The current Rethug party has lost its ideological basis for
existence.
- It is NOT fiscally responsible............Pailin's bridge to nowhere,
McCain's pork barrel spending and lies
- It is NOT ethically honorable.............Toe-tapping in the men room,
support for Teabaggers
- It has started wars based on lies..........Dumb-ya and Dickless lied and
4000 of our troops died.
- It does not support the well-being of americans - only
billionaires...........Rethugs only support the top 1%
- It has suppressed constitutional guaranteed liberties.........Dumb-ya and
Dickless used warrant less wiretaps
- It has foisted a liar as president upon America..........Dumb-ya " Iraq
has weapons of mass destruction" 4000 of our troops died
- It has violated US national sovereignty in trade treaties..........Signed
by Dumb-ya
- It has refused to enforce the national borders..............Rethugs want
slave labor for their rich benefactors

....It no longer has valid reasons to exist.
Lorad474

--
Bruce

"bj" wrote in message
...
The current Rethug party has lost its ideological basis for
existence.
- It is NOT fiscally responsible............Pailin's bridge to nowhere,
McCain's pork barrel spending and lies
- It is NOT ethically honorable.............Toe-tapping in the men room,
support for Teabaggers
- It has started wars based on lies..........Dumb-ya and Dickless lied and
4000 of our troops died.
- It does not support the well-being of americans - only
billionaires...........Rethugs only support the top 1%
- It has suppressed constitutional guaranteed liberties.........Dumb-ya
and Dickless used warrant less wiretaps
- It has foisted a liar as president upon America..........Dumb-ya " Iraq
has weapons of mass destruction" 4000 of our troops died
- It has violated US national sovereignty in trade
treaties..........Signed by Dumb-ya
- It has refused to enforce the national borders..............Rethugs want
slave labor for their rich benefactors

...It no longer has valid reasons to exist.
Lorad474

--
Bruce

Can we now move on to the bonehead and dangerous moves made by Mr. Obama and
his ilk?

Steve

Steve B wrote:
"bj" wrote in message
...
The current Rethug party has lost its ideological basis for
existence.
- It is NOT fiscally responsible............Pailin's bridge to
nowhere, McCain's pork barrel spending and lies
- It is NOT ethically honorable.............Toe-tapping in the men
room, support for Teabaggers
- It has started wars based on lies..........Dumb-ya and Dickless
lied and 4000 of our troops died.
- It does not support the well-being of americans - only
billionaires...........Rethugs only support the top 1%
- It has suppressed constitutional guaranteed
liberties.........Dumb-ya and Dickless used warrant less wiretaps
- It has foisted a liar as president upon America..........Dumb-ya "
Iraq has weapons of mass destruction" 4000 of our troops died
- It has violated US national sovereignty in trade
treaties..........Signed by Dumb-ya
- It has refused to enforce the national
borders..............Rethugs want slave labor for their rich
benefactors

...It no longer has valid reasons to exist.
Lorad474

--
Bruce

Can we now move on to the bonehead and dangerous moves made by Mr.
Obama and his ilk?

The Dems need to take a page out of the Reagan playbook. Reagan spent his
entire Presidency berating Jimmy Carter's mess.
The first words out of the mouth of any Democratic party member on any
subject ought to be "The incompetent assholes in the Bush administration
nearly destroyed America" followed by whatever they want to say - even if
that's a weather report. It wouldn't be long before the voting public were
doing the same. Many are already but the volume is pretty low so Repubs are
getting a free pass as the result.

I expected better from a cut throat like Rahm Emanuel.


--
John R. Carroll

"John R. Carroll" wrote in message
...
Steve B wrote:
"bj" wrote in message
...
The current Rethug party has lost its ideological basis for
existence.
- It is NOT fiscally responsible............Pailin's bridge to
nowhere, McCain's pork barrel spending and lies
- It is NOT ethically honorable.............Toe-tapping in the men
room, support for Teabaggers
- It has started wars based on lies..........Dumb-ya and Dickless
lied and 4000 of our troops died.
- It does not support the well-being of americans - only
billionaires...........Rethugs only support the top 1%
- It has suppressed constitutional guaranteed
liberties.........Dumb-ya and Dickless used warrant less wiretaps
- It has foisted a liar as president upon America..........Dumb-ya "
Iraq has weapons of mass destruction" 4000 of our troops died
- It has violated US national sovereignty in trade
treaties..........Signed by Dumb-ya
- It has refused to enforce the national
borders..............Rethugs want slave labor for their rich
benefactors

...It no longer has valid reasons to exist.
Lorad474

--
Bruce

Can we now move on to the bonehead and dangerous moves made by Mr.
Obama and his ilk?

The Dems need to take a page out of the Reagan playbook. Reagan spent his
entire Presidency berating Jimmy Carter's mess.
The first words out of the mouth of any Democratic party member on any
subject ought to be "The incompetent assholes in the Bush administration
nearly destroyed America" followed by whatever they want to say - even if
that's a weather report. It wouldn't be long before the voting public were
doing the same. Many are already but the volume is pretty low so Repubs
are
getting a free pass as the result.

I expected better from a cut throat like Rahm Emanuel.


--
John R. Carroll



Whatever works for the democrats. However continual bashing the previous
administration is getting old and the citizens aren't buying it anymore.
The democrats need a new mantra. Independents decide EVERY election and
gave the democrats a chance and they have blown it. Interesting that you
think more repetition of hate-speak will resonate with the citizens that you
think are that stupid that they will become left-wing drones. How do you
manage all your deep, deep thoughts? You should be writing them all down in
your manifesto!

Buerste wrote:
"John R. Carroll" wrote in message
...
Steve B wrote:
"bj" wrote in message
...
The current Rethug party has lost its ideological basis for
existence.
- It is NOT fiscally responsible............Pailin's bridge to
nowhere, McCain's pork barrel spending and lies
- It is NOT ethically honorable.............Toe-tapping in the men
room, support for Teabaggers
- It has started wars based on lies..........Dumb-ya and Dickless
lied and 4000 of our troops died.
- It does not support the well-being of americans - only
billionaires...........Rethugs only support the top 1%
- It has suppressed constitutional guaranteed
liberties.........Dumb-ya and Dickless used warrant less wiretaps
- It has foisted a liar as president upon America..........Dumb-ya
" Iraq has weapons of mass destruction" 4000 of our troops died
- It has violated US national sovereignty in trade
treaties..........Signed by Dumb-ya
- It has refused to enforce the national
borders..............Rethugs want slave labor for their rich
benefactors

...It no longer has valid reasons to exist.
Lorad474

--
Bruce

Can we now move on to the bonehead and dangerous moves made by Mr.
Obama and his ilk?

