Ron Paul Liberty Report: 'Emergencies Do Not Trump The Constitution': Ron Paul- On President Donald Trump's National Emergency

Source:Ron Paul Liberty Report- U.S. Representative Ron Paul, R, Texas. 

Source:The New Democrat

"Using "national emergencies" to rule by diktat is an old and unfortunate tradition among U.S. presidents. It is also unconstitutional."

From Ron Paul Liberty Report

In the United States we have not only separation of powers, but three branches in our national government that all have different roles and responsibilities. Whether they're all equal or not and under the Constitution they're supposed to be, they all have different roles and responsibilities. If the President wants new funding to pay for one of his new priorities or additional funding to an existing program in the government, he has to get that approved by Congress. He can't just pass that new funding and objective on his own. he has to get that approved by House and Senate and sign it into law.

Source:Newsmax- President Donald Trump: "what national emergency?"

I'm not a lawyer and neither is Representative Ron Paul, but just looking at President Trump's so-called national emergency there are at least two obvious problems with looking at it from the outside.

The first one is practical and that the emergency that the President Trump is declaring simply doesn't exist. Not even Fox News, Newsmax, Breitbart, America One News, or any other right-wing pro-Trump media outlet is reporting that there are millions, thousands, or even hundreds of less of people coming across our southern border right now illegally. If there is any emergency whatsoever as it relates to illegal immigration in America and I don't believe there is one, but the fact that have 10-15 million illegal immigrants in America in a country of 320 million people is certainly an issue that this country has been trying to deal with going back to the Reagan Administration.

President Trump said himself the day that he declared his so-called national emergency that he didn't have to declare right now. I don't know about you and I image everyone would agree with this, but if my house was on fire I would call the Fire Department right away to get the fire put out, because that would obviously be an emergency. Donald Trump ever since he started running for President in the summer of 2015 has been talking about the need for a border wall on our southern border and there is an emergency at the border.

Donald Trump, was elected President a year and a half later after he announced his presidential campaign and has been President for 25 months now and not once until after Republicans lost the House in November 2018, did he either officially declare an emergency at the national border, or send up a bill to the Republican Congress in 2017-18 to get his border wall completed. And you can talk about 60 vote rule in the Senate all you want and that Democrats had 48-49 seats in the Senate during that Congress, but if you're familiar with Congressional spending rules, you know that Congress can pass a spending bill out of the House and Senate with simple majorities in both chambers.

President Trump and Congressional Republicans could've passed a border security bill on their own with just Republican votes both in the House and Senate under reconciliation. But they chose to spend six months on ObamaCare repeal and when they failed there they went to tax cuts where they did pass their tax cuts through reconciliation in the House and Senate. So President Trump seriously has a credibility problem claiming that there is an emergency at the border which is why he declared his national emergency, when he's already admitted that he didn't have to declare his emergency.

The other issue with President Trump's so-called national emergency is constitutional. Congress, not the execute appropriates money for the Federal Government. Congress, has the power of the purse and gets to decide what the government can spend and what they can't spend. Meaning that the executive can only spend money that has already been approved by Congress to spend on the priorities that Congress has approved at the levels that Congress has approved. In other words, Congress decides what the levels of funding are in the budget and where and how that money is spent . Once the President and Congress agree on what levels of funding and where that money is going to be spent by the government, then the Executive has the responsibility to spend and enforce those laws that have already been passed and sign into law.

As much Donald Trump might want to be President of the Russian Federation or the King of the Saudi Kingdom, or lead any other right-wing or any other dictatorship in the world, unfortunately he's the President of the United States and just our problem to deal with. But we still have our checks and balances and separation of powers. Things that every single American gets to learn about when they're in high school. I took U.S. Government as a sophomore in high school. This is not something that we have to read books or listen to documentaries about as adults, but something that we learn in high school and take further courses on in college if we decide to do that, but something that Donald Trump seems to have very little knowledge about or interest in.

Lifetime: The Boy Next Door (2008) Starring Dina Meyer

Source:TF1 Studio- Dina Meyer and Woody Jeffreys. 

Source:The Action Blog

"The Boy Next Door (2008)"

Source:Wendox- Hollywood Goddess Dina Meyer 

I don't watch a lot of Lifetime movies and generally when I see one at all, it's because I'm flipping around on the tube ( generally late at night ) looking for something to watch. And from time to time I see a movie on Lifetime that at the very least looks interesting, because even though it's a cable network that's based for women, ( not that there's anything wrong from that ) they do a lot of mystery movies and even action/drama type programing and movies and you see people there that perhaps you've seen in other places and networks or movies, or you see people there that just aren't very well-known if at all. Who perhaps come from the theater, independent films, or perhaps come down from Canada and are well-known there or not at all, but someone discovers them there or in America and decides they would be right for their Lifetime TV movie.

