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Today's
Stories
January 5 /
6, 2008
Richard Rhames
Saddam
Who?
January 4,
2008
Cockburn /
St. Clair
A
Good Night in Iowa
Jonathan Cook
War Crimes Airbrushed from History
Paul Craig Roberts
Thinking for Yourself is Now a Crime
Stan Goff
Ron Paul's Monkeywrench
Dave Lindorff
Clinton's Iowa Flop Exposes DLC Myths as Frauds
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
To Pindi Station
Allan Nairn
U.S. Elections Over Before They Began
Joshua Frank
The Failures of Sectarianism
Peter Morici
Economy on the Skids
Mary McInnis
Iowa Cocky-Us: How to be a Caucus Tease
Website of the Day
The Return of Obama Girl
January 3,
2008
Fatima Bhutto
Farewell
to Wadi Bua
Pam Martens
The
Free Market Myth Dissolves into Chaos
Joanne Mariner
The Presidential Candidates and Torture
Zoltan Grossman
Remember the '80s: Social Movements Between Woodstock and the
Web
David Domke
The Echoing Press and Huckabee
Norman Solomon
Edwards Reconsidered
Nikolas Kozloff
Return of the Faux Liberal
Jacob G. Hornberger
The Padilla Case and the Future of Habeas Corpus
Martha Rosenberg
Quit Picking on Huckabee's Son, Michael Vick
Russell Means
This Property is Condemned: a Notice to Those Occupying Lakotah
Lands
Website of the Day
WolfQuest
January 2,
2008
Jeff Taylor
The
Left and Ron Paul
M. Shahid Alam
The Life and Death of Benazir Bhutto: a Pakistani Tragedy
Gary Leupp
Madness Compounding Madness: Calls for Intervention in Pakistan
Paul Craig Roberts
Criminals with Badges
Heather Gray
Georgia's Racist Death Penalty
Fred Gardner
and Shobhit Arora
Dr. Strangelove's Nemesis
David Macaray
Labor Unions and Taft-Hartley
Benjamin Dangl
Fear and Loathing in Bolivia
January 1,
2008
Iain A. Boal
City
of Disappearances
B. R. Gowani
Benazir's Death in Crisistan
Shahid Mahmood
Bhutto and the Press
Linn Washington,
Jr.
Old Injustices Endure: From Crack Sentences to Racial Profiling
Harvey Wasserman
Taking Leonard Peltier to Iowa: the Moral Low Point of the Clinton
Era
John Ross
2008, Already a Year to Forget
Website of the Day
The Thrill is Gone: BB and Gladys
December 31,
2007
Alexander Cockburn
Goodbye
2007 and Good Riddance!
Tariq Ali
Pakistan, the Aftermath
Liaquat Ali Khan
The Perfidy of Pakistan's Rulers
Wajahat Ali
After Bhutto, a Nuclear Pakistan?
Robert Fisk
Who Killed Bhutto?
Ajai Sahni
Myths and Realities About Benazir Bhutto and Pakistan's Dark
Future
Marwan Bishara
You Say Talk, I Say Attack: The Middle East and the US Presidential
Election Campaigns
Uri Avnery
The Beilin Syndrome
Mark T. Harris
Does This Happen in Canada?
Brenda Norrell
Resistance and Censorship
Website of the Day
A People United Will Never Be Defeated
December 29
/ 30, 2007
Alexander Cockburn
Options
in America: Kill Yourself or Have a Baby
Tariq Ali
Indignation and Fear Stalk Pakistan
Fawzia Afzal-Khan
My Encounter with Benazir Bhutto
Gary Leupp
The U.S. and Pakistan After 9/11: Blowback from an Unholy Alliance
China Hand
Pakistan Stares Into the Abyss
Jacob Hornberger
Stop Medddling in Pakistan
John Chuckman
Pakistan and the Failure of Quick-Fix Politics
Missy Beattie
Evaluating Bush with the Bhutto Corruption Standard
Ralph Nader
Who Will Take the Next Step?
