Foreign Digest: China, Bolivia and Canada

China: Hong Kong protests; extradition bill withdrawal 

            Mass protests have been continuing in Hong Kong, the special territory of China, against Peking’s violations of city-state’s autonomy and freedom, which Communist China had promised to respect when Hong Kong reverted from British rule in 1997.  As I have been posting about, the demonstrations began five months ago when the Peking-dominated territorial legislature proposed a law that would allow extradition to mainland China, the Hong Kong legislature had announced that it was not considering the bill, but this week announced it has withdrawn it, thereby meeting one of the key demands of the protestors. 

Bolivia: unconstitutional fourth presidential term

The far-left President of Bolivia held onto power for a fourth term through a dubious election result this week and allegations by the opposition of irregularities, despite a constitutional provision for term limits and a rejection of a referendum to repeal the provision.  There were protests against the President for unconstitutionally holding onto power, which, in a tactic typical to authoritarians, he denounced as a coup attempt.  Chavist (inspired by late Venezuelan Socialist dictator Hugo Chavez) elected leaders in Latin America, as the Bolivian President is, typically try to extend their tenure beyond constitutional term limits as they consolidate more power while rigging elections.  Thus, elected leaders become dictators with a democratic pretense.

Canada: Liberal losses in the parliamentary elections

            The center-right Conservatives won a plurality of the votes in the Canadian parliamentary elections this week, narrowly edging the ruling center-left Liberals, who were weighed down by the Prime Minister’s ethical lapses.  The ruling party lost a significant share of the votes in coming in second, losing more than two dozen seats and falling short of a majority. 

            Although Canada has been prosperous and fiscally sound for two decades of alternating Conservative and Liberal rule, the ruling party’s unfavorable policies on fossil fuels cost them seats in western provinces that produce oil and gas and that have been suffering economically since the price of oil had dropped.  Quebec’s separatist party made gains at the expense of the Liberals.  

The Liberals, with the largest number of total seats, will attempt to form a coalition government with the main left-wing party, the third largest in votes and seats, as together the two parties would have a majority.  The ruling party and its Premier, who will likely head the next government, will, therefore, be pulled further to the left in its policies.

Canada is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and is a strong ally of the United States, although the Prime Minister upon taking office four years ago withdrew Canadian forces from Iraq that were part of the American-led coalition against the “Islamic State,” an offshoot of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Islamist terrorists that had proclaimed a caliphate and threatened the West.

Common Current Misunderstandings of the Constitution: “Well-regulated,” Impeaching Congress Members and Senate Gerrymandering

           There are several new misunderstandings of the United States Constitution currently circulating, some of which have even been promoted by elected federal officials, in addition to the usual ones I have posted about before.

One of them is that the phrase “well-regulated militia” in the Second Amendment means having a lot of regulations.  It does mean anything about regulations, in the sense the word is currently used.  It refers to a regular military, with military discipline, a chain of command, uniforms, drilling and the like, as opposed to an irregular force, like guerrillas.

Members of Congress cannot be impeached, contrary to public calls, including from Donald Trump, that some of them be impeached.  Impeachment is only for the President, executive officers, judges and the Vice President.  Each chamber of Congress may expel members, however.

Another widespread misunderstanding is that gerrymandering has something to do with United States Senate elections.  Gerrymandering has nothing to do with them.  Senators are elected state-wide, not by any district that can be drawn to any advantage for an incumbent or political party.  Therefore such drawing of districts for the House of Representatives is irrelevant. 

Similarly, gerrymandering has almost nothing to do with the Electoral College, as is sometimes claimed.  Presidential and vice presidential Electors in 48 States and the District of Columbia are elected at large, not by district.  Maine, which has only two House districts, and Nebraska, which has only three, elect two Electors at large and one from each House district.  In other words, only 5 Electors out of 538 are elected by House district in districts that are not currently gerrymandered.  

Happy Columbus Day; Unfair Criticism from the Left of Celebrating the Discovery Disproves the Alternate Discovery Theory from the Nationalist Right

           I wish everyone a Happy Columbus Day, as I do every year, as we celebrate the permanent joining of two hemispheres by Christopher Columbus, the Genoese sailor working for Spain who made landfall in the New World on October 12, 1492, which is observed with a federal and state holiday on the nearest Monday.

