“Senator Cory Booker’s statement on Trump’s actions in Venezuela is one for the books 👇
“Today, many leaders will rightly condemn President Donald Trump’s unlawful and unjust actions in Venezuela, and I join them.
But just as glaring, and far more damning, is Congress’ ongoing abdication of its constitutional duty. For almost a year now, the legislative branch has failed to check a president who repeatedly violates his oath, disregards the law, and endangers American interests at home and abroad.
Time and again, Congress, now led by Republicans, has chosen spineless complicity over its sworn responsibilities. From the reckless leaking of classified information that put American troops at risk, to the illegal use of military force destroying vessels and killing people in the Caribbean and the Pacific without congressional authorization, there has been a stunning absence of accountability.
No hearings.
No serious investigations.
No enforcement of checks and balances.
No accountability.
Again and again, the president has exceeded his authority, defied congressional intent, trampled the separation of powers, and broken the law – while Congress looked away in cowardice and submission.
Republicans in Congress own this corrosive collapse of our constitutional order. With only a handful of honorable exceptions, they have bent themselves to the will of Donald Trump, afraid to state in public the feelings they often communicate privately. That submission, this abandonment of independent judgment and constitutional courage, now stands as one of the greatest dangers to our nation and to the global order America claims to defend.
Nicolás Maduro is a brutal dictator who has committed grave abuses. The United States military remains the most capable fighting force on Earth, and our praiseworthy service members carry out their orders with professionalism and excellence.
But none of that suspends the Constitution.
The Constitution is unambiguous: Congress has the power and responsibility to authorize the use of military force and declare war. Congress has a duty of oversight. Congress must serve as a check, not a rubber stamp, to the President. On this count, Congress has failed.
We face an authoritarian-minded president who acts with dangerous growing impunity. He has shown a willingness to defy court orders, violate the law, ignore congressional intent, and shred basic norms of decency and democracy. This pattern will continue unless the Article I branch of government, especially Republican congressional leadership, finds the courage to act.
They must stop behaving as partisan puppets and start acting as patriotic constitutional stewards.
What happened today is wrong. Congressional Republicans would say so immediately if a Democratic president had done the same. Their silence is surrender. And in that surrender lie the seeds of our democratic unraveling.
There are still three years left in this administration. From the pardoning of individuals who violently attacked police officers while attempting to overturn our election to this latest extrajudicial assault on another nation’s sovereignty, the damage will continue unless it is confronted.
Enough is enough.”
***
The Bag Lady 
enough was enough after his first term. Now it is just insanity. I saw an article that said the January 6th riot never happened and it was a Democratic hoax.
LikeLike
Complete and intentional dereliction of duty – a disgrace.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Alas, for Donald Trump, enough has never been enough, and the mob of barking hyenas around him, feeding off the scraps, are never going to close down the zoo.
That’s how corruption works. Once you have traded in your integrity there is no getting it back.
Enough is not enough until there is nothing left.
LikeLiked by 1 person
He really is insane.
LikeLike
Well …. I know a few insane people and they might find that comparison a bit offensive. I’m not very sane myself.
But I see where you are coming from. His actions seem incomprehensibly stupid to most sane people, but they are merely mistaking incomprehensible stupidity for insanity.
Let’s look at the track record. He inherits a real estate empire and starts running it. It crumbles. He builds a casino (i.e. a personal ATM) and runs it, and it goes broke. He starts an airline, runs it, and it goes broke. A university, it goes broke. Several more casinos, same outcome. He is employed as a ‘reality’ TV show host with zero credibility and zero talent and, miraculously it’s a minor success. Difference? He wasn’t running it. He was told what to say, heavily edited and his natural stupidity renders him strangely endearing to an essentially stupid audience.
Suddenly he has no idea of the difference between reality and reality TV (he pretty much said that himself when he was watching himself, on a TV screen, bombing a country he wasn’t at war, with just yesterday) – so he tries to go back to running things.
This time he starts running a whole country and, of course, he fucks it up. Following his casino strategy he tries to run it another time. He fucks it up this time before he even starts (loses the election) and falls into a total state of confusion – this is not how reality TV is supposed to work! and he demands that the script be rewritten. There’s even some irate viewers who storm the studio (now located within the Whitehouse) demanding a second series. It is, as you’d expect, a total fuck up.
Next there IS actually a bit of insanity that I find hard to explain. It’s only a temporary insanity (we hope) but the inhabitants of the country he’d previously fucked up ask him to have another try. So he does. And ….you guessed it …. another fuck up.
And now, of course he’s decided to run a second country. This one is already fairly fucked up and it’s hard to see how he could make it much worse. But I, for one, have complete faith in his ability to do so.
So, after all this, shouldn’t we be asking ourselves just who it is who’s insane? Is it the guy born with a silver spoon in his mouth who has almost literally fucked everything he’s ever touched, or is it ‘we the people’ who have stood back and watched it happen – as though it were reality TV?
LikeLiked by 1 person
I can always count on you to make me laugh even in a horrible situation. I was telling my daughter today that it’s so ridiculously comical all of us can just laugh. It’s the only personal power we have left.
LikeLike