The recent film by Agnieszka Holland, Mr. Jones, portrays the Soviet Russians’ attempt in the 1930s — with the assistance of sympathetic Western journalists like Walter Duranty — to cover up the famine caused by collectivization of agriculture in Ukraine. The film is a heart-wrenching and damning account of the Soviet experiment — and of the dishonesty that enabled it.
And yet, 87 years after Gareth Jones showed the world the crimes of socialism, there are still Western enablers who engage in a different kind of coverup of the same facts. As a result, a growing number of young people consider themselves socialists, and socialist politicians have risen in prominence. One was almost nominated as the Democratic Party’s candidate for president of the United States.
It is only thirty years since socialist regimes collapsed economically around the globe, leaving in their wake a death toll of tens of millions. We have seen the same pattern repeated in Venezuela in only the last twenty years. How do today’s defenders of socialism try to cover up this history and justify the ideology that supported such murderous regimes?
One tactic that today’s socialists employ is to portray the lessons of history and world affairs as irrelevant to their cause. They claim that the Soviet Union, Communist China, Communist Cuba, and today’s regime in Venezuela are not real examples of socialism at all. Real socialism, you may have heard them say, has never been tried.
What makes people think this is true? What do they mean by “socialism” and is their view even plausible?
What is “socialism”?
Socialism, in a standard definition, means public ownership of the means of production, which implies the abolishing of private property and ending the capitalist system of free trade and free markets. This is often understood to mean state ownership of the means of production.
By that standard, the Soviet Union, Communist China, and other authoritarian regimes all count as “socialist”: in every case, insurgents seized control of governments which then expropriated private farms, factories and shops from their capitalist owners — many of whom lost not only their property, but their lives. What’s more, these insurgents were led by figures (Lenin, Mao, Castro, etc.) that were explicitly committed to socialist ideology.
The economic failure, famine, and bloodshed suffered by each of these countries flowed directly from the same policies advocated by today’s socialists. Just as socialists demand, businesses were torn from the hands of their creators, those who both knew how to produce and who had a personal financial stake in improving their ability to produce. These businesses were then managed by bureaucrats who lacked both of these qualifications, and who also lacked the tool of the free market pricing system to calculate how much of which goods to produce. Production decisions were determined not with an eye to creating value above cost, but to the demands of arbitrary edicts from central planners. It is no accident that this system created shortages and starvation, and that regimes had to crush the resulting dissent to retain power.
Socialists try to insulate the system they advocate from this evidence of failure by using a talking point that (as we shall see) they have used since the beginning of their movement. They put a spin on the “public ownership of the means of production” definition. Real socialism, they say, doesn’t mean state control of the economy; it means control by “the people,” especially by the workers.
For instance, Bhaskar Sunkara, editor of Jacobin and author of The Socialist Manifesto, claims that real socialism means “democratic” control of the workplace by worker collectives. He claims that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was not a socialist society because it did not involve democratic control.1 Likewise, Nathan Robinson, editor of Current Affairs and author of Why You Should Be a Socialist, claims that, for similar reasons, none of the authoritarian socialist regimes of the twentieth century were socialist, and claims to “hate government and capitalism alike.”2 Richard Wolff, who has been described as “America’s most prominent Marxist economist,” agrees.3 He argues that the Soviet Union was really an example of “state capitalism”: while the nominally socialist party controlled the state, the state was “still capitalist in the employer-employee organization of its economy” because “a minority of persons . . . [the central planners] functioned as employers of an employee majority.”4
Using their definition of “socialism,” these thinkers would have us believe that since state control of the economy is not control by “the people,” no full-scale socialist political system has ever existed in history. If true, this would allow them to excuse their ideology from any responsibility for the murder and oppression of the brutal, allegedly “socialist” systems of the twentieth (and twenty-first) century. It also allows them to pose as the torchbearers of a noble ideal that has simply been corrupted by political operators of the past.
