The Washington Post has a controversial take on yesterday’s hearing in its coverage by Dana Milbank. The hearing raised the serious question of a pattern of allegedly unconstitutional actions by President Obama in either barring enforcement of federal law or directly violating those laws. However, the Washington Post only reported on the fact that impeachment was raised in the hearing in the discussion of the constitutional means left to Congress to address presidential abuse. Republicans object that the Post piece misses 99 percent of the hearing detailing the rise of an imperial presidency under Obama and four hours of discussion of the dangerous shift of power in the tripartite system. Impeachment or presidential abuse. It seems that two hearings occurred simultaneously. Both sides appear to be claiming the other is blinded by bias. The Milbank and Republican accounts appear a modern version of the parable of the elephant and the six blind men.
Now, I was the lead witness but I was testifying through the haze of a raging flu. So I went back and checked. Impeachment was mentioned in passing but it was quickly discounted. Indeed, I specifically testified that, as someone who testified at the Clinton impeachment, I did not view such a measure as warranted given the ambiguity of past decisions. Indeed, the references to impeachment were made in the context of the loss of meaningful options for Congress to respond to such encroachments when the President reserved the right to suspend portions of laws and fought access to the courts in challenging such decisions. Yet, the Post simply reported that the word impeachment came up (not surprisingly) in a discussion of the options given by Framers to Congress in dealing with unlawful presidential conduct.
During the hearing, not only did I discount impeachment as an option, but a Democratic member specifically asked the panel about the references to impeachment. No one could remember how it came up but it was clear that no one thought it was a substantial issue — or significant part of the hearing.
It is certainly true that House members have raised impeachment issues previously (just as some Democrats raised impeachment during the Bush Administration). However, it actually came up little in the hearing which was 99 percent focused on the separation of powers and the rise of an uber-presidency under Bush and Obama.
In a discussion of checks on the presidency, impeachment is one of the enumerated options given to Congress. Notably, past judicial opinions involving such separation of powers controversies have also discussed impeachment with the power of the purse as devices given to the Congress. In discussing impeachment with these other powers, courts were not advocating impeachment or suggesting that it was a viable solution in that given case.
I understand that Milbank tries to offer humorous takes on hearings and this is an editorial. I often enjoy his wit. However, it left a rather distortive impression of the hearing that tossed aside hours of substantive discussion of the real problem faced by Congress. Notably, Republicans at the hearing criticized both Bush and Obama for this trend, which I thought was noteworthy.
What was also curious was Milbank’s quote of my testimony. He stated “[t]he majority’s witnesses added to the accusations. George Washington University’s Jonathan Turley said Obama had ‘claimed the right of the king to essentially stand above the law.'” What is missing is that I was discussing the controversy involving James I and expressly said that I was not suggesting that Obama was acting as a King. Rather, I was discussing the so-called “royal prerogative” to stand above the law and how that general controversy motivated the Framers some 150 years later to include the “Take Care” clause. This was later referred to as a “dispensing power” in the context of presidential excesses. This was also part of my written testimony posted earlier. In fairness of Milbank, I was indeed arguing that President Obama had violated the Take Care Clause and was placing himself above the law in these instances. However, in the midst of the impeachment focus of the piece, it seemed to suggest that I was calling for impeachment.
But back to the main thrust of the hearing. The focus in the Post on impeachment (rather than alleged abuses by Obama) left the impression that Republicans are simply all about impeachment. Republicans often complain that it is the Post that is blinded by its own view of Republicans. It bring us to the ancient story of the six blind men and the elephant.
Once upon a time, there lived six blind men in a village. One day the villagers told them, “Hey, there is an elephant in the village today.” They had no idea what an elephant is. They decided, “Even though we would not be able to see it, let us go and feel it anyway.” All of them went where the elephant was. Everyone of them touched the elephant.
“Hey, the elephant is a pillar,” said the first man who touched his leg.
“Oh, no! it is like a rope,” said the second man who touched the tail.
“Oh, no! it is like a thick branch of a tree,” said the third man who touched the trunk of the elephant.
“It is like a big hand fan” said the fourth man who touched the ear of the elephant.
“It is like a huge wall,” said the fifth man who touched the belly of the elephant.