Fidel Castro
There Hasn't Been a Day in My Life When I Haven't Learned Something
Robert Fantina
The Sham of Homeland Security
Greg Moses
Beauty from the Heart of Texas
Catherine Lutz
What We Can Not See: Art and Bombing
Kristin Van
Tassel
Seeing in the Dark
Kim Nicolini
Redacted: Brian DePalma's Scream of Outrage
Phyllis Pollack
Keith Richards Runs With Rudolph Once More
Poets' Basement
Landau, Gibbons and Davies
Website of
the Weekend
Driving Karachi in Search of the Perfect Naan
December 28,
2007
Farzana Versey
The
Complex Electra
Wajahat Ali
A
Pakistani Requiem
Binoy Kampmark
Death in Rawalpindi: Bhutto and Her Legacy
Ayesha Ijaz
Khan
Not Dead Yet: The Pakistan People's Party Still Survives
Anthony DiMaggio
Turkey's Bombing of Iraq
Ray McGovern
Creeping
Fascism
Jim Goodman
Biofuels, the Biggest Scam Going
Ron Jacobs
Transcending the Colonizer's History: Iran, a People Interrupted
Russell Hoffman
Mini-Nukes by Toshiba
John Murphy
Greens Gone Wild
Website of the Day
Guiliani Campaign Official: "Only Rudy Can Defeat the Muslims"
December 27,
2007
Dilip Hiro
A
Tragedy Foretold: Will Bhutto's Death be a Boost for Her Party?
Murtaza Shibli
Who Killed Bhutto?
Stephen Soldz
Fallujah,
the Information War and U.S. Propaganda
Bill Quigley
Locked
Outside the Gates
Paul Craig Roberts
The Great American Lock-Up
Omer Subhani
Killing Bhutto: What Happens Next in Pakistan?
Marjorie Cohn
The Torture Tape Cover-Up: How High Does It Go?
Allan Nairn
Cataclysm By Money Whim
Jacob G. Hornberger
Smearing Ron Paul: Shame on the NYT
Norman Solomon
Channeling Suze Orman
Patrick Irelan
Rumsfeld Spills the Ink
Ben Tripp
Pass the Razor Blades
Website of the Day
Quagmire, For What It's Worth
December 26, 2007
Charles Tripp
From
One Saddam to Fifty
Paul Armentano
No-Knock, You're Dead
Rannie Amiri
Lebanon in Search of a Government
Stanley Heller
Brzezinski and Charlie Wilson's War
John Walsh
Two Unreasonable Men
Martha Rosenberg
The Strange Career of Scott Gottlieb
Norman Madarasz
Bolivia Amends New Constitution and Faces Mutiny from Within
Website of
the Day
Cockburn at the Battle of Ideas
December 25,
2007
Patrick Cockburn
Conscience
and Empire
December 24,
2007
Andrea Peacock
A
Dark Ride on the Border
Tariq Ali
Thinking of Edward Said
Uri Avnery
Help! A Ceasefire!
Jill Jameson
Burma is Not Back to Normal: A Trip from Rangoon to Mae Sot
Steve Melendez
Russell Means Goes to Washington
Mike Whitney
The Big Fix
Chuck Munson
Not Getting It About New Orleans
John Walsh
Clueless Crusaders
Farzana Versey
Tony Blair and the Hawking of Religion
Richard Neville
Dreaming of a White House Christmas
Website of the Day
Back in the USSR
December 22 / 23, 2007
Alexander Cockburn
Mike
Huckabee's Ascending Chariot
Ralph Nader
Politics
and Profits: How the Oil Cartel Gets Its Way
Andy Worthington
Intelligence Failures, Battlefield Myths and Unaccountable Prisons
in Afghanistan
Ahmad Faruqui
The Comedian of Pakistan
Bill Moyers
Society on Steroids
Rev. William
E. Alberts
Blessed are the Peacemakers
Timothy J. Freeman
From Kant to Lennon: Can War Really be Over?
Anthony DiMaggio
Democrats Continue to Capitulate on Iraq
Fred Gardner
Molecule of the Year, Cannabiodiol
Paul Krassner
Enhanced Hazing Techniques
Seth Sandronsky
17 Years of Meanness: Repealing California's Three Strikes Law
William Loren
Katz
Christmas Eve Freedom Fighters: Recalling the Battle of Lake
Okeechobee
Michael Dickinson
In the Dungeon of the Zabita
Ron Jacobs
Why Leon Russell Still Matters
David Vest
Doyle Bramhall's "Is It News?"
