Can You Say "Emoluments?"

Black’s Law Dictionary defines an “emolument” as an “advantage, profit, or gain received as a result of one’s employment or one’s holding of office.”

Merriam-Webster defines "emolument" as "the returns arising from office or employment usually in the form of compensation or perquisites." Perquisites is the key word for this discussion, "a privilege, gain, or profit incidental to regular salary or wages, especially one expected or promised."

Article 2, Section 1, Clause 7 of the Constitution states, "The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compensation, which shall neither be encreased nor diminished during the Period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that Period any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them."

The day this president took office he was violating the emoluments clause of the Constitution. His DC Trump hotel was in violation the day he was sworn in. Foreign governments, and multinational corporations were renting blocks of rooms, for millions of dollars, to curry favor with the new president. Even though he said he was turning over his company to his sons, you know as well as I, millions of dollars are flowing into his pocket.

In two and a half years he has charged the US Treasury over $120 Million for his golf excursions at his own properties (for over one third of his time in office). How many miilions have reached his own pocket? He had his VP, Mike Pence, stay at his golf resort on the opposite side of the island on his recent poltical visit to Ireland. It wasn't just Mike, it's his secret service detail, his staff, and there's military people involved. It's usually renting out an entire wing, or more. Trump's charging them for all of it at the premium price. I mean, not even a discount? Pence had to fly to Dublin on Air Force 2 to attend meetings with the Irish, instead of just driving across town. What did that cost?

The latest outrage is him having Air Force planes refuel at Turnberry, Scotland, a private ariport near his golf resort, and having the crew stay at his resort. It costs millions more for the planes to refuel at the airport than at a military base, as was usual protocol, and it's even been said the crews can't afford the restaurant because their per diems won't cover the cost. They say they're giving the military a "cut rate." what is it? $150 a night?

Now he wants to have the next G-7 meeting, that will be held in the US, at his Doral resort near Miami. Money, money, money.

I know a lot of people love the guy, but they're in love with a tv celebrity image, and not the real deal. This man is the most corrupt person to ever inhabit the presidency. I won't even get into his cabinet, but you know, birds of a feather. As the saying goes, grifters gonna grift.

I have to ask my conservative/Republican neighbors: You've been telling me for years and years how you consider yourselves "constitutional conservatives," true believers in the Constitution. Where are you on this? You're totally silent on this matter. As the saying goes, silence implies consent. Is it just IOKYAR? It's OK If You're A Republican?

I'm Not Buying it's Iran

Today, two tankers were attacked in the Gulf of Oman, between Oman and Iran. They were set on fire and their crews were evacuated by the Iranians.

Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, is out there pointing the finger of blame at Iran, with NSA head, JOhn Bolton, right behind him. They have offered not one iota of evidence for their claims.

Red lights are going off throughout my brain. I've seen this before, a number of times in my life. I'm old enough to remember the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, that LBJ used to commit over a couple million young men and women to Vietnam. More recently is was Saddam Hussein's WMD (which there wasn't any). I want to see the evidence. It sounds like a false flag operation to me.

Don't buy it.

I Hear the Drums of War

I remember 9-11 very well. I remember the desire for war ramped up like I'd never heard or seen in my life, and I was fifty by then. The Congress passed the Authorization for the Use of Military Force without much opposition, and made war on Afghanistan for next to no reason. Afghanistan had agreed to turn Osama bin Laden over to a third country, but the US refused, choosing to make war on the Taliban. We're still there almost eighteen years later. There's a reason Afghanistan was called the graveyard of empires. It's cost us thousands of lives and trillions of dollars.

I remember 2002, when W Bush went after Saddam Hussein. I was known by that time that W had told his biographer back in 1999, that he wanted to be a wartime president. That wartime presidents get reelected. Throughout 2002, the administration tried to keep us in fear with the threat of "mushroom clouds," and in March 2003, invaded and conquered Iraq. Then, whoops! they hadn't thought of what they were going to do once they got to Baghdad. and spent years fighting an insurrectio to our invasion that cost us many more lives than the invasion itself. That was Donald Rumsfeld 's brain child with W's blessing. That meant thousands more lives and trillions more dollars.

Now, in the distance, I can hear the drums of war once again. John Bolton cut his teeth on the Iraq War, now he's in the middle of going to war with Iran.

To Promote the General Welfare - The United States Constitution

Gary Wisenbaker was in rare form in his latest VDT Op-ed (02/02/19). After extolling the president, hitting every one of Rush Limbaugh's talking points, he characterized the Democratic Party as Democratic Socialists. I find it interesting that Mr. Wisenbaker wants to frame basic liberal Democratic policies as "socialist." When I was young, Political Science 101 taught me socialism was "government ownership of the means of production." There is no Democrat I know of that advocates for such a position. As a staunch Democrat, I have no interest in that, so I don't know what he's talking about about. I think he's just bs'ing.

It seems Mr. Wisenbaker, for some reason I cannot fathom, has a problem with taxation as a means of providing public services, and would like to call it "socialism" like it was a bad thing. Given Mr. Wisenbaker's definition of socialism, do you and Mr. Wisenbaker not appreciate travelling the socialist roads of Lowndes County? Are you not thankful for our socialist traffic lights and socialist engineering departments?  I would wager you like our socialist fire deparments, and socialist police and socialist sheriff's departments and our socialist jails and prisons. Local water departments ensure our water is safe. Whoa, that's a socialist entity. Republicans have called Social Security "socialist" since its inception. Do you want to do away with it? Medicare, that "socialist" medical program for senior citizens, is the most popular of all government programs, and even their saint Ronald voiced a commercial that said it was akin to slavery or oppression. As a recipient of Medicare, I am both thankful for it, and find it the best way of providing health care having come through all the other ways. Are you and he against TriCare, that covers most of the military personnel? The vast majority of people like their socialist school systems. In Mr. Wisenbaker's definintion, even our City Councils and County Commission would be socialist entities. Which brings us to largest socialist entity in America, one of the largest in the world, the U.S. Military. There are so many more examples of socialist policies embedded in the American way that is considered our way of life today.

So I ask you and Mr. Wisenbaker, if you hate socialism, do you want to do away with all these socialist programs? The Constitution of the United States states clearly that "to promote the general welfare" is a task of the U.S. government. "To Promote the general welfare," not just that of the top one percent, the oligarchs, the neo-aristocracy. That's where  I get my constitutional authority for this.