Too lame and pathetic for a full-fledged pitting, but too noticeable (for me & a few other Dopers) for MPSIMS. (I just heard this on the mid-day radio news) . . .
I have a litany of grievances against this “Chief” and Administration, but this latest one forced me to clean the coffee off my computer monitor & keyboard.
Understanding this’ll take an act of Congress to put into effect (since Congress passed the laws to admit NM & AZ to the Union) instead of some random Executive Order, I still want to ask a favor: will someone slap the Sharpies out of this man-baby’s hand ?
Tripler
Dude’s more orange & just as vacuous as a bag of Cheetos.
Sure, we could laugh it off, and they would take it as a serious lack of opposition to the idea.
Not taking him seriously is a big part of the problem-“He can’t do that/he wouldn’t do that” is a major part of the problem.
It makes me wonder actually how it would play out. Nobody really owns bodies of water, there’s no US law governing the naming of Lake Ontario or the Gulf of Mexico. So if Trump says it’s Gulf of America, and Google decides to roll over, I’m not sure who has standing to challenge it (clearly Google felt like standing up to Trump was all unsupported downside).
The admission of the State of New Mexico is a completed legislative act. The name is written into law. There’s no legal mechanism to undo that, and presumably renaming the state would undo it. I think the only thing that everyone would agree could do it is a constitutional amendment.
Moreover, at least in theory, a degree of state sovereignty still exists. Presumably what a state calls itself is a core part of that, so renaming New Mexico unilaterally would presumably be a 10th Amendment violation.
(I’m just laying out the mechanics of why renaming a state is different than renaming other random geographic features, so anyone tempted to respond with some trite blather like “the constitution isn’t self-executing”, is encouraged to consider instead blowing it out their ass).
This is where I think it would take Act(s) of Congress to amend the Acts that admitted New Mexico to the Union. It woouldn’t take a Constitutional amendment, just one to the specific laws under Constitutional authority to change the name.
It caught my attention from being on the local radio news. I didn’t think anyone paid attention to us anymore . . .
There’s only so many times you can spout off before people quit taking you seriously. He crossed that line two scoops ago (Feb 2017).
Tripler
But then my attention snapped back in on his bigly attack on Iran.
The acts that authorized New Mexico to become a state aren’t “valid until repealed” types of laws, they are completed facts, and the Constitution doesn’t provide any mechanism for undoing those. That’s why it would take an amendment. If the federal government can simply undo facts of admission without a Constitutional amendment, then the 10th Amendment has no real meaning.
Moreover I can’t see that any state delegation would have any appetite for compromising state sovereignty so openly. Yes they want to own the libs, but few are interested in creating that kind of precedent that could apply to their state, because most sane reps understand that they won’t always be in power. Everybody likes the 10th Amendment if only for their own convenience.
It’s true we live increasingly in a time where existing precedent is under attack, but I really can’t see anybody having a real go at this, much less succeeding at it.
What? You’re saying that the Orange One can recklessly break the law? Say it ain’t so!
This whole regime is completely surreal, completely beyond belief, like a bad dream, definitely something that could never happen for real. At least even many low-information Americans who voted for it are no longer supportive of it, but it’s much too late.
In addition to the many excellent points about Donald’s new distraction:
“New America” is just stooooooooopid.
You could argue for a “New America” on some remote island or chunk of never-before-discovered Antarctic land, I suppose.
But how can there be a “New America” IN America?
I don’t know. I sometimes think I’d be less offended by his villainy if there were a particle of intelligence behind it. (On the other hand, that likely would be worse.)
Then let me say you’re a moron if you can’t grasp that while it’s easy to break the law if nobody’s stopping you, making law doesn’t work that way. Renaming a state falls in the latter category.
I’m sure that the Orange One has been talked out of it, but to the extent that state names are indexed in the GNIS, he could try, even if it’s unconstitutional. In any case, he’s now pondering renaming either the Atlantic or Pacific oceans. I suggested this earlier as a sarcastic joke, but in this reality, parody precedes reality. You can’t make this shit up. The dementia is deep.
