"Unless Congress immediately impeaches Bush and Cheney, a year from now the US could be a dictatorial police state at war with Iran."I'd say this makes for a dandy follow-up to my comment about how the Oligarchy cannot allow the great unwashed to reverse its agenda of overwriting the last 70 years of the social order.
Here's more:
"I don't actually think they're very strong," said [former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under Reagan, Paul Craig] Roberts of his words. "I get a lot of flak that they're understated and the situation is worse than I say. ... When Bush exercises this authority [under the new Executive Order] ... there's no check to it. It doesn't have to be ratified by Congress. The people who bear the brunt of these dictatorial police state actions have no recourse to the judiciary. So it really is a form of total, absolute, one-man rule. ... The American people don't really understand the danger that they face."Like the ancient proverb advises: Eat, drink & be merry...
Roberts said that because of Bush's unpopularity, the Republicans face a total wipeout in 2008, and this may be why "the Democrats have not brought a halt to Bush's follies or the war, because they expect his unpopular policies to provide them with a landslide victory in next year's election."
However, Roberts emphasized, "the problem with this reasoning is that it assumes that Cheney and Rove and the Republicans are ignorant of these facts, or it assumes that they are content for the Republican Party to be destroyed after Bush has his fling." Roberts believes instead that Cheney and Rove intend to use a renewal of the War on Terror to rally the American people around the Republican Party. "Something's in the works," he said, adding that the Executive Orders need to create a police state are already in place.
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Update: Another sampling of that which may be "in the works":
Expanding Claim of Executive Authority, White House Official Tells Paper Staff Can't be Charged
George Mason University professor of public policy Mark J. Rozell called the administration's stance "astonishing" in the article.
"That's a breathtakingly broad view of the president's role in this system of separation of powers," Rozell told the reporter. "What this statement is saying is the president's claim of executive privilege trumps all."
2 comments:
I also found the headline about the supposed exemption shocking, but upon further review, it highlites the fact that the interaction of laws affecting the branches of government do not cleanly dovetail, and this has always been so.
Fact is, this may be a gap, or loophole, that has always existed but no one has had the hubris to exploit it. Clearly, analysts have known about it, but Rozell is off-base to be "shocked" when the possiblity exists. There are a lot of gray areas in our constitutional jurisprudence, and envelopes are constantly being pushed (which is why you have constitutional litigation, n'est pas?) There may have been, just as there is now, some brinksmanship going on. After all, neither side wants to be on the losing end of a court decision that settles the issue.
What will happen to resolve it is that a US Attorney will seek contempt and a court will then have to decide. There is support for the argument that the Congressional contempt powers do not reach the executive branch. This is not a far a leap as you might think--there is a genuine separation of powers issue here-- but these are still relatively untested waters (kinda like grounds for impeachment) and a court needs to fill in this piece of the puzzle, just as they have been doing since time immemorial.
What the dems would want is for the US Attorney to push the issue. If they don't, it is because (a) they want to do just enough to whip up the base but not actually fight for anything, or (b) do not want to foreclose this avenue for themselves in the future. The latter is a major reason why such brinksmanship succeeds.
Its a shame the Founding Fathers didn't anticipate this and provide a remedy, but hey, you can always call for a constitutional convention and remedy that. You just need enough states.
Rozell said "Congress has no recourse at all, in the president's view. . . . It's allowing the executive to define the scope and limits of its own powers."
Yes and no. The constitution ultimately defines the president's powers. It may well be that the executive is more insulated than we would like, and has more authority than most have used, but that's the rub. That is what has to be examined.
Further, impeachment for invoking executive privilege is certainly not barred, but again, I see zero appetite for democrats to forge a sword that may be wielded against them someday.
CG2--the voice of reason.
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