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Ecumenism is the Universal Solvent of Tradition .

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Time travel?

 Hey ABS, you seem to know pretty much everything. Can man travel back through time?


Thank you for the question pretend interlocutor. No, man can not travel back or forward in time.  Not even Napoleon Dynamite could do that.



Well, then ABS, what is a good definition of time ?


Here is the one ABS loves. It is from the great Abbe Gaume: First comes the Christian definition of Time. Time is a period of trial, imposed on all free creatures before arriving at their end. Since the fall, time is the delay granted by Divine Justice to guilty man that he might recover himself .


If one begins at the right starting point, one will not be seduced into wasting precious time thinking one can travel backwards through time.




    Friday Fun


                     
    Woodstock, Vermont

    Vote for me, George McGeorge of Quechee Gorge. 

    That campaign slogan became justly famous as perhaps the best political campaign slogan ever created and while men were not really sure as to what the slogan meant or what policies were favored by McGeorge it was as catchy and memorable as “I wish I was an Oscar Meyer Weiner..” and one can be sure that if Petrov was still alive he'd be thinking that if a candidate named, Oscar Meyer, were on the same ballot as an opponent of George McGeorge the average Woodstock voter, once having entered the booth, would not leave it until about ten years after so difficult would be the choice. 


    But, voters in Vermont are like any other voter in any other state in These United States- they really don't know what the hell is going on or for whom they should vote; Hmm should I vote for what's-his-face...I think he's only been in prison once... Nah, I'm a vote for George McGeorge of Quechee Gorge, maybe that will help get that damn slogan out of me head; it's making me mental.


    It was the newly elected State Representative George McGeorge of Queeche Gorge who convinced the good folk of Woodstock to ban the poetry of Robert Frost from the library and the schools, memorably saying I don’t want my son to take a magic bullet in his grille just because he read some Robert Frost poems.


    When The Town Manager of Woodstock, Moe Lester, said George  now you are just being silly  George clinched the argument by observing the obvious; Is that so Moe? Then how do you explain the fact that JFK both loved Robert Frost and got assassinated, Huh?


    The Town Meeting crowd erupted with cheers and sustained applause and outside of the hall not a few youth lighted M-80s and dropped them in the US Postal Service Mail Box, the same type of box Trump and his MAGA men had stolen in Oregon and Washington so people couldn't vote by mail.


    Whatever...


    This lovely town is not to be confused with The Woodstock of the infamous days of downpours, drugs and decadency; the days when a young man from England got up on stage and began playing his guitar at a furious pace and he played so long that the stoners in the crowd said Since the first note was played it has been ten years after and Hey he’s like said he is going home about a million times now, and yet he is still here; What the heck? as something... something... something... butterflies above the nation.


    The Girls of Woodstock.


    That was the poem that George McGeorge of Queeche Gorge quoted that really set on edge the teeth of The Fathers of the Town and the Fathers of the young women of Woodstock because they remembered their desires back when they were teens.


    However, the Mothers of the young women of Woodstock, recognizing a bit of their own selves in the poem, silently vowed to their own selves to Take a switch to her for parading her little ass all around town like that.


    Robert Frost's The Girls of Woodstock.


    The girls of Woodstock are hot to trot,

    Wear miniskirts, smoke shit tons of pot.

    Have nice asses, swiggle hips when they walk.

    Love to go parking, no strangers to skiing.


    At the back of the Town Meeting Hall a sullen Korean War Vet, Ethan Allen, was carving the initials WWPT - What Would Petrov Think - into his wooden leg. 


    His frustrated Mom, Mary Mallon Allen, had named him Ethan because, as she confided to her friends, He’ll prolly be like his old man, from start to finish, knocking me up in less than a minute.


    Men were of two opinions about the cause of the silence and irritability of Ethan Allen. Some thought it was only natural the Vet would be like he was because that War had shattered his nerves while about as many other men thought he was bitter and easily irked because what he rightly considered to be a legacy due him - his monetary inheritance from his grandfather - had been lost in a speculative venture of Pops, the printing of thousands of T-Shirts that read "Hiroshima Strong"which did not sell as well as expected.


