LET THE McKRAP TM FLY inherent or otherwise. We live in the age of inherent BS. You Yoo would think we had been through this before. You Yoo would think we would have learned. You Yoo would be wrong. Power seeks power the way water seeks a drain. In the inevitable and violent vortex democracy is sucked, down and out and the citizens who survive the silent cataclysm are left high and dry, out of luck, out in the cold. You Yoo would think we should be glad we survived the presidential power grab all external threats to us.
ALL HAIL the king the president of the United States. If you wonder why Bush calls himself a war president, it is because the base of his claims to great power rests on the powers found in Article Two of the Constitution as war time commander in chief. The other articles of the Constitution are discarded like yesterday's fashions. Just what Bush wars against remains to be seen. If war lasts forever or longer, sound the trumpets and get ready for the coronation. Those holding the crown may need to wait until Congress get done with an investigation. Or do they?
WE NOW LIVE in a bathtub republic where power floats wherever the king the president might drift. All the king’s horses and all the king’s president’s men advise the chosen one the mere man who lords over us who serves us his serfs (we the people) he may do whatever he wants because all laws that apply to us must never apply to him. There have always been and will always be inherent powers in monarchy the presidency.
PERHAPS THE DIVINE right of presidents kings would be more deferred to if the man who wears the separation of powers down the crown acted more the wise prince rather than the court knave. Could anyone have thought five years ago Americans would court the world now with minstrel tales of torture justified, with the sophistry of the less than sage? Could anyone have thought five years ago the ursurper the president might order dubious yet deemed patriot acts upon the people and loose spies upon us in our homes? You Yoo who thought this must be telling a jester’s joke but you Yoo would be wrong.
IT’S ALL ABOUT YOO YOU a bad thing for us if you are a narcissist like Bush who wears the crown. For those who are unaware of how we got to be just above the drain in our bathtub democracy, some info on the four horsemen of the coming apocalypse would be helpful. These guys never saw a constitutional right they couldn’t ride right over with arguments unworthy of even King John’s men before Runnymeade and the Magna Carta in the fourteenth century. Here be horsemen who would protect some kind of heaven with arguments of hell.
RIDE ON, HORSEMEN Alberto Gonzales rides lead, followed by Jay Bybee, and David Addington, and John Yoo. Gonzales was a judge in Texas, is the Attorney General of the United States now, and might still be a judge yet. Jay Bybee said Guantanamo was a good thing. Dick Cheney’s new chief of staff David Addington supports power unbridled for the President in all he says and does. But more than anyone, if you are looking for someone on whom all these argument rise from or fall, you would be looking for John Yoo. He is now a law professor at the University of California at Berkely. Google the goods and beware.
RECOMMENDED READING on John Yoo
JOHN YOO Behind the Torture Memos: Gonzales' advice raised legal and policy questions. Legally, could the president determine by himself that Al-Qaida or the Taliban were not entitled to POW status? No one doubted that he had the constitutional authority. Presidents have long been the primary interpreters of treaties on behalf of the United States, especially in the area of warfare. Federal judges have since split on the POW issue.
NO ONE DOUBTED? No one doubted within the Bush administration. There are plenty of doubts in this country and around the world.
MORE YOO The Senate and Congress' decisions provided the basis for the Justice Department's definition of torture: "Physical pain amounting to torture must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death. For purely mental pain or suffering to amount to torture (under U.S. law), it must result in significant psychological harm of significant duration, e.g., lasting for months or even years. . . . We conclude that the statute, taken as a whole, makes plain that it prohibits only extreme acts.''
FOR THOSE WITH DOUBTS if you heard Gonzales talking earlier this week, this still is the President’s definition of “torture” so when you hear him say we don’t torture, remember this is what he thinks applies. [Yoo memo pdf]
JOHN YOO ON THE PATRIOT ACT One thing 9/11 showed was that terrorists from abroad were working within the U.S. So, no artificial line could be drawn between foreign and domestic threats. The Patriot Act allowed agencies to pool information together and look at patterns. The primary achievement was taking down the artificial line. . .
The Patriot Act really only makes amendments to existing laws. In regards to warrant searches, secret courts approving these warrants, electronic surveillance… these things already existed for use with Soviet spies. The Act simply re-oriented these things to terrorism. It has been upheld by appellate courts as constitutional. When people bring up concerns with civil liberties and the Patriot Act, it’s usually due to a misunderstanding of other legislation passed around the same time that they associate with the Patriot Act but is not part of it.
JOHN YOO WITHOUT IRONY Nations have powerful incentives to comply with the laws of war contained in the Geneva Convention. A United States or a Germany will care for captured prisoners, because any ill treatment could trigger retaliation against its own soldiers.
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW how we ended up spying on our own citizens, consider what happened with the Bush’s dubious Executive Order on Enemy Combatants and Yoo’s earlier statement about artificial lines. The order clearly states The term "individual subject to this order" shall mean any individual who is not a United States citizen . . . Yet even with the words in writing, United States citizens have been declared enemy combatants. The Bush administration is now trying to avoid a ruling in court on this in the curious case of Jose Padilla. As with Padilla, the Bush White House avoids doing things regarding NSA spying in open court, in open forums, or even in secret courts, perhaps because a fear remains the people would then come to their senses.
YEAH, WHAT HE SAID
UNCLAIMED TERRITORY The notion that one of the three branches of our Government can claim power unchecked by the other two branches is precisely what the Founders sought, first and foremost, to preclude. And the fear that a U.S. President would attempt to seize power unchecked by the law or by the other branches – i.e., that the Executive would seize the powers of the British King – was the driving force behind the clear and numerous constitutional limitations placed on Executive power. It is these very limitations which the Bush Administration is claiming that it has the power to disregard because the need for enhanced national security in time of war vests the President with unchecked power.
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