2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Hillary should have Bernie as a running mate. [View all]sofa king
(10,857 posts)Why, do you think, would Andrew Jackson have to refer to an informal group of advisers rather than his Constitutionally-appointed cabinet, hmm?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitchen_Cabinet
It's because in the 1830s Congress decided that Andrew Jackson was a dangerously unstable mass-murderer who routinely exceeded his authority. So they ran the fucking government themselves and left Jackson alone to burn down what little he could with executive authority.
He killed the Central Bank, and a lot of Indians, but not the United States. Because Congress wouldn't let him.
On November 1, 2005, Harry Reid threw the Senate into closed, executive session for less than two hours and scared the Bush Administration shitless. Nobody knows what Reid said but from that moment forward Bush's second term was a never-ending expose of the Administration's crimes, and rather than declare a terrorist alert every time it happened, as they had been doing, they sat back and took it like bitches, and forever lost the White House for the GOP.
Your separation of powers and checks and balances is an illusion. Yes, it exists but the three branches of government WERE NOT created equal, at all. Only Congress has legislative, executive, and when it wishes, even judicial authority (see the Court of Claims). Republicans in Congress are too stupid to know how much authority they could have, if only they understood what their jobs were. It can all be changed, virtually overnight. Our precious Constitution allows for it.
Only convention keeps things as they are.