Electoral College, Part 2: Every President Needs a Down-to-Earth Cabinet

by Mary W Maxwell

I think no individual is capable of handling the job of president of the United States.

This article does not propose a new set-up for the top job; I always like to stick with the old. But it’s an important point: Who has what it takes to be a leader of such an entity as a modern complex population with 300 million people? No one. Absolutely no one.

Let’s Talk about the Cabinet

In the United States, a president can pick his Cabinet from anyone in the country — or outside the country, really. (This is unlike the Westminster system of UK and Australia where only members of parliament can become Cabineters.)

“Cabinet” does not appear in the US Constitution, as written in 1787, and no amendment thereto has mentioned it. That’s a good thing, I believe. It means that the executive is free (with consent of the Senate) to appoint persons, for their ability to surround the US president with support, protection, criticism, ideas, and advice.

That isn’t actually what has happened, in living memory, but is nevertheless possible. The way the cabinet works now is that the person is the head of a large bureaucracy. When he or she comes to a cabinet meeting, it’s usually to act as a cheerleader for an already-determined policy of the president, the political party, or … God knows who else.

To show you how important these Cabineters are, at least theoretically, I’ll mention their position in the order of succession to the presidency should he die.

Of course the vice president is first in line, followed by the Speaker of the House and president pro tem of the Senate.  The next successors are the members of Cabinet, in the order in which their portfolio came into existence historically.

Thus: Secretary of state, treasury, defense, justice (the attorney general), interior, agriculture, commerce, labor, health, housing, transportation, energy, education, veteran’s affairs, and homeland security.

Today is not the day for me to harangue about the fact that the Constitution is constantly being violated. But it pains me to have scribed the above list knowing that some of it is naughty.

States, and only states, can control the areas of health, housing, or education. They do not belong in the federal government’s bailiwick.

And the Homeland Security function, presuming it has to do with foreign attacks, should be under Defense. (If it is a police thing, it belongs to the states.)

Sticking with the Constitution

Or perhaps today is the day (like the other 364 days of the year) for me to complain that the nation is disregarding its own great basic law, the Constitution.

In my opinion, “you either have a constitution or you don’t.” The whole point of the Constitution – as its Framers knew so well – is that it allocates power.  It limits the accumulation of power by any one group. So you can’t “sort of have it.”

For instance, you can’t let one group get away with violating the Constitution’s allocation of power by, say, 15%. Well, you could if you reconvened the Constitutional convention and re-arranged the whole structure. But if you merely wink at the group that is grabbing an unauthorized 15% you will soon find it has grabbed 50%, or more. All law will collapse.

The complete structure is what protects everyone. Not that a piece of paper (“the parchment”) can do the job, but the piece of paper is a necessary first thing. Once it exists, all the members of the nation can come to love it, to be loyal to it, and to use it for their own protection or for the protection of anyone whom they are concerned about.

They have to insist on the enforcement of the law — using citizen’s arrest if the proper persons won’t do the job.

Back to the Issue of the Presidency

Today we are on the verge of a presidential election. The polls are to be held on November 8, 2016. Then, 41 days later, on December 19, the “electoral college” will meet – in the capital city of each state.

In the scheme of the US Constitution, the president has a fairly small role, but as time passed, from 1787 to about 1934, presidents took on more work for themselves. Occasionally they got chopped back on this, by a dutiful Congress. (Yes it is Congress’s duty to impeach a president who likes to act ultra vires, beyond power.)

In 1934, Franklin Delano Roosevelt went hog wild with something called the New Deal, using the emergency of the 1933 Great Depression to expand executive powers. By this point, the power of the media was such that the nation could be swayed away from constitutionality and be drawn to other “sirens.”

The Cabal in the White House

The Delano side of president Roosevelt’s family was involved in “the China trade” and the opium wars. Without trying to prove it here, I tender the suggestion that FDR was a big bad boy. His treachery at Yalta could be sufficient proof. But again, I am not interested in a particular man but in the structure of the thing.

