The Framers are spinning in their graves.
redistributed from: www.pensitoreview.com
Is Congress Necessary?
Let there no longer be any doubt. President Bush sees Congress as merely a nuisance not worth bothering about - except when it is rubber-stamping his agenda. When it refuses to give him what he wants - even forbids him to act - he proceeds anyway.
Last Friday, he signed a bill that would outlaw torture, put the pen down and openly declared that his intention to violate the law he had just signed. No one can stop him from torturing prisoners.
Earlier this week, he waited until Congress was out of session to install 15 top administration officials via recess appointment. These candidates were so weak that they wouldn’t pass muster in Senate hearings - even from his lapdog fellow Republicans.
Of course, the most egregious abuse of presidential power that has come to light so far is Mr. Bush’s violation of FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. He deliberately disobeyed FISA by placing warrantless wiretaps on U.S. citizens at the rate of 500 calls per day for three years or more.
If this were a normal presidency, the country would be in the midst of a Constitutional crisis right now. But President Bush faces no credible opposition in his quest for power so he does as he pleases.
The only group in the Capitol that could stop him - the Republican leadership in Congress - is complicit with him. George Bush is as addicted to power as he is to whiskey and coke. The GOP leaders are his enablers. They have given this reckless bungler a blank check, literally and figuratively, to run the world as he sees fit.
While the Democrats in Congress stand by helplessly, muted by the Rightwing Noise Machine and their own self-doubts, unable to get a photo-op in edgewise, normal Americans watch in horror as the imperial republic morphs into a Republican empire before our eyes.
Is Congress Necessary?
Let there no longer be any doubt. President Bush sees Congress as merely a nuisance not worth bothering about - except when it is rubber-stamping his agenda. When it refuses to give him what he wants - even forbids him to act - he proceeds anyway.
Last Friday, he signed a bill that would outlaw torture, put the pen down and openly declared that his intention to violate the law he had just signed. No one can stop him from torturing prisoners.
Earlier this week, he waited until Congress was out of session to install 15 top administration officials via recess appointment. These candidates were so weak that they wouldn’t pass muster in Senate hearings - even from his lapdog fellow Republicans.
Of course, the most egregious abuse of presidential power that has come to light so far is Mr. Bush’s violation of FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. He deliberately disobeyed FISA by placing warrantless wiretaps on U.S. citizens at the rate of 500 calls per day for three years or more.
If this were a normal presidency, the country would be in the midst of a Constitutional crisis right now. But President Bush faces no credible opposition in his quest for power so he does as he pleases.
The only group in the Capitol that could stop him - the Republican leadership in Congress - is complicit with him. George Bush is as addicted to power as he is to whiskey and coke. The GOP leaders are his enablers. They have given this reckless bungler a blank check, literally and figuratively, to run the world as he sees fit.
While the Democrats in Congress stand by helplessly, muted by the Rightwing Noise Machine and their own self-doubts, unable to get a photo-op in edgewise, normal Americans watch in horror as the imperial republic morphs into a Republican empire before our eyes.
