Hearing the Falconer #8 ~ 16-March-2019 ~ Saving Checks and Balances

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world....
from The Second Coming, William Butler Yeats, 1919

The middle of the road is all of the usable surface.
The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

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16-March-2019: Saving the checks and balances
Will Senator's Support for Trump's Emergency Come Back to Haunt Them?
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Bad idea from the right.

Trump's declaration of a national emergency to get money for a border wall, and Republican support for him on this issue, are setting dangerous precedents.

One of the most important principles for political centrists should be to maintain the checks and balances in the government that prevent any one branch from seizing excessive power.

When Congress allocates money for specific projects and the president declares an emergency to get around those allocations we are weakening important checks and balances and walking down a dangerous road.

When both Houses of Congress vote against the declaration of emergency and the president refuses to back down, but insists on getting his own way regardless of the will of Congress, we are not just walking down a dangeorus road anymore; we are RUNNING down a dangerous road.

Citizens trying to be independent, moderate, and centrist, need to oppose these kinds of power grabs, whether they come from the right or the left.

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The "Hearing the Falconer" Library

Books for Indpendent Thinkers

Moderates: The Vital Center of American Politics, from the Founding to Today

The American Political Tradition: And the Men Who Made It

Unapologetically Moderate: My Search for the Rational Center in American Politics

The Deliberate Moderate: Influencing From the Middle

Eisenhower: The White House Years

The Constitutional Convention: A Narrative History from the Notes of James Madison

Lincoln