What If There Is NO President by January 20th ... J. D. Longstreet

What If There Is NO President by January 20th
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
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It COULD happen.  At least, SOME of the political experts are saying it COULD happen.

I think America should be prepared for every sort of political gymnastics conceivable come Tuesday, November 6th, 2012.
Battalions of lawyers are set to spring into action if there is a hint that Obama may lose.  Planning and preparations for such an eventuality have been in progress since the early days of the Obama Administration.

Tying the election up in the courts is the plan.  And these people are serious! 

So what happens if, indeed the US election is tied up in the judicial system come noon on January 20th, 2013?

"In cases where a President has not been chosen by January 20 or the President-elect "fails to qualify," the Vice President-elect becomes Acting President on January 20 until there is a qualified President. If the President-elect dies before noon January 20, the Twentieth Amendment states the Vice President-elect becomes President. In cases where there is no President-elect or Vice President-elect, the Amendment also gives the Congress the authority to declare an Acting President until such time as there is a President or Vice President. At this point the Presidential Succession Act of 1947 would apply, with the office of the Presidency going to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, followed by the President pro tempore of the Senate and various Cabinet officers."  SOURCE:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President-elect_of_the_United_States 

OK.  But how exactly is the President-elect and Vice-President-elect decided, I mean, legally decided.  And here it gets cloudy and open to all sorts of legal challenges.

There are at least two schools of thought on that.

"Some commentators doubt whether an official President- and Vice President-elect exist prior to the electoral votes being counted and announced by Congress on January 6, maintaining that this is a problematic contingency lacking clear constitutional or statutory direction. Others assert that once a majority of electoral votes has been cast for one ticket, then the recipients of these votes become the President- and Vice President-elect, notwithstanding the fact that the electoral votes are not counted and certified until the following January 6."  SOURCE:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President-elect_of_the_United_States   

That's one interpretation.

The other interpretation is a bit different:

"It will be noted that the committee uses the term "President elect" in its generally accepted sense, as meaning the person who has received the majority of electoral votes, or the person who has been chosen by the House of Representatives in the event that the election is thrown into the House. It is immaterial whether or not the votes have been counted, for the person becomes the President elect as soon as the votes are cast."  SOURCE:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President-You can see holes in this process resembling swiss cheese!elect_of_the_United_States   

See, our constitution along with our electoral process was set up originally by and for honorable people.  Our national forefathers never thought their country would devolve into the slick, slimy, legalistic swamp of unscrupulous, power-hungry, power-grabbing, brokers of political influence hell bent on saving America for Marxism.

I don't mean to say our national forefathers were saints.  They most assuredly were NOT.  But,  the sorts of underhanded political shenanigans common today were thought beyond the pale in the early days of the US.

As the days go by and we draw closer to election day, I am beginning to wonder if, perhaps, we ought to be prepared for a slog through the swamp that is the judicial system in America today BEFORE we have a President.

I  continue to remind myself that the polls can be manipulated and there can be no doubt that the mainstream media is doing everything it can to hype Obama and make him look good for the voters. 

We all saw how the MsM attacked Romney for observing that Obama's response to the Muslim attacks on our consulates/embassies was "disgraceful."  Suddenly THE story was not Obama's disgraceful response, but Romney's "attack" on Obama for making the disgraceful response.  See how they turned the story on its head?   That is the way it is done.

We Americans are in deep, deep,  trouble.  Something has to give.  Americans who actually understand what's going on in America today understand there are two ways this problem may be solved.  The first, of course, is the election.  If that fails, as some predict, then all bets are off.  I don't even want to think about the other option. But -- an observant American can already see that both the citizens AND the government are quietly preparing for option two.

These are, indeed, perilous times for America, times, as Thomas Paine said, "that try men's souls."  It has become clear that Americans who love freedom and liberty have no intention of going "gently (nor quietly) into that good night." (With apologies to Dylan Thomas)  There WILL be "rage, rage against the dying of the light."

Liberty's light, once outed, may never be lit again.

J. D. Longstreet