BALTIMORE, Maryland April 14, 2014 - With each successive takeover of local government buildings along the Russian border, the armed men doing the dirty work look more and more like Russian Military in plain clothes. That was the report Monday from Fox News' outstanding foreign correspondant Amy Kellogg, on the ground in the Ukraine. Other media reports have all but echoed this conclusion, as they report that operations taking place in Eastern Ukraine bare a striking resemblance to what happened in Crimea during the Russian Invasion in early March. There, heavily armed gunmen appeared out of nowhere and took over Ukrainian Government property without provocation. Finally, when tens of thousands of these 'out-of-uniform' soldiers were everywhere one looked in Crimea, the world stopped buying into Russia's official line that no Russian troops were in Ukraine save for those few thousand stationed at the Russian Naval base at Sevastopol. Russian Strong Man Vladimir Putin is doing everything in his power to stoke violcnce and unrest in the eastern part of this sprawling country. That strip of land alongside of the Russian Border is heavily industrialized and would be a valuable plum to bring back into the Russian sphere. Putin knows this and is doing all the preliminary things necessary to provoke an invasion. He even has about 40,000 heavily armed and reinforced troops right on the Ukraine Border.
And Putin is not merely busy on the ground in the Ukraine. On Saturday in the Black Sea east of Romania a Russian Fighter Jet made twelve low passes over the bow and body of the USS Donald Cook, a Naval Destroyer which passed through the Bosporous just this past Friday. Crewmen on the US Ship aired several radio warnings and requests for stated intentions, but received no response. The Donald Cook did not go to battlestations. The 90-minute incident passed without further escalation. A military spokesman characterized the Russian Jet's actions as "provocative and unprofessional," although it did not appear to be armed.
Today's building takeover in Ukraine is further evidence that these government takeovers are more and more moving out of the bigger cities and into smaller and smaller municipalities. Today, the target was Horlivka. Right before Horlivka the separatists were on the move in Slaviansk. In Horlivka, armed separatists seized a police headquarters building and beat one officer so severely he needed to be removed in an ambulance. Immediately upon gaining control of the building, the Russian Flag was hoisted overhead while a mob outside shouted "Referendum" and "Russia". This is the exact sequence of events that has been followed in one city after another in Eastern Ukraine. In another eastern Ukraine City, Slaviansk, a mob seized a government airport on the outskirts of town. The United States has accused Russia of instigating and being involved in the violent takeovers. After a bit, Moscow gets around to making a token denial. Following their past actions in these types of things, one gets the idea that Russia wants the world to know it is doing what its doing, so how about that. And, oh, just for the record, we didn't do it.
Russia has shut down the Voice of America broadcast in Russia. The Voice's web page is unaffected. Ukraine says it wants UN peacekeeping troops sent to Eastern Ukraine, but such action must be approved by the UN Security Council, of which Russia is a permanent member with an absolute veto.
Excerpt from "Democracy in America"
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805 - 1859), Volume I, Part 1, Chapter 8, The Federal Constitution, from the Section entitled, "How the Position of President of the United States Differs from that of a Constitutional King of France
"Sovereignty in the United States is shared by the Union and the states, whereas with us [The French] it is undivided and compact. That produces the first great difference that I perceive between the President of the United States and the King of France.
In the United States, the executive authority is limited and exceptional, like the very sovreignty in whose name it acts; in France, like sovreignty, it extends to everything.
Americans have a federal government; we have a national one.
Therein lies the first cause of inferiority arising from the very nature of things, but not the only cause. The second in importance is that one can, properly speaking, define sovreignty as the right to make laws.
The king of France is a constituent part of sovreign power because without his agreement the laws cannot exist; in addition he executes the laws.
The President is also the executor of the laws but he does not really take a part in the making of them beeause even by withholding his assent, he cannot prevent them from coming into being. He is not, therefore, a constituent part of sovreign power, only its agent.
Not only is the French King one constituent part of the sovreign power but he also takes his part in the nomination of the legislature, which is the other part. He participates by appointing the members of one chamber and by dissolving the other's mandate whenever it pleases him. The President of the United States has no say in the make-up of the legislative body and could not dissolve it.
The king takes his share along with the chambers in the right to introduce laws; the President has no such initiative.
The king is represented in each chamber by a certain number of agents who explain his views, support his opinions, and maintain his principles of government.
The President is excluded from Congress as are his ministers and he makes his influence and opinions known to that great body by indirect means only.
The king of France advances shoulder to shoulder with the legislature which cannot act without him, as he cannot act without it.
The President exercises an inferior and dependent power in relation to the legislature.
In the exercise of the executive power properly so-called, a function which seems most closely allied to that of the French king, the President still suffers from several very considerable causes of inferiority.
In France, the authority of the king has, in the first place, the advantage of his length of tenure in office. Length of tenure is one of the first ingredients of power. Only long-lasting power engenders affection or fear.
The President of the United States is an official elected for four years. The king of France is an hereditary leader.
In the exercise of executive power the President of the United States is constantly subject to a jealous scrutiny. He prepares treaties but does not conclude them; he puts forward names for appointment to office but cannot confirm them. [In a footnote, here, de Tocqueville adds "The Constitution had left it doubtful whether the President was bound to take the advice of the Senate concerning the dismissal as well as the appointment of a federal officer. The Federalist, in no. 77, seemed to establish that he was; but in 1789, Congress formally decided that, as the President was responsible, he ought not to be forced to employ agents who did not have his confidence. See Kent's Commentaries, vol. I, p. 289.
The king of France is absolute master in the realm of executive power.
The President of the United States is responsible for his actions. French law declares the person of the king inviolable.
However, above both hovers a commanding power, namely, public opinion, which is less clearly defined, less acknowledged, less encapsulated in law in France than in the United States but which exists nonetheless. In America, it works through elections and decrees; in France, through revolutions. France and the United States have thus, despite the differences in their constitutions, this shared feature: that public opinion ends up being the commanding power. The main generating principle of laws is, therefore, if truth be told, the same in both nations even though it enjoys more or less free development and the resulting consequences may often be different. This principle is essentially republican in nature. Thus it is my opinion that France, with its king, is more like a republic that the Union, with its President, is like a monarchy."
The Second Letter of Paul to Timothy
Chapter 2. Verses 8 through 13.
Chapter 2. Verse 8. Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, descended from David, as preached in my gospel, Verse 9. the gospel for which I am suffering, and wearing fetters like a criminal. But the word of God is not fettered. Verse 10. Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation which in Christ Jesus goes with eternal glory. Verse 11. The saying is sure:
If we have died with him, we shall also
live with him;
Verse 12. if we endure, we shall also reign with
him;
if we deny him, he also will deny us;
Verse 13. if we are faithless, he remains faithful-
for he cannot deny himself.
No comments:
Post a Comment