Tucker just said "checks and balances" are elections.

[partylessinOhio]

He said it just now on MSNBC. He is really an uninformed person who should not be employed by that network until he goes back and passes Grade School.

YIKES!

[debbierlus]

1. We don't have elections - we have rigged circuses

Unbelievable.

[poverlay]

4. I agree. The elections are fixed by Repugs through Diebold et al...n/t

[rucky]

2. and every leapyear we vote for a new king.

unless the groundhog sees his shadow.

[Kagemusha]

3. Let me ask a serious question re: impeachment as a "remedy".

What exactly is going to be remedied here? I mean, the simplest way to put it is, one would expect impeachment to result in President Cheney. If that is not the case, and somehow an effort is made to expand impeachment to Cheney as well..

...What's being remedied, the outcome of the 2004 presidential elections? I mean, using impeachment to get to President Pelosi, to change the party that controls the White House through means other than elections? Changing presidents is radical enough in general but... changing the party in power too? Is that what impeachment would be a "remedy" for?

I'm not sure that really fits most people's concept of checks and balances either...

[Blue_In_AK]

7. Cheney first...

Make ** appoint someone halfway decent (no neocons) as the new VP, then go after **. There's not much time left, so we need to get on it right away. Tie their hands to limit the amount of damage they can cause in the next year and a half.

[partylessinOhio]

8. Checks and balances refers to our system of government by three branches

not elections.

Constitution: Checks and Balances



By creating three branches of government, the delegates built a "check and balance" system into the Constitution. This system was built so that no one branch of our government could become too powerful.

Each branch is restrained by the other two in several ways. For example, the president may veto a law passed by Congress. Congress can override that veto with a vote of two-thirds of both houses. Another example is that the Supreme Court may check Congress by declaring a law unconstitutional. The power is balanced by the fact that members of the Supreme Court are appointed by the president. Those appointments have to be approved by Congress.

http://www.congressforkids.net/Constitution_checksandbalances.htm

Even a kid in grade school would have learned this but oh, not Tucker.

[Frosty1]

10. My apologies to whoever posted this first.

I know I found it on DU I just can't find the original post.

Regardless of CURRENT Senate support.

Paraphrasing John Dean.

Impeachment is valuable BECAUSE Bush CANNOT assert executive privilege over ANY ITEMS needed in the investigation AGAINST HIM.
All the records regarding the energy policy, the Plame leak, etc...everything loses it's cover and becomes property of the investigating body (The House). This also means that all the people that REFUSE to acknowledge the subpoenas...Rove, Rice, Miers, etc. HAVE to testify in an impeachment hearing and there is NO getting around that.
The media can ignore Congressional hearings. The media can ignore parliamentary procedure BUT the media CANNOT ignore an impeachment hearing.
SO, if you think pulling the media cover and executive privilege cover off of this administration wouldn't net the support in the Senate (because it sure as hell would get the attention of the people who aren't being told exactly what is going on)...then I am sorry that you simply do not understand the reason we NEED impeachment proceedings.

[Kagemusha]

14. No, I don't think it would net the support of the Senate.

Former President Clinton would've had to have done immensely, immensely worse things to have had even a remote chance of Democrats in the Senate voting to convict him. So maybe I don't understand. Because I don't see how Republicans would turn on Bush for being a brazen hyper-aggressive ruler. They go for that.

If you're predicating this on the idea that if only the public and the Senate gets to see the hidden truth that DU'ers know is really out there, I'm sorry, I don't agree. I don't think anything out there is enough to change enough minds in the public or the senate to actually support... let me spell it out again.

To support a complete revocation of the 2004 presidential elections and change the party in control of the presidency by an act of Congress, not at the ballot box.

That's not what most people understand to be checks and balances, though a really strict reading would say that it is. That's what most people would consider it to be a complete overturning of the balance and a complete rejection of an election. And you don't understand how some are reluctant to do that?

[MissWaverly]

11. it is to put the rule of law back in place, right now we have none

we have a president and vice-president who feel they have unlimited power, George Bush once told a GOP congressman, I didn't come
here to discuss the bill, I came here to ask for your support for the bill. He considers Congress to have no purpose at all,
he is the federal government. And he overwrites the bills that come to his desk with his legislation, no president has done
this, he has broken treaties and shows no inclination to listen to anyone but his sycophants and his "gut."

[tanyev]

5. And yet, they went to so much trouble to impeach Clinton in 1998-1999.

Why not just wait for the 2000 "check and balance"? Hypocrites.

[Davis_X_Machina]

13. When elections get the wrong answer...

...then you use the other branches to redress the results of wrong elections.

That's what happened in '96. That Presidential election came out wrong. So then Congress had all the power, and the President was illegitimate.

The 2000 Presidential election came out wrong, so then the people were illegitimate, and the Court had all the power.

The 2006 Congressional elections got the wrong answer, so now the Congress is illegitimate, and the Executive has all the power.

Our system of checks and balances is predicated on elections coming out right....and you can't count on that.

See that was easy.

(Can I have the Fox gig now? Can I? Can I?)

[Junkdrawer]

6. Yep. Every four years we "elect" an absolute dictator...

Sez so right in the Constitution...

Oh, and it also sez that private firms are the only ones qualified to count said votes....

[rodeodance]

9. and Conyers, and Pelosi and Reid and Feingold and and AGREE

[ljm2002]

12. He is not uninformed...

...but he is adept at spreading confusion and misinformation.

I believe that is exactly what he is paid to do.