Poets' Basement
Orloski, Davies and Ford
Website of the Weekend
George W. Hates Santa
December 21,
2007
John Ross
New Massacres Loom in Mexico
Jacob Hornberger
Nothing Can Morally Justify the Invasion of Iraq
Dick J. Reavis
A
Way Out of the Newspaper Abyss
Jeff Cohen
and Norman Solomon
The 2007 P.U.-litzer Prizes
Peter Morici
Business as Usual as Recession Looms
Jack McCarthy
Let Us Now Praise Judith Regan (Even If She Did Sleep with Bernie
Kerik)
Raúl Zibechi
Sex and Revolution
Steve Early
How the Presidential Candidates Made Me an Atheist
David Macaray
Union Aftermath
Patrick Bond
Zuma, the Center-Left and the Left-Left in S. Africa
Lakota Freedom Delegation
A Declaration of Independence from the USA
Website of
the Day
Solomon v. Beck: Tale of the Tape
December 20,
2007
David Rosen
Mitt
Romney's Secret Life as a Pornographer
Alan Farago
The
Huckster and the Wreckage: Jeb Bush and the Subprime Mortgage
Crisis
Laura Carlsen
Standing Up to NAFTA
Ashley Dawson
The Return of the Bread Riot
Wayne Smith
and Jennifer Schuett
Cuba Changes, US Policy Stagnates
Website of
the Day
How to Talk to a FoxNews Reporter
December 19,
2007
Saul Landau
Is
the NIE Bush's Watergate?
Paul W. Lovinger
Hillary the Hawk
Norman Solomon
The Mad Corporate World of Glenn Beck
Dave Zirin
George Mitchell's Drugs of Choice
Marjorie Cohn
Bush Still Spinning Iranian Nukes
Sen. Russell
Feingold
The Iraq War is Exhausting Our Nation
Sonja Karkar
A Christmas Reflection on Palestine
Anthony Papa
Open the Drug Gulags
Christopher Ketcham
Pave the Holy Lands with Good Intentions
Davey D
Britney's Little Sister is Pregnant: Should We Blame Hip Hop?
Website of
the Day
When Republicans Use the F-Word on TV
December 18,
2007
R. F. Blader
The
Politics of Teen Pregnancy
George Wuerthner
Gunning for Wolves in Idaho
Steven Higgs
Can the NAFTA Superhighway be Stopped?
Vijay Prashad
Encounters with Ghadar
David Macaray
The Free Rider Problem
Ralph Nader
Nine Books That Make a Difference: a Reading List for the Holidays
Eva Liddell
Privatizing War Abroad, Invading Privacy at Home
Martha Rosenberg
While the Bodies are Still Warm: Drugs, Shrinks and Shooters
Dave Lindorff
When Impeachment is Out of Print
Peter Morici
The Consequences the Trade Deficit
Website of
the Day
Ron Paul: How Fascism Will Come to America
December 17,
2007
Mike Whitney
Staring
Into the Abyss
Tom Barry
Planning
the War on Immigrants
Uri Avnery
A
Gaza Masada?
Greg Moses
Crossing the Line in Texas
Allan Nairn
Terrorism; Counter-
Terrorism: Excuses for Murder
Patrick Bond
South Africa's Fight Between Hostile Brothers
Stephen Lendman
Police State America
Charles Jonkel
Grizzly Right of Way
Laray Polk
An Inside-Out Crisis in Gaza
Stephen Fleischman
Pawns in Their Game
December 15
/ 16, 2007
Peter Linebaugh
A
People's Penny for the Magna Carta
Howard Zinn
Bomb After Bomb
Standard Schaefer
The Greening of Big Tobacco
Raymond J.
