PEADs – Trump Leadership - Re-Election - And the “Low” Number of Dead, Hmm
Presidential Emergency Action Documents – PEADs. Extra-Presidential powers that date back to the beginning of the cold-war era in the 1950s. I ask you to consider a worst case COVID-19 “Wave-2” circumstance. One in which mirrors what happened during the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic, then ask what kind of leadership you want to see navigate America through the crisis. PEADs gives the President emergency powers to “temporarily” suspend civil liberties and constitutional rights in an extreme emergency in which a kind of Marshall Law can be decreed over America.
Could COVID-19’s possible second wave press the President into declaring a State of Emergency where “extra-presidential powers” could be initiated? Do you want the current leadership that has done a dubious job leading us through the COVID-19 “first-wave” to be the same leadership that navigates us through a potentially more virulent “second-wave?” A second-wave America could be even more unprepared for? A leader who under his watch “tested” the national waters when he declared the President has absolute power over the States (Reference my May 4, 2020 piece “That Was A Test - President Trump: Genius or Buffoonery (Unabridged)” at www.utahbullmooseparty.com.
Congressional leaders from both sides of the aisle have been watching President Trump from the corners of their eyes since he became the Commander and Chief, and since he self-declared himself a “Wartime” President in March (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVAhBfRDXec and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pecWngCcQ8).
The “Kaine Resolution,” vetoed earlier this month, was a bipartisan failed attempt to limit President Trump’s powers, and now Congress is concerned about Presidential Emergency Action Documents (PEADs) which conceivably could be exercised in a more aggressive second COVID-19 wave in the Fall (https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2020/05/16/trump-emergency-powers-worry-some-senators-legal-experts/BVP0rAqlrfWJU02wlrd5qM/story.html).
Fox News reported Tucker Carlson reported on 16 May: “America is Splitting into Two Hemispheres – Free States and Those Still Tightening Lock-downs” https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-america-hemispheres-free-states-lockdowns. Hey Tucker, when suspension of the 1st Amendment (Freedom of the Press) rules are imposed, and the regime in power purges, among other things, the media, I hope you have your backup plan well thought through.
Folks, if the world has only seen a prelude into the dark Coronavirus clouds that may be gathering ominously on the horizon with enormously rising national debt, fracturing of the global supply chain, Presidential leadership that has not united our country in a common purpose, but fractured it into an extreme “left” and right” wing ideological competition for power by the vocal few on either side of the political spectrum, a healthcare system in the United Status unprepared to tackle a Fall second-wave COVID-19 occurrence – as happened in 1918 (that ravaged the world), and a unprepared dismal showing in the first wave with more American deaths in the last 8 weeks than all the soldiers that have died in all America’s wars since WWII combined – with currently no coherent plan articulated to confront a second-wave, I ask is the leadership you have that calls almost 100,000 Americans dead in eight weeks, and counting, because it wasn’t millions dead, a definition of success and the kind of leadership that is best suited to lead us through the abyss of a more virulent second-wave? I know, wow, that was a marathon run-on sentence. Folks, your current leadership calls his performance in Coronavirus Wave 1 a complete success (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_C5VRO7xSBg). Was it Stalin that said, the death of one person is a tragedy, the death of a million is a statistic? Does your current leadership put more weight on his grasp on power than the interests of your family as was the case with Stalin? Do you call this administration a success?
Folks, even if you don’t think America has the wrong man for the job in the Oval Office, wouldn’t you at least like to be sure you have a strong Congress in place that can serve in their role as Check and Balance to the President just in case? Maybe you want your senators from Utah, including your Congressmen and women, to be prepared to take intelligent action should the regime that’s so poorly lead us through the first Coronavirus fail to lead us through what may be yet to come? Currently, America does not even have a coherently articulated game plan for COVID-19 wave two. I want to know that they “Got This” IN DETAIL! Folks, they told you they “Got This” with healthcare in 2016. When they got elected, they had “NOTHING” prepared and ready to fix healthcare. Four years later – STILL NOTHING!!! Do you think they have a plan for a second round of COVID-19?! Yeah, let me see it!!!
Folks, when you vote in 2022. Consider candidates that will act first in America’s best interests - your best interests – and not the interests of their party, that gets them re-elected, and their own self-interested re-election fortunes and who do their job to aggressively hold the Oval Office’s feet to the fire and demand responsible, well thought out, and prepared leadership that has a detailed plan for the welfare of America? Don’t you deserve at least that?
Republican incumbent Senator Mike Lee is not your man. He embraces a leadership philosophy that is leading America in the wrong direction. You deserve better.
Vote Independent. Vote Utah Bull Moose Party.
COL Michael “Mike” Seguin
U.S. Army – Retd