a debt ceiling carol

now that all the shouting's over — for a few hours at least — i believe it's time in the program for our musical number ...

life imitating art

art:

life:

actually, allow me to set the record straight: birthers aren't imitating cartoons — birthers are cartoons ...

a majority of one

and to think, come november, the playing field may never be this good for democrats for a long time after ...

from the booman:

there is a very narrow window in the senate where certain very limited things can be done. it is possible to pass bills on our most pressing issues when the democratic party is united and willing to settle for whatever it is that one republican will allow.

the hammer

when you have a hammer, people will bring you nails:

what’s the point of you saving this superb military for, colin, if we can't use it? — former un ambassador madeleine albright

when people start thinking you have no plan

... it's usually because you have no plan:

the white house had no contingency plan for health care reform if democrat martha coakley lost the special election in massachusetts, and officials did not discuss the possibility a democratic loss would dramatically imperil their legislative efforts, a top adviser said today. president obama's senior advisor david axelrod said there "wasn't much discussion" about an alternative path to passing health care with just 59 democrats in the senate because there was "widespread assumption was that that seat was safe." "the truth is the flares went up about 10 days before that election," axelrod said during a briefing today with reporters and opinion-makers. "there wasn't much discussion about the implications if the thing went the other way," he said.

this time, it royally sucks being right, but jesus aytch christ, just what other conclusion was possible? not only did no one in the entire party appear to know what was going on, but they all were yelling at each other and scaring the kids.

the ghost of condoleeza rice should frighten everyone.

it's bad policy to speculate on what you'll do if a plan fails when you're trying to make a plan work.

the young person's guide to net neutrality

a public service brought to you by henry rollins of the independent film channel's the henry rollins show:

freedom is under attack — under attack by hysterical and well-funded christian psychotics. intellectually undernourished leaders who lie and manipulate information. overfed baby huey coward bitch motherfuckers like karl rove and their suck-up weakling apologists like sean hannity. to question authority is to be somehow unpatriotic, un-american and in league with terrorists worldwide? fuck you! with even election results becoming more and more questionable, the constitution a thing to be manipulated, ignored and frivolously amended, even democracy itself seems to be on the run. so where's the one place you can go and tell your version of the truth, rail against liars, fakes and propagandists with your own unique propaganda, sign your name to it and let the whole world know how you feel? that's right. the internet. perhaps responsible for the most substantial shifts in culture in the last several decades. there's so much freedom and potential on the worldwide web that one is barely able to get one's head around it. who in their right mind would dare to regulate or charge websites to be on the internet? who would dare to rain on a parade so fantastic that many of us would not know what to do without our high-speed connection and our lives on the internet? actually, some very powerful forces. telco companies want to make you pay for your site to be carried on the internet. if you can't afford to pay, guess what? that's right, you're cyber-history, pal! the bush administration wants major internet and phone companies to keep track of where their customers surf, all in the name of the "war on terror", don't you know. how much do you wanna bet they want the internet regulated, contained and thrown into a cell at guantanamo bay? for a country that talks so much about freedom being on the march, seems to me that some people want anything but! if they come for your freedom, you must not only resist, you must strike back with a vengeance that will stun them. on this front, if your anger and outrage are not at the forefront, then you're already dead! dead to me, anyway. fuck these cowards! these traitors! these ENEMIES of democracy! thanks for watching the show this season. never relent.

note: in an otherwise solid introduction to the developing struggle over net neutrality, henry mistakely mischaracterizes the telcos' plan as wanting to burden the end user with excess access fees.

what the telcos really want is to get their fees directly from the access providers, who in response would create segregated tiers of access, rewarding the affluent with state-of-the-art high speed high bandwidth content while relegating the rest of the population to the equivalent of the internet ghetto.

today msnbc.com competes for your attention on the same playing field as glad-you-asked.blogspot.com, but the telcos want to apply the corporate television model to the internet, which rewards institutional media outlets with disproportionate impact, benefits and profits relative to their resource-starved public-access brethen.

for the president's clarification

george w. bush, addressing the press in the white house rose garden:

this debate is occurring because of the supreme court's ruling that said that we must conduct ourselves under the common article iii of the geneva convention. and that common article iii says that there will be no outrages upon human dignity. it's very vague. what does that mean, "outrages upon human dignity"? that's a statement that is wide open to interpretation. and what i'm proposing is that there be clarity in the law so that our professionals will have no doubt that that which they are doing is legal. you know, it's — and so the piece of legislation i sent up there provides our professionals that which is needed to go forward.