Is there any plausibility to the claim that “socialism” doesn’t really mean state control of the economy, but something else? Are today’s socialists really envisioning a wholly new system than what the revolutionaries of the past actually implemented? Or are they simply playing games with the word “socialism” to avoid the obvious facts?
Fantasy speculation about the role of the state
Not everyone proposing a novelty is indulging in fantasy. A newly envisioned invention, like an airplane, can be based on known facts about birds, kites, and gliders. But even then, experiments are needed to prove the efficacy of the idea. And if the proposal is, say, a perpetual motion machine, which has no experimental basis and goes against the laws of physics, the proposal is selling a fantasy.
Although the proposal that “real” socialism doesn’t require the use of state power might sound new or innovative to the uninitiated, a few questions and a little knowledge of history are sufficient to show it is just as much a fantasy as a perpetual motion machine.
First, note that the socialists paper over the coercion and even violence that would obviously need to happen to expropriate private property from peaceful citizens to set up their system in the first place. (The mask drops when they start advocating “lawbreaking and sabotage” as worthy tactics in revolutionary social change.5) By itself this calls into question any assertion that socialism can be implemented without bloodshed: socialist ends cannot be detached from socialist means.
But even if we could imagine that private property holders were simply persuaded to give up their holdings peacefully, the notion that the ideal socialist system would work without coercion or oppression is hard to imagine, if it is even coherently meaningful to begin with. Consider Richard Wolff’s explanation for how a system of worker co-ops would gradually wean itself from the need for a state:
An economy based on worker co-ops would revolutionize the relationship between the state and the people. In their capacity as a self-employed collectivity, workers would occupy the spot traditionally held by the workplace in state-workplace relations and interactions. . . . The workers would collectively and democratically hold the purse strings to which the state would have to appeal. The state would thus depend on citizens and workers rather than the other way around. . . . The state would have fewer ways and means to impose its own momentum and goals upon citizens or workplaces. To that extent, the state’s “withering away” would become more immediately achievable than in any other variety of socialism known thus far.6
As I’ve argued elsewhere at greater length, the allegation that “democratic control” ensures freedom from coercion and oppression is an old fallacy that turns on an equivocation between a government with elected representatives and a society run by majority rule. The latter is what socialists advocate when they claim that factories should be run by workers, regardless of what the factory’s original creators have to say about it. This constitutes a direct violation of the rights of a minority of individuals. So if workers really do end up holding “the purse strings” of the factories and the power to make the state appeal to them, it makes little sense to say that the state would “wither away” as an entity independent of the workers.7 Rather, the workers would in effect be running a state.8
When Wolff is pressed to provide a real-world example of the system he envisions, he and other socialists often point to the Mondragon Corporation, a Spanish worker-owned manufacturer of a variety of industrial and consumer goods.9 But Mondragon is an international corporation that sells its products to private firms all over the globe, and employs an increasing number of foreign workers who are not members of the collective. At the same time, its workers increasingly depend on pensions from the Spanish state.10 Invoking the Mondragon example evades the question of whether a company like Mondragon could survive in the absence of a more general capitalist system that buys its products and provides market prices by which to calculate resource allocation, and the system of state-sanctioned private property rights that makes this possible.11 It also evades the question of whether a company run “democratically” (unlike most corporations) could exist in the absence of a coercive state that taxes capitalists to fund worker pensions.
The idea that real socialism involves social control of the economy without the state is not new, but you need to be aware of some history to realize this. It goes back at least as far as 1877, when Frederick Engels claimed in Anti-Dühring that after the proletariat seizes control of the state and thereby the means of production, the state would “wither away” or “die out.”12 Evading the important role of a state in protecting peaceful coexistence among individuals by protecting their rights, Marx and Engels held that the only role of a state is to enforce the exploitation of one class by another. Working from this fantastic premise, they deduced without evidence that once the state comes to represent the proletariat, class distinctions would disappear and, with them, the need for the state.13Lenin toed the same line in a lengthier work of no greater depth, but since he was himself a political operative who needed to rationalize his revolutionary actions, he argued that state control of the means of production was necessary as a transitional measure on the way to the achievement of real socialism.14 The same argument was then invoked for years by Stalin as he continued to starve and murder people in the name of eventually achieving the ideal of real socialism.15
All of this means that Lenin and Stalin and the other founders of the brutal Marxist regimes justified their actions using the exact same fantasy as today’s socialists do. They promised that the system they advocated would eventually eliminate state oppression as well. We saw what it actually delivered.