The Dems need to take a page out of the Reagan playbook. Reagan
spent his entire Presidency berating Jimmy Carter's mess.
The first words out of the mouth of any Democratic party member on
any subject ought to be "The incompetent assholes in the Bush
administration nearly destroyed America" followed by whatever they
want to say - even if that's a weather report. It wouldn't be long
before the voting public were doing the same. Many are already but
the volume is pretty low so Repubs are
getting a free pass as the result.

I expected better from a cut throat like Rahm Emanuel.




Whatever works for the democrats. However continual bashing the
previous administration is getting old and the citizens aren't buying
it anymore.

There hasn't really been much of it Tom.
Not relatively speaking. Imagine what things would be like if such an effort
were made with the same determination the Clinton Impeachment was afforded.
Bush and Cheney would be in jail by now.


The democrats need a new mantra. Independents decide
EVERY election and gave the democrats a chance and they have blown
it.

Not universally. The latest education reform effort looks first class.
I'd agree with you on several other issues, however. You'd think the Dems
would understand the value of a properly framed issue by now but they seem
not to.
Both sides have blown it. American's are paying for that. All Americans.
I can't believe it's taken this long to begin focusing on real reform in the
banking and financial services issue.
Those guys still have their noses firmly in the govt. trough without any
real end in site. I hope Obama listens to Paul Volker and wish he'd just
fire Larry Summers.

Interesting that you think more repetition of hate-speak will
resonate with the citizens that you think are that stupid that they
will become left-wing drones.
I don't think the left wing drone thing is valid but there are certainly a
lot of American's that are either plain stupid or easily manipulated.
We had eight years of dufus bush and company in case you've forgotten. That
didn't turn out very well.

How do you manage all your deep, deep
thoughts? You should be writing them all down in your manifesto!

How do you know I'm not? There might even be a chapter titled "BiPolar Tom".
LOL


--
John R. Carroll

Bush and Cheney would be in jail by now.

But then, so would a high percentage of the US presidents in history.

Steve

Steve B wrote:
Bush and Cheney would be in jail by now.

But then, so would a high percentage of the US presidents in history.


Nixon, Reagan and Bush jr. for sure.
Ed Huntress and I had an extended conversation a while ago and his take was
that it it's just bad to put Presidents in jail for stuff they do in office.
He didn't really argue the merits, however. My point at the time was that
had Ford not Pardonned Nixon, Nixon might well have been tried and
convicted - thereby setting an example that his successors would have heeded
regarding the law.

In the end, I concluded that both arguments have merit but having tried the
former so often and gotten increasingly egrigious conduct, we ought to have
a stab at the latter.
I think.
Maybe.


--
John R. Carroll

William Wixon wrote:
"John R. Carroll" wrote in message
...
Steve B wrote:
Bush and Cheney would be in jail by now.

But then, so would a high percentage of the US presidents in
history.


Nixon, Reagan and Bush jr. for sure.
Ed Huntress and I had an extended conversation a while ago and his
take was
that it it's just bad to put Presidents in jail for stuff they do in
office.
He didn't really argue the merits, however. My point at the time was
that had Ford not Pardonned Nixon, Nixon might well have been tried
and convicted - thereby setting an example that his successors would
have heeded
regarding the law.

In the end, I concluded that both arguments have merit but having
tried the
former so often and gotten increasingly egrigious conduct, we ought
to have
a stab at the latter.
I think.
Maybe.




you'd think by the end (at least) of obama's term (if he makes it)
there'll be a vocal group falling all over themselves to put him in
jail huh? i wonder if this is the time enough people will agree that
it's better to put him (a black liberal rather than a white
conservative) in jail than not and make this thing happen. you know
he's going to do something bad, they all do/have, this time though
people will probably "get tough" on him (whereas in the past they let
it slide).



That was very nearly Ed's exact argument.


--
John R. Carroll

"William Wixon" wrote in message
...

"John R. Carroll" wrote in message
...
Steve B wrote:
Bush and Cheney would be in jail by now.

But then, so would a high percentage of the US presidents in history.


Nixon, Reagan and Bush jr. for sure.
Ed Huntress and I had an extended conversation a while ago and his take
was
that it it's just bad to put Presidents in jail for stuff they do in
office.
He didn't really argue the merits, however. My point at the time was that
had Ford not Pardonned Nixon, Nixon might well have been tried and
convicted - thereby setting an example that his successors would have
heeded
regarding the law.

In the end, I concluded that both arguments have merit but having tried
the
former so often and gotten increasingly egrigious conduct, we ought to
have
a stab at the latter.
I think.
Maybe.


--
John R. Carroll



you'd think by the end (at least) of obama's term (if he makes it)
there'll be a vocal group falling all over themselves to put him in jail
huh? i wonder if this is the time enough people will agree that it's
better to put him (a black liberal rather than a white conservative) in
jail than not and make this thing happen. you know he's going to do
something bad, they all do/have, this time though people will probably
"get tough" on him (whereas in the past they let it slide).

b.w.

Any way you slice it, if you jail a president for something he did in
office, whether he's out of office or not, you're going to create a
Constitutional crisis. I don't mean a disagreement. I mean a crisis.

There is nothing in the Constitution that gives Congress or the courts any
power over the president, except for the power of impeachment. It's all a
matter of case law and it's never been significantly tested. The
counterargument is that it would be a violation of the separation of powers.

In fact, it can't be "tested." You can get a decision, but all it can do it
create a crisis.

--
Ed Huntress

"John R. Carroll" wrote:

Ed Huntress and I had an extended conversation a while ago and his take was
that it it's just bad to put Presidents in jail for stuff they do in office.
He didn't really argue the merits, however. My point at the time was that
had Ford not Pardonned Nixon, Nixon might well have been tried and
convicted - thereby setting an example that his successors would have heeded
regarding the law.

