Rebane's Ruminations

Sandbox – 30aug23

[The chorus of financial mavens warning of the dollar’s destruction is growing.  The cost to just service our exploding national debt is unsustainable.  That means it’s growing so fast that it consumes an ever greater share of the federal budget AND the nation’s GDP.  Those people concerned with this financial collapse are advised to reinvest in gold, silver, and prominent crypto currencies.  Judging from past attempts to elicit discussion of this event, we have a very sanguine group of readers.  Quoting a famous man, “What, me worry?” gjr]

Russia’s Preventive Maintenance Crisis

George Rebane

Russians have always had a problem keeping their equipment in top operating shape.  This problem goes back to the days of Peter the Great who brought back the latest ship building technology from his trip to western Europe.  They subsequently built great stuff that inevitably had catastrophic breakdowns.  In modern times such public embarrassments occurred everywhere from the sinkings of their advanced submarines and supersonic transports crashing to big apartment buildings whose HVACs mysteriously blew up.

Lately such failures have occurred on even more mundane levels.  For instance, multiple reports of upper story windows which have suffered from untightened latches.  These have caused a number of tragic accidents in which prominent Russian industrialists continue to fall to their deaths.  Now we hear of private aircraft whose major components, like wings, are not bolted securely to their fuselages, and result in tragedies of their falling apart at altitude during routine operations which simple maintenance and monitoring procedures would have prevented

This morning we read reports of just this kind of preventable accident happening to a business jet flying out of Moscow.  At 28,000 feet some 100 kilometers northwest of the city, the jet fell apart.  Bystander videos show the airplane with one wing missing and trailing smoke, spiraling to the ground and exploding on impact with all aboard killed.

Subsequent reports indicate that Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner paramilitary group commander, and some of his senior staff were passengers on the craft which, surprisingly it turned out, also belonged to Prigozhin.  Since the Wagner troops have been Russia’s only effective military forces in Ukraine, this loss, no doubt, has come as a shock to President Putin.

The whole thing reminds one of “For want of a nail the shoe was lost.  For want of a shoe the horse was lost. …”.  From this latest incident the message to all of Russia’s maintenance people is clear – check you work!

Sandbox – 17aug23

[Embracing conservatism within the ranks of the Republican Party is becoming harder by the day.  And remaining a conservetarian therein is almost impossible.  The California Repubs have issued a major retreat call to their members.  They have announced the next capitulation from their party platform that is yet another “humiliation the more than 5 million registered Republicans still living behind enemy lines in the Golden State probably weren’t expecting, (and which) is an additional stab in the back from their own party. The California Republican Party recently released its regularly scheduled updates to the party platform (here), and, given the content of the changes, voters could be forgiven for mistaking it for the Democratic platform from a couple decades ago.” gjr]

The Latitude of Constitutional Free Speech

George Rebane

With the upcoming Trump trials it’s time to take a more focused look at how his indictments for exercising ‘unconstitutional speech’ are holding up in the land of the First Amendment and free speech.  As a starting point I’ll take a leftwing reader’s comment in the most recent Sandbox.

*****

George

Do you have the right to free speech to spread information you know is a lie or not verifiable when it is your official duty to deal with the truth? That's what Trump is accused of. Also can you note your sources that cite that Pence has the Constitutional right to pause the election certification and if so for how long. Also does that mean that Trump would remain President until the whole matter is sorted out? Also how would the other members of the Executive branch have to deal with it, for example cabinet members and Presidential appointments. Has this ever happened before?

Links supporting your contention would be helpful.

Posted by: Paul Emery | 13 August 2023 at 06:44 PM

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First Amendment of the US Constitution – “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” (more here and here)

As can be seen from his subsequent Sandbox exchange with other readers, Mr Emery continues to have a problem with staying on the topic he raises in the above comment.

Do you have the right to free speech to spread information you know is a lie or not verifiable when it is your official duty to deal with the truth? That's what Trump is accused of.   The short answer is YES since the Constitution is silent on such a question.  And we must remember that politicians have the same rights to exercise free speech as those enjoyed by non-politicians, especially when both are claiming to express and communicate their beliefs.

Also can you note your sources that cite that Pence has the Constitutional right to pause the election certification and if so for how long.

This question exhibits a misunderstanding of our Constitution which is not intended to be a document of permissions granted by the state.  If the Constitution is silent on some matter or issue, then it cannot be appealed to resolve the matter by any third party inserting their gratuitous interpretation (see Pence's letter below).  In the electoral vote certification matter, the Constitution is only clear in requiring the Senate, chaired by the VP, to examine and count the submitted electoral votes, and certify them if they found to be legitimate.  It prescribes no time frame nor process that the VP must undertake to become convinced one way or another about the legitimacy of what he has at hand.  Therefore, he is free to follow his own counsel on how to proceed toward a certified electoral vote.

Also does that mean that Trump would remain President until the whole matter is sorted out?  Also how would the other members of the Executive branch have to deal with it, for example cabinet members and Presidential appointments. Has this ever happened before?

Again, since the Constitution is silent on such a contingency, one can presume the sitting government remains in place and functional until a new in legally accepted – in this case, until the presiding VP makes up his mind on how to resolve the matter.  Here we see that Pence acted totally within his several Constitutional prerogatives in accepting the electoral vote as it was presented.  VP Pence stated in a letter (here and here) that he does not have the unilateral authority to reject the electoral votes presented to him.  That is an erroneous interpretation of the First Amendment.

This situation regarding the electoral college and the transfer of power has not happened before in our Republic’s history.  Here is the complete copy of Trump’s fourth indictment issued by a Georgia grand jury.

Sandbox – 5aug23

[Can anyone give a cogent reason why Trump is being prosecuted for speaking openly against the validity of the 2022 election that put Joe Biden in the White House?  All the man did was exercise his 1A rights, and that included asking Georgia’s governor to review his state’s vote count to see if he could come up with more Trump votes.  He blackmailed no one; he threatened no one; he just gave lip service to his opinions and beliefs to see if there was any legal and non-violent way he could change the outcome of the election.  According to our Constitution anyone can do that, and Democrats have already demonstrated that such opposition to election outcomes are perfectly legal.  gjr]