Why should we believe socialists today who also claim that their proposals to nationalize industries will take us further from and not closer to the specter of the Soviet catastrophe? They offer no better evidence than hucksters who sell perpetual motion machines. In fact what they’re doing is much worse, both because they actively evade the evidence, and because what they sell isn’t just dysfunctional — it’s deadly.
The real meaning of socialism
Socialism means public ownership of the means of production. But to understand what this means in practical reality — and why it cannot mean what the socialists propose — we must appreciate what “public ownership” actually refers to.
There is no magical entity called “the public.” A society is composed of individual human beings. In reality, the only mechanism by which the actions of an entire society can be coordinated is by means of a government. And so the only way for anything resembling “the public” to systematically deprive capitalists of private property and to abolish capitalist free trade is for the state to do it. Every socialist acknowledges this, whether they advocate violent revolution to establish a collectivist state or a majority vote to establish the same.
@Greg:
NPR needs to be defunded. It’s usefulness has long passed.
@retire05, #101:
NPR is needed more than ever, to counteract the flood of disinformation and propaganda flowing from corporate media outlets in the tank for one side or the other. NPR still provides daily factual news reports, and in depth discussion by people who actually know what they’re talking about.
By the way… What the hell is the Trump campaign doing, staging the last night of their political convention on White House grounds? This is illegal. It’s a blatant violation of the Hatch Act, which expressly forbids Executive Branch personnel from engaging in partisan political activity on federal government time or property.
* employee, as defined by 5 U.S. Code § 7322, Definitions:
Every 4th night Convention speaker who is part of the Executive Branch other than the President and Vice President was knowingly in violation of federal law.
So there’s your “law and order” administration, demonstrating their indifference to the law during a nationally televised political event.
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows already publicly stated the administration’s rationalization for the violation:
Really? Every voter who opposes the Trump administration’s repeated abuses of official powers of office and violations of the laws that they’re supposed to uphold cares. This is the same sort of bullshit that led to Trump’s impeachment.
@Greg:
You’re late to the party. The Rose Garden is ok for this. The WH itself would be a violation of the Hatch Act. But even it were, yeah…WHO F*CKING CARES. Perhaps there are some important things going on right now that need more attention, like a pandemic and a Marxist revolt by your Democrat Party?
This was the latest outrage hoax, like a month ago.
Guess we’ll have to go back to focusing on the failures of Dem leaders and Harris encouraging more riots.
The Rose Garden is part of the White House property. It’s often the location of official White House functions. Why do you think it hasn’t been used for political campaign events in the past? Because nobody thought of it?
The point is that the property belongs to the government of all of the people, not just to supporters of one party or the other.
@Greg:
I’ll stop you right there. You are either playing dumb, or you ARE dumb.
Ah ah, your desire to forcibly level that playing field, by governmental social and financial engineering, is Marxism.
Tax the rich.
Divide people by groups.
Use outrage to push for political coups.
That’s the Dems, and that’s Marxism.
And make no mistake, no one believes this silly imperative you and your ilk seem to have like you’re the only ones who want to “help” people while you ignore all the charity and other acts of kindness given on a daily basis.
It’s a godless, soulless ideology and it only wrings blood from the poorest people in America.
Your tax scheme and racial segregation will only kill people…is already killing people.
This is your fault.
@Greg:
It is not a building and not part of the Hatch Act.
Try again.
@Greg:
It actually has, dumbass. Look it up.