    In any event, most men were in agreement about Frost and his poetry.


    It is interesting to note that it was not in Woodstock Vermont alone where the poem caused controversy and why Frost fell out of favor with seceding generations and was banned from every library in America, except for the Library Van in Woodstock, New York which is still driven slowly up and down  down the streets by Wavy Gravy as he plays "I'm going home" and I'm fixing to die rag" over his loudspeakers.


    Frost read his poem at one of the inaugural balls and while Jack and Teddy laughed uproariously, in a corner of the ballroom a thoughtful and passionate Bobby Kennedy passionately grimaced and thought If the negroes gets wind of this all hell’s gonna break loose. I must investigate him…


    As this was going on Rafer Johnson had wheeled a mute old man Joseph P. Kennedy into the kitchen in the wheelchair in which he was confined because of a stroke and left him there to the graces of the children of the Kennedy Clan who began covering him with spray cheese while singing 

    John-John needs a brand new sled

    we can’t wait til Granddaddy’s dead.


    Here is the thing about John Fitzgerald Kennedy. ABS knows all of the BS about vim and vigor and Camelot but the plain and simple truth is that before he was forty the bastid had seen more strange ass then a ladies toilet seat in a Texaco Restroom in Terlingua, Texas..


    If you don't believe ABS, just read this summary of his madman speech, A.K.A. Inauguration:


    Something...something...something...liberty and God…


    Let every nation know, something...something...something.. we shall pay any price, bear any burden, something...something... something... liberty..


    Something...something...something...loyalty, colonial power, riding the back of the Tiger…something... something...something...United Nations..Ask not what your country is sending you overseas to fight for, ask for something...something...something...


    I have been informed by America’s top scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory where, even as we speak, scores of scientists are boiling hundreds of Jackson Laboratory Mice in beakers to determine if our brave astronauts, all of whom are white men who dig chicks, can blast through the Van Allen Belt without burning their asses off. The truth is, we don’t know and we will never know. And so America, which now has the technology to do so, will fake a moon landing and if in ten years if I am not in Danang drinking Tang with them Commie bastids, you can kiss my ass. 


    The concluding paragraph was cut from the official speech after one of JFK’s advisors, the one who was not eating LSD like it was Pez Candy, McGeorge Bundy, was able to convince JFK that if this last paragraph was spoken publicly it would really piss off the peasants; take it from me, a man whose first name is McGeorge, that you do not want to go there…”


    Summing up, ABS would just like to say that Woodstock, Vermont is a beautiful little town of roughly 3000 souls and, if you have a million dollars or so to put down on a home, you too could live a safe and happy life.












    The Papacy as explained by the great Abbe Gaume in his "Catechism of Perseverance"



    The forty days which our Lord should remain on earth after his resurrection, drew to an end. The Divine Master had instructed his apostles in the mysteries of the kingdom of God. He had given them the under standing of the Scriptures. The admirable economy of man’s Redemption, the object for which the Incarnate Word was born into the world, lived, died, and rose again; the necessity for all men to unite themselves to Him by faith, hope, and charity ; the end of this union in time being the imitation of his life, and in eternity the participation of his glory; the only cause which can sever this holy union and render Christ unprofitable to us, is sin; all these matters were henceforward known to the apostles, who were charged with instructing the whole world regarding them.


    Was there anything else still to be done by the New Adam? Yes; to secure the preservation and provide for the propagation of his Divine work, in order that all men coming into the world might gather its fruits. He would not himself impart instruction, personally, much longer; his earthly mission was fulfilled; He was about to ascend to the right hand of his Father. How would He perpetuate the benefit of redemption, and render it accessible to all persons, even to the consummation of time ?


    He substitutes another for Himself; He selects a vicar on whom He will confer the plenitude of power which He has received from his Father, and to whom He will confide the care of perpetuating and extending the great work which He Himself has come to begin. Never will man be elevated to a higher dignity; never will a more formidable responsibility be laid upon the shoulders of a mortal.


