[Peace-discuss] it's pronounced DOO-cheh

[Carl G. Estabrook]

Chomsky observed long ago that, ‎"If the Nuremberg laws were applied,  
then every post-war American president would have been hanged."

If he avoided that condign punishment, and if the Constitution were  
applied, BHO would be looking for a job.


On Nov 8, 2011, at 2:04 AM, E. Wayne Johnson wrote:

> Il Duce.
>
> Naomi Wolf quite correctly pointed out that one of the main reasons
> that Cheney and Co. were not impeached for usurpation is that the  
> incoming Dems wanted
> to retain and wield that new power when they had the sceptre of  
> authority. (sceptre...spectre... interesting)
>
>
> Taking Executive Orders Too Far
> by Ron Paul
> November 07, 2011
>
> These are frustrating times for the President. Having been swept  
> into office with a seemingly strong mandate, he enjoyed a Congress  
> controlled by members of his own party for the first two years of  
> his term. However, midterm elections brought gridlock and a close  
> division of power between the two parties. With a crucial re- 
> election campaign coming up, there is desperation in the  
> president’s desire to "do something" in spite of his severely  
> weakened mandate.
>
> Getting something done is proving to be a monumental task. This may  
> be news to the supposed constitutional scholar who is now our  
> president, but if the political process seems inconvenient to the  
> implementation of his agenda, that is not a flaw in the system. It  
> was designed that way. The drafters of the Constitution intended the  
> default action of government to be inaction. Hopefully, this means  
> actions taken by the government are necessary and proper. If federal  
> laws or executive actions can’t be agreed upon constitutionally-  
> which is to say legally- such laws or actions should be rejected.
>
> The vision of the founders was to set up a government that would  
> remain small and unobtrusive via a system of checks and balances.  
> That it has taken our government so long to get this big speaks well  
> of the original design. The founders also knew the overwhelming  
> nature of governments was to amass power and grow. The Constitution  
> was to serve as the brakes on the freight train of government.
>
> But the Obama administration, like so many administrations in the  
> 20th century, chooses to ignore the Constitution entirely. The  
> increasingly broad use and scope of the Executive Orders is a prime  
> example. Executive Orders are meant to be a way for the president to  
> direct executive agencies on the implementation of congressionally  
> approved legislation. It has become increasingly common for them to  
> be misused in ways that are contradictory to congressional intent,  
> or to bypass Congress altogether in enacting political agendas. The  
> current administration has unabashedly stated that Congress's  
> unwillingness to pass the president's jobs bill means that the  
> president will act unilaterally to enact provisions of it piecemeal  
> through Executive Order. Obama explicitly threatens to bypass  
> Congress, thus aggregating the power to make and enforce laws in the  
> executive. This clearly erodes the principles of separation of  
> powers and checks and balances. It brings the modern presidency  
> dangerously close to an elective dictatorship.
>
> Of course, the most dangerous and costly overstepping of executive  
> authority is going to war without a congressional declaration.  
> Congress has been sadly complicit in this usurpation by ceding much  
> of its war-making authority to the executive because it wants to  
> avoid taking responsibility for major war decisions, but that is  
> part of our job in Congress! If the President cannot present to  
> Congress and the people a convincingly strong case for going to war,  
> then perhaps we should keep the nation at peace, rather than risk  
> our men and women's lives for ill-defined reasons!
>
> This administration certainly was not the first to behave in ways  
> that have defied the Constitution to overstep its bounds. Sadly,  
> previous administrations have set precedents that the current  
> administration is only building upon. It is time for Congress to  
> reassert itself and its constitutional role so that future  
> administrations cannot continue on this dangerous path.
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