration of said Guard unit’s active duty period. That’s why it seems to be automatic.

However, I could see Northam saying “no” under these conditions. That’s federalism.

All that said, it’s so cute how members of the Democrat-dominated VA legislature publicly ponder pitting the military against the state’s LEOs and its gun owners — as if they thought that no one was paying attention and they could just blurt out their fantasies in friendly company.

Simply, it’s beyond ridiculous to think that even a small portion of the VA Guard units would carry out orders to make war against their neighbors, especially considering that many of the LEOs who are defying the tyrants in the VA government are probably guardsmen/guardswomen (and reservists) themselves.

We’re watching you and rooting for you, people of Virginia. Don’t lose heart.

UPDATE: Readers are telling me that the Guard chain of command is more complicated than I’ve laid out. I’m looking it over.

Juliette Akinyi Ochieng has been blogging since 2003 as baldilocks. Her older blog is here.  She published her first novel, Tale of the Tigers: Love is Not a Game in 2012.

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More British Election Thoughts

Posted: December 14, 2019 by datechguy in elections
Tags:
Map Via The Telegraph, comments via me

Looking at the map of the Results of the British Election is a lot like looking at a Map of the US election of Donald Trump in that the left does better in the urban areas where the elites dwell and the right in the more rural areas where you know the food that the urbanites eat come from.

It worth also noting from the map that there are several nationalist movements going on. In Scotland the Scottish National party picked up 13 seats. Most of those SNP seats would have gone labor. I guess most of the conservative Scots were the ones who came here.

In Ireland the primary division remains the Democratic Unionists (conservatives) who want to stay in the UK and those who want out Sinn Fein (Socialists) who while winning seats in parliament refuse to attend or vote. 3 seats went to two minor parties 2 going to the Social Democrat & Labor party and one to the Alliance Party (Moderate liberals)

In Wales the Plaid Cynru or Welsh Nationalists (more socialists) have four seats but unlike Ireland and Scotland the vast majority of seats in the area remain divided between the two major parties with Labor having the advantage.

While Labor was clearly the biggest overall loser dropping a solid 20% of their seats (-42 from 245 to 203) including some districts that hadn’t voted conservative in over a century porportionally the liberal democrats did worse dropping from 21 to 11 seats losing nearly half including their party leader who lost in Scotland. The other big loser were minor or uncleared parties which held 50 seats in parliament before this election and now hold only 23 all but two being outside of England proper one being a seat held by the greens and the other being the current speaker of the house’s seat who by law must renounce his party and remain strictly non-partisan. All of the Change UK (a party of disaffected conservative and labor folks) PM failed to be re-elected.

It appears that the Brits figured it was time to actually choose sides.

What’s really significant was the shift in the overall popular vote. While the Conservatives share went up by went up to 43.3% a gain of just over 1 % Labor’s share plummeted by over 7.8% down to 32.2% with the Liberal Democrats picking up 4% in the popular vote while halfing their number of seats in Parliament. Apparently the California syndrome is alive and well in Britain.

It’s worth nothing that a “conservative” in England is a lot different than a conservative in the US. Boris Johnson would likely be at best a RINO or moderate Democrat in the US but he’s the best you can currently get in England at this time.

Or as Mark Steyn put it:

It would be nice to think that the Conservative Party might now think it safe to offer a bit of conservatism. But that would be too much to hope for…

Well, you have to start somewhere.

British Election Thoughts Under the Fedora

Posted: December 13, 2019 by datechguy in elections, politics
Tags:

As of this moment 12:47 AM the conservatives have 354 seats in parliament up 56 from yesterday and 26 more than they need for a majority without any help while labor is down 40. Yet I’m still hearing labor people in England say now that the conservatives have won they must move left. Socialists, they always sound the same in any country.

Two years ago we saw article after article about how Jeffrey Corbyn was the model for the American left to follow.

Now today leftists are angry when a MSNBC leftist notes after Labor’s crushing defeat that Corbyn ran as an unapologetic leftist.

I’m not an expert on British elections or politicts but I found it interesting that on LBC the channel that I was watching to see the results and on twitter we were seeing things like this:

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

I remember the same thing being said after 2010 insisting that the Democrats programs were actually popular and that the polling was more important than the actual votes to see what the people thought.

Simply amazing.

In addition to Corbyn the left is blaming Brexit for this result claiming that a lot of Labor votes went to the Brexit party. This may or may not be true as I’m not expert enough to say but I will say this.

