MICROBYTE: Bomb. Bomb, who gets to drop the bomb?

I thought I knew the answer to who gets to declare war. But I was wrong, and it’s more complicated than I thought.

The founders thought that putting the power to obliterate another country in the hands of one person, however cool, would be a dumb mistake. 

So, in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11, of the U.S. Constitution, they wrote that the sole right to declare war belongs to Congress. Unambiguous, Right? Right, right, except they left open a loophole. If the president doesn’t call it a war, if he calls it an emergency situation, he can skip right over Article 1 and order the bombers to load up. What’s even more disturbing is that no one has ever explicitly defined war, let alone what an emergency situation is, not the courts, not Congress, no one. 

It does require the president to notify the people who work on The Hill 48 hours before he sends in the troops. And, in theory, he can only go rogue for 60 days. 

But the loophole the founders left open is big enough for seven B-2 stealth bombers to fly through. In the age of nuclear weapons, you can do one heck of a lot of damage in 60 days.

In the past, emergency situations have included Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan. Bet you didn’t know they were never called wars. I didn’t. 

Various bipartisan War Powers legislation is being proposed and debated as I write by Senators Kirsten Gillibrand, Tim Kaine, and Bernie Sanders, and Reps. Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna. 

It’s time to stop debating and get something done that has teeth.

How about all of us sending the Congress people I mentioned messages of support and encouragement? 

MICROBYTE: Who’s to blame for the political mess?

Tom Jefferson said it in just 28 words, “Only an informed and engaged citizenry deserves its own government. So that when our elected officials go wrong, We The People will step in to make things right.” 

Think about it, that makes We The People the Fourth and most important part of the Checks and Balances system that is the Idea of America, no kings, no Khans, no dictators. Just us, We The People.

But where are We The People? AWOL is where!

We spend more time playing video games than we do paying attention to what’s going on in our own country.

It’s not our fault, because we pretty much stopped teaching civics and American history back in the 60s, Americans are civically illiterate. Why would we continue to support something we don’t understand and know almost nothing about?

The result: Most of us don’t even bother to vote. Only 26% of us show up to vote in our own hometowns, where 10 votes could swing the election. 

Our founders gave us more power over our government and our lives than 72% of all the world’s people who had the bad luck to be born in some version of an autocracy.. But if we don’t use it, it’s worthless. What's more, if We The People don’t use it, we’re very likely to lose it.

Bottom line, what happens in America is up to no one but us. 

It’s our country, and it’s our turn.

The Challenges of Democracy and the Rule of Law.

“In thirteen timely essays, Jonathan Sumption explores the threats to democracy and the very meaning of democracy in Britain and around the world from the deepening of state control over everyday life during the COVID-19 pandemic to the growing power of an increasingly partisan U.S. Supreme Court and the crushing of pro-democracy activism in Hong Kong.” 

Lord Jonathan Sumption, British Supreme Court Justice, historian, Sunday Times best-selling author. 226 pages. (Profile Books, Pub.)

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Jimmy Kimmel: “Originally, DJT’s Birthday parade was supposed to be small, ya know. A few months ago, Pete Hegseth came to Trump with plans for this parade that only included three tanks, and you know this is Trump’s birthday, so he was furious. Reports say that he screamed at him. He said,  three tanks, he said, I pull you off Fox News, I make you Secretary of Defense, I stand behind you when you’re accused of sexual assault, and being a drunk, and texting the war plans to a reporter, I do all that for you and this is the tanks I get!” 😂 

1. PREZ: On Thursday evening, the night of Juneteenth, Donald Trump took to Truth Social with a classic "old man yells at cloud" complaint: Americans get too much time off work. "Too many non-working holidays in America. It is costing our Country $BILLIONS OF DOLLARS to keep all of these businesses closed," he wrote. "It must change if we are going to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!" Full article @MSNBC

(Editor’s note: As of June 21st, DJT Days in office, 152. Days off to play golf, 37. Typical cost per golf outing: $3.4 million.) 

2. MARS OR BUST: First, Trump sends Musk into space, and now this! This makes three busts in a row for SpaceX. The former White House Special Government Employee is definitely not having a good month.