by Joseph DeMaio, ©2022
(Mar. 9, 2022) — By the time you read this, the post’s title will be outdated: the number will be higher.
The average price of gasoline on Jan. 6, 2021 was $2.25/gal. In the 14 months that Brand…, oops…, sorry…, the Goofball has occupied the Oval Office, the price has skyrocketed to a nationwide average of $4.10/gal., and in some places in the People’s Republic of California, far higher.
Yes, Virginia, that is an increase of over 182% in just 14 months. And it shows every sign of going higher… much higher.
While the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and the threat of a cutoff of Russian-sourced oil are responsible for part of the increase, a significant portion of the explosion is directly traceable to the Goofball’s lunatic “go green” cancellation of the Keystone XL Pipeline and termination of oil and gas leasing permits on federal lands.
Moreover, the Goof’s failure to correctly and sanely anticipate the spike – assuring everyone that economic “sanctions” on Russia other than those impacting its oil and gas revenues would prevent him from invading Ukraine – has now exponentially worsened the situation.
Memo #1 to the Goof: Putin ain’t Corn Pop.
Whether or not one agrees with the decision to now bar importation of Russian-sourced oil into the United States, his entirely incompetent “day-late-and-a-dollar-short” decision to further “sanction” Putin gives new meaning to the term “clueless.” This, of course, while furtively begging Venezuela and Iran to pump more oil for U.S. consumption.
While crippling the nation’s oil and gas independence – which existed under President Trump – in order to meet the demands of The Squad and radical environmentalists, the Goofball now seeks oil from terrorist regimes which shout “Death to America” in the streets. What, pray tell, is wrong with that picture?
And the “Marie Antoinette” solution belched up by leftists to simply go out and buy an electric car merely underscores how out of touch – and irredeemably stupid – the Left has become. And by “the Left,” your humble servant includes virtually every Democrat in Congress.
The “perfect storm” of the Goof’s underlying innate incompetence, coupled with his cancellation of Keystone XL upon taking office and exacerbated by the completely avoidable invasion of Ukraine by Russia now threatens Americans – as well as a bunch of illegal aliens… c’mon, man, how unfair is that…? – with gasoline prices that could break the nation’s economic back. But as far as research can determine, there is no truth to the rumor that the Border Patrol will be provided with $2,000 gasoline debit cards to be handed out as illegal aliens are released into the country’s interior.
When the Second Usurper in Chief (“SUC”) admonished us to never underestimate the Goof’s “ability to #@&% things up…,” the only adverb he should have added at the end of the warning was: “royally.”
If you thought that $6.00-per-gallon gasoline and a 15% annual inflation rate was bad, what would you think of $10.00-per-gallon gas and a 20% inflation rate? Again, gasoline has skyrocketed by over 180% in just 14 months. Make no mistake, under the rules of engagement being followed by the Goof, the nation is on a trajectory to meet or even exceed those numbers.
For a long time, your humble servant has been advocating an “out-of-the-box” solution to the metastasizing malignancy of the Goofball in the Oval Office. It is way past time to revisit consideration of that option. Each day that the Goofball remains in office presents a more ominous “clear and present danger” to the survival of the Republic. Stated otherwise, the Goof needs to go. Now. And since he lacks the cognitive ability to comprehend that necessity by voluntarily resigning, other means must be deployed.
As initially discussed here, if but a few of the 31 House Democrats who have already announced their retirement would today change their party affiliation to GOP, setting the stage for replacing the current mendacious excuse for a House Speaker with a Republican equipped with a titanium backbone – please, no RINO’s need apply – impeachment proceedings could begin immediately. No time to waste.
Yes, it would still take a two-thirds vote in the Senate to convict and remove the Goof. But with all of the chaos and catastrophes he has thus far visited on the nation in only 14 months – and self-inflicted energy price wounds continuing to hemorrhage – there just might be a chance that the “world’s greatest deliberative body” (sic) could “do the right thing,” Kamala Harris’s likely constitutional ineligibility notwithstanding.
But continuing down a path with an incompetent charlatan who is surrounded by enablers and apparatchiks dedicated to the goal of putting “America last” is not an option. To all who voted for this clown: Are you happy now?
Memo #2 to the Goof: Put the ice cream cone down, interlace your fingers behind your head and back away from the Resolute Desk.
“Kamala Harris’s likely constitutional ineligibility notwithstanding.”