    Who will be this viceroy of the Son of God? 0 abyss of mercy and wisdom! Even he, who, but a few days ago, thrice denied his Master at the voice of a servant. All that is most weak is chosen for the work that is all important! A reed to support the world! A great sinner to be the teacher of faith, and the father of Christians! In a word, the vicar of the New Adam will be the apostle St. Peter.


    How sublime and affecting are the circumstances of his consecration !


    When a king wishes to confide some important charge to one of his subjects, he looks for a guarantee or security; so does Jesus Christ. This Divine Shepherd, who came to shed his blood for the salvation of his sheep, is on the point of quitting them. Before confiding to St. Peter so precious a flock, He required some guarantee or security. But what can He expect from a poor, illiterate fisherman, without any other fortune than a boat and its nets? 


    The greatest and safest pledge that man  can give, namely, love ; but a love carried even to heroism, a love ready to sacrifice itself for the service of its Master and the interests of its charge.


    Such is the meaning of these admirable words, so earnestly repeated :Simon, son of John, love thou me more than these? It is only after having obtained the assurance of this love, proof against every trial, that the Divine'Shepherd says to him: Feed my lambs, feed my sheep.‘ Everything that breathes of paternal devotedness in authority, everything that breathes of filial gentleness in submission, consequently everything that is indestructible in the social bonds, is contained in this model consecration of the chief of all superiors; a consecration unique in the annals of the world, and displaying in itself alone more social philosophy than all the books that were ever written. Absolute power to govern the Church, the right of confirming his brethren, the primacy of honour and of jurisdiction, infallibility as supreme teacher in faith and morals; such are the prerogatives of Peter,

    ever living in his successors.

    Everyday is hate Lincoln day around here

    The Gettysburg Address is perhaps the most iconic speech in American history. Students are required to memorize it, and it has become as important to American political culture as the United States Constitution or the Declaration of Independence. This is unfortunate, because in this speech, Abraham Lincoln invented history and by doing so intellectually nuked the original federal republic.

    The address was not a conservative affirmation of founding principles but a revolutionary manifesto that radically transformed America. Lincoln created a “proposition nation” at Gettysburg and crafted the greatest swindle in American political history.

    Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address on November 19, 1863, four months after one of the bloodiest battles of the War for Southern Independence. The president was invited almost as an afterthought to the event. He scribbled the speech on the train, a pithy 269 words that took him around two minutes to read to a less than enthusiastic response from the gathered crowd, and Lincoln himself didn’t think his words made much of an impact.

    Some members of the press agreed. The Chicago Times called it a “flat and dishwattery” utterance, while a Pennsylvania newspaper labeled it “silly.” Lincoln didn’t realize it at the time, but future generations of Americans would buy his artful lie hook, line, and sinker.

    It was common for both Northerners and Southerners to attach their respective causes to the “principles of ’76.” For Southerners, that meant independence and resistance to a foreign power not of their choosing. But for some Northerners—the vast minority—the “principles of ‘76” carried a different meaning, one that Lincoln tapped at Gettysburg.

    From the onset of the War, Lincoln professed his desire to save the Union and the Constitution. That was the 1776 that most Northerners wanted to preserve.  But at Gettysburg Lincoln changed course. His 1776 constituted a radically different founding.

    “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

    This is nothing more than propaganda, and the newspaper editors that called it “silly” were more accurate than anyone is willing to admit today.

    Neither Thomas Jefferson nor anyone else in the founding generation paid much attention to the line “all men are created equal.” This was not a radical statement by egalitarian ideologues interested in “liberty, equality, fraternity” as in the French Revolution. It was an affirmation of British history, that British subjects were equal under the law. Lincoln distorted that meaning.

    And by classifying the United States in 1776 as a “nation,” Lincoln was cementing a myth that had circulated since the ratification of the Constitution—namely that the United States existed before the States—and he clothing his questionable legal acts in historical legitimacy. But the historical record does not support his position.  The United States did not constitute a “nation” in 1776. It was a federal republic held together in common cause against illegal and unconstitutional acts by both King and Parliament. Even proponents of the Constitution recognized this by insisting that the document established a “federal” not a “national” government.

