PS: That is indeed ironic about Trump, Mr. Hail. I just wanted him to use the amount of power the last guys did. I thought he'd use those great deal-making skills to deal with the US Congress and get them to pass some anti-immigration-invasion stuff, especially when the R's had a majority in both the House and Senate for 2 years. What a wasted last-ditch opportunity.

Our Founders likely realized that the office of President could be corrupted, but not those of ALL the legislators.

PS: Mr. Smith, I knew you'd come through on that. The "general welfare" wording occurs twice. Once is in the general intro. to the Constitution and shouldn't be taken as a detailed part of the Law of the Land. The 2nd time, which you note is in Article I (The Legislative Branch), Section 8 (Powers of Congress), is more problematic:

"The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;"

I hope Clarence Thomas can stay on this court a long time and remain healthier than Ruth Ginsburg though 100 y/o or the end of this country, whichever come first. No, I won't bet against the latter coming first.

PS: Alarmist, 1/2 of those guys would go back to their (sometimes ambulance chasing*) law firms more than farms and stores. Yeah, they'd side with the Oligarch class mostly. It doesn't help that their constituents don't push them enough. Maybe they will in Penn. on this election nonsense.


* I know of one, locallly.

PS-

RE: The Alarmist

"It’s not the States vs. The Feds ... it’s...the Oligarch Class and their lackeys in the MSM and MIAC [...] If you are a US Rep or Senator, and you fall on your sword, you become a K-Street lobbyist and the gravy-train goes on"

Well said.

PS -

"I'm for a Presidency per the US Constitution. No, we don't have that now"

The USA in our time seems to be ruled more by an oligarchy of interest groups, and not by a president anyway, notwithstanding the idea that the US has evolved and settled into the long-run groove of a "strong presidency" (such that the typical person can imagine little else).

One (ironic) attraction of Trump was people thought he WOULD be a "strong president" and break the power of the oligarchs and the ruling caste around them. (Ironic for several reasons, one of which was Trump was from that very class). But he didn't, and many say couldn't for this reason or that reason.

True power doesn't seem to be in these formal structures and specific, named government offices.

PS: Good afternoon everyone...

As fas as I know, Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898 (1997), is the last time the supremes heard a 10th amendment case. Their decision reaffirmed states’ rights and the Constitution’s anti-commandeering provisions.

In New York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144 (1992), Justice O’Connor wrote that a federal waste-management law “would ‘commandeer’ state governments into the service of federal regulatory purposes, and would for this reason be inconsistent with the Constitution’s division of authority between federal and state governments.”

In Printz, Justice Scalia reinforced that concept. “The Federal Government may neither issue directives requiring the States to address particular problems, nor command the States’ officers, or those of their political subdivisions, to administer or enforce a federal regulatory program.” “Such commands are fundamentally incompatible with our constitutional system of dual sovereignty.”

This challenge to the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act was brought by our friendly constitutional sheriff Richard Mack of Graham County, Arizona and Jay Printz of Ravalli County, Montana.

I think the tenth has been largely ignored because everyone oh so loves the supremacy clause. Article VI clause 2 states:

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

While the 10th amendment reads:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Article I section 8 has done a whole lot of damage to the 10th amendment and the concept of limiting the “government” to the powers enumerated to it in the constitution. Statists have abused the taxing and spending clause and the commerce clause for all sorts of nefarious purposes.

As Clarence Thomas Wrote, “By holding that Congress may regulate activity that is neither interstate nor commerce under the Interstate Commerce Clause, the Court abandons any attempt to enforce the Constitution's limits on federal power."

https://www.cato.org/policy-report/julyaugust-2005/abandoning-limits-federal-power

☮

PS

It’s not the States vs. The Feds ... it’s the local legislators evaluating whether or not granting the wishes of the Oligarch Class and their lackeys in the MSM and MIAC is worth pissing off their own voters to such an extent that the gravy-train for them is put to an end. If you are a US Rep or Senator, and you fall on your sword, you become a K-Street lobbyist and the gravy-train goes on. If you are a state legislator, falling on your sword means going back to your farm, your storefront, or the 9 to 5 grind at some company.