            Based on his observations, Columbus had theorized correctly that there was a continent inhabited by Asiatic people much closer to Europe than generally believed, the fact that his theory led him to believe the continent was Asia and the world thus smaller notwithstanding.  The Admiral of the Ocean Seas was able to join the two worlds because of his exceptional navigational skills that enabled him to know how far he was from Europe and how far north or south, which allowed him to return to home port and then return to the Western Hemisphere three more times and pointing others in the right direction in the meantime.  Therefore, unlike any previous discoveries of the New World, Columbus’ Discovery of the New World effected a permanent bridging of the two worlds.  His discovery was thus literally a true one, as it removed the cover of the Atlantic Ocean that had separated the two hemispheres.  Crediting Columbus for the Discovery does not detract from any earlier discoveries, including that of the Native Americans who crossed the land bridge from Asia in prehistoric times, as critics of the celebration of the Discovery erroneously believe because of not understanding the meaning of the word. 

            Columbus brought Christianity, Judeo-Christian ideas about equality and freedom and modern science to the New World from the Old World, as the peoples of the two worlds encountered and learned from each other and, in many cases, befriended and exchanged in commerce with each other. 

            In any exchange of people, there are always negative consequences because of human nature, along with the positive.  Those opposed to the celebration of Columbus Day emphasize the negative and ignore the positive or fail to recognize it entirely.  One of their major criticisms of the Discovery is the spread of contagious diseases because of the lack of immunity, especially of Native Americans.  But just as Native Americans would have been credited with the Discovery of the Old World had they sailed to Europe or Africa, the spread of contagious diseased would have been blamed on them through no fault of their own, just as it was no fault of Columbus and his crew and the later visitors from the Old World to the New.  The critics believe, as in regard to uncontacted people today, that there should be no Evangelization, no introduction to Western ideas or of modern technology to such fellow human beings, and, indeed, no friendship between them and the rest of humanity. 

            I had posted last year about how the celebration of Columbus Day was initiated at the turn of the Twentieth Century in order to counter the theory promoted by the Ku Klux Klan’s that the Vikings had discovered the New World before Columbus, which was based on their bigotry against Southern Europeans and Catholics.  Columbus Day was intended to recognize the contribution of immigrant peoples to America.  Although the Vikings had reached Greenland, which is geographically part of the continent of North America and the Western Hemisphere, it is uncertain how far, if at all, they had reached in the New World, while their contact with North America was of limited duration, preceded the settling of Greenland by the Inuit, and had become legendary before anyone ever tried to reach the Western Hemisphere again.  If they had reached as far into North America as legend and Viking theorists suggest, they would have contacted Inuit and Native Americans, among whom there would likely have been oral history, which there is not, and there certainly would have been the spread to the New World of contagious diseases for which the natives had no immunity.  As the Native Americans had developed no immunity by Columbus’ discovery, the spreading of disease from the Spanish discoverers and conquistadors, therefore, disproves the more extravagant claims of the Viking discovery. 

Thus, the unfair criticism from the Left against celebrating the Discovery that it lead to death from disease forms the basis for disproving the alternate theory of discovery by Northern Europeans from the white nationalist right. 

May Columbus Day be celebrated for the watershed event in human history that it was and may the peoples of the world who are descended from the same African ancestors continue to rediscover each other to their mutual benefit.  

Donald Trump’s Disastrous Betrayal of Syrian Kurds Helps Assad, Iran, Russia and Islamist Terrorists

           Donald Trump, who won the United States presidential election through fraud, including interference from Russian Federation tyrant Vladimir Putin, withdrew American military forces from the Kurdish-held parts of Syria, abandoning the U.S. allies in the fight against the “Islamic State” and other Islamist terrorists, to the advantage of the terrorists and Syria’s Assad regime, Russia and Iran, to permit Islamist Turkey to invade northern Syria to slaughter the Kurds.

Some Kurds in Turkey are Marxist terrorists, but not the ones in Syria who are part of an American-backed coalition of non-Islamic forces, including Christians, opposed to Syrian tyrant Bashar Assad, who is backed by Iran and Russia.  The U.S. leads an international coalition of mostly Western and Arab states against the Islamic State and al-Qaeda Islamist terrorists.  Turkey wants to destroy the Kurds.  Iran, the world’s greatest state sponsor of terrorism, uses Syria as a conduit to terrorists it sponsors.  Russia maintains a Mediterranean base in Syria and wants to counter American influence.