Assuming this is correct should we not blame labor and the left for not following the will of the voters who had voted leave. If they had in fact let Brexit happen instead of trying to foil it would not , by their own argument , last night have been different?

Supposedly Boris Johnson is very very unpopular according to what I keep hearing but he is getting a Thatcher like win for the Conservatives and he is doing it, in my opinion, for one reason. He is leading from the front.

That is the common thread between Reagan, Thatcher, Johnson and Trump. They are leaders, who lead and people tend to be willing to follow when a person is willing to lead.

It been fun to watch the left on twitter melt down, similar to what happened when Trump won to wit:

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

This is exactly what we’re hearing from the American left and I suspect the whole “Vote for me you ignorant racist” campaign slogan will be as effective here as it was there, but of course now that the left has lost it will be insisted by all that it has no reflection on the US election.

I suspect that argument would be quite different if the result was different.

Finally as I said I watched LBC election coverage all night and noticed that while there were a lot of opinions that I disagreed with strongly (particularly the newly defeated left insisting that the newly elected conservatives must move to the left to retain their win) but at least everyone they didn’t sound insane.

This is a nice change from what we regularly see around here.

It’s Almost Showtime

Posted: December 10, 2019 by julietteochieng in Always look at the bright side of Trump, politics, war
Tags: , , , , , ,

by baldilocks

Remember, President Trump wants the trial in the Senate to happen.

He knows that the Democrats have been after him since he announced his candidacy; they pre-conjured a reason for his impeachment, for Heaven’s sake. Therefore, he is forcing an impeachment at the time of his choosing rather than theirs.

And with formal articles of impeachment set for a House vote – likely this year – things appears to be going according to plan.

By the way, it behooves every American to review the stages of impeachment; who is supposed to do what and when. Since I like to be helpful, here you go.

The House brings charges for impeachment. The Senate holds a trial and votes to convict or acquit. The only way to remove a President, Vice President, or Article 3 judge is through impeachment. Impeachments are not tried by a jury. The rest of the process is left to the rules of Congress.

The process begins with the House. It votes on passing articles of impeachment against a member of the Executive or Judicial branches. If the articles pass, then it is said that the person has been impeached. The vote is a straight up-or-down, majority vote.

After the House votes, the impeachment goes to the Senate. There, members of the House who were advocates for impeachment become the prosecutors in the Senate trial (they are called the House Managers). The accused secures his own counsel. The judge is the Senate itself, though the presiding officer acts as the head judge. In the case of a presidential impeachment, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court presides; in other cases, the Vice President or President Pro Tem presides.

After all testimony has been heard, the Senate votes. If the Senate votes to convict by more than a two-thirds majority, the person is impeached. The person convicted is removed from office. The Senate may also prevent that person from ever holding another elective office. The Senate may set its own rules for impeachments, and the rules are not subject to judicial review. The Senate has streamlined rules for trial of impeachment for persons holding lower offices. There is no appeal in the case of conviction of impeachment.

Emphasis mine. Won’t that be interesting?

I wish I were surprised at how many people think that when the House votes on formal impeachment articles that the president must be removed from office right then and there, but I’m not. Even some of those who were around when it happened to President Clinton will not bother themselves to understand the process.

Anyway, some of my smart friends speculate that, during the trial, the defense will call only one witness: President Trump himself. If true, it’s very smart in that it will force all eyes – corporeal and digital — to be on the showman …

… the one who is holding all high cards. And the MSM will not be able to ignore it when the president reveals his hand — like they usually do with news they don’t like.

Bonus: it will be Trump versus Nancy Pelosi or Adam Schiff on the cross-examination!

I think Speaker Pelosi understands what’s coming, but she is powerless to stop the freight train. Her dimmer, less experienced charges – not to mention most of the Democrat voting public — want the president’s hide for daring to beat the anointed Hillary Clinton and they are unable to comprehend reason. This is probably why the speaker doesn’t care about being drunk on camera. I’d be frequently sloshed, too, if I were in her position.

This will be the Show of Shows.

People tell me that popcorn is high in carbs. Any suggestions for crunchy low-carb substitutes? I’m going to need them, and you will, too.

Juliette Akinyi Ochieng has been blogging since 2003 as baldilocks. Her older blog is here.  She published her first novel, Tale of the Tigers: Love is Not a Game in 2012.

Follow Juliette on Facebook, Twitter, MeWe, Patreon and Social Quodverum.

Hit Da Tech Guy Blog’s Tip Jar !

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