PS: Mr. Hail, this office was to be that of an administrator of the Executive Branch, that's about all, besides being Commander-in-Chief during Congressionaly DECLARED wars, per our illustrious Founders. (I know you know all this, but just saying.)

It's become much more than this, and because of all the power, with the country now so divided, as you say, it seems crazy to have a heading for the country set by a difference of .5%. Though Trump was better than any previous guys for 30 years, even with him running, it's not like we've got someone ready to ready to turn us about.

What I'm getting at is that I'm for a Presidency per the US Constitution. No, we don't have that now. I don't think the European ways with further power struggles and coalition-building after the election of a PM or Chancellor or what-have-you is the way to go either. The only way out of this craziness, IMO, is to reduce the size, hence power, of the Feral Gov't.

PS -
Both of Trump's results, 2016 and 2020, were coin-flips.

One might say Trump came up heads in 2016 and came up tails in 2020.

It's known in the political science literature that even things like weather conditions can change turnout in a measurable way, and given the margins in the key states different weather itself would easily have changed the 2016 result, Trump landing on "tails."

The wild procedural changes in 2020 with the "mail-in ballot firehose" definitely also changed the result.

So it was not a fully fair "coin" was in 2020, but what kind of sense does "all-or-nothing over coin flips" make? Those who wrote the US Constitution, what would they say about such a system?

PS -

"We have a well-thought-out but complicated way of electing the President. When things don't go smoothly, that document is there to be referred to ..."

Legally, yes. But one thing the election dispute has made me think of is an old idea I've had that the position of the US federal presidency itself may not make sense in our time. Why do we have this cut-throat, all-or-nothing process on a series of 51-49 and 48-52 results?

Do you think the position of the presidency makes sense in a society like the USA's of our time?

PS: Thanks for the comments, BC. That's about the size of it with Amendment X. I wonder when the last SCROTUS case involving that one was? Maybe a century ago. Hold on, rather than look it up, I'll leave a message for a Constitutional scholar ... no, no, not Professor Obama, I flunked his class, I mean commenter Adam Smith.

SCROTUS = "Super Creative Robed unOriginalists of The United States"?

PS: Do you know how liberal political science professors taught the Reserve Clause fifty years ago? "The language says that all other powers are reserved for the states OR THE PEOPLE [their emphasis]. I guess only George Wallace knows which are which." Followed by a smug chuckle. That was their "loophole". I guess the assumption was the People didn't rebel against the Civil Rights Act so it must be legitimate. This is the mentality of the opposition.

PS: The Tenth has been deprecated and replaced by the "NEC" clause (standing for "not elsewhere classified"). Do you know how your job description on paper is a bullet point list describing in tedious detail every task you are expected to do? What's the last thing on that list? "Perform other duties as assigned." That's the new version of the Tenth. "In addition to the powers delineated above, Federal government does whatever the hell else it decides to do."

PS: The Tenth has been ignored and that "General Welfare" clause, just part of the intros to 2 sections, has apparently usurped it, NS.

The printing press has already been fired up to bail out the big guys that must be just hurting tremendously, tremendously, I tell you, during this PanicFest. Hey, wasn't there supposed to be a 2nd big bail-out check for the regular people? It's not that I agree with this stuff, but if everyone else got one ...

Who was Tricky Dick getting revenge on, though, Not Sure? He had nothing against the American people but sure did hate the press.

"Maybe this society is just too F'ing stupid for freedom?" That's what it seems like to me.

PS Does the tenth amendment still exist or was it deleted by the historic pen and phone?
Penn is corrupt beyond all repair due to the clown car cavalcade of comrades that run the place.
All are on the payroll of he who should not named that rhymes with sorrows.
Bail em out Biden will get the printing presses fired up for the free stuff army if the Big Steal works.
Eventually we'll have Zimbabwe wallpaper as the dollar shrinks down to thumbnail sized.
Tricky Dick Nixon had his revenge taking the US off of the gold standard for his globalist paymasters.
Maybe this society is just too F'ing stupid for freedom?