This comes as no surprise to me, but it clearly shows that Barack Obama thinks the executive branch has the authority to do anything:
The White House on Thursday missed the noon deadline for responding to the Republican-approved subpoena issued last week demanding the White House turn over "all documents" pertaining to the Solyndra loan guarantee.
But while White House aides earlier told Fox News there are no plans to produce more documents on the bankrupt solar panel firm until Republicans agree to narrow the scope of their request, House Republicans issued a statement saying they expect some response from the White House by the end of the day.
(I love how fox news used the term “missed”. Not “intentionally overlooked”.
This should come as no surprise to anyone, though, not because Barack Obama is an International Socialist nor because he is a Democrat, but because the power of the executive branch has been expanded in the past century to the point where short of cutting funding, Congress cannot stop him.
Forget about all the checks and balances that are supposed to protect us from government tyranny. Forget about nullification at all levels because nobody pays attention to it. Forget about freedom. It does not matter because the President, as the head of the executive branch, has near unlimited power to impose any agenda he sees fit.
This was true under all Presidents going back as far as I can remember. It was just that before Obama came into office, most others at least paid lip service to Congress and the courts, both Inferior and Supreme. I was gun-ho for the USA PATRIOT Act when it was first passed. But then I realized that an act like that could be easily abused by a political operative and used against the innocent. Indeed, most actions under that act have been for the War on Drugs, not the War on Terror. It’s OK, though, at least the Federal government is preventing people from feeling good and thus making them resort to crime in order to get that feeling back.
The point is, we have a rogue bureaucracy operating at the behest of political operatives. Sure power at the top changes hands, but the same middle management assholes remain for decades implementing and creating policies that not even Congress approved, despite the 10,000 laws on the books.
And now we have a President who can ignore a subpoena issued by Congress. Do you think you could do that? Not even the big corporate executives could ignore a Congressional subpoena. No, only the President can.
The sad fact is, unless Ron Paul is elected, I doubt this kind of thing will change. I am fairly certain that the bureaucracy will continue to grow and expand without restraint and that some middle management asshat will find a way to maneuver him or herself into an executive position that essentially makes him or her the unquestioned ruler of America.
And most Americans won’t question it because the State is their god. That’s why the money says, “In God We Trust”, not because it references the Christian God, but because the money came from the State (well, Federal Reserve which is a Statist Institution) and you must obey it.
"the same middle management assholes remain for decades implementing and creating policies that not even Congress approved, despite the 10,000 laws on the books."
ReplyDelete20,000,000 public servants.
Public Servant is an oxymoron since we are at there service.
Congress doesn't want to stop him.
ReplyDeleteIt has nothing to do with "cannot."
Also saying Ron Paul is the ONLY hope pretty well overstates things mightily. It would be more accurate if you said, for example, that
among the mainstream, media-recognized candidates, Ron Paul is the only one who shows slight deviations from the present course.
That would be true, not hyperbolic, not tribalist, not glassy-eyed Paulfan... just honest.
Anyway, while the Unitary Executive thing has got a bit carried away since 2000, it's just an operative theory and the players can choose to act differently. The Congress isn't trying to thwart the POTUS -- hasn't ever tried to in my 30+ years as a voter.
It's good to not cling to jr high social studies myths about how the Fed Govt actually works. Most of it is bread and circus, not some highfalutin' roll-up-the-intellectual-sleeves idea-wrasslin'. When the Congress gives the POTUS what he wants, it's not because "the law" requires them to.
It's because that's what they want to do.
Karl Franz Ochstradt,
ReplyDeleteI said Ron Paul is the only hope because none of the other frontrunner candidates are saying things he is saying about executive power. In other words, he alone has be stating that he is wiling to operate within the Constitutional boundaries of the executive branch, unlike the others.
Well I understand that part, Mark.
ReplyDeleteIf you read the Constitution and understood its history you'd be hard-pressed to support why a "return to the Constitution" is a great thing.
The Constitution on its own is not our source of "freedom" or anything like that. This is one of Paul's points of Massive Naivete.
Try studying Constitutional law and the history of the Constitution before assuming that a "return to the Constitution" would bring Valhalla.
The Constitution is a plutocratic framework for the abuses we now suffer. It is the SOURCE OF our problems, not the thing that will rescue us from them.
In other words, Mark...
ReplyDeleteYou should spend some time comparing the Constitution to the Articles of Confederation and the Declaration of Independence.
And spend some time reviewing the historical period between 1776 and 1787, the debates regarding whether the Articles should control or be modified, and how the Federalists and Anti-Federalists argued the framework for American government.
Pay attention to Luther Martin.