12/9/16
Dear Assailant-in-Chief,
I am going to continue my comments about the Constitution, because I've noticed a lot of right wing people like to talk about the Constitution a great deal, even though none of them seem to have read any of it except for the Second Amendment, and only the last bit of that. Your apparent ignorance of the Constitution goes well beyond the norm, of course; it is a matter of speculation and astonishment. So while I am no Constitutional scholar, except in the sense that every American thinks they are, neither are you. There is a Constitutional scholar handy, though; it's the guy sitting in the Oval Office right now. Perhaps you should ask him about it.
Article I of the Constitution describes the makeup of Congress, how representatives and senators are to be chosen, and the powers of said Congress. It contains the historical quirk of the "three-fifths compromise," which was the agreement that got hammered out between the slave-owning states who wanted slaves to be full citizens when counting up population for the purposes of representation but in no way otherwise, and the free states who said "nuh uh." I note in passing two things: the argument that you could have a citizen without a citizen's rights would have held even less water than it did if women hadn't been barred from most citizenship rights as a matter of course, and also that historically, attempts to disenfranchise or deny the franchise altogether to citizens do not end well. They may gain ground temporarily but end in ignominy and infamy.
Congress may, among other things, grant letters of marque and reprisal and "define and punish...felonies committed on the high seas." That is to say, they get to decide who is a pirate and who is just working freelance for the government by boarding other people's ships and taking their stuff. That part should appeal to you but it's their job, not yours. Sorry.
Speaking of things that are their job and not yours, laws. They get to make laws, pass laws, levy taxes (including lowering and raising them). They also set a budget. So many of the things you have asserted you will do as President aren't actually things the President does, except by way of suggestion. I thought you should know. Of course, we live in a country where people think the President could take their guns away, and they keep falling for that stupid line every four years more or less, so you're not the only one who needs to realize that.
Here's the part that has been in the news a lot lately: "No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States: and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state."
That means you can't accept goodies from foreign powers. Including favorable treatment on business deals. The way things are going right now, you will be in violation of the Constitution as of 12:01 pm on January 20, 2017. I don't expect you to stop, honestly, until somebody makes you. Whether or not Congress will do so probably depends on how much you annoy them and/or how much they think their own fortunes will be affected by action versus inaction. They probably won't do the right thing until somebody makes them, either.
That is where We the People come in. As always.
Yours sincerely,
Sara Amis
Citizen of these United States of America
From Dorine Jennette:
PLEASE JOIN ME IN WRITING THE ASSAILANT-IN-CHIEF
Please join me in bombarding the Assailant-in-Chief with letters: https://www.donaldjtrump.com/contact. I will write to him every day through his first 100 days in office, maybe longer if momentum holds. I am asking others to write just ONE letter. Let's not just vent our grief to each other--let's speak truth to power together. Please WRITE and please SHARE this plan with your friends. Pass it on!
You do not need to be a woman or an assault survivor to address the Assailant-in-Chief as such. If you are a man who has a daughter, a sister, a wife, a woman colleague or friend you respect, or a mother (hint: that last one is all of you!), then you have something to say to the Assailant-in-Chief. Your letter might be a brief one-liner. That's great! Please send it! Women need our allies now. Here's the link to DJT's contact page--this might take you one minute or less! https://www.donaldjtrump.com/contact
Or, maybe you will start a related project addressing any one of the many groups Trump has already harmed . . .
As we talk with each other, let's break the bubble and also send our complaints straight to the source. He won't read them and won't care if he does, so probably this is a placeholder action while we figure out what we're really going to do . . . but it's something.
Dorine's posts can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/dorine.jennette
PS from Sara: I've taken to just tweeting these at him. He's not going to read them anyway, but I might as well use the platform that he actually responds to. *snort*
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