“It is like a solid pipe,” Said the sixth man who touched the tusk of the elephant.
They began to argue about the elephant and everyone of them insisted that he was right. It looked like they were getting agitated. A wise man was passing by and he saw this. He stopped and asked them, “What is the matter?” They said, “We cannot agree to what the elephant is like.” Each one of them told what he thought the elephant was like. The wise man calmly explained to them, “All of you are right. The reason every one of you is telling it differently because each one of you touched the different part of the elephant. So, actually the elephant has all those features what you all said.”
“Oh!” everyone said. There was no more fight. They felt happy that they were all right.
Obviously, the best way to appreciate the elephant is to see it as a whole.
You can watch for yourself and judge for yourself what the hearing was about in the Judiciary Committee.
I suggest that Prof. Turley search the term “Gell-Mann amnesia” to put the experience in its larger context.
In fairnes to Mr Milbank, he did not confine his remarks to just the particular hearing at which Professor Turley offered his own opinions. For example:
In other words, Mr Milbank provided some background context to support his view that Republicans have had few qualms, over some period of time, about raising the specter of impeachment against President Obama. So Professor Turley states a palpable untruth when he writes:
“However, the Washington Post [meaning Mr Milbank] only reported on the fact that impeachment was raised in the hearing in the discussion of the constitutional means left to Congress to address presidential abuse.”
Furthermore, when Professor Turley writes that “Republicans object that the Post piece misses 99 percent of the hearing detailing the rise of an imperial presidency under Obama,” he neglects to point out that Professor Arthur Schlesinger, Jr, wrote an influential book entitled The Imperial Presidency in 1973, forty years ago and long before anyone had heard anything about Barack Obama. Therefore, if the hearing devoted 99 percent of its time alleging a rise in the imperial presidency under President Obama, then the hearing obviously spent 99 percent of its time talking nonsense and bogus history. President Obama certainly has availed himself of imperial powers in the absence of any coherent or principled opposition by the Congress, as many of his predecessors — especially the two most recent ones — did, but unless the hearing included a recapitulation of this long history of bipartisan presidential abuse and only concentrated on President Obama, then it does indeed appear “obsessed,” as Mr Milbank illustrated with many examples.
As for the parable of the bilnd men and the elephant business, that seems just too silly and inane to bother deconstructing.
Off Topic:
The Fake Obamacare Site That Is Trying To Trick Californians
By Igor Volsky
December 3, 2013
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/12/03/3012281/california-republicans-trick-voters-fake-obamacare-site/
Excerpt:
Republican members of the California Assembly are distributing seemingly innocuous guides about the coverage options available under the Affordable Care Act that downplay the law’s benefits and misinform voters.
The flyers, which are being sent out at taxpayer expense, are also directing residents to “CoveringHealthCareCA.com,” a domain that closely resembles the official marketplace website for Covered California (CoveredCA.com) But rather than helping Californians enroll in coverage, this site appears to be the creation of the Republican party: it warns senior citizens about health care rationing and “provisions that have driven up insurance costs”. The site is designed to look like a non-partisan guide, but actually mirrors Republican talking points and criticisms of the law:
– IRS WILL SINGLE OUT CONSERVATIVES. “In light of the recent revelation of questionable processes at the IRS for approving the tax-exempt status of certain groups, several members of the State Legislature, led by Assemblyman Dan Logue, introduced Assembly Joint Resolution 23 to urge Congress and the President to remove any financial oversight responsibilities of the IRS with regard to the administration of the Affordable Care Act.”
– YOUNG PEOPLE ARE SCREWED. “Young invincibles or healthy adults visit the doctor very seldom and are money makers for insurers and medical groups that contract to provide them services. As low-cost additions to insurance pools, young adults would help dilute the expense of covering older, sicker people. Depending on how Congress requires insurers to price their policies, this group could even wind up paying disproportionately hefty premiums — effectively subsidizing coverage for the less healthy.”…
A disclaimer on the site — which is situated next to a link to the Assembly Republican Caucus — notes that “The California State Assembly does not warrant or make any representations as to the quality, content, accuracy, or completeness of the information, text, graphics, links and other items contained on this server or any other server.” Indeed.