the geneva convention, article 3, regarding the treatment of prisoners of war, in force since october 21, 1950:

in the case of armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the high contracting parties, each party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum, the following provisions: persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria. to this end the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons: violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture; taking of hostages; outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment; the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples. the wounded and sick shall be collected and cared for. an impartial humanitarian body, such as the international committee of the red cross, may offer its services to the parties to the conflict. the parties to the conflict should further endeavour to bring into force, by means of special agreements, all or part of the other provisions of the present convention. the application of the preceding provisions shall not affect the legal status of the parties to the conflict.

now tell us again, george — just what part is it that's "vague" and "wide open to interpretation"?

no, george, this "debate" is not occurring because of any wrist-slap from the supreme court. the geneva convention did not pass unmolested for more than a half century because no one noticed how pretty the plain and bespeckled old bird was. so too with the constitution and your craven efforts to play peeping tom on its citizens.

no, george, after spending your two terms shamelessly defiling both the convention and the constitution, your flabby virgin backside juts exposed to charges of war crimes and impeachment and you need your rubberstamping posse running congress (but running it for not too much longer) to cover your unsightly naked emperorship.

liar

yes, i know — politicians lie, fib, equivocate, prevaricate, fabricate, dissemble, misinform and mislead like fish breathe water — not exactly breaking news.

but senate intelligence committee chair arlen specter seems to have told us a desperate ass-saving whopper that needs to be called out.

you'll recall my post "the not ready for prime time players", which highlights specter's cowardly proposal to grant amnesty to administration officials who may have broken federal law by engaging in the widespread warrantless wiretapping of american citizens. if blanket amnesty for the bush administration weren't craven enough, specter's proposal, if granted, would also make that amnesty retroactive to 1978, the year congress enacted the fisa statute, which created the fisa court, the only judicial body charged with reviewing federal warrant applications on matters of national security.

which means that every illegal espionage act for the past thirty years would be summarily disregarded with only a signature. so much for the party of accountability.

you'll also recall in the update to that post, that news of specter's call for amnesty seems to have been the result of a gross misreading of the proposed legislation by the washington post. it seemed that specter's bill wasn't quite as servile and loathsome as we've come to expect from the rubberstamping politburo we used to call congress. specter's immediate, vociferous and unequivocal prime-time denials seemed so genuine — or was it our desperate wish to believe that congress would not so eagerly castrate itself for a president whose approval ratings rival nixon's that made us so gullible?