Gerald Ford did the right thing. He was a pretty savvy politician and had to know he
would never be elected after that.

Nixon wasn't paranoid, he knew they were out to get him.

Wes

--
"Additionally as a security officer, I carry a gun to protect
government officials but my life isn't worth protecting at home
in their eyes." Dick Anthony Heller

"William Wixon" wrote:

you'd think by the end (at least) of obama's term (if he makes it) there'll
be a vocal group falling all over themselves to put him in jail huh? i
wonder if this is the time enough people will agree that it's better to put
him (a black liberal rather than a white conservative) in jail than not and
make this thing happen. you know he's going to do something bad, they all
do/have, this time though people will probably "get tough" on him (whereas
in the past they let it slide).


I'm inclined to give him the same latitude that President Ford gave to President Nixon.

Wes
--
"Additionally as a security officer, I carry a gun to protect
government officials but my life isn't worth protecting at home
in their eyes." Dick Anthony Heller

"John R. Carroll" wrote in message
...
Steve B wrote:
Bush and Cheney would be in jail by now.

But then, so would a high percentage of the US presidents in history.


Nixon, Reagan and Bush jr. for sure.
Ed Huntress and I had an extended conversation a while ago and his take
was
that it it's just bad to put Presidents in jail for stuff they do in
office.
He didn't really argue the merits, however. My point at the time was that
had Ford not Pardonned Nixon, Nixon might well have been tried and
convicted - thereby setting an example that his successors would have
heeded
regarding the law.

In the end, I concluded that both arguments have merit but having tried
the
former so often and gotten increasingly egrigious conduct, we ought to
have
a stab at the latter.
I think.
Maybe.


--
John R. Carroll



you'd think by the end (at least) of obama's term (if he makes it) there'll
be a vocal group falling all over themselves to put him in jail huh? i
wonder if this is the time enough people will agree that it's better to put
him (a black liberal rather than a white conservative) in jail than not and
make this thing happen. you know he's going to do something bad, they all
do/have, this time though people will probably "get tough" on him (whereas
in the past they let it slide).

b.w.

Wes wrote:
"John R. Carroll" wrote:

Ed Huntress and I had an extended conversation a while ago and his
take was that it it's just bad to put Presidents in jail for stuff
they do in office. He didn't really argue the merits, however. My
point at the time was that had Ford not Pardonned Nixon, Nixon might
well have been tried and convicted - thereby setting an example that
his successors would have heeded regarding the law.

Gerald Ford did the right thing.

Even Ford rethought his decision Wes. He said as much in the last interviews
he did. Nixon missrepresented the actual facts to Ford and otherwise played
him like a fiddle. Ford was a little PO'd when he realized - years later -
what had happened. It also wasn't the first time Ford had been had by Nixon.

He was a pretty savvy politician
and had to know he would never be elected after that.

I don't know about that. A lot of well researched writing supports your
opinion but that same writing and thinking indicates that the economy was
what killed Ford's electoral prospects, not the Nixon pardon. That also
happens to be what I believe. That and Ford wouldn't ruthlessly employ what
we today call "The Southern" strategy that was one of the things that got
Nixon elected in the first place.

I well remember those years Wes. I'd voted for Nixon and thought he'd gotten
a bumb wrap at the time.
Then he started doing things. Bad things. You probably don't know about the
"Saturday Night Masacre" at Justice but I remember that, and other things
that were done, as though they happened yesterday.

Nixon wasn't in trouble for the break in at the Watergate Hotel Wes. That
couldn't have reached into the Oval Office in a million years.
He was removed from office because of the things he subsequently either did
or ordered done. Nixon, as President of the United States, placed himself
above the law. It's worth noting that Cheney, Rumsfeld, Perle and a bunch of
other people that had high positions in the administration of Bush jr. were
all introduced to political office as members of the Nixon administration.

That's why I believe we need to prosecute a President who ignores the law or
perverts justice and our system beyond a certain point as Dubya Bush did.
Dick Cheney has repeatedly stated over the years that Nixon's mistake wasn't
in breaking the law, it was getting caught. Ole Dick must have been close to
a coronary when Bush jr. said on one day that wiretaps were illegal without
a warrant and on the very next admitted -ON TEEVEE- that his administration
had been doing just that for years. I can dig up the text if you'd like.

The same was true with torture and interrogations as well as our invasion of
Iraq.


Nixon wasn't paranoid, he knew they were out to get him.

Nixon was quite literally insane Wes.
"They", meaning the other side, being "out to get you" is an occupational
hazard of politics in America.
It's what political party's do.


--
John R. Carroll

Ed Huntress wrote:
"William Wixon" wrote in message
...

"John R. Carroll" wrote in message
...
Steve B wrote:
Bush and Cheney would be in jail by now.

But then, so would a high percentage of the US presidents in
history.


Nixon, Reagan and Bush jr. for sure.
Ed Huntress and I had an extended conversation a while ago and his
take was
that it it's just bad to put Presidents in jail for stuff they do in
office.
He didn't really argue the merits, however. My point at the time
was that had Ford not Pardonned Nixon, Nixon might well have been
tried and convicted - thereby setting an example that his
successors would have heeded
regarding the law.

In the end, I concluded that both arguments have merit but having
tried the
former so often and gotten increasingly egrigious conduct, we ought
to have
a stab at the latter.
I think.
Maybe.


--
John R. Carroll



you'd think by the end (at least) of obama's term (if he makes it)
there'll be a vocal group falling all over themselves to put him in
jail huh? i wonder if this is the time enough people will agree
that it's better to put him (a black liberal rather than a white
conservative) in jail than not and make this thing happen. you know
he's going to do something bad, they all do/have, this time though
people will probably "get tough" on him (whereas in the past they
let it slide).

b.w.

Any way you slice it, if you jail a president for something he did in
office, whether he's out of office or not, you're going to create a
Constitutional crisis. I don't mean a disagreement. I mean a crisis.