Source:IMDB- Dina Meyer and Alain Chanoine 

Actress Dina Meyer, sort of fits both roles as someone who has done several Lifetime films, who has been seen in other movies working for other film companies, been seen on TV and even in big Hollywood movies, but isn't well-known in the sense where everyone who watches a lot of movies and TV has not only heard of her, but knows exactly who she is and what her background is. If The Boy Next Door has a star at all, it would be Dina Meyer who isn't just the star of this movie, but is the only star in the movie. Perhaps the one actress or actor that someone who watches TV and movies on a regular basis that people have heard of and seen before. Not a knock on Dina or the rest of the cast, because this movie is actually pretty good and not just Dina but the cast in general. But this is a Lifetime movie and unless you're Lifetime junkie The Boy Next Door from 2008, is probably not a movie that you think about or have ever heard of.

Source:TF1 Studio- Marc Menard and Dina Meyer 

Dina Meyer, plays Sara ( last name apparently unknown ) who is a mystery writer who moves to a small town to finish her latest book and is dealing with writers book. Who meets a young man perhaps in his early 20s if that who lives next door to her at her new house. She sort of falls in love with Michael ( played by Christopher Russell and become obsessed with him to the point that she's taking pictures of him everyday when he's out in the yard. What seems like a very friendly and charming small town where the locals even seem welcoming of new residents, becomes very cold at least towards Sara when Michael turns up dead and it looks like he was murdered. And Sara becomes the local sheriff's office prime suspect and everyone in the town now views Sara as the prime suspect in the murder case as well.

Source:SJ Klein- Christopher Russell and Dina Meyer 

Sara, goes from being a well-known and successful mystery writer to an amateur snoop who is working on her own case to find out who actually murdered Michael. And I believe she plays the amateur PI role very well, but it's not that believable I believe that someone with no law enforcement or investigative experience now all the sudden become a very good private investigator. The Boy Next Door has a real Hallmark Mystery or Hart To Hart mystery feel to it where amateur snoops, become the star investigators in the case and not only that, but they become the people who actually catch the killers and bring them to justice. But Dina Meyer does an excellent job of playing that role.

The Week: 'Mick Mulvaney- Says Nobody Cares About The Deficit: He Used To Care A lot'

Source:The Week- White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney. 

Source:The New Democrat 

"Republicans knew someone would notice if President Trump didn't mention the deficit in his Tuesday State of the Union. Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney didn't agree.

When Trump previewed his speech for 20 Republican supporters on Monday, Mulvaney argued that the ballooning deficit didn't need to be included because "nobody cares" about it, ABC News reports. That's not what Mulvaney would've said in his congressional days.

Before Trump tapped him to direct the Office of Management and Budget, Mulvaney was a congressman from South Carolina. And when he campaigned to earn that spot over Democratic incumbent and House Budget Committee Chair John Spratt, he made deficit reduction his "central policy concern," Politico's Jake Sherman recalls. He continued to complain about the national debt and deficit in his budget chair confirmation hearing in January 2017, but showed a shift that October when the Republican Tax Cuts and Jobs Act rolled around.

Ahead of its passage, the Congressional Budget Office concluded the GOP tax overhaul would add $1.46 trillion to the deficit over the next decade. Another report concluded that, with an additional round of cuts proposed but not passed the next year, the total could reach $3.2 trillion. Yet Mulvaney defended the GOP's tax reform proposal all the way, telling Fox News in October 2017 that America needed "new deficits" to grow the economy. That earned Mulvaney a dreaded question from host Chris Wallace: "You were a deficit hawk. What happened, sir?"

From The Week 

"It wasn't ok when President Obama's government spending was causing budget deficits, but White House budget director Mick Mulvaney seems to accept deficits now that President Trump's proposed tax cuts might cause them."

Source:CNN- How times have changed 

From CNN

The title of this piece is very important, because before Mick Mulvaney became White House Chief of Staff and even before he was Director of Management and Budget at the White House, he was a U.S Representative from South Carolina and served on the House Budget Committee. It gets  even better than this, because he was part of the 2010 Tea Party House freshman class of 62 new House Republicans that won back the House for Republicans that year.

It gets even better than that, because back then when we had a 1 trillion dollar budget deficit with a Democratic President, House Republicans especially, but the Republican Party as a whole saw the national debt and deficits as big of threats to the United States as they see the People's Republic of China, or the Islamic Republic of Iran, a nuclear Communist Korea. They talked about the dangers of the national debt and saw them as threats to their children and grandchildren's future with all the interest that they would have to pay on the national debt.