glenn greenwald: i have now obtained (with the help of the aclu) a copy of specter's marked-up proposed legislation, which makes quite clear that specter simply was not telling the truth when he denied proposing amnesty to the administration. the bill in question was one which specter substituted last week in the judiciary committee for the prior legislation he proposed back in march (the reason the new version was not available online was because — according to the aclu — he introduced it only in the committee, but not yet on the senate floor). in sum, specter's legislation amends the provision of fisa which provides for criminal penalties, and then, astonishingly, makes those revisions retroactive all the way back to 1978 (when fisa was enacted). the effect and almost certainly the intent of those revisions is to immunize the president and anyone acting under his authority from criminal liability for violating fisa — just as the post and the aclu correctly reported, and just as specter falsely denied. ... currently, section 109(a) of fisa provides that "a person is guilty of an offense if he intentionally - (1) engages in electronic surveillance under color of law except as authorized by statute ..." that means that anyone who eavesdropping on americans without complying with the warrant requirements of the statute (fisa) is committing a felony. to amend this provision to include the phrase "or under the constitutional authority of the executive" after "authorized by statute," makes it legal to eavesdrop not only in compliance with fisa (i.e., by obtaining a warrant), but also under the "constitutional authority" of the president to engage in warrantless eavesdropping even if that warrantless eavesdropping is prohibited by fisa (which it is). ... section 801 of specter's proposed bill specifically provides that "nothing in this act shall be construed to limit the constitutional authority of the president to gather foreign intelligence information or monitor the activities or communications of any person reasonably believed to be associated with a foreign enemy of the united states." that language tracks precisely the language used to define the parameters of the warrantless eavesdropping program, and it makes crystal clear that its intent is to declare legal the nsa program. and that provision is one of the provisions that has retroactive application back to 1978, which means the specter bill goes back in time — 28 years — and transforms fisa from a statute which has always regulated the president's eavesdropping power into one which places no limits on that eavesdropping power of any kind. ... what is extremely noteworthy — and worth emphasizing — is that arlen specter amended his legislation to include the most extremist provision imaginable (retroactive amnesty for criminal behavior), all in order to please the president's allies on the judiciary committee (led by sen. kyl) — who, as always, are marching to the dictates of the white house, which obviously is willing to accept new fisa legislation only if it provides them with immunity from criminal prosecution for their lawbreaking. but even more notable still is the fact that after engaging in this behavior, specter went on national television and dishonestly denied that he was doing that.... specter was so embarrassed by his amnesty provision once the post revealed it that he simply denied that his legislation contained it even though it so plainly does. specter's dishonesty aside, these shenanigans reveal what the white house is really after. their senatorial minions are going to support nsa legislation only if it contains full amnesty for the lawbreakers in the administration. the white house will then "reluctantly" agree to a newly revised fisa, and will have full immunity from criminal prosecution. specter will be the primary sponsor of this, and the media will drool over his "maverick" status and suggest that it's unreasonable to argue that specter is acting as the obedient white house shill that he always, in the end, becomes. if even the independent, rule-of-law-loving specter advocates amensty, then doesn't that show that it's reasonable? the white house insists that it has clear legal authority for warrantless eavesdropping, so why are retroactive amendments to fisa's criminal provisions necessary at all? and if we stand by and allow the republicans in congress to legislatively exonerate the president and his aides from breaking the law, it is hard to imagine what we won't stand by and tolerate. if the president can break the law and then use his party's control over the congress to grant him legislative immunity from the consequences of his criminal behavior, no hyperbole is required to say that the rule of law exists only as an illusion.

the not ready for prime time players

it's saturday night, so let's tune into the not-ready-for-prime-time players. but it's not the cast of nbc's saturday night live we'll be watching, though this season's replacements from washington d.c. — that tragicomic capital of calumny and calamity — should prove as entertaining as the originals, if nothing else. we should by now be used to nothing else.

as i forewarned in my post "elegy", the constitutional crisis facing the country can only be resolved by congress' resumption of its responsibilities to both its constituents and itself as a concrete bulwark against any encroachment on its powers and duties by either of the other two branches of government — in these circumstances, the encroachments of the bush administration against the nation's time-tested system of checks and balances.

as glenn greenwald argues with his characteristic clarity — and frustration — in his post "a new low — the senate seeks to 'pardon' the president for past lawbreaking", from which i excerpt liberally, the 109th congress, especially as represented by senate intelligence committee chair arlen specter, is not quite ready for prime time:

observing and commenting on the behavior of arlen specter is one of the most unpleasant obligations a person can have, but for anyone following the nsa eavesdropping scandal specifically, and the bush administration's abuses of executive power generally, it is a necessary evil. the principal reason that the bush administration has been able to impose its radical theories of lawbreaking on the country is because congress, with an unseemly eagerness, has permitted itself to be humiliated over and over by an administration which does not hide its contempt for the notion that congress has any role to play in limiting and checking the executive branch. and few people have more vividly illustrated that institutional debasement than arlen specter, who, along with pat roberts, has done more than anyone else to ensure that congress completely relinquishes its constitutional powers to the president. congressional abdication is so uniquely damaging because the founders assumed that congress would naturally and instinctively resist encroachments by the executive, and the resulting institutional tension — the inevitable struggle for power between the branches — is what would preserve governmental balance and prevent true abuses of power. but for the last five years, congress has done the opposite of what the founders envisioned. they have meekly submitted to the almost total elimination of their role in our government and have quietly accepted consolidation of their powers in the president. if the congress is unmoved by their constitutional responsibilities, then at least basic human dignity ought to compel them to object to the administration's contempt for the laws they pass. after all, the laws which the administration claims it can ignore and has been breaking are their laws. the senate passed fisa by a vote of 95-1, and the mccain torture ban by a vote of 90-9, and it is those laws which the president is proclaiming he will simply ignore. and yet not only have they not objected, they have endorsed and even celebrated the president's claimed power to ignore the laws passed by congress. and that failure, more than anything else, is what has brought us to the real constitutional crisis we face as a result of having a president who claims the power to operate outside of, and above, the law. a bill proposed yesterday by arlen specter to resolve the nsa scandal — literally his fifth or sixth proposed bill on this subject in the last few months — would drag the congress to a new low of debasement. according to the washington post, specter has introduced a bill "that would give president bush the option of seeking a warrant from a special court for an electronic surveillance program such as the one being conducted by the national security agency." this proposal is the very opposite of everything specter has saying for the last several months: specter's approach modifies his earlier position that the nsa eavesdropping program, which targets international telephone calls and e-mails in which one party is suspected of links to terrorists, must be subject to supervision by the secret court set up under the foreign intelligence surveillance act (fisa). a law which makes it "an option" — rather than a requirement — for the government to obtain a warrant before eavesdropping is about as meaningless of a law as can be imagined. but that complete change of heart by specter is not even nearly the most corrupt part of his proposed bill. for pure corruption and constitutional abdication, nothing could match this: another part of the specter bill would grant blanket amnesty to anyone who authorized warrantless surveillance under presidential authority, a provision that seems to ensure that no one would be held criminally liable if the current program is found illegal under present law. the idea that the president's allies in congress would enact legislation which expressly shields government officials, including the president, from criminal liability for past lawbreaking is so reprehensible that it is difficult to describe. ... what makes this proposed amnesty so particularly indefensible is that specter himself has spent the last two months loudly complaining about the fact that he — along with the rest of the country — has been denied any information about how this illegal, secret eavesdropping has been conducted. has that power been abused? has it been exercised for political, rather than national security, reasons? before one even considers shielding those responsible for this lawbreaking from liability, wouldn't one have to at least know the answer to those questions? ... specter receives substantial criticism because of the flamboyant way in which he engages in what can only be described as sado-masochistic rituals with the administration. he pretends to exercise independence only to get beaten into extreme submission, and then returns eagerly for more. it is as unpleasant to watch as it is damaging to our country. but specter's unique psychological dramas should not obscure the fact that it is the entire congress which has failed in its responsibilities to take a stand against this president's lawbreaking and abuses, and there is plenty of blame to go around in both parties. the reason the president has been allowed to exert precisely the type of unrestrained power which the founders sought, first and foremost, to avoid, is because the congress has allowed him to.

update:

to glenn's further consternation, it looks like the post may have only imagined the heinous amnesty proposal in specter's bill:

before i wrote the post, i searched for the actual text of specter's bill in order to read it myself, but could not find it (specter's website is one of the worst sites for any senator, as it is usually a month or more behind). as a result, my post ... was based upon the post's reporting about specter's bill, rather than my own reading of it. i have now had a chance to review the actual text of specter's bill and cannot find any basis for the post's claim that it contains an amensty [sic] provision for past violations of the law. ... there is simply nothing in it which supports the post's report.

glenn had good cause to be cautious — this wasn't the first time that the post bungled the reading of the ever-multiplying proposals spawning from the senate intelligence committee:

before i wrote the post on friday, i was very reluctant to post anything about specter's bill in reliance on the report of the washington post. that's because the post previously published a front-page article about another fisa-related bill, this one proposed by sen. michael dewine, which was completely inaccurate about what the bill actually provided — not with regard to minor details of the bill, but with regard to its fundamental provisions. this is what happened. on march 17, the post published a front-page article by charles babington regarding the proposed legislation introduced by dewine (co-sponsored by sens. snowe, hagel, and graham), which was offered by those senators as the "compromise" solution when the republicans on the senate intelligence committee refused to hold hearings to investigate the nsa warrantless eavesdropping program. the post article falsely depicted this gop bill as vesting oversight power in the congress to stop warrantless eavesdropping, even though the bill provided nothing of the kind. specifically, the post article claimed — erroneously — that the bill would allow the administration to engage in warrantless eavesdropping only if a newly formed senate intelligence subcommittee approves of the program's renewal every 45 days. in fact, the legislation provided nothing of the sort. it gave no power whatsoever to any senate committee to approve or disapprove of warrantless eavesdropping. contrary to the post's front-page claim, that legislation would have vested no power whatsoever in the congress (or the courts) to stop the warrantless eavesdropping. it merely required that the administration "brief" the subcommittee, but the subcommittee (along with everyone else) would be completely powerless under that bill to stop the administration from engaging in warrantless eavesdropping. on that day, i first read the post article about this proposed legislation, but then found the legislation itself and read it. it was very clear that the post was simply wrong in what it told its readers on its front page about this significant legislation — wrong about the legislation's fundamentals.