There is nothing in the Constitution that gives Congress or the
courts any power over the president, except for the power of
impeachment. It's all a matter of case law and it's never been
significantly tested. The counterargument is that it would be a
violation of the separation of powers.

In fact, it can't be "tested." You can get a decision, but all it can
do it create a crisis.

A lesson, which is survivable, in itself.


--
John R. Carroll

John R. Carroll wrote:

Interesting that you think more repetition of hate-speak will
resonate with the citizens that you think are that stupid that they
will become left-wing drones.
I don't think the left wing drone thing is valid but there are certainly a
lot of American's that are either plain stupid or easily manipulated.
We had eight years of dufus bush and company in case you've forgotten. That
didn't turn out very well.

Quite an understatement. But the right wing guys haven't forgotten what
a rotten job their last hero did but they pretend that it just never
happened. Instead of remembering how bad the right wing screwed things
up they are now focused on Obama. They're trying to pretend that Obama's
one year is as bad as Bush's eight were. Unfortunately, Obama is forced
to clean up after Bush's messes and it's going to take way more than one
year to do it. It's like mismanaging a football team until it's the
worst in the league. The next coach that gets that team isn't going to
turn things around for a long, long time. It's just like when Jimmy
Johnson was hired as the coach of the Dallas Cowboys. When he took over
that team stunk. When he was done they were in the Superbowl. The thing
is it took him years to turn things around. It's the same situation with
Obama and Bush. It's going to be years before Obama turns this country
around after eight years of Bush's bad management.

Hawke

Ed Huntress wrote:
"William Wixon" wrote in message
...
"John R. Carroll" wrote in message
...
Steve B wrote:
Bush and Cheney would be in jail by now.
But then, so would a high percentage of the US presidents in history.

Nixon, Reagan and Bush jr. for sure.
Ed Huntress and I had an extended conversation a while ago and his take
was
that it it's just bad to put Presidents in jail for stuff they do in
office.
He didn't really argue the merits, however. My point at the time was that
had Ford not Pardonned Nixon, Nixon might well have been tried and
convicted - thereby setting an example that his successors would have
heeded
regarding the law.

In the end, I concluded that both arguments have merit but having tried
the
former so often and gotten increasingly egrigious conduct, we ought to
have
a stab at the latter.
I think.
Maybe.


--
John R. Carroll


you'd think by the end (at least) of obama's term (if he makes it)
there'll be a vocal group falling all over themselves to put him in jail
huh? i wonder if this is the time enough people will agree that it's
better to put him (a black liberal rather than a white conservative) in
jail than not and make this thing happen. you know he's going to do
something bad, they all do/have, this time though people will probably
"get tough" on him (whereas in the past they let it slide).

b.w.

Any way you slice it, if you jail a president for something he did in
office, whether he's out of office or not, you're going to create a
Constitutional crisis. I don't mean a disagreement. I mean a crisis.

There is nothing in the Constitution that gives Congress or the courts any
power over the president, except for the power of impeachment. It's all a
matter of case law and it's never been significantly tested. The
counterargument is that it would be a violation of the separation of powers.

In fact, it can't be "tested." You can get a decision, but all it can do it
create a crisis.



So then there is someone who is above the law? If you can't hold a
president accountable for crimes he commits in office then he's above
the law. They do have a process for this but the problem is one of balls
and partisanship. Congressmen lack the balls to impeach and then convict
a president for a crime and then you have the president's party refusing
to follow the law due to their partisanship. Both mean the president
can't be touched. In my book it's a bad precedent. But in America we
still aren't sure that the president isn't really the king and so he
gets treated like the law applies to everyone but him. We ought to
convict a president and send him to the big house one of these days just
to teach the next ones a lesson. Unfortunately, we missed our chance.
The last guy and his VP were perfect candidates with their starting
illegal wars and costing so many people their lives. If those weren't
serious enough crimes I can't imagine what they would have to do to
deserve conviction? What they did actually made Nixon look like Little
Bo Peep.

Hawke

Wes wrote:
"John R. Carroll" wrote:

Ed Huntress and I had an extended conversation a while ago and his take was
that it it's just bad to put Presidents in jail for stuff they do in office.
He didn't really argue the merits, however. My point at the time was that
had Ford not Pardonned Nixon, Nixon might well have been tried and
convicted - thereby setting an example that his successors would have heeded
regarding the law.

Gerald Ford did the right thing. He was a pretty savvy politician and had to know he
would never be elected after that.

Nixon wasn't paranoid, he knew they were out to get him.

Nixon was about as paranoid as a man can get. Every man who has
committed crimes and is aware that the authorities are after him thinks
they are out to get him. They are. They were after Nixon too but he was
guilty of numerous crimes. But instead of treating him like they would
treat you or me they let him off the hook. If you think that is a good
example to follow then you don't understand how law is supposed to work.

Hawke

"Hawke" wrote in message
...
Ed Huntress wrote:
"William Wixon" wrote in message
...
"John R. Carroll" wrote in message
...
Steve B wrote:
Bush and Cheney would be in jail by now.
But then, so would a high percentage of the US presidents in history.

Nixon, Reagan and Bush jr. for sure.
Ed Huntress and I had an extended conversation a while ago and his take
was
that it it's just bad to put Presidents in jail for stuff they do in
office.
He didn't really argue the merits, however. My point at the time was
that
had Ford not Pardonned Nixon, Nixon might well have been tried and
convicted - thereby setting an example that his successors would have
heeded
regarding the law.

In the end, I concluded that both arguments have merit but having tried
the
former so often and gotten increasingly egrigious conduct, we ought to
have
a stab at the latter.
I think.
Maybe.


--
John R. Carroll


you'd think by the end (at least) of obama's term (if he makes it)
there'll be a vocal group falling all over themselves to put him in jail
huh? i wonder if this is the time enough people will agree that it's
better to put him (a black liberal rather than a white conservative) in
jail than not and make this thing happen. you know he's going to do
something bad, they all do/have, this time though people will probably
"get tough" on him (whereas in the past they let it slide).

b.w.

Any way you slice it, if you jail a president for something he did in
office, whether he's out of office or not, you're going to create a
Constitutional crisis. I don't mean a disagreement. I mean a crisis.

