Hmmm. Wonder where he learned that trick from? Couldn’t possibly be “Justice Professionalism,” could it?

Working off what Salvo has said…

I grew up learning about and believing we had a system with Checks and Balances. Hell it’s still being taught. Over the last seven and a half years, I’ve come to realize that it has only ever worked because those in power honored the system. George Bush has shown us that the system does not work if the parties involved choose to ignore it. They simply choose not to follow the rules and the rest of us are irrelevant. We might as well get in one big circle jerk for the effect we are having on this administration.

The problem seems like it will only get worse because power is so rarely given up without the threat of force or outright use of force. I like Obama but I don’t realistically see him giving up any powers that Bush created. He may not use them, but if he doesn’t “get rid” of them, they will be there waiting for the next President.

I’m a pretty calm person by nature, but I’m a little freaked out about the potential long term damage Bush has caused.

I fully admit though that the House has no excuse and Pelosi screwed up royally when she took impeachment off the table on day 1. On the other hand, the House is currently the only thing blocking FISA so……

I guess what I’m trying to say as I ramble on is that saying “spineless Dems” is a little too black and white, especially in the face of an administration that has said they won’t answer subpoenas and a Justice Dept. that refuses to enforce said subpoenas, because the WH has told them not to.

I have no problem blaming the Dems for things since 2006. I’m referring to this:

unitary executive theorists have managed to put like-minded people in positions of power, including several seats on the Supreme Court (thanks in no small part to the spineless Democrats in Congress).

The court and the most egregious examples of unitary exec sympathizers came pre-Nov 2006. Pre-2006 the Dems were basically token opposition, no matter how much spine they had.

Since 2006 Gates and Mukasey appeared to be competent and independent enough, and Mukasey is definitely more independent than Gonzalez. Their problem is they work for Bush. He controls the executive branch, and thus the Justice dept. They won’t enforce subpoenas if Bush exerts privilege. They won’t pursue any meaningful investigations. They do pursue political prosecutions, as RB has covered here. Cheney has made the bizarre claim that congress has no oversight over him because he’s the 4th branch of government. How do you prevent this short of completely shutting down the government? Bush won’t sign any law limiting him, or he’ll ignore it and rely on an OLC decision. If the house cut off all exec branch spending in a budget resolution Bush would re-instate it in a signing statement and go on his merry way. Congress would need their own police force to make Bush do anything. His signing statements aren’t laws, they have no weight at all, but his use of the DOJ is what allows him to get away with everything. It’s truly amazing what he’s done and how little the media has done to report it. People would care, but the media is more worried about Natalie Hollowell’s missing blonde corpse.

Is there any evidence at all to suggest that, with control of both congress and the presidency, the democrats (particularly the DLC wing of the party) would do anything at all to curb executive power? A firm majority in the House since 2006 and clear violations of the law by the administration and we are effectively where we were in 2004 as far as accountability goes.

Give us no lectures about the limitations of the power of the House – they control the power of the purse. They could have stopped every piece of legislation having to do with the budget until their demands were met. It may not be politically expedient, especially with how poorly they tend to frame the issue compared to the Republicans, but be honest and say it isn’t politically expedient if that is the case.

You are wrong. If you read the Federalist Papers as well as the diaries kept by the founders during the Constitutional Convention, you’ll find that “Commander in Chief” meant only that the president was the day-to-day commander of the military, particularly during wars already declared by Congress.

There’s a huge difference between that and saying the president is free to ignore any laws passed by Congress, that he may wage war without consulting Congress, that he may unilaterally withdraw from treaties without consulting Congress, that he can make his own laws in secret and enforce them without anyone letting them know what they are, and that he can arrest, torture, and indefinitely detain American citizens without ever letting them talk to a lawyer, see the evidence against them, or bringing them to trial–and that needn’t let anyone know whom he has detained or why.

Do you really think the above are good policies? How, exactly, are they different than an elected monarch or a dictator?

I believe Edintally meant a pardon for crimes committed in office after the president has been impeached and removed.

Also this ass-covering power the OLC has does not belong with the executive branch. It seems to me it should be part of the judicial branch. Since it relies on the interpretation of law and the Constitution.

Congress wants to control everything, including the presidency, unless a tough decision actually has to be made and then they pass it off to a committee of un-elected rep’s to do the dirty work for them.

It makes much more sense to have one administration in charge so we know who gets the blame along with the credit. It’s a whole lot easier to toss out one president than it is to overturn both houses of congress. Maybe that’s why the founders wanted the president to be the Commander-In-Chief instead of congress, but I could be wrong.

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/impeach/constitution.html

Short of that, Impeachment is bullshit. Theoretically, we hold our public servants to a higher standard. The President should be held to the very highest standard. If he/she breaks that trust, there should not be a way for him/her to get away with their transgression.

I think that one law would restore much of the faith the people have lost in their government.

“Spread the word. We know how to take the bastards down.”

It has often been said that Congress is always fighting the previous battle; here, they see that the GOP got flambe’d for the Clinton impeachment, and thus, decide that when the current President, you know, is actively subverting the law and Constitution, they’ll get roasted too. Sure, Bush has like a 26% approval rating, and Clinton was, what, in the 60′s at the time(just guessing, because I don’t feel like looking it up).

Yes, I’m bitter.

Enough with blaming the ‘spineless Dems’. This is a result of Republicans. There isn’t blame to go around, unless you’re blaming Dems for losing elections to the point that Republicans felt emboldened enough to attempt to overturn the filibuster by having Cheney declare it unconstitutional if the Dems showed ‘spine’. That wouldn’t have stopped even one Justice from getting on the SCOTUS, and likely would have resulted in Harriet Myers getting confirmed. Enough of this ‘both sides are to blame’. Blame Dems for things they do that you disagree with, not things they are unable to do because the country hasn’t elected enough of them.

1) Secret prisons of torture and death, with no legal release date, merely a limbo to disappear enemies into.
Guantanomo isn’t the Gulag, but it’s the same concept…the execution is only different because we’re still pretending to be “Americans” somewhere in our national psyche.

2) Dictatorial ruling where laws were generated in secret and executed in secret, so that all must live in fear of what they did not know.

Pretty simple. When some jerk in middle government takes the law into his own hands and gets busted, we used to pretend he was wrong and acted without sanction. If even that goes away I can’t see anything in theory remaining of the American ideal. The practical side will catch up soon enough, especially now that the economy hit a bump.
I’m holding my breath to see if there’s an america left when the new order takes over after this election. History suggests I shouldn’t hold it terribly long.