Putting the Constitution Back into the Oval Office
Ron Paul: “A crucial policy that a president could enact to bring speedy improvements to government is ordering the bureaucracy to respect the 10th Amendment and refrain from undermining state laws.”
Who Makes Foreign Policy?
The media, Congress, and the American public all seem to have accepted something that is patently untrue: namely, that foreign policy is the domain of the president and not Congress. This is absolutely not the case and directly contrary to what our founding fathers wanted.
Presidential Tyranny 2.0: Executive Power as the Enemy of Freedom
Presidential power has been on a pathway of expansion beyond what the Constitution outlined, and what a government of, by, and for the people requires, since George Washington was president.
The Sovereign Presidency: Is This What the Framers Had in Mind?
The merest glance at America’s founding suggests that no one really wanted full-bore elective despotism…
The Constitution, the Executive Branch and War Powers
by Michael Boldin In reading the Constitution, we can plainly see that Congress possesses the power “to regulate commerce with foreign nations, to raise and support armies, to grant letters of marque and reprisal, to provide for the common defense,†and even “to declare war.†Congress shares, with the President, the power to make treaties [...]
Limited or Unlimited Government?
Although the founders wrote the US Constitution to limit the powers of the federal government, politicians from both sides of the aisle take the position that their power is far beyond what was ever imagined. And now, John McCain’s new advisor, Michael Goldfarb, is making the claim that the executive branch has “near dictatorial powers”
NAFTA Expansion – It’s Still Unconstitutional
George Bush has formally presented an expansion of NAFTA to Peru. And, under FastTrack “rules,”Congress cannot amend the legislation. What does this mean? Well, it’s quite simple. Under Fast Track, the president has the authority to ignore the will of Congress in negotiating new trade agreements.
In Any Case
A recent OpEd by Mario Cuomo in the Los Angeles Times, What The Constitution Says About Iraq, gave some surprisingly good analysis of how the Iraq war is a direct violation of the constitution. Here’s a few tidbits:
Signing Statements Erode Constitutional Balance
by Rep. Ron Paul Recently, the General Accounting Office studied nineteen instances where the President issued so-called “signing statements.†In such statements, the President essentially begins the process of interpreting legislation – up to and including declaring provisions unconstitutional—hence often refusing to enforce them. The GAO study found that in nearly 1/3 of the cases [...]
The Constitution and the Powers of War
DIGG This The framers of the Constitution attempted to balance the power of the President as commander-in-chief with that of Congress, the representatives of the People. Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution gives to the Executive Branch the command of the nation’s armed forces, while Article I, Section 8 gives to the Legislative Branch [...]
Executive Branch Shouldn’t Meddle with the Judiciary
The San Francisco Chronicle Reports: Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Wednesday warned federal judges not to meddle in cases involving national security, following a string of judicial rebukes of the Bush administration’s anti-terrorism initiatives. In a speech to the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute, Gonzales said federal judges are not “equipped to make decisions [...]
The Presidency: Executive or Imperial Branch?
by Ivan Eland More memos recently have surfaced that were written early in the Bush administration by John C. Yoo from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel — the man who gave us the administration’s horrifyingly narrow definition of torture. As difficult as it is to believe, the recently released memos are even scarier [...]
May 14, 2008 | Categories:Government | Tags: commander-in-chief, Constitution, Enumerated Powers, Executive Branch, Executive Power, fifth-amendment, fourth-amendment, Government, Guest Commentary, imperialism, presidency, president, Torture, War Powers | Leave A Comment »