As I think some others have noted above, the title of this blog posting misleadingly attributes the opinion of one columnist, Dana Milbank, to the Washington Post, which has an editorial board that publishes the newspaper’s own views in a prominent and different space. Take Mr Milbank to task for his personal opinion, by all means, but do not assume that these expressed opinions reflect the editorial position of the newspaper. One would think that at this point in his life and career, Professor Turley would know and appreciate this elementary distinction.
“I hate Progressives.” — Felix 1, December 5, 2013 at 4:22 pm
I can’t speak for self-styled “progressives” — a chickenshit eupemism for “liberal” that former liberals won’t use because the mean old fascist Republicans consider it a useful slanderous epithet — but as a lifelong working-class type, I — as FDR famously said about the rabid Repbulicans of his day — welcome your hatred. I always think it a good idea to know where the deep end of the nation’s intellectual and moral cesspool lies.
Rall was not banned, As you quoted the post please look at his own words “When I went to log on, I received the above message. I clicked the acknowledgement.
Which marks the end of my experiment posting to Daily Kos.”
I might consider altering the way I draw a political figure for a paying client. A very high-paying client. Someone who employed me full-time.I’m sure not going to alter my drawing style for $0.00 money.
Obviously, this is no biggie. Nothing gained, nothing lost” This was posted the next day after the notice. Had he been banned he would not have been able to post the next day. He chose to remove himself. It appears that the objection was purely the depiction of President Obama. Obviously Rall understands this the article ended: (Editor’s note: Shortly after this story’s publication, Rall said he would start drawing President Obama differently to avoid any potential for confusion in the future.)” http://progressive.org/daily-kos-bans-cartoonist-ted-rall-for-imaginary-racism
I just thght he was a bad artist in his depiction however I can see how some might see it as racist
Test, it could be the snow here?
test
Posts hung
Oops, I give WordPress a positive review & what’s it do, eats my post. LOL
MikeS.
Professor Turley pointed out the 3 sided power structure of our original govt & the danger/instability being created by the growing 4th branch of govt, the entrenched bureaucracy.
As one counter weight to these problems I wish somehow “We the People” could come together & put to greater use this new ability of the public to rapidly mass communicate in a “Crowd Sourcing” manner.
No one would be expected to agree on everything, but surely we could identify our common top priorities in the US/World & a list of non-violent ways we could pressure leadership/corporations into responding to mass public’s grievances.
It’s already happening on a small scale in many areas.
I would have thought just as a matter extreme importance Universities & many professionals would have put something together by now.
One of the key issues I keep running into is when people start organizing they are doing so on Facebook, Myspace, Micosoft,Google, Apple & other outlets I refuse to use as IT professionals remind me all the time that those sites are Unsafe to use so I don’t.
I try to keep up with 2 legal blogs, JT’s & Livinglies, & I notice they both use WordPress. I’m hoping it’s because WordPress is more secure?
“If you had alleged when the Snowden revelations began that the NSA was watching 5 billion cell phones move around, people would have accused you of being crazy.” -Juan Cole
Trashing the Law against warrantless GPS tracking: NSA nabs 5 Billion Phone location Records a Day
By Juan Cole | Dec. 5, 2013
http://www.juancole.com/2013/12/trashing-warrantless-collecting.html
Excerpt:
If you had alleged when the Snowden revelations began that the NSA was watching 5 billion cell phones move around, people would have accused you of being crazy. One after another, Snowden’s leaks have shown a situation that is a trillion times worse than the one portrayed by officials. Snowden said that the NSA had tapped into the servers of Google, Yahoo and others and could see us writing an email in real time. Keith Alexander and James Clapper, both of them notorious liars and very likely personally corrupt, said Snowden didn’t understand how the system worked. Google and Microsoft and the others were puzzled because, they said, they hadn’t given the government access to their servers in generally, only to individual accounts suspected of being national security threats. But then it turned out that the NSA had exploited weaknesses in the routing between servers to insert themselves into the data flow. They had it all. Then it turned out that the government is monitoring everyone’s bank accounts and credit card transactions.