Only fifty American troops had advised the Kurdish forces and deterred Syria and Turkey, as part of a force of only 1,000 U.S. servicemen.  Trump’s excuses for doing Putin’s bidding about the sacrifice of American blood and treasure are not credible, as the U.S. was taking few casualties and spending little money, and his declaration that the war was “senseless” is false, as the Americans had, with their Syrian and international coalition allies, destroyed the physical “caliphate” declared by the Islamic State, formerly “Al-Qaeda in Iraq.”  The IS had kidnapped and killed Americans and threatened to conquer many lands, including Rome and Washington.  It has affiliates around the world.  The American withdrawal encourages enemies to continue to fight until Americans become weary, even if few casualties are inflicted.  Contrary to Trump’s boast of “ending” the war, his needless withdrawal only shifts the battlefield elsewhere as the IS rises again.

The Kurds had lost over 10,000 fighters against the IS and were responsible for holding thousands of IS fighters and detaining their families.  The Trump Administration had even convinced the Kurds to let their guard down along the border with Turkey before allowing the Turkish invasion.  The Islamist dictator of Turkey, where Trump has business interests, convinced Trump to withdraw.

Turkey is expanding its invasion beyond where it had promised.  Turkish-backed Syrian Arab forces have begun committing atrocities against Kurds and assassinating Kurdish politicians, and Russia, as it had targeted in areas controlled by other non-Islamist Syrian rebels during the Syrian Civil War, bombed a hospital.  Some of the IS fighters have escaped.  The betrayal of the loyal Kurdish allies of the U.S. destroys American credibility.  The Kurds had to surrender to Assad and Russia to save themselves from Turkey.  

There have been bipartisan expressions of disapproval among members of the U.S. Congress, where a plan for sanctions on Turkey is developing, among other legislation being considered to blunt the effect of Trump’s disastrous decision.  Turkey is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and thus a U.S. ally, but the relationship has been strained by the Islamist authoritarian Turkish President and his purchase of Russian missiles.  Several European States, including several members of NATO, have imposed sanctions on Turkey.  Some of them who are members of the European Union have called for the EU to impose its own sanctions.  Despite these worthy efforts that must be pursued, Trump’s withdrawal is even more disastrous and far-reaching than his predecessor, Barack Obama’s withdrawal from Iraq or unfreezing of funds to Iran.

Foreign Digest: Tunisia and Ethiopia

Tunisia

            The presidential run-off election was held a week after parliamentary elections in Tunisia, a semi-presidential state.  A conservative populist was elected President of the young Arab representative republic.  The main moderately Islamist party again won a plurality of seats in the Tunisian Parliament, but lost a quarter of their number, leaving them with less than half of the total needed for a majority.  Secular parties from the left to right won most of the rest of the seats, with a center-left party coming in second.  Another coalition government will have to be formed.

Ethiopia 

           The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the Prime Minister of Ethiopia for initiating a peace deal with neighboring Eritrea, with which it had been at war for a decade over a border dispute.

A Proposed Constitutional Amendment on the Selection of Pennsylvania’s Lieutenant Governor Would Violate the Separation of Powers

           A proposed constitutional amendment to the process of choosing Pennsylvania’s Lieutenant Governor is based on a misunderstanding of the federal process that it is inspired by as a model, and, therefore, draws a false parallel to it.  It thus would violate the Separation of Powers by constitutionally discouraging the Lieutenant Governor, whose office is primarily legislative, from being a check on the Governor, as intended by the Framers of the Commonwealth’s Constitution, by effectively making the holder of the office a deputy governor. 

In addition, the proposed amendment to Pennsylvania’s Constitution would recognize political parties under the Commonwealth’s Constitution and mandate a constitutional role for them, thereby making them agents of the state and thus possibly subjecting them to relevant rules for public officials and meetings, while subordinating the parties to their gubernatorial nominees. 

The proposed constitutional amendment is intended to eliminate the possibility of disagreement between the Governor and Lieutenant Governor by giving the gubernatorial nominee of political parties a constitutional role in choosing a running mate.  Governors and Lieutenant Governors are elected on the same ballot under the Pennsylvania Constitution.  Gubernatorial candidates in primary elections are free to suggest a preference for a running mate among candidate for the nomination for Lieutenant Governor, but most do not, leaving the decision out of humility or deference to the party’s primary election voters.  The proposal amendment is intended to remedy the supposed problem of disagreements between the two officeholders by taking the federal model for choosing presidential and vice presidential tickets.  However, there are differences both in the way parties select their nominees for President and Vice President and the way they are elected to office to the way parties would select their nominee for Lieutenant Governor and the way the federal officeholders are elected versus the state officeholders, beyond the superficial similarity of their names appearing on ballots together in the General Election.