Seriously, they went round and round on this one a month ago. It’s kosher to have it in the Rose Garden. Even the Dems agree.
You don’t seem to have cited any specific “Marxist principle” that’s part of the Democratic Party’s platform.
As I noted, “Marxist” is just a label Trump supporters slap on anyone or anything they don’t happen to like. I doubt if the target audience actually knows enough to reliably distinguish Karl from Groucho.
I’m not sure they could effectively argue whether a particular Democratic initiative is based on a Marxist principle or the philosophical principles advocated by Jesus.
@Greg:
I have, and you’re playing dumb…are dumb.
No, that’s the Democrats when they use the word “Racist”…most recently to destroy our law-enforcement as a way of weakening our rule of law.
That’s Marxism, you twit.
@Greg:
I’m CONVINCED you couldn’t
But still…a clever devil, you are. I see you got the “hates religion” part of Marxism correct, too.
Why is this thread so important? Marching orders from Beijing?
MARXISM IS FAILED IDEOLOGY AND IT’S KILLED MILLIONS. Class warfare (riots/blm/antifa), restriction and destruction of free markets (fossil fuels and shutdowns), and promises of social programs the government can’t pay for…that’s Biden’s platform in a nutshell…and that’s based on Marxist Principles.
Prove me wrong.
Biden: Gun-grabber, class-warfare, high taxes on the rich, free stuff…
Yeah, that’s a Marxist. We know where this goes….so easy to see in history.
It’s about power for a few on the backs of us all.
Actually, textbook Marxism. The ideology of envy.
As old as Cain and Abel.
@Greg: Tonight ABC talking heads were very upset that Trump will not say the words Black lives matter, Democrats are all in for this organization, the leader freely admits she is a trained marxist. The DNC convention had very little on policies what the hell are they trying to hide? The entire thing was a TDS group therapy session. Really boring same weird conspiracy theories. Ive scanned the platform its filled vague language and empty highly expensive promises that they cannot possibly ever deliver.
Because “Active Discussions” unfortunately seems to be broken.
Marxist theory is boring. Things always get boring once somebody is dead certain they have everything all figured out, and then dangerous once they become determined to fix it in accordance with their own principles.
Laissez-faire capitalism is pretty much the other side of the same coin. It can also be destructive as hell, bringing about problematic concentrations of wealth and a small, dominating class that uses its economic power to maintain their elevated status. That can quickly become oppressive.
Workable systems that accomplish the greatest good for the greatest number always fall somewhere in between, balancing features of one against the other to maximize the beneficial tendencies and moderate the non-beneficial.
Ideally, in my opinion, you encourage a high level of individual creativity and initiative by making certain there are great rewards for exceptional individual creative efforts, but redirect enough of what that produces to help those who can’t help themselves, and to adequately reward the average person’s efforts in producing the exceptional person’s wealth. It’s about striking a balance.
Government has a necessary part in that because balance is not automatically achieved or maintained. The exceptionally ambitious person may not give a d-mn about the condition of the many. This is sometimes a part of their personality profile.
This is not Marxism. To my mind, it’s just common sense.
@Greg: Well, how about BLM saying “We are Marxist” and Democrats saying “we are with BLM”? See any clues there?
Why don’t you point out where in the Constitution it says that is what the Federal government is supposed to do. Besides a whiny Marxist loser, find me someone that thinks the government should punish the successful so those who simply don’t bother to put forth an effort can have the toys they want.
Uh…. NO. Wrong yet again, Scooter. Under OBAMA, the “income inequality” exploded. Under Trump, opportunity is more abundant and widespread. Obama doled out the taxpayer-funded favors for his campaign contributors; everyone else got a part-time job.
Not when they have become just another propaganda organ for the DNC. Defund them.