Lawrence
Let's Take Christ Out of Christmas
Alan Farago
Down on Desolation Row: the Vultures and the Growth Machine
Saul Landau
Lord Byron and the Bad Tourists
Jenna Orkin
Lying to "Reassure" the Public: Bush's EPA and the
Post-9/11 Toxic Air Cover-Up
Ahmad Samih
Khalidi
Why a Palestinian "State" is a Punitive Construct
Robert Fantina
Politics By Photo-Op
Missy Comley
Beattie
Resistance Amid the Ruins
Ramzy Baroud
Of Mormons and Muslims
James L. Secor
A Vision for China's Future
Elijah Wald
Ike Turner's Music Won't be Forgotten
Website of
the Weekend
The Alliance for the Wild Rockies Needs (and Deserves) Your Support
December 14,
2007
JoAnn Wypijewski
The
Dirty Cad: What Giuliani's Sex Life Tells Us About Him
John Ross
Iraqi
Refugees Return: One Cruel Hoax
Jacob Hornberger
Terror Suspects Belong in Federal Court
Andy Worthington
Guantánamo and the Supreme Court: What Happened?
Allan Nairn
"Shoot Them on the Spot": Rewarding War Crimes
Dave Zirin
The Mitchell Report: Absolving the Owners
Dave Lindorff
The First Cut is the Deepest
Misty MacDuffee
Toxic Grizzlies
Ben Terrall
What Happened to Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine?
Dr. Mustafa
Barghouthi
Prerequisites for Peace
Website of the Day
Sen. Kit Bond: "Waterboarding is Like Swimming"
December 13,
2007
Paul Craig
Roberts
Shrinking
the Dollar from the Inside-Out
Mike Whitney
Dershowitz for the Defense--of Waterboarding
Ron Jacobs
Blank Check DemocratsL the Great War Funding Conspiracy
Norman Solomon
The USA's Human Rights Daze
Peter Morici
The Dragon and the Toothless Dog: China Doesn't Flinch
Sandy Mayes
Blocking the Strykers: 13 Days of War Resistance at Port Olympia
Franklin Lamb
The UN in Lebanon: Whose Mission Is It Fulfilling?
Jacob Hornberger
Don't Reform the CIA, Abolish It
Nadim Rouhana
An Interloper in My Own Land
Dave Zirin
On Pigskin and Petrol
Website of the Day
Rachel's Needs (and Deserves) Your Support!
December 12, 2007
Allan
Nairn
US Intelligence is Tapping Indonesian
Phones
Alan
Farago
How Sprawl Eats Its Young
Ray
McGovern
Torture, Lies and Videotape
Winslow
T. Wheeler
The Phony Pentagon Budget Cuts
Evan
Jones
The Raid on Great Western: Why an Australian Bank Might Spell
Doom for the US Farm Belt
James
Petras
An Open Letter to Sarkozy on the Exchange of Political Prisonsers
Joel
Hirschorn
The Horserace Fiction: Clinton, Obama and the Democratic Machine
Joshua
Frank
Why Ron Paul Deserves Our Attention
Sherry
Wolf
Why the Left Should Reject Ron Paul
Dan
Bacher
Survey of a Fish Graveyard
Website
of the Day
Men Eating Bugs
|
Weekend
Edition
January 5 / 6, 2008
Executive Power
Grab
Remembering
the Separation of Powers
By DAVID SWANSON
In a December 31, 2007, editorial, the
New York Times faulted the current president and vice president
of the United States for kidnapping innocent people, denying
justice to prisoners, torturing, murdering, circumventing U.S.
and international law, spying in violation of the Fourth Amendment,
and basing their actions on "imperial fantasies."
Um, thanks for finally noticing.
What would you suggest we do about it?
"We can only hope,"
concludes the New York Times, quite disempoweringly, "that
this time, unlike 2004, American voters will have the wisdom
to grant the awesome powers of the presidency to someone who
has the integrity, principle, and decency to use them honorably.
Then when we look in the mirror as a nation, we will see, once
again, the reflection of the United States of America."
But here's the problem (other
than the pretended certainty that Bush won the 2004 election):
The United States of America,
as established by its Constitution, simply does not have a presidency
with awesome powers. And the powers that Bush and Cheney have
newly bestowed on the presidency, unchallenged by Congress or
the media, are not powers that any human being can be expected
to use with decency.