season opener

even though vermonters were among the first townsfolk to set the state impeachment initiative in motion, they were quickly overtaken by illinois and california, whose resolutions beat theirs in the race to their respective state legislatures. (see my previous post "tremors".)

not to be outdone, some vermonters chose not to wait for their state representatives to weigh in on their resolutions, which were introduced last week.

this morning they delivered three resolutions to speaker of the house dennis hastert. they also secured a promise from their congressman bernie sanders to see that their resolutions would be duly introduced to the floor:

at 9:00 a.m. et this morning ellen tenney of rockingham, vermont, and julia dewalt of newfane, vt., presented to the staff of speaker of the house dennis hastert petitions from three towns in vermont (their own two towns plus marlboro) calling for the impeachment of president bush. the towns had each passed resolutions to send the petitions. these are the first of many petitions from towns, cities, and possibly states across the nation that will be arriving at congress's door. they are presented under the guidelines of jefferson's manual, section 603, and will be referred to a house committee, probably the judiciary, for consideration. similar resolutions have now been passed by at least 13 cities and towns, and have been introduced in three state legislatures, with more expected this week. following delivery to hastert's office, tenney and dewalt visited congressman bernie sanders' office, and his staff promised to make sure the speaker's office followed through by sending the petitions to the clerk and to the house judiciary committee.

without a doubt the legitimacy of their municipal resolutions will be challenged. without a doubt they will be quietly tabled, as any initial attempts to move towards impeachment will be, legitimate or otherwise. but without a doubt more are scheduled follow.

so, as the first articles of any kind to reach the house, i officially declare impeachment season open!

let the games begin! it's going to be fun watching the republicans play impeachment whack-a-mole!

update:

thanks to commenter constant, it looks like any attempt to "quietly table" the resolutions will not be met without a fight:

the purpose of this isn't to fall into the trap of "waiting for" or "deferring to" "the committee." rather, the resolutions must — as was done with [the 1903 impeachment proceedings against florida judge charles swayne] — force the congress to vote on the matter. remember what was done during swayne: the florida proclamation directed/asked the full house to vote on the proclamation, then it went to committee. then — here's the key — despite the committee not agreeing over what happened with swayne — as is likely the case going to be with bush — the judiciary committee then had to provide the results to the full house for a second vote. we have to figure out how to do the same: force the house to confront this, and not bury it in committee.

tremors

it's definitely not your imagination, mr. president. those vibrations rumbling faintly beneath your feet since january — this week they're loud enough to hear.

can you hear it, mr. president — coming from the plains?

the bill urges the illinois general assembly to "submit charges to the u. s. house of representatives to initiate impeachment proceedings against the president of the united states, george w. bush, for willfully violating his oath of office to preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the united states and if found guilty urges his removal from office and disqualification to hold any other office in the united states."

can you hear it, mr. president — coming from the coast?

joining illinois, california has become the second state in which a proposal to impeach president bush has been introduced in the state legislature. and this one includes cheney as well.

there it is again — coming from up north!

more than a dozen lawmakers on tuesday introduced a resolution calling for president bush's impeachment, making the vermont legislature the second in the nation to consider such a move. [third in the nation, actually]

history was quietly made over the past five days when three states from across the nation, in rapid succession, made the first calls for impeachment ever introduced to any state legislature.

the state drive for impeachment takes advantage of an obscure, never-before-explored parliamentary procedure written by vice president thomas jefferson, which allows a state legislature to send impeachment charges to congress:

according to section 603 of jefferson's manual, "there are various methods of setting an impeachment in motion": 1) by charges made on the floor by a member of the house; 2) by charges preferred by a memorial filed by a house member; 3) by charges contained in a resolution introduced by a house member; 4) by a message from the president; 5) by charges transmitted by a state legislature, or a grand jury; 6) by facts developed and reported by an investigating committee of the house.

even more intriguing, once transmitted to the house, impeachment charges supercede all other pending business:

a direct proposition to impeach is a question of high privilege in the house and at once supersedes business otherwise in order under the rules governing the order of business. it may not even be superseded by an election case, which is also a matter of high privilege. it does not lose its privilege from the fact that a similar proposition has been made at a previous time during that same session of congress, previous action of the house not affecting it.