    Lincoln continues his fairy tale history by insisting that this “nation of equals” was facing a frontal assault by the South. “Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated…”

    No civil war existed in 1863. The South was not seeking to control the government of the United States, and by insisting that the United States was “conceived and dedicated” to “all men are created equal,” Lincoln “revolutionized the Revolution” as the historian Gary Wills wrote. This would have been news to the founding generation, the majority of whom warned of the dangers of a “national” government.

    Lincoln insisted that Union soldiers gave their lives defending his “proposition nation.” But the evidence supports a different conclusion. Desertion rates skyrocketed after Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, and most Union soldiers, even at the time Lincoln delivered the Address, insisted they were fighting for the Union not the “proposition that all men were created equal.” Even during the War, some Northern States had exclusionary laws that forbade blacks from living there. Racism was as deep rooted in the North as in the South, and Lincoln never had an epiphany that blacks and whites were equal. In 1862 he said that blacks could never be “placed on an equality with the white race…” and insisted that the races be separated. He was opposed to slavery, but not to racism and by no means supported full “equality” in 1863.

    Lincoln eulogized the Union men who bled and died at Gettysburg for their dedication to some mythical “unfinished work,” what he poetically believed was “that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

    These lines have resonated across the decades and have become near theological dogma from an American demigod, but Lincoln was playing fast and loose with the facts, even in 1863. What “new birth of freedom” was he referring to? Slavery still existed in Union controlled regions of the South and Lincoln himself proposed in 1865 to postpone emancipation if the South would simply stop fighting for its independence.

    And was the Confederate government not elected “of the people, by the people, and for the people” of the South? The Southern States voted to secede through popularly elected conventions in larger majorities than those which supported American independence in 1776. By waging war against the South, Lincoln was undermining the very principles he pledged to support.

    The Gettysburg Address is graceful, but it is as hollow as the soul of an echo. If Lincoln didn’t think it that important, perhaps we should ignore it as well. Our understanding of American government and history would be better for it.

    https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/the-gettysburg-fairy-tale/

    The Real Lincoln links

    Hey, Hey, Ho Ho. We don't wanna read yo books no more.

     


    Jesse Jackson and students protest Western Culture program on Palm Drive, photograph, 1987

    By the mid-1980s, increasing dissatisfaction with the introductory humanities program known as “Western Culture” that had begun in 1980 came to the fore. The program was criticized for its lack of diversity and its predominantly Eurocentric readings. Students advocated for a curriculum that included ethnic minority and women authors because America, as you well know, was formed by colonialists from England which then was teeming with Homos, Negroes, and Bossy Birds.


     On January 15, 1987, as many as 500 students, along with the Reverend Jesse Jackson, rallied down Palm Drive chanting, "Hey hey, ho ho, Western Civ has got to go."   The Authorities were mostly stoned and unprepared to respond in kind - 

    Hey. Hey, Ho Ho, you don't go to school no more.

     You done been expelled, you're all full of shit. 

    Gather your belongings and hit the bricks.

    Except for those who had jobs, those who had families and those who considered themselves Americans, the curriculum debate drew national attention, and in 1989 Western Culture was formally replaced with the Cultures, Ideas, & Values (CIV) program that included more inclusive works on race, class, and gender and other relatively worthless crap entirely inappropriate to college level studies  and the graduating students of those days went on to become the Tyrannical Assholes of today.


    Yes, Let's teach college students about all of the negro founders of America. O, wait, hang on. There were no negro founders of America because those who funded America were White Christian Colonists from England.


    Read all about the different races and religions of the colonists who started America. This is written by  John Jay, one of the men responsible for The Federalist Papers (Jessie Jackson prolly thought that was a special kind of paper for rolling joints).

    Concerning Dangers from Foreign Force and Influence 
    For the Independent Journal.

    JAY


    To the People of the State of New York: 


    WHEN the people of America reflect that they are now called upon to decide a question, which, in its consequences, must prove one of the most important that ever engaged their attention, the propriety of their taking a very comprehensive, as well as a very serious, view of it, will be evident. 