There is nothing in the Constitution that gives Congress or the courts
any power over the president, except for the power of impeachment. It's
all a matter of case law and it's never been significantly tested. The
counterargument is that it would be a violation of the separation of
powers.

In fact, it can't be "tested." You can get a decision, but all it can do
it create a crisis.



So then there is someone who is above the law?

I didn't say that. I said that prosecuting him for an official action would
cause a Constitutional crisis.

It's easy to provoke a crisis under our Constitution. It's much harder to
avoid them. If we have a serious one, the whole structure is thrown into
turmoil and its strength is sapped. You'll recall Marbury v. Madison (1803).
If Jefferson had provoked a confrontation with the Court, we would have had
a hell of a mess. And the Court's authority to decide Constitutionality was,
at that point, unwritten and undecided.

Jefferson recognized this and decided to avoid provoking a crisis. That,
itself, became a wise precedent.

If you can't hold a president accountable for crimes he commits in office
then he's above the law.

If he murdered someone in broad daylight before a crowd, you'd have another
crisis, but there's little question about how it would be resolved. But the
"crimes" you're talking about were official acts. Most presidents would not
provoke a crisis by circumventing laws of Congress or of the Constitution,
but it's happened in wartime, most blatantly by Lincoln, but also by FDR and
others. If a president today sent federal troops to smash the printing
presses in Buck's County, PA, under the guise of the Sedition Act -- as John
Adams did -- half the country would want to try him for crimes. Fortunately,
no one did.

They do have a process for this but the problem is one of balls and
partisanship. Congressmen lack the balls to impeach and then convict a
president for a crime and then you have the president's party refusing to
follow the law due to their partisanship. Both mean the president can't be
touched. In my book it's a bad precedent. But in America we still aren't
sure that the president isn't really the king and so he gets treated like
the law applies to everyone but him. We ought to convict a president and
send him to the big house one of these days just to teach the next ones a
lesson. Unfortunately, we missed our chance. The last guy and his VP were
perfect candidates with their starting illegal wars and costing so many
people their lives. If those weren't serious enough crimes I can't imagine
what they would have to do to deserve conviction? What they did actually
made Nixon look like Little Bo Peep.

Hawke

Put your poli sci hat on and think this one through. If you prosecuted Bush
and Cheney, you'd provoke a whole series of Constitutional conflicts.

As you say, Congress had the authority to impeach them. They didn't do it.
So now you want to convict them. First, you would have one president
prosecuting a previous president through the Justice Department. There's no
precedent for that. Second, you have a case of Congress dictating to the
Executive branch how it's to carry out its Constitutional responsibilities.
That's an ugly one, which would raise the separation of powers issue. Third,
you'd wind up with the lower federal courts deciding not only the
Constitutionality of presidential actions (for which there is precedent) but
also their criminality under laws made by Congress that would criminalize
the Executive (for which there is no clear precedent). The Supreme Court, by
upholding or reversing the decision, would wind up prosecuting (or not) a
president for official acts. It would make Bush v. Gore look like a day in
traffic court.

Do you want to start that? If you do, Congress will be handed a tool to
coerce the Executive for the rest of history -- and there's little doubt in
my mind that, sooner or later, they'd use it in a way that would create a
more fundamental crisis.

This system survives because of the precedent set by Jefferson over Marbury.
He decided to acquiesce to the Supreme Court. Brilliant man that he was, he
undoubtedly recognized the consequences of provoking a crisis by ignoring
the Court's ruling.

The countries that have conflicts between the branches are banana republics,
tin-pot dictatorships, and military "republics" like Pakistan. You can make
cases for one side or the other on the Constitutionality of Bush's actions,
and you can debate the theory of Congress passing laws that bind the
president's hands, but the most important issue for the country is not who
wins these cases. but whether the three branches respect the limits of their
power. Arguably, Bush did not. We have a mechanism to deal with that:
impeachment and removal from office. If we don't use it in an appropriate
case, we have a system failure. (I'm not drawing a conclusion about the case
for impeachment in this case; I'm talking only about consequences.) But
that's nothing compared to provoking a full-blown conflict between the
branches of government.

--
Ed Huntress

So then there is someone who is above the law?

I didn't say that. I said that prosecuting him for an official action would
cause a Constitutional crisis.

If it is so onerous to have a constitutional crisis that you would do
anything to avoid it, then in effect, you really do have a president
who's above the law. Maybe the founding fathers didn't think this one
out. If you have one branch of the three being a single individual, and
if the other branches have no power over him, then isn't he above the
law, or maybe you might say that law doesn't apply to him? I mean, how
could any law apply to him if the cost of prosecuting him is so high no
one would ever do it?


It's easy to provoke a crisis under our Constitution. It's much harder to
avoid them. If we have a serious one, the whole structure is thrown into
turmoil and its strength is sapped. You'll recall Marbury v. Madison (1803).
If Jefferson had provoked a confrontation with the Court, we would have had
a hell of a mess. And the Court's authority to decide Constitutionality was,
at that point, unwritten and undecided.

That's true, but you assume that it had to be set up the way they did it
then. Had there been a crisis they may have set the system up
differently, and maybe better. I'll bet the founders never imagined the
court would wind up the political entity it has become. As to the ease
of provoking constitutional crises I can't recall a single one in our
history. That being the case, I don't see it as being so easy to provoke.



Jefferson recognized this and decided to avoid provoking a crisis. That,
itself, became a wise precedent.

Again, maybe. But we'll never know. Might have been better to have
fought it out then and come to a different conclusion. Is it better to
have to do it now or when the country was just starting?


If you can't hold a president accountable for crimes he commits in office
then he's above the law.

If he murdered someone in broad daylight before a crowd, you'd have another
crisis, but there's little question about how it would be resolved. But the
"crimes" you're talking about were official acts. Most presidents would not
provoke a crisis by circumventing laws of Congress or of the Constitution,
but it's happened in wartime, most blatantly by Lincoln, but also by FDR and
others. If a president today sent federal troops to smash the printing
presses in Buck's County, PA, under the guise of the Sedition Act -- as John
Adams did -- half the country would want to try him for crimes. Fortunately,
no one did.

