Crime of the Century: Time for Congress to Act

[seafan]

Crime of the Century: Time for Congress to Act

by Dave Lindorff
February 1, 2008

Who's minding the store in Washington?

While President George W. Bush was standing before the members of Congress on January 28 laying out his plans, such as they are, for the final year of his second term in the White House, he was also seriously and perhaps fatally undermining the authority of Congress with a new signing statement, attached to the latest National Defense Authorization Act, in which he declared that he would simply violate or fail to comply with four provisions.

.....

* the establishment of a commission to investigate contractor fraud in Afghanistan and Iraq
* the protection or whistleblowers who report contractor fraud from harassment or official retribution
* a requirement that US intelligence agencies respond to Congressional requests for documents
* a ban on funding for any permanent military bases in Iraq, and on any actions that would seek to give the US control over Iraq's oil resources or oil money.


Now first of all, let's see what the Constitution has to say.

.....

(Article I) goes on to state that:

"Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it becomes a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections, to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after such Reconsideration by two thirds of that House shall agree to apss the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law...If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it."

.....

It goes on to explicitly define and limit the president's powers, specifically to being "commander in chief" of the armed forces (not of the country or of the government!), to the granting of reprieves and pardons (except in the case of impeachments), to making treaties (subject to Senate approval) and appointing officers to the cabinet and the courts (all subject to Senate approval).

That is it. There are no other presidential powers in the Constitution. Certainly there is no power granted to disobey or ignore Acts of Congress or to violate the law.

And yet here we have the president, at the start of his last year in office, announcing that he will not obey a law duly passed by the Congress that requires his administration to establish a commission to investigate the rampant corruption among private contractors operating in Afghanistan and Iraq, that he will not obey a law barring him from punishing whistleblowers who disclose such corruption, that he will not obey an order that his intelligence services must respond to requests from Congress for information (about such issues as torture of captives, or spying on American citizens, or destroying documents), and that he will not obey an order banning the establishment and construction of permanent military bases in Iraq, and banning attempts to gain US control over Iraqi oil.

Logically one would expect members of Congress in both parties to be up in arms over this illegal and clearly unconstitutional defiance--the more so because both houses of Congress are in the hands of the Democratic Party.

But we have heard not a peep from the "people's representatives" at this brazen abuse of power.

The reason: Congress is afraid of impeachment.

.....

[dkofos]

1. And it will be this way again. As soon as a dem is in the whitehouse.

[seafan]

2. 'Here is an issue that should inflame every American citizen.'

Lindorff goes on:

(Congress) is so afraid to confront this usurper president that, incredibly, its members, Republican and Democrat alike, seem happy to surrender not only their own power, but the power of the institution of Congress, to avoid doing what the Constitution calls upon them to do: to impeach a criminal in the White House who has abused his powers of office, who has violated his oath to "preserve, protect and defend" the Constitution, and who has broken the law multiple times.
This is an appalling abrogation of responsibility on the part of our elected representatives in Washington, who also took oaths of office committing themselves to "preserve, protect and defend" the Constitution.

How can these hundreds of cowards and traitors in the Capitol, with straight faces, hold hand to heart and pledge allegiance, as they do at the start of every day in Congress? How can they with straight faces go before their constituents and pose as honorable men and women?

The Constitution is clear. It states that:

"The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."

Please observe that the operative word is shall, not may.

.....

But there is no need to hold hearings to decide whether the president has abused his power by declaring his intention to ignore laws passed by the Congress. This is an objective fact. A High Crime has been committed and openly confessed to by the President of the United States. Congress has only to vote on it as an impeachable act to restore its Constitutional authority, and to restore the damaged Constitution.

There is no question here of "diverting" Congress from its important duties. This need not be time-consuming business. Moreover, defending its authority from a usurper is surely the most important thing Congress can do. Neither is there any question of this being "divisive." Every member of Congress should want to protect the Constitutional authority of the legislative branch from this fatal encroachment which, if unchallenged, renders Congress nothing but a talk shop no better than the local diner. Nor can there be any question about whether the votes are there or not, either to vote for an Article of Impeachment, or even to convict in the Senate. What member of Congress, of either party, would vote to approve and to sanction in perpetuity this or any president's right to ignore the Constitution and willfully violate laws passed by the Congress--particularly given the likelihood that the next president could be a Democrat?

Here then, is an issue that Congress cannot ignore. Here is an issue that renders ludicrous House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's assertion that "impeachment is off the table." Here is an issue that should inflame every American citizen. Here is an issue that should be put to every candidate for office, including those running for the office of president:
Is President Bush, and is every future president, a dictator, who personally determines what laws are to be obeyed and what laws are to be ignored? Or is the president bound, like the rest of us, by the rule of law and the Constitution?