    Nothing is more certain than the indispensable necessity of government, and it is equally undeniable, that whenever and however it is instituted, the people must cede to it some of their natural rights in order to vest it with requisite powers. It is well worthy of consideration therefore, whether it would conduce more to the interest of the people of America that they should, to all general purposes, be one nation, under one federal government, or that they should divide themselves into separate confederacies, and give to the head of each the same kind of powers which they are advised to place in one national government. 

    It has until lately been a received and uncontradicted opinion that the prosperity of the people of America depended on their continuing firmly united, and the wishes, prayers, and efforts of our best and wisest citizens have been constantly directed to that object. But politicians now appear, who insist that this opinion is erroneous, and that instead of looking for safety and happiness in union, we ought to seek it in a division of the States into distinct confederacies or sovereignties. However extraordinary this new doctrine may appear, it nevertheless has its advocates; and certain characters who were much opposed to it formerly, are at present of the number. Whatever may be the arguments or inducements which have wrought this change in the sentiments and declarations of these gentlemen, it certainly would not be wise in the people at large to adopt these new political tenets without being fully convinced that they are founded in truth and sound policy. 

    It has often given me pleasure to observe that independent America was not composed of detached and distant territories, but that one connected, fertile, widespreading country was the portion of our western sons of liberty. Providence has in a particular manner blessed it with a variety of soils and productions, and watered it with innumerable streams, for the delight and accommodation of its inhabitants. A succession of navigable waters forms a kind of chain round its borders, as if to bind it together; while the most noble rivers in the world, running at convenient distances, present them with highways for the easy communication of friendly aids, and the mutual transportation and exchange of their various commodities. 

    With equal pleasure I have as often taken notice that Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people--a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by their joint counsels, arms, and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established general liberty and independence...


    But Jesse Jackson rejected historic America because it was founded by White English Christians andColleges used the money of mainly white Christians to substitute an anti0white, anti-christian ideology for history.


    However, just for the hell of it,ABS did some research into what percentage of the English population was in the 16th & 17th century.


    What he found was the percentage was so small he didn't think it worthy of mention but he did discover this:


    Sambo's Grave

    There is a poignant reminder of Lancashire's involvement in the slave trade at Sunderland Point - Sambo's Grave. 

    Samboo's grave










    Sambo's grave is a memorial to a young, black slave who is thought to have arrived in 1736 at the port with his master.

    He was born in Africa and taken first to the West Indies as a slave before being brought to Lancaster by his master.

    He was taken ill and died near a local inn at Sunderland Point.

    He was buried in an unmarked grave but in 1795 a schoolteacher - Rev Watson - raised money to erect a memorial to Sambo and penned the elegy on the grave.


    The epitaph reads:

    Full sixty years the angry winter's wave
    Has thundering dashed this bleak and barren shore
    Since Sambo's head laid in this lonely grave
    Lies still and ne'er will hear their turmoil more.

    Full many a sandbird chirps upon the sod,
    And many a moonlight elfin round him trips
    Full many a summer's sunbeam warms the clod
    And many a teeming cloud upon him drips.

    But still he sleeps - till the awakening sounds,
    Of the Archangel's trump new life impart,
    Then the Great Judge his approbation founds,
    Not on man's colour but his worth of heart.


    After she had discharged her cargo, he was placed at the inn…with the intention of remaining there on board wages till the vessel was ready to sail; but supposing himself to be deserted by the master, without being able, probably from his ignorance of the language, to ascertain the cause, he fell into a complete state of stupefaction, even to such a degree that he secreted himself in the loft on the brewhouses and stretching himself out at full length on the bare boards refused all sustenance. He continued in this state only a few days, when death terminated the sufferings of poor Samboo. As soon as Samboo's exit was known to the sailors who happened to be there, they excavated him in a grave in a lonely dell in a rabbit warren behind the village, within twenty yards of the sea shore, whither they conveyed his remains without either coffin or bier, being covered only with the clothes in which he died.

    — Lonsdale Magazine, 1822


    Apparently, the first named slave of England was Sambo. That is funny.

