The Unitary Executive Branch? Did we amend the Constitution to reflect

[lonestarnot]

this new powerful arm of government?

[LiberalPartisan]

1. As VP Heny Wallace said...

"The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power.

If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and power ahead of human beings, then there are undoubtedly several million fascists in the United States. There are probably several hundred thousand if we narrow the definition to include only those who in their search for money and power are ruthless and deceitful. ... They are patriotic in time of war because it is to their interest to be so, but in time of peace they follow power and the dollar wherever they may lead."


http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0719-15.htm

[The2ndWheel]

2. They're not playing by your rules

They make their own, and keep doing it, even though everyone knows they're doing it. Nobody with any actual power has stopped them, are stopping them, or will stop them. Hell, Bush told the world he would continue the NSA spying even after if was made known, after the NYT sat on the story for a year at the request of the White House.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050509/alterman

As an unnamed Bush official told reporter Ron Suskind, "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality--judiciously, as you will--we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors...and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

[Surya Gayatri]

3. coup d'état by default...

They win if millions just accede defacto to the "new reality". SG

edit: spelling

[Warren Stupidity]

4. Crossing the Rubicon.

When the administration let it be known that not only were they monitoring the electronic communications of all americans, but they were doing so against law and constitution by fiat: by their assertion that the executive branch can act outside of both law and constitution, they ended the fiction of a constitutional republic. We now live in a dictatorship. As surely as the Roman Republic ended when Julias Ceaser marched the 13th legion across the Rubicon, our republic ended when the Bush Administration announced that, through its theory of the Unitary Executive Branch, it was no longer bound by law.

[lonestarnot]

5. Oh gee I thought I missed something. Nice to hear it's just business as

usual.

[Solly Mack]

6. the gist being Bush thinks he has the power to interpret the law

which means he thinks he also has the power to create law - effectively neutering the other 2 branches of government - as checks and balances are null and void.

It's "divine rights"

"The unitary executive doctrine arises out of a theory called "departmentalism," or "coordinate construction." According to legal scholars Christopher Yoo, Steven Calabresi, and Anthony Colangelo, the coordinate construction approach "holds that all three branches of the federal government have the power and duty to interpret the Constitution." According to this theory, the president may (and indeed, must) interpret laws, equally as much as the courts."
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/commentary/20060109_bergen.html

It's also a gross violation of the oath of office of the President - since the Constitution in no way allows for this....but IF the thug decides he can make and interpret the law (and he has decided that), he is basically rewriting the Constitution to fit this doctrine.

[lonestarnot]

7. And you be thinking Solly Mack.