Without question Harris is a native born citizen. I guess she would be considered eligible by 1860 standards.
“…in order to be president of the United States a person must be a native-born citizen” Senator Trumball, 1871
https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llcg&fileName=099/llcg099.db&recNum=690
“The Constitution requires that the President must be a native-born citizen of the United States. No one wishes to change that.” Senator Sherman, 1869
http://memory.loc.gov/ll/llcg/086/0200/02871035.tif
“Here at home our laws know no distinction between the rights of the native-born and naturalized citizen, except in two particulars, that the President and Vice-President must be native-born” Rep. Clarke, 1868
https://memory.loc.gov/ll/llcg/080/0000/00851105.tif
“…the Constitution provides that certain persons should not be voted for as President of the United States. No one who is not a native born citizen of the United States, or who was not a citizen at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, can be voted for.” Senator Johnson 1865
https://memory.loc.gov/ll/llcg/068/0500/05540552.tif
The verbiage “native-born citizen” and/or “native born citizen” do not appear in the Presidential eligibility clause of the U.S. Constitution.
Oooooooops.
Natural born and native born mean the same thing.
“A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words begin, start, commence, and initiate are all synonyms of one another: they are synonymous . The standard test for synonymy is substitution: one form can be replaced by another in a sentence without changing its meaning.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synonym
Can you cite a SCOTUS ruling saying that?
Schneider v Risk
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/377/163
Response from Joseph DeMaio:
————————-
Mr. Becker cites Wikipedia (really?) for its discussion of synonyms.
Mr. Carter then asks: “Can you cite a SCOTUS ruling saying that?”
Mr. Fremick responds: “Schneider v. Rusk.”
Let us examine that exchange more closely.
First, the Becker discussion of synonyms is presumably offered in support of the claim that a “native-born” citizen was and is equivalent – synonymous – with the term “natural-born Citizen” as used by the Founders in the Constitution.
The two sentences from the Schneider case presumably referenced by Mr. Becker in his discussion of synonyms and “cited” by Mr. Fremick in response to Mr. Carter’s question are these: “We start from the premise that the rights of citizenship of the native born and of the naturalized person are of the same dignity and are coextensive. The only difference drawn by the Constitution is that only the ‘natural born’ citizen is eligible to be President. Art. II, § 1.”
Second, assuming that quote from Schneider to be the origin of the “synonym” position of Messrs. Becker and Fremick, two simple questions emerge: (1) why did the Founders use two different word/concepts – purportedly “synonyms,” – in the single sentence constituting the Eligibility Clause instead of simply using the term “citizen” throughout? (2) why did John Jay in his July 25, 1787 letter to George Washington use only the term “natural born Citizen,” emphasizing the word “born” and capitalizing the word “Citizen?”
The category of those persons to be “grandfathered” as time-restricted eligible to the presidency in the Constitution’s Eligibility Clause are described as merely a “Citizen” while those specifically eligible without time restriction are described as a “natural born Citizen.” If the two word/concepts are synonyms, why are they labeled differently in the same sentence?
Third, note that the Founders used the word “or” to separate and differentiate those persons who were at the time of the Constitution’s adoption citizens to be time-constrained “grandfathered” – a “citizen” at the time of the adoption of the Constitution – and those who were not to be so time-constrained: a “natural born Citizen.”
While secondary and tertiary meanings of the term “or” are sometimes recognized, the main and primary function of the word is to separate and distinguish between two different things. Webster’s defines it as “used as a function word to indicate an alternative.” (Or Definition & Meaning – Merriam-Webster).
While an “alternative” may sometimes be seen as an “equivalent,” it is more frequently seen as denoting something “different,” rather than something “synonymous.” Webster’s cites as an example: “Sink or swim.” Plainly, “sinking” is not a synonym for “swimming.” Indeed, to merely state the contrary proposition is to reveal its irrationality.
By the same logic, the words “Citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of this Constitution” immediately after the word “or” in the Eligibility Clause are not synonymous with “natural born Citizen.” This is because at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, there…, were…, no…, natural…, born.., citizens… of the United States otherwise eligible to the presidency by age and residency. According to constitutional scholar, Professor Edward S. Corwin, that event did not occur until the presidency of Martin van Buren in 1837: “The first President born under the American flag was Martin Van Buren.” See Corwin, “The President: Office and Powers, 1787 — 1984” at 38 (5th Revised Ed. 1984). Indeed, it is by virtue of the “citizen grandfather clause” alone that Presidents Washington, J. Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, J.Q. Adams and Jackson served at all.