Then it turned out that they didn’t just have metadata. They had attached sniffers to trans-Atlantic fiber optic cables carrying phone and email data where they came up out of the ocean in the UK. They and the British GCHQ captured all of it– the substance of emails and not just their addresses, and the substance of telephone calls. Since US traffic bounces around the world through those cables, they were inevitably wiretapping Americans without an warrant.
Now it transpires that the NSA wants to know where everyone is all the time. Obviously they can’t actually watch all those people, but they can mine the data and zero in on any individual they want to. Those not using GPS can’t be pinpointed with exactitude, but their location can be triangulated from the towers. I presume the NSA is capturing GPS data where that feature is working, so those people they can track with precision.
Where they are (“inadvertently”) capturing and storing location data on innocent Americans without a warrant, the NSA is violating (again) the Fourth Amendment, and they are in violation of the recent Federal appeals court ruling.
Felix,
It appears you see the propaganda scams from both very small groups of Dem/Repub leadership.
I just attempt to ignore their narratives & set my own.
I’d much rather read/view what posters here & other like websites are saying.
OS says he’s done as I & has canceled his cable.
Now look at what’s happening to the old dinosaur media, their viewership is down to almost nothing.
I can get about as big as audience talking real loud at the grocery store.
Look what’s happened to CNN, it’s turning itself into the Sham Wow Channel. 🙂
“Times are a Changing”
You guys see a theme here yet with the progressives? They use propaganda and smear tactics to dismiss critics.
Everyone who calls out the Democratic leadership is…
1. Racist
or
2. Crazy
or
3. hates poor people
Bill Moyers Journal, 13 July 2007; Moyers interviews John Nichols and Bruce Fein about impeaching W & Cheney. Fein was so gung-ho about impeaching both of them at the same time he was talking so fast he was spluttering. Fein spoke of W presuming to act like a monarch. Pay attention to John Nichols’ story about a metaphorical cherry wood box into which presidential powers are put in and taken out.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07132007/watch.html
About two weeks earlier in the 2007 timeline, Obama said he didn’t support impeachment for W. All the other “frontrunner candidates” had already said the same, which was why I didn’t support them, nor Obama when this info came to light.
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-06-28-obama-impeachment_N.htm
Obama is misbehaving, and it’s because he retained so many of Dumbya and Dickie’s appointed and hired personnel in the war & military departments and in DoJ (and the newest insult to our integrity since 2000: mercenaries via the corporations who pay their salaries). No one is going after the warmongers and (mostly) Repubs & too many Dems still support the illegal and unconstitutional wars Dumbya and Dickie started.
Repubs never complained when Dumbya claimed, talked, and acted like he had monarchical powers. Why now? Racism is one of the likely reasons Repukes take such umbrage when Obama acts like Dumbya and/or Dickie.
To Repuke “Legislators”: Stop acting like racists and misogynists!!! That makes me have to defend Obama for doing the SAME exact things Dumbya and Dickie did. If you still want to go through with impeachment, then you’ll have to bring Dumbya and Dickie back from retirement and put them on trial for war crimes (and perhaps impeachment proceedings after-the-fact).
I have the SAME policy issues about Obama that I had about Dumbya and Dickie. Yes, perhaps Obama should be impeached (a few SCOTUS justices should never have been given their positions either and should be impeached for conflict of interest, esp. those who worked for corporations whose suits have gone through with favorable decisions). But if you Cretinous Congress Critters impeach Obama, then you MUST bring back Dumbya and Dickie for first having claimed the monarchical and dictatorial powers and passing them on to Obama, and try them for war crimes and perjury and starting a war based on lies for oil. If you convict them, then you can claim a justification for trying to impeach Obama… otherwise, STFU.
How ’bout this? FIRST Repeal In Full (no paragraph or language fixes here or there, but the whole bills): AUMFs, Patriot Acts, MCA ’06, FISA fiasco ’08, MCA ’09, and override Dumbya’s executive order that violated the separation of church and state and stop funding and disband the White House’s ‘office of faith-based initiatives,’ but FIRST give We The People our rights and habeas corpus back!!!!! That should all have been done no later than 1 Feb 2008. I’m still waiting for a Change back to having a fully functioning constitution.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’ll post the links to the YouTube videos of Jonathan Turley talking to Keith Olbermann about the rights that were taken away from us and have not been returned….
