The President could issue an executive order a la immigration that would have serious consequences for Federal spending in Alabama. I doubt it will come to that, though - SlackerInc’s educated guess seems more likely.
Both Ike and JFK were reluctant to send in the troops to enforce Federal court orders, and had considerable back-channel contact with Southern governors at the time in order to work out peaceful resolutions, but when push came to shove, they were willing - and I suspect Obama will be, too.
Perhaps, but you say “all it would take” as if that were something that had some realistic probability of happening when the actual probability of that happening is essentially zero.
I don’t know. The president could do it easily by executive order. But I’d prefer sending in the 101st Airborne, armed to the teeth with orders to shoot anybody who says a thing.
The problem here is that it’s not the governor who holds the reins here. It’s Roy Moore, since he is the guy at the top of the probate judges’ hierarchy. Moore has already shown he’s willing to lose his job rather than accept the existence of the Supremacy Clause.
Correction: I would prefer that Alabama stop acting like children and get it through their collective heads that they are trying to live in the 19th century, and the rest of the country won’t let them. And there is not a damn thing they can do about it, in the end, without totally bankrupting their state. No matter what they try, in the end they are going to lose. If it takes sending in troops to show them the error of their ways, so be it. What’s General Sherman been up to lately, anyway?
But if the feds had really wanted to “get into it” with rancher Bundy, then they would have had plenty of “ammo” without getting close. Seize his bank accounts, seize his cattle from whoever bought them, etc. They wisely chose that getting into another Waco was not a good idea, (see, even the Federal Government can learn) and decided it wasn’t worth the hassle. But… even a few years of living off the grid would make life difficult for any businessman.
Sure, he could have sold his cattle to another rancher for cash. But then the feds would have seized the cattle, tied things up in court for a year or two with the argument that the other fellow was acting as an agent for Bundy, etc. I’m sure they could have made life difficult and discouraged others from doing Bundy favours, and not everyone wants to take on the feds. And unlike a lone rancher (ranger?) a county or state needs bank accounts to pay employees, pay bills for supplies, etc. Just ask anyone who’s tangled with the tax people, it’s no fun when they start seizing bank accounts.
But they didn’t do any of that, which logically can only be presumed to embolden others until the feds demonstrate they are willing to put the hammer down.
That was what I thought. I can see tactically pulling back to avoid another Ruby Ridge-style situation in the short term, but that shouldn’t be the last word. Outright public defiance of lawful Federal authority by anyone is unacceptable, as Washington noted during the Whiskey Rebellion, Jackson in the Nullification Crisis, Lincoln after Ft. Sumter, Eisenhower and Kennedy during the Civil Rights Era, etc.