The mere fact that the Founders used two different phraseologies in the same sentence, — separated by the term “or” — seems strongly to compel the conclusion that they did not consider the two word/concepts to be “synonymous.” Thus, the only reasonable and rational explanation for the purported “equivalency” or synonymous nature of the word/concepts “native-born” and “natural born” lies in recognition and application of the Euler diagram protocol: all natural-born citizens are native-born citizens, but not all native-born citizens are natural-born citizens. Under that protocol, the Schneider quote makes sense when read “only the native-born citizen who is also ‘natural born’ is eligible to be President.”
Accordingly, while Kamala Harris may be seen to be a “native-born” citizen under the fuzzy (and flawed) “logic” of the decision in Wong Kim Ark, she is likely not a “natural born Citizen” as contemplated by John Jay, Emmerich de Vattel or, as far as can be determined, the Committee of Eleven which composed the Eligibility Clause. That clause recognizes two different (i.e., alternative) categories of “native-born” citizens: (1) those who were to be “grandfathered” as time-constrained eligible because although “citizens,” they did not meet the de Vattel § 212 criteria and (2) those who would in the future meet the de Vattel § 212 criteria and would be recognized as true “natural born Citizens,” the first such person being President Martin Van Buren.
And the debate continues….
No one said “citizen” and natural-born citizen” are synonymous. Rather, Schneider v. Rusk used “native born” and “natural born” in a synonymous manner.
Vattel never wrote the words “natural-born citizen.” John Jay never specified what he believed “natural-born citizen” to mean.
No one is saying that native/natural born = citizen. They are not synonymous because citizen includes naturalized. But from its usage by the Founders, it is clear that native born and natural born are synonymous.
What is strange is that Mr. DeMaio cannot see the relationship between the Convention debates in mid-August (requiring members of Congress to be natives/natural born) and the grandfather clause. Does he think they simply forgot the arguments against such a requirement?
Eight signers of the Declaration of Independence;
Eight signers of the Constitution;
One of the Presidents under the Articles of Confederation;
Everyone born in England, Scotland, Ireland, Saxon, and France living in the Colonies before the Revolution;
are covered by the grandfather clause.
My previous response didn’t make it through moderation. Maybe this one will.
DeMaio presents a classic straw man argument. No one is saying that native born is a synonym for citizen. So his entire analysis is misdirected.
In answer to his questions.
1) Jay could have said the commander in chief needed to be a native or a native born citizen and it would have had the same effect. He chose to use natural born.
2) it was common in the times to capitalize nouns. The word citizen is capitalized throughout the Constitution. There is no significance to Jay’s capitalizing it.
In his dissenting opinion, Chief Justice Fuller cited the historian George Bancroft.
“In the convention it was, says Mr. Bancroft, ‘objected that no number of years could properly prepare a foreigner for that place; but as men of other lands had spilled their blood in the cause of the United States, and had assisted at every stage of the formation of their institutions, on the 7th of September it was unanimously settled that foreign-born residents of fourteen years who should be citizens at the time of the formation of the constitution are eligible to the office of president.’ 2 Bancroft, Hist. U. S. Const. 192”
The grandfather clause was meant for foreign born citizens who fought in the Revolution. As pointed out, it includes a number of prominent Founders.
“While crippling the nation’s oil and gas independence”
US oil production is almost back to pre-pandemic levels.
“U.S. oil firms slashed production in 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic destroyed demand and supply has not yet recovered to pre-Covid levels. In 2019, the U.S. produced 12.29 million barrels of crude oil per day, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.”
“That figure was 11.28 million in 2020 and is estimated to be 11.18 million in 2021 and 11.85 million in 2022.”
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/12/30/us-oil-production-to-increase-further-in-2022-oil-expert-dan-yergin.html
“US oil production is almost back to pre-pandemic levels.”
Great. Now all Biden has to do is reduce the cost of a gallon of gas by 50% to get it back to pre-pandemic levels. Alas, the only major campaign promise Biden has kept is to drastically increase the cost of a gallon of gas.
Wouldn’t the federal government’s use of price caps be a form of socialism?
Prior to its cancellation in 2021, what was the anticipated date that Keystone XL Pipeline would be operational?