If I remember correctly at the time Adams sent troops to PA to destroy
the press the sedition act was still legal. I don't remember, but I
think it wasn't repealed until Jefferson was in office. Whenever the law
was removed if it was in place when Adams did his thing in PA he would
have been acting within the law. So as long as the sedition act hadn't
been declared unconstitutional Adam's actions would have been legal.



They do have a process for this but the problem is one of balls and
partisanship. Congressmen lack the balls to impeach and then convict a
president for a crime and then you have the president's party refusing to
follow the law due to their partisanship. Both mean the president can't be
touched. In my book it's a bad precedent. But in America we still aren't
sure that the president isn't really the king and so he gets treated like
the law applies to everyone but him. We ought to convict a president and
send him to the big house one of these days just to teach the next ones a
lesson. Unfortunately, we missed our chance. The last guy and his VP were
perfect candidates with their starting illegal wars and costing so many
people their lives. If those weren't serious enough crimes I can't imagine
what they would have to do to deserve conviction? What they did actually
made Nixon look like Little Bo Peep.

Hawke

Put your poli sci hat on and think this one through. If you prosecuted Bush
and Cheney, you'd provoke a whole series of Constitutional conflicts.

Not necessarily. It all depends on how the leaders in the other branches
react. If they were conflicted about whether something the president did
was a criminal act then you would probably get a crisis. If there was
bipartisan agreement that what the president did was way beyond legal
then maybe no crisis at all. But since it's never happened it's pretty
hard to say how it would play out.


As you say, Congress had the authority to impeach them. They didn't do it.
So now you want to convict them. First, you would have one president
prosecuting a previous president through the Justice Department. There's no
precedent for that. Second, you have a case of Congress dictating to the
Executive branch how it's to carry out its Constitutional responsibilities.
That's an ugly one, which would raise the separation of powers issue. Third,
you'd wind up with the lower federal courts deciding not only the
Constitutionality of presidential actions (for which there is precedent) but
also their criminality under laws made by Congress that would criminalize
the Executive (for which there is no clear precedent). The Supreme Court, by
upholding or reversing the decision, would wind up prosecuting (or not) a
president for official acts. It would make Bush v. Gore look like a day in
traffic court.

Your points illustrate what I was saying before. With the possible
problems that would arise from a prosecution of a president it makes it
where a president actually is outside the reach of law.
Constitutionally, the only thing that can be done to a president is to
impeach and remove from office. There is no procedure for doing anything
else. I think the founding fathers dropped the ball on this one. They
didn't seem to imagine OUR president doing things so heinous that he
should be sent to prison for them. Funny isn't it that after seeing all
the ****ty things the King of England did they couldn't see our leader
doing the same kind of things. If they had they would have put in place
some kind of disciplinary procedures with more teeth in them than simple
removal.

But I'm thinking that we're not talking about minor offenses here. If
the president did things that would qualify as legitimate war crimes,
crimes against the country, or against large groups of Americans then
you would see a grass roots desire to make him pay. I'm not so sure that
would be such a hard thing to do if there was overwhelming support for
it. Other countries have gone back and punished former leaders of crimes
when they were in office. I think if there was a great enough desire to
do it a way around the hurdles would be found. We have a history of
finding ways around laws when we really want to and I'm confident we can
go around the Constitution if we really wanted to.



Do you want to start that? If you do, Congress will be handed a tool to
coerce the Executive for the rest of history -- and there's little doubt in
my mind that, sooner or later, they'd use it in a way that would create a
more fundamental crisis.

Well, I think the office of the president has gotten way too powerful.
If the congress were to reassert the power that it really has that would
be fine with me. And I can't see the congress willy nilly coercing the
executive every time they felt like it. I'd bet they would use it
sparingly if at all. You would have to get majorities to do that. If
they set it up so they were large ones it might never happen. But having
the ability to do it in a pinch might be a good idea. We need to take
back some of the power from the executive branch one way or another.



This system survives because of the precedent set by Jefferson over Marbury.
He decided to acquiesce to the Supreme Court. Brilliant man that he was, he
undoubtedly recognized the consequences of provoking a crisis by ignoring
the Court's ruling.

Yeah, but it would have been interesting if he had. No telling how that
one would have come out.

The countries that have conflicts between the branches are banana republics,
tin-pot dictatorships, and military "republics" like Pakistan. You can make
cases for one side or the other on the Constitutionality of Bush's actions,
and you can debate the theory of Congress passing laws that bind the
president's hands, but the most important issue for the country is not who
wins these cases. but whether the three branches respect the limits of their
power. Arguably, Bush did not. We have a mechanism to deal with that:
impeachment and removal from office. If we don't use it in an appropriate
case, we have a system failure. (I'm not drawing a conclusion about the case
for impeachment in this case; I'm talking only about consequences.) But
that's nothing compared to provoking a full-blown conflict between the
branches of government.

Like I said before, I think the executive branch has taken too much
power and the congress too willingly acquiesced. I'm not partial to one
guy having the same power, if not more, than the other branches. Way to
easy for mischief giving one man that kind of power, just look at Bush,
Cheney, and Nixon. If they didn't have so much power they couldn't have
done what many of us consider criminal acts. But as long as congress
does nothing the president is virtually omnipotent. It seemed we had
settled the power arrangements between branches in this country a long
time ago. But it has shifted over time. I think it's a good idea to take
a look at which branch gets to do what and reevaluate if it's still a
good idea or not. Maybe that is what some would call a constitutional
crisis but to me it's just a reassessment. I'm not for just leaving
things like they have always been. Times change and the government needs
to keep up. Over the last few decades that executive branch has gotten
too powerful. If it takes a "crisis" to bring the branches closer to
equilibrium I'm all for it.

Hawke

"Hawke" wrote in message
...

So then there is someone who is above the law?

I didn't say that. I said that prosecuting him for an official action
would cause a Constitutional crisis.

If it is so onerous to have a constitutional crisis that you would do
anything to avoid it, then in effect, you really do have a president who's
above the law.

It's a mixed bag. The courts have consistently held that a president is
immune to civil suit over acts performed while he was in office, including
claims that he violated citizens' civil rights. A modern case that
reaffirmed the immunity to suits was Nixon v. Fitzgerald (1982). (Clinton
was sued by Paula Jones for acts he committed *before* he became president.)

