President Obama’s claim that he can refuse to deport 800,000 aliens here in the country illegally illustrates the unprecedented stretching of the Constitution and the rule of law. He is laying claim to presidential power that goes even beyond that claimed by the Bush administration, in which I served. There is a world of difference in refusing to enforce laws that violate the Constitution (Bush) and refusing to enforce laws because of disagreements over policy (Obama).Indeed. What would happen if President Obama just stopped prosecuting thieves?
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Imagine the precedent this claim would create. President Romney could lower tax rates simply by saying he will not use enforcement resources to prosecute anyone who refuses to pay capital-gains tax. He could repeal Obamacare simply by refusing to fine or prosecute anyone who violates it.
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Prosecutorial Discretion
John "Law is inviolate" Yoo:
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7 comments:
President Obama's failure to bring Yoo and Cheney to justice is the real crime.
/hippie will tell you
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John Yoo - the LEAST self-aware man in the world.
He doesn't even PRETEND to offer some kind of justification for the incoherence of his ideologically based policy preferences.
He just spews them out and leaves everyone standing, jaws agape, wondering "who WAS that tool hack"??
John Yoo, tool hack, and Professor of Law at U.C. Berkeley, mikey.
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Actually, it's a kind of interesting undertaking to try to build a framework where John Yoo's policy recommendations hold together in some kind of rational fashion.
About the best I can come up with is something like "The President has unlimited power and authority to use the resources of the United States of America as he deems necessary to kill people and destroy their shit. This Power and Authority is unlimited ONLY insofar as it involves death, destruction, incarceration or inflicted suffering or immiseration. Any other use of Presidential power, including but not limited to, humanitarian concerns, assistance to the needy and suffering, health care, education or economic assistance to any human or group of humans or any other animate object such as animals, wildlife and plant life, is NOT authorized, may not be taken unilaterally but will ALWAYS require the consent of Congress."
Still not close to rational, but at least it would accurately predict his response to any question...
Will give credit where credit is due on the committee report, but it took them long enough.
It's not just about enforcing financial regulations acts though: there's a pretty decent case for fraud among the companies and individuals that knew they were trading garbage.
In fact, the case was decent enough for State A.G.s to make it themselves, in spite of not having nearly the resources the D.O.J. could bring to bear.
If it wanted to.
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