as noted by method 1, the normal avenue for impeachment requires that articles be introduced first in the house of representatives. if passed, the charges are then taken up by the senate. until now, this was the way impeachment had always been conducted.

such charges have yet to be introduced to the house. however, in december 2005, articles for an inquiry into bush's misconduct, for consideration toward a move for impeachment, were introduced by rep. john conyers, who has since introduced motions to censure bush and cheney. in march senator russ feingold lobbed his own censure bombshell into the senate. facing perfunctory opposition from the republican majority in congress, these articles of course have failed to gain any traction in either house, even among democrats.

but the growing pressure to rebuke the president in any fashion, like the magma churning beneath the earth's crust, has to be channeled somewhere, somehow. the state initiatives represent fissures that the congressional republicans have little hope of plugging at once and for all, because the movement is made up of dozens of small municipal committees across the country working together, with the aid of the blogosphere, where it was born. similar resolutions from committees in new mexico, north carolina and wisconsin (home to senator feingold) continue to surge upward from the lowest strata of our political landscape.

of course, each initiative still must breach two major thresholds: passage in its own respective legislature and passage in the house of representatives. but in january this was dismissed a crackpot idea. in less than four months, eruptions around the country are already being felt. by summer, house republicans fighting for their continued relevance may be further burdened with the silly spectacle of being forced to play impeachment whack-a-mole.

so you might want to grab hold of something, mr. president — you may be in for a rocky ride this summer.

elegy

all good things, it is said, must come to an end.

it is now entirely possible that within your lifetime and mine a historian will one day record:

on friday, march 24, 2006, democracy in the united states passed into oblivion, escorted not with the blast of an explosive but only the hush of a smothered breath.

but what happened on friday, march 24, 2006, such that the founding principles which had carried the nation, at times lurching, but never completely collapsing, through almost 230 years of blood and sweat and toil, should so quietly vanish?

on friday, march 24, 2006, the united states department of justice delivered its answer to the house judiciary committee regarding its basis in law for conducting domestic surveillance on american citizens without judicial writ.

by way of background our historian will write, perhaps with a wistful sigh, that the united states:

was once based on a quaint system of checks and balances, now obsolete, designed to distribute the three primary functions of government among three interdependent and complementary bodies. the congress was created to write and enact the law. the judicial branch was created to interpret the law and ensure its conformance to the constitution. the executive branch was created to enforce the law. and no citizen of that nation was considered exempt from the law. james madison, destined to become the fourth president, writing in the federalist papers, in his argument for ratification of the fledging constitution, claimed that "there can be no liberty where the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or body of magistrates," or, "if the power of judging be not separated from the legislative and executive powers".

on friday, march 24, 2006, the forty-third president and chief executive, one george walker bush, speaking through the department of justice, the enforcement arm of the executive branch, in his answer to the house judiciary committee, assumed sole authority and expanded his "unitary" claim to power over the whole of government, limited only by his "special and unique competence" alone.

his words were like the seal on a tomb:

the constitution is the supreme law of the land, and any statutes inconsistent with the constitution must yield. the basic principle of our system of government means that no president, merely by assenting to a piece of legislation, can diminish the scope of the president's constitutional power. ... just as one president may not, through signing legislation, eliminate the executive branch's inherent constitutional powers, congress may not renounce inherent presidential authority. the constitution grants the president the inherent power to protect the nation from foreign attack, and congress may not impede the president's ability to perform his constitutional duty. ... in order to execute the laws and defend the constitution, the president must be able to interpret them. the interpretation of law, both statutory and constitutional, is therefore an indispensable and well established government function. ... the president's power to interpret the law is particularly important when he is engaged in a task — such as the direction of the operations of an armed conflict — that falls within the special and unique competence of the executive branch.

and thus, on friday, march 24, 2006, the president so declared himself not answerable to the other two bodies of government.

and thus, on friday, march 24, 2006, the president so usurped their powers and claimed them for his own.

and thus, on friday, march 24, 2006, democracy did die its quiet death.

however — it is yet possible to avert that future and stay our historian's hand.

because the events he will ultimately record shall depend upon the other two branches of government and their willingness to assert their respective inherent authorities to write and interpret the law.

will they claim the powers rightly granted them by the constitution?

or will they bow in craven bondage to their newborn king?

the future is now and history awaits us.