No, but you know what IS illegal? Using the IRS, IC, DOJ and FBI to spy on and attack political opponents. Having CAMPAIGN MEETINGS in the Oval Office strategizing to find a pretext to spy on, investigate and destroy an incoming National Security Adviser. Using $35 million to try and develop a political campaign against a lawfully elected sitting President is illegal. Trashing due process and using impeachment as a political weapon is illegal. Funny you only selectively develop a concern about “legality”. You should have begun worrying about it long ago, from your Dear Leader.
Oops. Bang. Zoom.
It’s not a room or building. Bang. Zoom.
The point is I am OK with it and, just like every liberal doesn’t give a shit about what I want or need, I don’t give a shit how puffed up you or any other crybaby sore loser feels about it. Trump did NOTHING wrong or illegal.
The Green New Deal. Totally Marxist.
Ah. I found the problem.
@retire05:
He understands it well enough to come here and try to disguise and hide it.
@Nathan Blue:
Don’t forget the employ of political terrorism. That is a major characteristic the DNC today as well.
@Greg:
That’s what a Marxist would say.
Revealing what you really are has been fun.
@Deplorable Me, #114:
Try reading the following:
Promoting the general welfare was one of the six clearly stated, fundamental, foundational goals of the entire American enterprise.
The founders had just thrown off servitude to an autocratic ruler and a highly structured hereditary class system that had evolved to keep wealth and power at the top. Members of the aristocracy were treated differently by the law than the commoners.
It doesn’t make one a Marxist to observe that the arrangement discarded by the founders was not conducive to promotion of the general welfare.
Nor to observe that the Trump administration is increasingly showing unmistakable autocratic, plutocratic, and nepotistic tendencies—not in theory, but in daily practice. Combine that with the willful misuse of official powers and repeated instances of open disregard for the law.
No clear-headed, observant American should be putting their seal of approval on that.
From Business Insider, August 28, 2020 – Fact-checking the most egregious lies and exaggerations from the Republican National Convention
Trump says this, and it’s automatically believed—even when it’s demonstrated to be complete bullshit.
Uh, no. That was a bipartisan bill that was supported by and signed by Barack Obama in 2014.
@Greg: Very good. Now, that says NOTHING about redistributing wealth, socialism or Marxism, does it?
Biden has said he supports defunding the police. Of course, he has also said he doesn’t. So, at some point, he’s lying, but to say he supports defunding the police, based on his very own words, is not a lie.
No, Obama did NOT pass the Accountability bill. Trump did. It allowed him to fire those who were incompetent.
@Greg:
Uh, no.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/1259
But then, we have learned to not expect the truth from an idiot who doesn’t know the difference between “provide” and “promote.”
@Deplorable Me: Actually Barry did sign a really shitty version and Trump of course had to clean up after him AGAIN
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2018/06/06/trump-signs-55-billion-bill-replace-va-choice-program.html
The VA was great at that time only for providing opiates and never addressing the root health problems of Vets. Goddamn the pusher man.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4512386/
@retire05, #119:
Uh huh. Did you bother to check the status of H.R.1259? It was never passed by the republican-controlled Senate.
The VA Mission Act was passed in the Senate with bipartisan support by a vote of 92 to 5, with 3 not voting.
Typical leftist reach using the “General Welfare” to construe some type of legitimacy. Read Madison’s notes. It is note one of the enumerated clauses.
@Greg:
Here you go, Comrade Greggie.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/1094
Did you look up the difference between “provide” and “promote” yet?
@retire05:
gregs head is up his ass like usual.
@Greg:
What does burial receptacles have to do with VA health care? You seem to not know the difference between a vote on a motion and a vote on a bill.
@retire05, #123:
Yeah, Donald is a well-known friend and protector of whistleblowers everywhere…
March 5, 2020 – VA’s Whistleblower Protection Office Again Faces Allegations of Retaliation, Intimidation
—
Trump is apparently stewing over the news that Joe Biden’s convention speech had higher television audience ratings than his own—even with the promise of a partisan-themed firework display on federal property at the end. Very sad.