    BBQ differences in these United States

    ABS made some BBQ Ribs and Baked Beans with Pulled Pork for Super Bowl Sunday and he thinks the best way to explain the regional differences in BBQ is to let these good 'ol boys explain:




    White House Sources leaks actual POTUS Daily Calendar to ABS

    There is a fake daily calendar of the POTUS available below in which Biden appears as a hologram or one of several substitutes stumble and mumble through whatever sycophantic interview he sits for.



    ABS has the real schedule here:




    7:00 AM  Still sleeping soundly as a recording of light rainfall plays on a Yogasleep speaker.


    8:00 AM Dr. Jill softly walks into the bedroom and gently opens the blinds and Joe slowly comes to wakefulness.


    Good morning, Honey...You'll have to get up pretty soon because the Daily Briefing is at 9:00




    8:30 AM The POTUS arrives for his breakfast, a big bowl of Lucky Charms and, charmingly, greets the minority staff, Good morning, its great to see your colored faces this day.


    9:00 AM Joe eases into his Lazy Boy as he prepares for the Daily Intelligence report, Whew, I had a doozy of a dream last night. I dreamt there were troops all over Washington... Good Morning Mrs. Vice President Harold, you're looking pretty today...Do I detect the smell of a new shampoo?


    9:05 AM Joe is dozing soundly while VP Harris listens intently, smiling with a practiced joviality as she pretends to understand what is being communicated.


    10:00 AM Dr Jill closes the meeting by asserting her soft but puissant presence; Im sorry gentleman but that is enough for today. The POTUS needs a break before lunch...


    Dr Jill waits for the official White House photographer to enter the room before she gives the POTUS a quick kiss on his cheek.


    There are no scheduled events until 2:00 PM and so the POTUS goes to the Oval Office and tries to watch reruns of The Merv Griffin Show; Doctor Trill, I heard Ann Margaret is going to be on Merv, can I watch her?



    No, Dear. You have seen her three times and every time you watch her you get all twitchy, you start moaning, your eyes roll back into your head and you have a stroke.

    My rule, three strokes and you're out. Watch Petticoat Junction, they got some good looking gals on that..


    The POTUS starts watching Petticoat Junction reruns and says to himself; I love the part of the theme song where it says that Joe is moving kind of slow at the Junction - My Jife Will says that reminds her of me...Tee hee.


    2:00 PM Some members of the Cabinet of The POTUS arrive for a meeting; Is that all of them, Vice President Carmen?


    Yes, Mr. President, and didn't let anyone tell you you do not have a big cabinet ...


    2:30 PM Dr. Jill peeks her scrunchy bedecked hair into the room and says, Ok, everybody, time to put a lid on the meeting. The POTUS needs a little alone time until his 6:00 PM supper...


    From 2:30 until 5:54 PM, The POTUS plays his favorite game:



     
    Man o man, I wish these ducks were all Trump family members...


    5:45 PM, Dr. Jill arrives to stop The POTUS from playing his game and tells him its time for supper,


    Honey, will you turn that crap for crying out loud...Sorry, I mean its Din Din time Darlin'


    OK, Proctor Bill. I just set a new record.. Now, I'm starving, but not starving like the poor people in that sad place, what's-it-called? 



    6:00 PM The POTUS tucks into a huge bowl of boxed mac and cheese and at 6:25 PM Dr. Jill arrives to get him ready for bed..


    Time to turn in Leader of the free world. You know that if you do not get your 14 or 15 hours of sleep you might get cranky and have a drone take-out Ron DeSantis...


    The POTUS gets into his sleeping jammies, the ones with the feet, and climbs into bed as Dr. Jill reads him a few chapters of Wind in the Willows, You know Joctor Rill, I used to think I was like Mr. Toad and I was being left behind and going nowhere but ever since we stole the election fair and square, I feel fine...



    Tomorrow, can I play in the garden?

    Yes, Dear, now go to sleep. Tomorrow will be a busy day again

    If ABS were on The SCOTUS, he'd lead a movement to overturn the tyrannical power grab of the unelected radicals in robes.

