Finally, Attention Is Being Paid to Bush/Cheney's Subverting the Constitution. 6/29/2007 8:03:32 PM
I've been waiting for years for Congress to show some courage and fight back against Bush & Cheney's usurping powers that rightly belong to Congress. It's about time that Bush & Cheney were held accountable for their abuses of power.
Congress has finally begun to demand explanations from Bush & Cheney for their flagrant abuses of power and their arrogant disdain for the Constitution. For years now Bush & Cheney have overstepped the bounds and gotten away with it. Congress makes the laws, whereas the President & Vice-President are charged with executing those laws. However, Bush has added "signing statements" to numerous laws reinterpreting the law as he saw fit. He has used signing statements far more than any previous President in our history. Why has Congress so meekly accepted his actions? There should have been a challenge to his signing statements in federal court years ago.
Bush has ignored federal laws requiring warrants be obtained for wiretapping. Bush has allowed torture to be used against prisoners held off-shore in violation of American policies against torture. Bush has hidden behind classifying documents as "secret" to prevent his actions from becoming known, even to oversight agancies. Bush has ridden roughshod over Congress for far too long.
Cheney has assumed more power than any Vice-President in history, to the extent that some say he established a "shadow presidency". Cheney took for himself the authority to classify documents as secret, and he has abused this power to an extent smacking of arrogance and disdain for justice. He even tried to have the federal agency charged with overseeing classified documents disbanded rather than submit to their review of his actions. Cheney has claimed he is not part of the Executive Branch so that he is outside the laws covering the Executive Branch. How ridiculous!
Bush & Cheney have politicized the Justice Department to an extent no other President ever had. They have abandoned the policy of hiring lower positions within the Justice Department strictly on merit and have substituted hiring based upon loyalty to Bush and his politics. They have hired hundreds of unqualified "lawyers" that graduated from an unaccredited evangelistic "law school". Long-time Justice Department officials are dismayed. Now that Congress has subpoened correspondence regarding their Justice Department firing of federal prosecutors, the White House is stonewalling.
Cheney should be impeached! His actions have shown time and time again that he considers himself above the law and answerable to no one. He has nothing but contempt for the balance of power as written into the Constitution.
Bush & Cheney have insisted it is up to them to declare war and to decide alone when the war should be ended. However, in truth, it is Congress alone that has the authority according to the Constitution to declare war. Also, Congress has the authority to end or continue the war by voting funding to fight the war. Bush's role is to carry out the wishes of Congress and execute the war as Commander-in-Chief. The courts need to remind Bush & Cheney of the Constitutional division of powers in this regard.
For all their numerous abuses of power, Bush & Cheney should be called upon to explain their actions and be made to disclose fully all pertinent documents to Congressional committees. The last election showed the American public wants Congress to stand up against the abuses of Bush & Cheney. What has taken Congress so long to show some backbone? Do it now. It is long, long overdue.