Back in the good ole days ( pre-President Donald Trump ) and just the first few years of this decade, Republicans especially House Republicans lead by Minority Leader and later Speaker John Boehner were serious deficit hawks. They made the Committee For a Responsible Budget ( an inside Washington reference ) proud everyday when they talked about the debt and deficit. But there's a catch to all of this, because back then there was a Democratic President named Barack Obama, who the Tea Party viewed as a tax and spend, Un-American Socialist who was ruining their 1950s Ozzie and Harriet America. ( And whether that was racial or not, you be the judge for yourself )

And go up to 2017 and what has changed? Replace a Progressive Democratic President named Barack Obama with a right-wing cultural warrior champion Nationalist President named Donald Trump. And give him a Republican Congress with the House and Senate ( for you American U.S. Government students ) and you now have a Republican President who calls himself the King of Debt. Who appoints a Secretary of Treasury Steve Mnuchin who actually says that deficits don't matter. And a Republican House led by Speaker Paul Ryan who was probably the biggest deficit hawk at least as far as rhetoric during the Obama Administration, especially when he chaired the House Budget Committee, who is only concern with keeping his majority and passing enough legislation ( regardless of how it's paid for ) to keep his majority.

To know that the Tea Party campaign against the national debit and deficit was nothing more than a fraud that was as big as Enron, ( from back in the day ) go back to what they were saying about those issues then when Mick Mulvaney was Republican Mick Mulvaney and go up today with Donald Trump leading the Republican Party and what he and they say about the debt and deficit today. They claimed to care about those fiscal issues when there was a Democratic President and don't give a damn ( to be nice ) about those issues today. But only because now we have a Republican President who doesn't care about those issues. As well as a spineless House and Senate Republican caucus, who doesn't care about those issues either.

The Atlantic: Nora Johnson: 'Sex and The 1960s College Girl'

Source:The Atlantic Magazine- From Nora Johnson 

Source:The Daily Review 

“Men...admit that what really irritates them about modern women is that they can't, or won't, give themselves completely to men,” Nora Johnson wrote in her 1959 Atlantic article, "Sex and the College Girl." “This is undoubtedly true … And this, God knows, is a good thing.”

In the article, which is excerpted and animated in the video above, Johnson grappled with changing expectations about sex, romance, and gender roles as society began to afford women more opportunity in the workplace. A common fallout, Johnson argued, was that young women felt the need to “settle” by trading passionate romance for comfort and stability. College-age girls could only hope to avoid disappointment by managing their expectations and maintaining a certain romantic reticence.

“There must always be something held in reserve,” Johnson writes, “a part of her that she will give to no one, not even her husband. It is her belief in herself … It is the dream of the things she never did.”

For more, check out The Atlantic's "Sex and the College Girl" here:The Atlantic. 

Source:IMDB- Sex and The 1960s College Girl film 

From The Atlantic

At risk of sounding partisan and this is not the first time I've taken this risk as a blogger: as much as the Christian-Right and broader Far-Right in America, especially Christian-Nationalists put down and critique Saudi Arabia and other Islamic states for their interpretation of Islam in their government and Islam in general, they actually have a lot in common with Islamic-Theocrats and the Islamic-Right in the world and have for a very long time. 50 plus years or longer and share very similar if not identical cultural and religious views, especially when it comes to women's place in the world.

And why do I mention this? Because really from the time the American Republic was founded in 1776, up until 1963-64 or so America was the Christian-Right utopia for them when it came to the women's place in the world. They were basically servants of men who were raised to grow up, meet a good man who could take care of them financially, but spend their lives taking care of him at home, as well as their kids. As Joe ( or whoever the man was ) would go out in the world and make a career for himself and earn a good living everyday, while his wife Mary ( or whoever the woman was ) would be at home waiting for him managing the home and taking care of their kids.

According to the Christian-Right and the broader Far-Right in America, we as a country have been going to hell since the mid 1960s and have been destroying their utopia. With personal freedom and individualism running rampant around the country with so many Americans of all races and ethnicities, as well as religions, both men and women daring to have the freedom to make their own decisions. And no longer feel trapped and having to live in their parents cultural basement and feeling the need to have to live the way that their parents and grandparents lived in America. With women wanting to go to college and then get themselves a good job and get married and have kids later on, instead right away, she now had the cultural freedom to do that.

If men didn't want to get married at all and not have kids, or perhaps have kids and raise them, but not get married to the mother of his kids, he could now do that, because he had that same cultural freedom. And the same freedom for women as well.  This piece from Nora Johnson from 60 years ago and this video covers that. Women now had the same freedom as Americans as men do with the same freedom to run their own lives. Decide for themselves if they wanted to go to college and get a good job, or get married early and stay home to raise their kids. Wasn't like women were now required to get educated and go to work, it's just that now they had the personal and cultural freedom to make that decision for themselves.

In 1963 or so with Baby Boomers graduating high school and now in college, they were let out of their parents basement and this cultural closet that they were living in now had the freedom to be Americans and live their own lives, regardless if their parents and grandparents approving of their lifestyles or not. And with the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act which made it illegal for employers to discriminate against people based on race, ethnicity, but gender as well we saw millions of American women of all races and ethnicities now entering the workforce. The sitcoms of the 1970s with show like Mary Tyler Moore and Maude illustrated that with how America was changing culturally and we haven't looked back ever since and probably never will.