@Greg:
greg, being the typical uneducated leftist with respect to the US Constitution embarrasses himself attempting to disrespectfully mangle the words of men far more intelligent than imbecile greg.
Promoting the general welfare was one of the six clearly stated, fundamental, foundational goals of the entire American enterprise.
The Preamble to the Constitution is an introductory, succinct statement of the principles at work in the full text.
Courts will not interpret the Preamble to confer any rights or powers not granted specifically in the Constitution.
The American Enterprise? Really? You do not understand the meaning or words dumbass.
The preamble to the U.S. Constitution cites promotion of the general welfare as a primary reason for the creation of the Constitution
The concern of the government for the health, peace, morality, and safety of its citizens
According to James Madison’s notes, the clause authorized Congress to spend money, but only to carry out the powers and duties specifically enumerated in the subsequent clauses of Article I, Section 8, and elsewhere in the Constitution, not to meet the seemingly infinite needs of the general welfare.
The
had just thrown off servitude to an autocratic ruler and a highly structured hereditary class system that had evolved to keep wealth and power at the top. Members of the aristocracy were treated differently by the law than the commoners.
Improper use of term founders relative to the US Constitution displays your ignorance. The founders were those engaged in the activities and events leading up to the American Revolution including but not limited to The Declaration of Independence. Those who participating in the Constitutional Convention are referred to as “Framers”.
What arrangement in your demented state are you referring to? Again, founders vs framers.
You provide zero evidence of this. The words amount to a rambling nonsensical platitude.
Again, spewing bullshit with no documented back up of facts. This demonstrates the ranting of an unhinged mentally deranged individual.
Totally moronic statement. The inference is only an ill informed voter would blithely vote based on such a moronic statement. Oh, wait, that is how the democrat party votes….
@Greg: People tuned into Biden’s speech simply to see if he could possibly get through it. Numerous takes and edits did the trick, though. Pelosi wasn’t impressed, apparently. She, like all other Democrats, has any hope that Biden would survive a debate with Trump. Just compare their speeches; Biden has to use a recorded message where the mistakes can be removed (there must be a blooper reel) while Trump speaks eloquently for 70 minutes before a live audience. The contrast could not be more stark.
Cmon, man!
Only if you limit yourself to counting CBS, NBC and ABC, Greg.
If you count C-Span (which doesn’t cut away whenever something is said libs don’t like) the RNC ran away with the ratings.
BUT even C-Span had a problem.
So many Dems were calling in supporting Trump after each day of the RNC that C-Span changed its call in lines from:
Dem
Rep
Others
to
Support Trump
Support Biden
Others
https://thefederalist.com/2020/08/28/c-span-had-so-many-democrats-calling-in-support-for-trump-that-they-had-to-change-their-protocol/
I think Democrat’s living in their little bubble of hate deludes them into believing the DNC’s message of hate resonates far better than it does. Their hate pogroms are not intimidating voters but turning voters away from failed Democrats. These Democrats can’t seem to understand the mind of the American citizen. They think everyone is an elitist ideologue.
@Nan G: Sure it’s been tried. It was called CHAZ and then CHOP. It lasted 3 weeks and accomplished death, destruction and a failed garden.
I checked with Obama about it. He said, “If you like your riots, you can keep your riots.”
@Meremortal: Its true they also had to immediately request foreign aid, form a military style police force, Build a border wall and do border checks demanding ID. The rumor of North Korea trying to sell them nukes remains unconfirmed.
@July 4th American, #128:
Correct. That’s precisely what it is. Everything that follows must be taken in the context of those stated intentions.
That is also correct. But the reason IS NOT because the statement of underlying intentions is irrelevant. Rather, the reason is because the preamble does not state the specific means by which those intentions are to be realized. Courts cannot question the fundamental intentions of the Constitution as expressed in the preamble. That’s the reason it’s never cited. Courts are only empowered by the Constitution to clarify whether specific legislative actions, or statutory laws that follow from them, are in violation of constitutional principles.
