Quickies: The State Of The Union Address

     He shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in case of disagreement between them, with respect to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper; he shall receive ambassadors and other public ministers; he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed, and shall commission all the officers of the United States. [Constitution of the United States, Article II, Section 3]

     The president’s duties, as indicated by the citation above, do include informing Congress about “the state of the union.” However, the relevant clause does not specify how that duty is to be performed: neither how often, nor where, nor by what means. Moreover, the “tradition” of a public State Of The Union Address, delivered in person and orally to a joint session of Congress, is far younger than most people believe: proto-fascist Woodrow Wilson began the “tradition” in 1913.

     Thus, Nancy Pelosi cannot “cancel” this presidential duty, as has been suggested by some commentators. President Trump can simply select an alternate means of conveying the information to Congress that he believes Congress should receive.

     The presidential duty of informing Congress about the state of the union derives from several characteristics of the early United States:

• News relevant to the entire nation took several weeks to circulate, rather than being instantaneous;
• Sessions of Congress were far shorter then than now, typically only a few weeks per year;
• A Representative or Senator had to make a difficult overland journey to attend a session;
• The president was the only federal official whose official duties were continuous.

     Today a formal State Of The Union Address is a relic, something that could easily be disposed of with no adverse consequences. Presidents use it mainly for televised publicity, self-congratulation, and to whip up support for their personal legislative agendas. There would be a lot less Sturm und Drang about it were presidents to return to the Nineteenth Century practice of submitting a written summary to Congress and letting it go at that.

     Mr. President: How about doing it via an email? You have an email-address list of all those clowns on Capitol Hill, don’t you? Just a thought, mind you.

This must be shared here as well

https://youtu.be/v1t9xBe0wPw

Why is the FCC Grab for the Internet a Bad Thing?

A VERY, VERY, VERY Bad Thing.

This was a comment on another site

And it put me into some seriously deep thought about what is happening in this nation today:

THE WRATH OF THE AWAKENED SAXON
by Rudyard Kipling
It was not part of their blood,
It came to them very late,
With long arrears to make good,
When the Saxon began to hate.
They were not easily moved,
They were icy — willing to wait
Till every count should be proved,
Ere the Saxon began to hate.
Their voices were even and low.
Their eyes were level and straight.
There was neither sign nor show
When the Saxon began to hate.
It was not preached to the crowd.
It was not taught by the state.
No man spoke it aloud
When the Saxon began to hate.
It was not suddenly bred.
It will not swiftly abate.
Through the chilled years ahead,
When Time shall count from the date
That the Saxon began to hate.

That really made me sit and think. You?

That last one was only slightly in error

And I had been thinking of just linking to the one over at my site rather than crosspost. So, I'll do one of that sort of thing. Here's a little piece, if you like it go read the rest:

As I remember my history from so long ago, and quite probably why I hear so much about the degradation OF the history our children/grandchildren/great-grandchildren are being taught, we tried peaceful protest. Then we got a bit louder. Then the government started violent retribution. THEN we shot them.
Looks like that’s the route it will go again. But that’s also why we wrote the Constitution, so we wouldn’t have to go that way. But, as all supposed free societies in the past have gone, the government slowly but surely eroded the rights of the people. “For the greater good”. Piece at a time, little bit here, little bit there, until one morning we woke to find we were ruled not represented.
Well, it has taken them nearly a century because Americans were used to freedom and watched a bit more closely than today’s society. Piece at a time, little bit here, little bit there, wait a bit, little bit here, little bit there, taxation so far beyond what we rebelled against in the first place, back off some, feed it back in a piece at a time, …

Hopefully that's tasty enough for you to click it. This has gone way past ridiculous in the century it has taken to destroy American freedom, but it follows the time honored method. Death by 1,000 cuts.