    How the U.S. Government Is Organized

    The Constitution of the United States divides the federal government into three branches to make sure no individual or group will have too much power:

    • Legislative—Makes laws (Congress, comprised of the House of Representatives and Senate)
    • Executive—Carries out laws (president, vice president, Cabinet, most federal agencies)
    • Judicial—Evaluates laws (Supreme Court and other courts)

    Each branch of government can change acts of the other branches:

    • The president can veto legislation created by Congress and nominates heads of federal agencies.
    • Congress confirms or rejects the president's nominees and can remove the president from office in exceptional circumstances.
    • The Justices of the Supreme Court, who can overturn unconstitutional laws, are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

    This ability of each branch to respond to the actions of the other branches is called the system of checks and balances.


    ABS calls that bull shit. If one branch of government has the power to label the acts of the other two branches of government unconstitutional then IT - The SCOTUS - is vastly more powerful than the other two branches.


    Can the Legislative Branch or the Executive Branch declare the acts of The SCOTUS unconstitutional?


    No, thus, there is no existing system of checks and balances.


    A POTUS should declare a SCOTUS decision unconstitutional so that we the people could, once again, claim control of our Constitution  it was written for us not lawyers/judges.


    OK, what would happen if the POTUS declared acts by the SCOTUS unconstitutional?


    The next election would be, I'm effect, a referendum on the Constitution. Voters would decide whether or not to reelect the POTUS - and other office holders who supported the decision - based on his reasoning for declaring The SCOTUS decision unconstitutional and voters who disagreed with the POTUS could vote for the politician running against the POTUS because of that politician's reasoning why the act of declaring The SCOTUS unconstitutional was wrong.


    The election would be a serious event because we the people would be deciding what the Constitution meant and not whether or not the candidate was a man or a woman or had more support from sodomites or members of a particular race etc.


    Let's revisit the scent and the scene of the Constitution Killing Crime - 

    The decision in this Supreme Court Case established the right of the courts to determine the constitutionality of the actions of the other two branches of government.

    print-friendly version

    Outgoing President John Adams had issued William Marbury a commission as justice of the peace, but the new Secretary of State, James Madison, refused to deliver it. Marbury then sued to obtain it. With his decision in Marbury v. Madison, Chief Justice John Marshall established the principle of judicial review, an important addition to the system of “checks and balances” created to prevent any one branch of the Federal Government from becoming too powerful. The document shown here bears the marks of the Capitol fire of 1898.

    “A Law repugnant to the Constitution is void.” With these words written by Chief Justice Marshall, the Supreme Court for the first time declared unconstitutional a law passed by Congress and signed by the President. Nothing in the Constitution gave the Court this specific power. Marshall, however, believed that the Supreme Court should have a role equal to those of the other two branches of government.

    When James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay wrote a defense of the Constitution in The Federalist, they explained their judgment that a strong national government must have built-in restraints: “You must first enable government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.” The writers of the Constitution had given the executive and legislative branches powers that would limit each other as well as the judiciary branch. The Constitution gave Congress the power to impeach and remove officials, including judges or the President himself. The President was given the veto power to restrain Congress and the authority to appoint members of the Supreme Court with the advice and consent of the Senate. In this intricate system, the role of the Supreme Court had not been defined. It therefore fell to a strong Chief Justice like Marshall to complete the triangular structure of checks and balances by establishing the principle of judicial review. Although no other law was declared unconstitutional until the Dred Scott decision of 1857, the role of the Supreme Court to invalidate Federal and state laws that are contrary to the Constitution has never been seriously challenged. 

    “The Constitution of the United States,” said Woodrow Wilson, “was not made to fit us like a strait jacket. In its elasticity lies its chief greatness.” The often-praised wisdom of the authors of the Constitution consisted largely of their restraint. They resisted the temptation to write too many specifics into the basic document. They contented themselves with establishing a framework of government that included safeguards against the abuse of power. When the Marshall decision Marbury v. Madison completed the system of checks and balances, the United States had a government in which laws could be enacted, interpreted and executed to meet challenging circumstances. 

    (The order bears the marks of the Capitol fire of 1898. )

    (Information excerpted from Milestone Documents in the National Archives[Washington, DC: National Archives and Records Administration, 1995] pp. 23-24.)