“Obama is misbehaving, and it’s because he retained so many of Dumbya and Dickie’s appointed and hired personnel in the war & military departments and in DoJ (and the newest insult to our integrity since 2000: mercenaries via the corporations who pay their salaries).”
NonnyO,
I agree, but have you ever considered that he might not have had a choice in the matter?
http://rall.com/2013/11/29/i-have-been-censored-by-daily-kos
Daily Kos is a major liberal/Democratic Party blog. About a year ago, the blog began running cartoons. To their credit, they paid a modest fee for them. Many alternative political cartoonists were invited; I was not.
At the time, the owner of the blog mentioned as an aside that I would be welcome, like anyone else, to post to Daily Kos. A few weeks ago, I decided to take him up on that.
Why did I post there for free? To access readers, many of whom would enjoy my work if they saw it. It was an experiment.
The experiment ended yesterday. When I went to log on, I received the above message. I clicked the acknowledgement.
Which marks the end of my experiment posting to Daily Kos. I might consider altering the way I draw a political figure for a paying client. A very high-paying client. Someone who employed me full-time.
I’m sure not going to alter my drawing style for $0.00 money.
Obviously, this is no biggie. Nothing gained, nothing lost. Given the reflexive pro-Obama/pro-DNC politics of the blog and its owner, it was probably inevitable that they’d do this. It was crafty of them to choose the Thanksgiving holiday weekend to ban me. Fewer people will be around to notice or care.
This act of censorship is notable for several reasons, however:
1. This “liberal” blog has slammed me with the most severe act of censorship of my career. Since I began syndication in 1991, I have had individual cartoons killed. I have been fired, sometimes unjustly (like in 2004, when Men’s Health discontinued my apolitical cartoons about sex and relationships because I opposed Bush and his wars in my political work, which they did not run). I have been kept out of publications where my work obviously belonged.
But this tops them all.
They weren’t paying for my work. To the contrary, I drove traffic to them. My cartoons were routinely among their list of High Impact Posts that elicit a lot of discussion. If you read them, you’ll see that a cadre of militant Obama defenders was determined to drive me away, and they succeeded.
This is what the Democratic Party has come to: so unable to face criticism, whether from left or right, that they stifle opposing voices.
2. Despite the politics of the pro-Obama forces, there remain many liberals and progressives who remain Democrats. I encountered hundreds of them on Daily Kos. They enjoy(ed) my work. I will miss interacting with them. Fortunately, the Internet allows them to find my work in many other places, including here.
3. The grounds for censoring my cartoons from the site — my drawing style — are beneath contempt. Anyone familiar with me and my work knows I’m not racist. My criticisms of the president are unrelated to his race, and to say otherwise in the absence of evidence is disgusting. Here’s the cartoon in question. It should be noted that my editors at a variety of American newspapers, magazines and websites, almost all of whom are left of center politically, some of whom are black and many of whom voted for Obama, have never expressed the slightest concern about the way I draw the president.
I hate Progressives. Rall is correct about this.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2013/12/03/liberal-cartoonist-if-hillary-nominee-2016-sexism-will-be-new-racism
As NewsBusters reported Sunday, liberal cartoonist Ted Rall was recently banned from the progressive website Daily Kos for publishing a comic strip with Barack Obama in it that was deemed to be racist.
On Monday, Rall spoke with Newsmax TV’s Steve Malzberg about the incident, and warned that if Hillary Clinton gets the Democratic nomination for president in 2016, “sexism will be the new racism” (video follows with transcript and commentary):
“They have a section where anybody can post, and I started about I guess it was about two months ago, and from day one, everything I posted that was critical of the President I got this huge amount of hatred,” Rall said.
“They had this system where you can vote that you like or dislike something, and it gets hidden or censored if you don’t like it. Well, most of the people there are Democrats,” he continued. “So anybody who criticizes Democrats or Obama is just banished. They’re like a Soviet un-person, you know, like in ‘1984.’ They’re just gone.”
“If you look at the vast majority of people who came down on me, these are white Democrats, white guy Democrats who are just using this as an excuse,” Rall added. “Get ready, because in 2016, if Hillary is the nominee, it’s just going to be sexism will be the new racism…It’s what you use when you don’t have anything.”
