Hello? – The real state of our union - Methow Valley News

The President’s right. Time to check on the state of the union. How far offshore has the United States drifted from the safe harbor of its Constitution?

We the People handed the presidency to a man indicted for bribery by a grand jury and twice impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives.

That’s on us. Whether this mistake is proof that We the People are irredeemably incapable of self rule remains an open question.

Had the Republican-led Senate agreed to impeach, this president would forever have been banned from public office. The Senate failed the nation by 10 votes. That’s on those 10. Actionable takeaway? The rules of impeachment want reform. That’s on Congress.

The Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts also spectacularly failed the nation by granting presidents immunity from prosecution for official acts while in office — a mere four months before this president was elected.

It cannot possibly have escaped the court who, exactly, the next president might well be; we’d all seen him in action. Nevertheless, this heedless, needless ruling became law. Curing the fallout of Roberts’ wistful longing for an unconstitutional “muscular” presidency will be a heavy lift.

So will revoking the court’s calamitous 2010 Citizens United ruling that insists money equals free speech and corporations are people. It allows unlimited secret spending in elections, grievously corrupting our one-person, one-vote election system.

A voter with $10 to donate to a candidate is forced to accept that a voter with $10,000 legally buy more political speech. The more money you have, the more political power you’re allowed to buy.

Citizens United not only hides “dark money” contributions to prevent citizens from knowing who really is calling the shots on public policy. It eviscerates equal political representation of ordinary citizens and their interests. Wildly undemocratic.

Combined, these two rulings in my view top the list of grave perils to our democracy.

The quickest way to restore accountability to the Supreme Court? End lifetime terms for its judges. That’s on Congress.

Consider the Court

For our part, We the People long have passively rested on our rights to demand that our representatives do what we ask. Congress now is so unconstitutionally derelict in its duty to restrain the president that a Republican justice, Neil Gorsuch, is urging Congress to act.

Given its ruling last week denying the president “emergency” tariff-setting power, the court seems to be having welcome second thoughts about free-floating presidential powers. (Too bad about the unprecedented mother of all mis-governance messes flowing from the president’s illegal collection of billions in tariff dollars.)

The president hasn’t hesitated to test Robert’s immunity theory. He’s turned the Oval Office into a billionaire’s bazaar, partnering with such global luminaries as Saudi ruler Mohammad bin Salman. Everything from crypto currency and real estate to nuclear reactors (licensed and partly funded by the government), seems appropriate for monetizing via the Oval Office. Joining the Board of Peace — controlled by the president — costs $1 billion; so far mostly authoritarian regimes appear interested in this investment opportunity.

This president generated more than $4 billion in personal profits from new ventures (excluding regular profits from his previously existing businesses) since the start of his second term, reports the New Yorker’s David D. Kirkpatrick.

Hello? Whatever happened to the emoluments clause forbidding presidential graft? No brainer. Impeach.

Too much power

This president has made chillingly clear that giving presidents pardoning power was a mistake. It promotes lawlessness. And not just by common crooks. By masked, unaccountable government actors with guns.

He has promised immunity — and reportedly bonuses — to unidentifiable, poorly-trained ICE and Border Patrol agents brutally arresting people without judicial warrants, disappearing them to hell-hole holding pens god knows where. Will he pardon government agents who execute citizens? See Minneapolis.

Ultimately, there is no rule of law if a president can pardon criminals who harm the nation or individuals.

The lower courts are at pains to make it understood by the administration that ICE and the U.S. Border Patrol that constitutional protections must govern their policing.

Yet Deporter-in-Chief Stephen Miller refuses to comply. He says requiring government agents to obtain judicial warrants before arresting people is “a non-starter.” Say what? So much for the 4th Amendment? I think not.

Miller’s arrogant belligerence does not inspire confidence that rule of law will protect anyone from illegal government behavior.

Neither does the Sept. 26, 2025, Presidential Memorandum titled “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence.” It says this administration intends to prevent “violent and terroristic activities” from being carried out “under the umbrella of self-described ‘anti-fascism’”

“Common threads animating this violent conduct include anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States government; extremism on migration, race and gender; hostility towards those who hold traditionally American views on family, religion, and morality.”

Whew. These “threads” are gossamer indeed. Whatever happened to free speech? When did dissent become terrorism?

A “national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts” will be pursued, the memorandum proclaims.

The Department of Justice — which now answers to the president rather than the public — will designate “domestic terrorist organizations.” The attorney general will submit lists of those groups to the president “through the Assistant to the President and Homeland Security Advisor.”

That, of course, would be Stephen Miller.

Solveig Torvik lives in Winthrop.