Regarding a president committing crimes, he can be prosecuted. Thus, my
example of a president committing murder -- it would be a crisis, and it
could cause a Constitutional crisis over rules of evidence and executive
priviledge -- but there is no doubt about how it would come out. It would do
more damage than is apparent, however.

But the crimes must be clear violations of the law. What you're suggesting
now is a violation of laws that would be challenged by the president on the
basis of their Constitutionality. So now you're talking about a situation in
which two branches of government (exec. and legislative) are arguing about a
law's constitutionality, and the Court, rather than just vacating an
executive order or letting it stand, would wind up prosecuting the president
for criminality, or not.

That's a more serious crisis. The Court would be deciding if the president
would go to jail, for example. Even fining him would raise a chilling
conflict over the separation of powers.

And here's how such a crisis could play out: Many people, perhaps most but
certainly a very large percentage, will view the Court's decision as a
political one and they'll start calling for impeachment of the Justices --
like this silly thing going on over the Citizens United case right now, only
serious. Say it was Bush; the Court vacated his order to monitor phone
calls, allowed a criminal prosecution by a lower court to stand, and we had
another 9/11 attack. Now you have 18 states with recall petitions for
Senators and Congressmen; 2/3 majorities who opposed the original law (or
who claim they opposed it, or simply agreed with the president after the
fact) trying to expell all of the other legislators; threats of secession,
etc.

That would cause Congress to disintigrate. Forget the merits of the cases --
at this point, the issue is the functioning of the government. This scenario
is unlikely but any serious Constitutional crisis will damage the
functioning of government.

So that's what you're weighing when you consider prosecuting a president,
whether he's in office or out of it. Is it worth it? Challenges between
branches of government can be managed if the people respect what's
happening, and respect is going out the window if there's a criminal
prosecution of a president. Even a quarter of the country up in arms over it
is enough to seriously damage the government's ability to function.

Fortunately, we haven't had many such crises, and we've gotten past them.
Criminal prosecutions are done for a reason, generally to satisfy the
public's need for "justice," a term I won't try to define. g When you
prosecute a president, you have to ask yourself if the benefit to the
country will outweigh the conflict and damage it will do. Usually, not.

Prosecuting Bush would pit the left against the right in a vicious battle
that would play out in attempted expulsions, impeachments, and recalls. It's
not worth it.


Maybe the founding fathers didn't think this one out. If you have one
branch of the three being a single individual, and if the other branches
have no power over him, then isn't he above the law, or maybe you might
say that law doesn't apply to him?

Maybe they didn't. More likely, I suspect they were aware of the possibility
as one of the many challenges that made the success of our government
unlikely. And many of them thought its success was unlikely.

I mean, how could any law apply to him if the cost of prosecuting him is
so high no one would ever do it?

That's a good question. One hopes that we elect presidents who don't violate
the law, so the conflict and crisis will be avoided. For the most part
that's been the case. Thus, our government has never crumbled.



It's easy to provoke a crisis under our Constitution. It's much harder to
avoid them. If we have a serious one, the whole structure is thrown into
turmoil and its strength is sapped. You'll recall Marbury v. Madison
(1803). If Jefferson had provoked a confrontation with the Court, we
would have had a hell of a mess. And the Court's authority to decide
Constitutionality was, at that point, unwritten and undecided.

That's true, but you assume that it had to be set up the way they did it
then. Had there been a crisis they may have set the system up differently,
and maybe better. I'll bet the founders never imagined the court would
wind up the political entity it has become. As to the ease of provoking
constitutional crises I can't recall a single one in our history. That
being the case, I don't see it as being so easy to provoke.

There have been many, some major. Andrew Jackson had his Nullification
Crisis, in which South Carolina threatened to secede. Georgia was grumbling
about it. Lincoln had his Civil War. We had the Pentagon Papers and its
crisis over the First Amendment. We had Bush v. Gore, which was settled more
peaceably than many of us feared at the time.

Every one of them was a threat. The Nullification Crisis and the Civil War
almost destroyed the country. You'd have to be a committed revolutionary or
an anarchist to think any of it was a good thing.




Jefferson recognized this and decided to avoid provoking a crisis. That,
itself, became a wise precedent.

Again, maybe. But we'll never know. Might have been better to have fought
it out then and come to a different conclusion. Is it better to have to do
it now or when the country was just starting?

It depends on how much you want to threaten the Constitution itself. It
depends upon a reasonable agreement that we'll adhere to it. If enough
people get ****ed off, that's the end of it.



If you can't hold a president accountable for crimes he commits in
office then he's above the law.

If he murdered someone in broad daylight before a crowd, you'd have
another crisis, but there's little question about how it would be
resolved. But the "crimes" you're talking about were official acts. Most
presidents would not provoke a crisis by circumventing laws of Congress
or of the Constitution, but it's happened in wartime, most blatantly by
Lincoln, but also by FDR and others. If a president today sent federal
troops to smash the printing presses in Buck's County, PA, under the
guise of the Sedition Act -- as John Adams did -- half the country would
want to try him for crimes. Fortunately, no one did.

If I remember correctly at the time Adams sent troops to PA to destroy the
press the sedition act was still legal. I don't remember, but I think it
wasn't repealed until Jefferson was in office. Whenever the law was
removed if it was in place when Adams did his thing in PA he would have
been acting within the law. So as long as the sedition act hadn't been
declared unconstitutional Adam's actions would have been legal.

Legal, but today, legal or not, it would provoke a crisis.


They do have a process for this but the problem is one of balls and
partisanship. Congressmen lack the balls to impeach and then convict a
president for a crime and then you have the president's party refusing
to follow the law due to their partisanship. Both mean the president
can't be touched. In my book it's a bad precedent. But in America we
still aren't sure that the president isn't really the king and so he
gets treated like the law applies to everyone but him. We ought to
convict a president and send him to the big house one of these days just
to teach the next ones a lesson. Unfortunately, we missed our chance.
The last guy and his VP were perfect candidates with their starting
illegal wars and costing so many people their lives. If those weren't
serious enough crimes I can't imagine what they would have to do to
deserve conviction? What they did actually made Nixon look like Little
Bo Peep.

