Mr. Bush invents another Executive power

[solarbird]

Following up on his previous declaration that he can spend money in direct violation of Congressional budget law, Chief Executive Mr. Bush has declared that he has the right to override Congressional spending law, essentially granting himself a line-item veto over Congressionally-authorised spending. This was already ruled unconstitutional after Congress passed a law unconstitutionally granting President Clinton that power; the law was - correctly - struck down in 1998. But it's not like anybody pays attention to that goddamn piece of paper anymore anyway, so why pay attention to any court rulings about it?

These combined rulings mean that Mr. Bush has taken direct control over government spending decisions. Congress can put together a budget, but then "the Decider" will overrule and add on to it as he sees fit. I'm not exaggerating. My links in this post and the previous post are to the published executive orders on the White House government website. He has declared that he can spend money Congress has not authorised, and which it has specifically forbidden; also, that can also order money Congress has authorised not be spent.

The degree to which this is beyond unconstitutional cannot be overstated. That's not even opinion; this latest assumption of power, specifically, has already been ruled unconstitutional. Courts, however, only matter when you have the rule of law, and here, there is no law, so there is no President, no Constitution, and you and I are not citizens. This will remain true until and unless Congress impeaches this administration, which the "opposition" leadership has repeatedly declared it will not even consider.

I really can't believe how completely things have fallen apart here, governmentally. I occasionally have to remind myself that this isn't some sort of nightmare. Sadly, all these things are now true: The United States is a torture state. The Chief Executive has claimed and continues to claim the right to detain anyone, anywhere, indefinitely, without charge or recourse to the courts. The Chief Executive has specifically declared himself above the law in a wide spectrum of areas, via the made-up-from-whole-cloth "unitary executive" theory. He has declared the right to spend money in direct violation of the law, and not spend money Congress has ordered spent by law, taking the proverbial "purse strings" away from Congress. He has claimed the right to edit or ignore law as he sees fit without Congressional recourse, via this action, and via his new form of signing statements. He has instituted a mass programme of domestic spying which the Senate is, as I write this, busily making retroactively "legal" for some value of "legal" which ignores the Constitution's warrant requirements, and immunising companies from private lawsuit for previous violation of other relevant laws. His administration has taken political control over the Justice Department, insuring it does not investigate, and refuses to cooperate with what few attempts Congress has made towards investigating any such matters, up to and including ignoring legally-issued subpoenas. The administration has further destroyed evidence demanded in similar investigations, such as the videotapes made of torture sessions.

Those are just things I can think of off the top of my head. They've all been post topics before, too, not that this means anything.

I'd like to have a way to wrap this post up coherently, but I really don't have one. I am reminded, I suppose, of Tsar Nicholas II, and his habit of granting himself extensive new powers after the 1905 revolution in Russia. But that, even, was handled through quasi-legal means, as a series of "blank" clauses had been left in... either the 1905 October Manifesto or 1906 Fundamental Laws, I can't remember which... specifically for these purposes. We don't have that here. We have whatever the Chief Executive feels like doing today. How sadly decrepit.

Comments

[emrecom.livejournal.com]

Whenever I bring these things up, my girlfriend waits for me to calm down, then says, "And you're surprised by this why?"

[solarbird]

Serious question: is this a pose of overriding cynicism, or is it over some fundamental conviction that all governments become lawless, or is it something else? Because I've spent much too much time and effort and energy trying to get people to give a damn or do something and failed.

[angharads-house.livejournal.com]

Possibility number 3: that people do give a damn and are doing something but are (rather wisely, ne?) not making a lot of open noise about it.

[emrecom.livejournal.com]

She's totally not cynical.

It's just that, what would one expect when signatories of the PNAC, the Weekly Standard crowd, sundry batshit Straussians, and the moral nihilists of movement conservatism hellbent on abosolute one-party rule forever run (or ran) all branches of government while most Democrats were busy dissolving their spines?

Being a sweetheart, her other point is for me not to drive myself crazy at the sheer, venal evil of of it all and do what I can to make differences in whatever microscopic ways I can.

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

(Wandering in from technoshaman's LJ)

In my case, it was more a sense of "based on GWB's performance in Texas, I'm not all that surprised." After four years of GWB, it was revised to "based on GWB's history as president and his performance in Texas."

When the Shrub's administration claimed, "We know they have WMDs, we know exactly where they are, but we can't release the information or the Iraqis will move them," anybody with a halfway decent BS detector should have known that they were lying. They could have sent a helicopter full of weapons inspectors out with a sealed envelope labeled "do not open until after takeoff." Inside, there would be a card telling the pilot, "Go here," and there wouldn't have been more than an hour to move the evidence.

They decided that torture was all right, and that somehow evil actions in the pursuit of good were good. And in the second term, they conned this country into believing that.

In the face of the worst attack on American soil, they told people to go shopping.

And this is a light skimming of what they did in the first four years. I have no doubt that a serious examination of the current administration would dig up more and worse in that period alone.

If I take a vulture into my house, I shouldn't be surprised to find carrion on the rug. GWB was given the White House. I'm not surprised to find this stuff coming out. Opposed to it, and doing what I can - but not surprised.

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

I think that the heart of cynicism is giving up because you think there's nothing you can do. There's always something you can do, even if it's just to be a voice of reason until the madness passes, or even to turn away from the madness to take care of matters more directly under your control (like your own life and your relationship with family and friends) until you have the will to confront things more directly. It's not cynicism until you say and truly believe "it doesn't matter."

I think the madness will pass. I hope that it will, while fearing that it might take a while. But I refuse to give up and I refuse to believe that what I think doesn't matter. That's why I have hope in this election even though I have serious disagreements with all candidates and the problems we face are so much bigger than what Congress or the President can do.

I think it's possible for someone to not be surprised by what's happening but to still give a shit. If so, that's not cynicism.

[emrecom.livejournal.com]

I think the Obama surge (TM the idiot media B. Clinton's Telecom Act made possible) and that media's general mystification about it and the huge amount of people voting shows people are sick of this shit.

As always with Straussians and their admirers/enablers, it's about perception management.

So in the big anti-war marches here in NYC, where two entire avenues of people walking en masse from 59th Street down to the West Village *all day*, with cops estimating nearly a million people, the news-bots reported a few thousand.

But that didn't make the million or so disappear in reality, you know?