The Constitution gives the
president extremely limited powers. He (or she) is to execute
the laws created by Congress. He serves as commander in chief
of the military. He can pardon crimes (but not impeachments).
If he consults with and gets the support of the Senate, the president
can negotiate treaties and appoint officials, ambassadors, and
judges.
That's about it. There is no
constitutional presidential power to write or alter or violate
laws, to act in secret, to abridge the judicial system, to violate
the Bill of Rights, to violate existing treaties, to build an
empire, or to launch a war. Those powers do not belong in the
hands of a new president with "integrity, principle, and
decency," because they do not belong to the U.S. presidency
at all. If the New York Times thinks that a new president with
those powers will give us back a country that looks like the
United States, then the New York Times is peering into a cracked
mirror.
Oh, and the Vice President
under the Constitution has no particular powers at all, other
than serving as the president of the Senate, where he only gets
to vote if there's a tie.
In contrast, the legislative
branch of our government, historically and even today in the
version students are still taught in schools, has truly awesome
powers. The Congress has the power to enact laws, all laws. Congress
also has the sole power to raise and spend money. It has the
power to declare war and to fund and oversee the military. It
has the power to regulate international and interstate trade.
Congress handles immigration, bankruptcies, the printing and
valuing of money, the post offices, copyrights. Congress has
the power to "constitute tribunals inferior to the supreme
court," and "to define and punish piracies and felonies
committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations."
But the first power the Constitution grants the House of Representatives
is the power of impeachment. The first power it grants the Senate
is the power to try all impeachments.
In school we learn about the
"Separation of Powers" and about something called "Checks
and Balances." Our three branches of government are supposed
to be separately elected, none of them created by any other.
And the power to run the nation is supposed to be divided. Congress
has certain powers. The courts have other powers. The president
has others. Congress, as the most powerful branch, is further
divided into two houses with somewhat separate powers. It's important
to understand that Congress is more powerful than the other branches,
which is one reason the phrases "balance of power"
and "checks and balances" can be misleading. There
is not supposed to be anything evenly balanced about it.
Our system of "presidential"
government derives from the English system when it had a king
running the country, as opposed to the modern English system
in which the prime minister is dependent on the parliament. A
presidential system, in which the winner takes all in presidential
elections, tends to develop two parties, and tends to develop
party- , rather than governmental-branch- , loyalties in members
of the legislature. This leads in turn to the phenomenon exemplified
by Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D., New York) asserting that impeachment
is no longer a part of our Constitution because we now have political
parties.
But, of course, we had political
parties when Richard Nixon was driven out of town and have had
them throughout our nation's history. Any system is dependent
on the people within it and the activism of the people outside
of it.
Tom Paine mocked the idea of
"checks and balances" as absurd, not because he had
a plan for a better government without such a system, but because
he didn't think parliamentary checks on a hereditary monarch
justified colonial rule over people lacking any representation
in either branch. Ultimately, the decisive factor in what sort
of government people get is going to be the actions of the people
outside the government. The checks and balances we now pretend
to have in the United States are as absurd as were those enjoyed
by King George. But serious checks and balances provide a canary
in the capital coal mine. When they are violated, people should
recognize and act on the danger.
Under the U.S. system, the
executive branch is understood to have the following checks on
legislative power, and it still has them, plus some:
1. The veto. Bush does still
have this power, but it is overshadowed by his newly created
signing-statement power. No longer must he choose between signing
a bill and vetoing it. Now, he can choose to sign it and rewrite
it.
2. Commanding the military.
Bush does still have this power, but he has added to it the power
to declare war in violation of various laws, to act in secrecy
in matters of war, to lie to Congress about war, to engage in
a variety of war crimes, to misappropriate funds for wars that
were not approved for them, and to take the National Guard away
from states in order to use it in the commission of his crimes.
3. The vice president's vote
in the Senate. He does still have this power.
4. Recess appointments. Bush
makes use of this power.
5. Calling Congress into session
in emergencies and determining adjournments when the two houses
cannot agree. This is less relevant now that the bums hardly
ever go home.