Hawke

Put your poli sci hat on and think this one through. If you prosecuted
Bush and Cheney, you'd provoke a whole series of Constitutional
conflicts.

Not necessarily. It all depends on how the leaders in the other branches
react. If they were conflicted about whether something the president did
was a criminal act then you would probably get a crisis. If there was
bipartisan agreement that what the president did was way beyond legal then
maybe no crisis at all. But since it's never happened it's pretty hard to
say how it would play out.

Not the "leaders." It depends on how *the people* react. Right now you have
the Gunners and their Sons of Timothy McVeigh rattling their sabers.
Fortunately, they're a tiny minority of crackpots and malcontents. If the
number got really large, you'd have a crisis -- not because anyone would
shoot, but because they'd be pulling every string that's allowed by the
Constitution, with threats and counterthreats going on all over, until the
government just couldn't function.



As you say, Congress had the authority to impeach them. They didn't do
it. So now you want to convict them. First, you would have one president
prosecuting a previous president through the Justice Department. There's
no precedent for that. Second, you have a case of Congress dictating to
the Executive branch how it's to carry out its Constitutional
responsibilities. That's an ugly one, which would raise the separation of
powers issue. Third, you'd wind up with the lower federal courts deciding
not only the Constitutionality of presidential actions (for which there
is precedent) but also their criminality under laws made by Congress that
would criminalize the Executive (for which there is no clear precedent).
The Supreme Court, by upholding or reversing the decision, would wind up
prosecuting (or not) a president for official acts. It would make Bush v.
Gore look like a day in traffic court.

Your points illustrate what I was saying before. With the possible
problems that would arise from a prosecution of a president it makes it
where a president actually is outside the reach of law. Constitutionally,
the only thing that can be done to a president is to impeach and remove
from office. There is no procedure for doing anything else. I think the
founding fathers dropped the ball on this one. They didn't seem to imagine
OUR president doing things so heinous that he should be sent to prison for
them.

He can be impeached and then prosecuted for a crime. It's just that making
it happen is unlikely to produce a result that's good for the country.

Again, many of the Founders didn't think the country was likely to work.
This is one of the reasons. The possibilities for conflicts to escalate into
Constitutional crises was great, and we have the words of some of them
indicating that they didn't think this would hold together in the face of a
crisis.

"A republic, if you can keep it," said Franklin.

Funny isn't it that after seeing all the ****ty things the King of England
did they couldn't see our leader doing the same kind of things. If they
had they would have put in place some kind of disciplinary procedures with
more teeth in them than simple removal.

They tried to accomplish it with separation of powers and other structural
designs. Amazingly, it's worked.


But I'm thinking that we're not talking about minor offenses here. If the
president did things that would qualify as legitimate war crimes, crimes
against the country, or against large groups of Americans then you would
see a grass roots desire to make him pay. I'm not so sure that would be
such a hard thing to do if there was overwhelming support for it.

I don't think it's ever reached "overwhelming" proportions in the case of
Bush. Most people were angry about many things he did, but the feeling about
the supposed crimes was more divided.

Other countries have gone back and punished former leaders of crimes when
they were in office. I think if there was a great enough desire to do it a
way around the hurdles would be found. We have a history of finding ways
around laws when we really want to and I'm confident we can go around the
Constitution if we really wanted to.

I'm sure we could. And it probably would be the end of the US position in
the world if we did.



Do you want to start that? If you do, Congress will be handed a tool to
coerce the Executive for the rest of history -- and there's little doubt
in my mind that, sooner or later, they'd use it in a way that would
create a more fundamental crisis.

Well, I think the office of the president has gotten way too powerful. If
the congress were to reassert the power that it really has that would be
fine with me. And I can't see the congress willy nilly coercing the
executive every time they felt like it. I'd bet they would use it
sparingly if at all. You would have to get majorities to do that. If they
set it up so they were large ones it might never happen. But having the
ability to do it in a pinch might be a good idea. We need to take back
some of the power from the executive branch one way or another.

I'll stick with what we have. That's true Burkean conservatism, which is
what I am. g



This system survives because of the precedent set by Jefferson over
Marbury. He decided to acquiesce to the Supreme Court. Brilliant man that
he was, he undoubtedly recognized the consequences of provoking a crisis
by ignoring the Court's ruling.

Yeah, but it would have been interesting if he had. No telling how that
one would have come out.

I have no desire to live in interesting times.


The countries that have conflicts between the branches are banana
republics, tin-pot dictatorships, and military "republics" like Pakistan.
You can make cases for one side or the other on the Constitutionality of
Bush's actions, and you can debate the theory of Congress passing laws
that bind the president's hands, but the most important issue for the
country is not who wins these cases. but whether the three branches
respect the limits of their power. Arguably, Bush did not. We have a
mechanism to deal with that: impeachment and removal from office. If we
don't use it in an appropriate case, we have a system failure. (I'm not
drawing a conclusion about the case for impeachment in this case; I'm
talking only about consequences.) But that's nothing compared to
provoking a full-blown conflict between the branches of government.

Like I said before, I think the executive branch has taken too much power
and the congress too willingly acquiesced. I'm not partial to one guy
having the same power, if not more, than the other branches. Way to easy
for mischief giving one man that kind of power, just look at Bush, Cheney,
and Nixon. If they didn't have so much power they couldn't have done what
many of us consider criminal acts. But as long as congress does nothing
the president is virtually omnipotent. It seemed we had settled the power
arrangements between branches in this country a long time ago. But it has
shifted over time. I think it's a good idea to take a look at which branch
gets to do what and reevaluate if it's still a good idea or not. Maybe
that is what some would call a constitutional crisis but to me it's just a
reassessment. I'm not for just leaving things like they have always been.
Times change and the government needs to keep up. Over the last few
decades that executive branch has gotten too powerful. If it takes a
"crisis" to bring the branches closer to equilibrium I'm all for it.

Hawke

You make progress only if you have a stable government -- unless revolution
is your idea of progress. We got lucky in that regard. Most revolutions
don't work out as well.

--
Ed Huntress