“I hate Progressives. Rall is correct about this.”
Felix,
your hatred has as much depth as some NY Jet fanatic who thinks his team will win the super Bowl. What makes you think that this is a progressive blog?
Don’t you bother to read before you write?
**Mike Spindell 1, December 5, 2013 at 11:17 am **
MikeS,
Politically it strongly appears to me you & I have followed much of the same logic when attempt to choose/vote for US leadership.
I recall one of Reagan’s main stump speeches, much of his rhetoric sells great among the gen pop yet when he 1st gets into office, like Obama, Reagan attacked the people/workers, higher taxes/Unions, My property Rights, and then he bails out the Wallst banks/insurance when he should have sent them into bankruptcy court for the flushing.
As I’ve mentioned before one of Reagan’s key men, Paul C Roberts, has since seemed to have repented along with Paul Volcker. I’ll accept their conversion to my positions as long as they hold mostly true in their words/deeds.
Some we’ve seen argue Professor Turley’s appearance at this latest hearing was a waste of time or even harmful, I strongly disagree.
Professor Turley’s continued public comments are very helpful to people like me & the nation because of his command of language, history & the objective of the words of the US Constitution.
No matter how I wish I had his skills I don’t have them & I’m grateful to have his public representation of my/the nations positions/objectives.
Turley is not alone in this task, I follow many other professionals that are just as actively using their unique talents of their chosen fields of interest pressing all of our common interest/concerns in public/private.
JT comes off far better in public then some like myself or Alex Jones.
I know some in public are unaware of known facts of just how evil many of these would be called Elites actually are to the world.
I won’t speak to the gen pop, but I know there is a growing group like myself that have enough knowledge of tyrannical govts like Hitlers Nazis that we will for the rest of our lives be pushing to bring those would elitist in front of Nuremberg type courts to have the charges against them aired in public.
I see JT’s blog has a story today of a one off case of an accused wife of poisoning he husband. Currently what’s happen in that case is what most of use would expect to happen, she’s arrested/charge & waiting trial.
Yet we know without a doubt GW Nazi Bush/Chaney, John Yoo,etc.., many major US banks/insurance/corporations have bloody hands of mass poisoning/murder, etc., and yet none are in jail, “Yet”, facing those charges.
IE: GMOs, Depleted Uranium in Munitions, Price Anderson Act/90% leaking Nuke Plants, Torture, Spying, Treasonous Trade Agreements, TPP), just to name a very easy issues the masses know of.
Side issues:
As I’ve read most of McCain’s power come from his ties to Navy Intel, one of the largest type orgs in the world. ( I really think they should be searching for a better leader.)
**Romney though was a stupidly spoiled rich kid whose main experience with need was that he had to live off of his stock portfolio going to college. When he graduated Daddy gave him $10 million to go into business and this superficially lame egoist thought he was a self-made man and that almost half of us were burdens on society. **
Romney, what a total American hating piece of trash. Democracy Now & others exposed the details that much of his startup capital was Blood Money from Reagan/Bush henchmen in South/Central America.
It’s trash like Romney type that are the real burdens to society.
Oky1,
Yes we two do share similar perspectives on the world in many of the essentials.
I’ve read some stuff on this Simon Black’s website before. I’m not sure I completely trust him, but on the issue below I am following it & he’s just writing what anyone watching has been seeing happen.
This below is one way in which the current Demo/Repub parties are losing massive amounts of power they once held.
Change in world leadership has already shifted by large percentage points with more soon on the way.
Ron Paul has been warning us for decades of this problem. Maybe his solutions are not the correct ones yet we are forced to admit there are problems & currency/banking/Insurance are issues that must be addressed.
http://www.sovereignman.com/finance/yet-another-massive-nail-in-the-dollars-coffin-13241/
MikeS,
I seen awhile back Tax free foundations now employ over 10% of the US population.
I think you wrote on the subject of those foundations/charities a few months back.
I don’t believe there are any constitutional grounds for granting special, (Tax), privilege to those foundations of the dead/alive would be elitist at the expense of the rest of us.
Regardless currently those foundations are a real massive threat to “We the People’s” govt as those foundation are very active in political/economic/military/energy/currency matters.