And the President is understood
to have these checks on the judicial branch, which he indeed
still has:
1. Appointing judges. Bush
still has this power.
2. Pardoning convicts. Bush
still has this power. He has even commuted the sentence of a
White House staffer convicted in a case Bush himself is involved
in (an act that James Madison and George Mason deemed an impeachable
offense). Bush also orders former staffers to obstruct justice,
refuses subpoenas, and declines to testify under oath or without
Cheney at his side.
The executive branch also has
a check on itself. The vice president and cabinet can vote that
the president is unable to discharge his duties. Sadly, failure
to discharge duties has become the standard for membership in
the cabinet.
The judicial branch has an
important check on Congress and the president in that it can
rule laws to be unconstitutional, but this has been eliminated
by Bush and Cheney. The chief justice of the supreme court also
serves as president of the Senate during a presidential impeachment.
But that power depends on the House of Representatives first
impeaching.
The legislative branch is supposed
to have an array of checks on the president and vice president,
including various minor powers of oversight. But the all-important
check is impeachment. With that removed by Nancy Pelosi, subpoenas
cannot be enforced. Freedom of Information Act requests cannot
be enforced. Contempt citations cannot be enforced. In fact,
laws of all types cannot be enforced.
Congress has the power to pick
the President and Vice President if there is no majority of electoral
votes. This is a major exception to the idea of separate powers,
but it is unlikely ever to come up, and means less now that elections
are routinely stolen.
Congress can override a presidential
veto, but that power too is rendered irrelevant by new presidential
powers. The Senate gets to approve appointments, but that power
is clearly not sufficient to rein in the march of the Bush power
grab. The Senate gets to approve treaties, a power that is also
insufficient to check Bush's abuses, even without its elimination
by Fast Track. Congress gets to approve the replacement of the
vice president, but that power depends on getting rid of the
current one.
Congress gets to declare war,
but has handed that power to the president. Congress gets to
allocate funds, but Bush has misappropriated funds without repercussion
or even remark and has openly claimed the right to do so in signing
statements. A huge percentage of government funding (of the military
and secret spying) is largely unaccountable. The president is
required to deliver a "State of the Union" speech,
but he's clearly not required to speak the truth.
That's about it. The only major
tool in the box of legislative checks on the executive branch
(or the judicial branch) is impeachment. That's not the fault
of impeachment advocates. That's the way the Constitution designed
it.
After Bush and Cheney lost
to Gore and Lieberman but were installed by the supreme court,
Congress could have refused to certify the election or could
have immediately impeached. Or it could have waited for the first
string of impeachable offenses. With Congress failing in this
for four years, it was left to the public to check the power
of Bush and Cheney. The evidence from Ohio is overwhelming that
we did so. Yet they remained in office. It was then up to Congress,
and is still up to Congress, to impeach, and it would be even
if we had credible honest elections. The point of impeachment
is not to do what elections do. It is not to swap one tyrant
for another every four years. The purpose of impeachment is to
rein in an outlaw president or vice president immediately and
to establish limits on the abuses that will be permitted future
members of the executive branch. The executive branch bears little
resemblance, remember, to the "unitary executive" branch.
It's true that, as Nadler claims,
we do not have the same world we once did. There are indeed major
problems with our system of government that have nothing to do
with impeachment. We lack a credible election system. We lack
democratic communications systems. We've legalized massive bribery.
We've imposed grossly undemocratic primary elections. We've locked
out any but two entrenched parties. We've created an eternal
election season.
Some of these structural deficiencies
will be easier to repair than others. But among the easiest are
the most significant. We don't just have political parties. We
also have astroturf activist groups that voluntarily take their
instructions from the leadership of those parties. And we have
raised millions of anti-citizens, human beings who live in the
United States of America but self-censor themselves, declining
to speak up for their own interests when those conflict with
the interests of an entrenched party elite. The same phenomenon
is at work within Congress, where the people's representatives
have accepted, as has the New York Times, the shifting of all
power to the White House. Their interest is in whether the next
king will be a Democrat or a Republican. Our interest should
be in making sure it is not a king at all. We can only do that
by making 2008 the year of impeachment.
David Swanson can be reached at: david@davidswanson.org
|
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