The choice is now squarely before us all.

[Winterblues]

3. " Certainly there is no power granted to disobey or ignore Acts of Congress "

One of the very first things Bush* did after taking office was to disobey the Presidential Papers Act, which was an Act of Congress legally signed into Law by a sitting President. That Act of Congress stated that Presidential Papers must be released to the Public no later than twelve years after such President has left Office but can be released after eight years have passed. When Bush* took Office Reagan had been out of Office more than twelve years and Bush 1 had been out more than eight years, Bush* decided he did not need to follow Congressional Law and release any Papers from either Presidency and Congress did nothing..

[OneBlueSky]

4. by not acting to prohibit and invalidate presidential signing statements . . .

Congress is establishing a precedent that may be difficult to overcome when future presidents claim the same prerogative to pick and choose which parts of laws passed by Congress they intend to enforce . . .

I've followed politics for a long time, and what's really puzzling me these days is why one of our three branches of government -- the legislative -- is so willing to cede their enumerated powers to another branch, the executive, without so much as a sneeze . . . throughout history, one of the things that made our system work was the "balance of powers" and how each branch jealously guarded their own powers from encroachment by the other two . . . for some reason, Congress has chosen to allow BushCo to tip this balance heavily in favor of the executive, to the point where they may never be able correct the new and lopsided imbalance . . . and that's a very, very scary development, imo . . .

[HCE SuiGeneris]

5. k n r

[donkeyotay]

6. K&R. This whole preemptive surrender by the dems,

imagine if we gain the WH and the congress. What would the dems do with full control and no excuses? Investigate? Reform? Or, collect checks for 2012?

[ConcernedCanuk]

7. USA is now a dictatorship - has been for some time, and will continue so

.
.
.

The billionaires are now firmly in control.

Was made millionaires and billionaires as Bush's war machine guaranteed NO BID contracts to his buddies.

USA is lost.

DONE

Don't be surprised if the Election goes to the Republicans.

The only hope I see for the USA is Darak Obama.

Clintons are too entrenched in the politicking money crowd.

Obama is the USA's only hope.

That's my Canuk Opinion.

[slipslidingaway]

8. Kick n/t

[librechik]

9. kick and rec n/t

[slipslidingaway]

10. Presidential Signing Statements, and Alito's Role in Them,

Are Questioned

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/14/politics/politicsspecial1/14statements.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Published: January 14, 2006

"Presidents since at least Andrew Jackson have issued statements as they signed legislation into law, but Samuel A. Alito Jr., President Bush's Supreme Court nominee, helped to introduce an innovation in that practice when he was a lawyer in the Reagan administration.

The new twist, as Edwin Meese III, then the attorney general, explained in a Feb. 25, 1986, speech, was to urge courts to look to the president's signing statement for evidence of "what that statute really means." Earlier presidential signing statements were, by contrast, bland proclamations, instructions to subordinates about how to execute a new law or a statement of disagreement with a part of a law...

Three weeks before Mr. Meese's speech, Mr. Alito, then a deputy assistant attorney general, submitted a memorandum to a Justice Department working group about what he called a novel proposal. Partly analytic and partly strategic, the memorandum considered how to accomplish Mr. Meese's goal of expanding presidential power in this area.

Mr. Alito wrote that "our primary objective is to ensure that presidential signing statements assume their rightful place in the interpretation of legislation." This would, he wrote, "increase the power of the executive to shape the law."

Mr. Alito predicted that "Congress is likely to resent the fact that the president will get in the last word on questions of interpretation."


http://www.archives.gov/news/samuel-alito/accession-060-89-269/Acc060-89-269-box6-SG-LSWG-AlitotoLSWG-Feb1986.pdf

"February 5, 1986

TO: The Litigation Strategy Working Group

FROM: Samuel A. Alito, Jr.
Deputy Assistant Attorney General
Office of Legal Counsel

SUBJ: Using Presidential Signing Statement to Make
Fuller Use of the President's Constitutionally
Assigned Role in the Process of Enacting Law.

At our last meeting, I was asked to draft a preliminary
proposal for implementing the idea of making fuller use of Presidential
signing statements. This memorandum is a rough first
effort in that direction..."


Alito & the Point of No Return
By Nat Parry
January 9, 2006

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/010906a.html


Roll call on Alito confirmation

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=2&vote=00001

[Quantess]

11. Time for a kick

[wildbilln864]

12. don't throw the Constitution in Bush's face!

After all "it's just a goddamned piece of paper".