The preamble is vitally important because it’s the part of the Constitution that actually confers power on the federal government, the entity that the document is creating.
Courts have long upheld the federal government’s constitutional power to tax and spend to further the general welfare. That doesn’t only follow from the preamble; it also follows from the Taxing and Spending Clause, the General Welfare Clause, and the Uniformity Clause. They provide for a lawful constitutional path to accomplish the stated intention of furthering the general welfare, as is expressed in the preamble.
@Greg: Where does the Preamble or Constitution say the government can decide who to benefit and who to screw? Show us.
Everyone is supposed to be treated equally.
It doesn’t. It refers to the general welfare; that of all of the people collectively, not that of the wealthiest or most powerful.
It also doesn’t say anywhere that corporations should have all of the same rights as an individual person.
The preamble does not confer power on the federal government dumbass.
Each article enumerates those powers given to the federal government by the people.
God you are stupid and do not know shit about the US Constitution.
August 29, 2020 – Trump administration halts election security briefings for Congress, citing leaks
* We certainly wouldn’t want the voters to know about foreign powers attempting to undermine the integrity of the nation’s election process, would we?
@July 4th American, #137:
Of course it does. The preamble is the ONLY place in the entire foundational document of the United States of America where it declares that a federal government is created, and states what the fundamental purposes of that newly created government will be.
THE PREAMBLE IS THE ESTABLISHING STATEMENT THAT FORMALLY BRINGS THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA INTO BEING. IT ORDAINS and ESTABLISHES it as an entity EMPOWERED FOR THE PURPOSE OF ACHIEVING SIX SPECIFICALLY STATED INTENTIONS.
What follows lays out the parameters of those governmental powers, as well as the fundamental rights of those who are to be governed.
Did they stop teaching Citizenship and American Government in the public schools? This is basic stuff.
What specific law(s) are in the preamble?
None at all. Nor are any laws established in the rest of the document.
The Constitution only lays out the requirements that laws must meet and the procedure by which they are created.
Laws are created by the Legislative Branch and then effectuated by the Executive Branch, with the Judicial Branch having the power to examine and strike them down if they’re found to be unconstitutional. The Legislative Branch also has the power to repeal laws, but that again requires a presidential signature.
@Greg: The major concern is Democrats committing more fraud than before due to their desperation.
Joe Biden leads Donald Trump in all national presidential election polls. The last intelligence community briefing warned that Russia is once again attempting to interfere with the upcoming election.
Intel officials tell Congress that Russia is spreading false information about Biden
The Trump administration’s answer to that is apparently to prevent Congress from asking the Intel community questions. They’ll have to be content with written reports that say only so much as the administration wants them to know.
John Ratcliffe is Trump’s boy. He’s one of the Republicans who ran interference for Trump during the Russia investigations.
@Greg: Trump has cut Biden’s lead dramatically. Sound familiar?
Just wait till the debates. The kill shot.
joe biden suffers from severe cognitive decline and does not lead President Trump in all polls.
joe biden does not posses the mental acuity to be president.
@July 4th American: And Kamala is a slut.
@Deplorable Me:
Here here
@Deplorable Me:
Trump should be OK, so long as there are no inclined surfaces or substantive questions.
Maybe he can score some of those drugs that he claims accounted for Joe Biden’s unexpected mental clarity.
Not entirely sure how they will set up a teleprompter so biden can answer questions like he did the other evening with manderson pooper.
@Greg:
Yeah, right. More projection.
https://babylonbee.com/news/biden-the-republican-convention-was-alright-but-just-wait-til-you-see-the-democratic-convention/?utm_content=buffer19d57&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer&fbclid=IwAR271PDQAMTmfynnVy1ftqrt8dpDKhrfsu8nKm58DJWrvBiTrcW9Nojc1YU
@July 4th American: He’ll try to wear VR glasses and sneak in an earpiece so Soros can tell him what to say. Expecting him to remember the questions even if they are provided to him Brazile-style is a forlorn hope.