FDR wasn’t the first cabal person in the White House. Woodrow Wilson, who arrived in 1913, from his Princeton job as Professor of Jurisprudence, was “run” by a man who actually lived in the White House. He went by the name of “Colonel” Edward House. See my book Prosecution for Treason.

Zoom to 1963 when the cabal had a very popular president, JFK, assassinated, and then to 1973 when it ousted “legally” the president, Richard Nixon.

In 1981 the Director of the CIA, George WH Bush (Senior) entered the White House as vice-president to Reagan whose presidency he no doubt ran. The current president, Obama, is presumably cabal-run also.

I am mentioning this as prolegomena. It does not really matter that we have had a century’s worth of cabal presidents, for the purpose of this discussion of “what could be.”

What Could Indeed Be

Anyone who is native-born American age 35 or more and has lived in the US for 14 years could be the next president.

Offhand I think Senator Rand Paul, MD, would be a fine president, as he adores the Constitution – but recall my claim that no person is big enough to make the kinds of the decisions that we generally think a president is making.

He or she needs a council of elders, or whatever it might be called – people who will talk common sense.

So we should start concentrating not on the presidency but on a coterie of citizens who could act as a cabinet. As I said there are no constitutional provisions for a cabinet and hence no restrictions on who could participate.

You don’t have to be native born.  In fact one of the current cabinet members, holding the portfolio of Interior (she is Sally Jewell) was born in the UK and so she’s not in the line of succession, should the prexy die.

I Think I’m Going To Be Sick

When I just googled now for the Jewell data, I saw the name of the current US Attorney General. It is Loretta Lynch.  This is unbearable. I think I am going to be sick.

Lynch has overseen – through US Attorney Carmen Ortiz’s prosecution of Jahar Tsarnaev, the most outrageous injustice. Her staff, led by Judy Clarke, went to the parents of Jahar in Russia and admitted to them that they know Jahar is innocent but are under pressure to “not resist conviction.”

As I said, you either have the Constitution or you don’t. Some Americans say “We have a great Constitution but some office-holder are corrupt.” Wrong. If the five parties to the Constitution (namely, the states, the three branches of government, and the people) shirk their job of maintaining the parchment’s allocation of power, it dissipates.

It terminates. Gone with the wind. No more Constitution. Like sayonara, man.

So if Loretta Lynch (a member of the Executive branch) is doing what she is doing regarding the Tsarnaev case, and the other four parties to the Constitution – legislature, judiciary, states, people, are not stopping her (in this case by arresting her for treason), why would anyone feel protected by law?

Who’s Responsible?

We need to get away from the tyranny of language and stop saying “the president is the one who is in charge.” Look at reality, not at names of offices. As noted above the decision maker has often been the cabal (aka World Government).

Ultimately, the running of the nation devolves to the bottom – to the citizenry, us chickens. If we put up with awful behavior by the famous ones at the top – and that is generally our practice – then we are running the nation.  I mean we are handing those people the reins.

To reiterate: the cabal runs America. We let the cabal run us and do bad things. Therefore, since they are doing bad things as our agents, it is we citizens who are doing it, in my view.

If you are interested in a different arrangement you can’t just sit there and complain. You have to persuade others and put your pressure on the harm-doers.

Conclusion

To have an established Constitution is quite a blessing. It’s much easier than starting from scratch. No violence is needed. Except such violence as is already prescribed by law, that is, the taking out of circulation the harm-doers.

So let’s stop talking about how many points Hillary or Donald have won in their “debates.” Even if one of them becomes president, we don’t have to let him/her get away with murder.

And it’s our fault if we do. They are only jerks and we could strike them down.  But striking them down still isn’t sufficient.

The more important thing is putting in place a group of people who can work together as real leaders.

We should start calling for public nominations to Cabinet. Send the word to members of the electoral colleges, as this may make them prone to elect a president who, alone, cannot carry the weight but who could do so with good advisors.

— Mary W Maxwell is an American-born Australian citizen, author of Fraud Upon the Court: Reclaiming the Law, Joyfully

Photo credit: mormonnewsroom.org