The proposed amendment empowers the gubernatorial nominee to select the party’s nominee for Lieutenant Governor, with the approval of the state party, but presidential nominees do not select their party’s vice presidential nominees.  Despite the recent practice of presidential nominees suggesting their own running mates, the actual nomination for the party’s nomination for Vice President is made by the party’s Convention Delegates.  The presidential nominee is free to decline to suggest a vice presidential nominee, while the party is free at its convention to select a different nominee.  The proposed amendment to the Pennsylvania Constitution would mandate a party’s gubernatorial nominee to make the nomination and the state party, which would be under constitutional and political pressure to acquiesce to its gubernatorial nominee’s choice, would not be free to nominate a different candidate.

The federal model for the election of the President and Vice President is not applicable to the state model of the election of Governor and Lieutenant Governor, despite the appearance of their names on the same General Election ballot.  The President and Vice President are not elected together in a popular election, but are elected by the Electoral College in separate ballots for each office.  Furthermore, if the Electors do not reach a majority, the President and Vice President are elected by separate chambers of Congress.  The House of Representatives elects the President and the Senate the Vice President.  The reason the offices are elected separately is because of the principle of the Separation of Powers.  The President is the Chief Executive, the head of the Executive Branch while the Vice President’s only constitutional duty is as the President of the Senate, which is upper chamber of the legislature.  As such, the Vice President is strictly one of the leaders of the Legislative Branch, the current practice notwithstanding of Vice Presidents acting as deputy presidents.  The Branches were intended by the Framers of the Constitution to check and balance each other.  The Vice President was not envisioned as a sycophant to the President, but as a check on the President. 

Similarly, the Pennsylvania Constitution grants only two powers to the Lieutenant Governor: the legislative role of presiding over the Senate and the quasi-executive role of serving as the Chairman of the Board of Pardons, the current practice of Lieutenant Governors serving as deputy governors notwithstanding.  As such, the Lieutenant Governor is, as one of the leaders of the Legislative Branch, intended to serves as a check on the Governor, who is the head of the Executive Branch, not as a sycophant to the Chief Executive.  

It would not have been reasonable for the federal or state Framers of their respective Constitutions to have created an office whereby the occupant is not expected to exercise independent judgment in the best interests of the government and the people, but instead to serve only the Chief Executive.  If the Framers wanted some kind of a deputy chief executive, they would not have given the legislative power to preside over the upper chamber of the legislature to that officeholder.  They could have given an affirmative tie-breaking vote to the Chief Executive without any need for creating a President of the Senate subordinate to the Chief Executive.

The proposed constitutional amendment would expressly recognize political parties for the first time in the Commonwealth’s Constitution.  It not only legitimizes them constitutionally, but establishes them as agents of the state who are mandated to perform a constitutional role.  As such, the party officials and their meetings could be subject to the same state laws that govern public officials and their deliberations and meetings.  Moreover, the amendment would constitutionally subordinate the party to its gubernatorial nominee because it can only accept or reject its gubernatorial nominee’s choice, which it would be under pressure to accept, without the ability to make alternate nominations.  It is neither appropriate for the Constitution to elevate parties or to interfere with them internally.  It is worth considering that the amendment is being proposed and voted on by Legislators who are all members of major political parties.  It was the influence of parties that has turned the offices of Vice President and the Lieutenant Governor into something not intended by the Framers, which the proposed amendment would exacerbate. 

It is also unclear if write in votes of different candidates for Lieutenant Governor would be allowed under this proposed constitutional amendment. 

The proposed amendment not only violates the principle of the Separation of Powers, but does nothing to address an even more flagrant violation of that doctrine inherent in the Pennsylvania Constitution in the succession clause, whereby the President pro tempore of the Senate can act not only as Lieutenant Governor, but also as Governor.  

There are other ways to remedy the supposed problem than this proposed constitutional amendment is intended to address, such as by making the Lieutenant Governor a deputy governor and stripping the Lieutenant Governor of the role of President of the Senate, or by electing the President of the Senate separately in order to guarantee better that the officeholder would be a constitutional check on the Chief Executive in keeping with the principle of the Separation of Powers.