Dick Cheney dropped an odd proclamation last week. It appears that he doesn’t believe he’s part of the Executive Branch, and thus is not subject to their rules regarding disclosure. He’s playing with fire, because if he’s outside the Executive Branch, it’s unclear whose rules he falls under. Cheney is hoping that means he’s not [...]

White House spokesperson Dana Perino tries to explain Dick Cheney’s bizarre assertion that he’s not part of the Executive Branch:

Starting yesterday, the Washington Post began running a four-part series on the Vice-Presidency of Dick Cheney, during which we have seen the role of the Vice-President increase in behind-the-scenes power to an extent never before seen in American history. The first two articles have focused on Cheney’s role in the War in Iraq and the [...]

Vice-President Cheney’s office is asserting that the Vice-President is not part of the Executive Branch: For four years, Vice President Dick Cheney has resisted routine oversight of his office’s handling of classified information, and when the National Archives unit that monitors classification in the executive branch objected, the vice president’s office suggested abolishing the oversight [...]

Much has been written about the Bush Administration’s use of so-called Presidential “signing statements”, which are typically comments appended by the White House to Bills submitted by Congress which purport to constitute the Executive Branch’s understand of how it will comply with the law that Congress has just passed.  From a Constitutional perspective, these “signing [...]

The United States Senate joined the House today and passed an Iraq War spending bill that includes a timetable for withdrawal of American troops: The Senate today gave final approval to a $124 billion war spending bill that requires troop withdrawal from Iraq to begin by Oct. 1, with a goal of ending U.S. combat [...]

Lew Rockwell has an interesting essay in the American Conservative: Maybe the authors of the Federalist Papers were liars. Maybe they were just engaged in political propaganda in order to shove through the Constitution. In secret, perhaps, they were plotting a Leviathan state with a president who can do all that the Bush administration claims [...]

Well, “expand” is probably not a very good term, I think it’s more likely he’s asking for Congress to approve the stuff he’s already doing… But it’s one more incremental inch towards widespread government monitoring of you and I. Administration Seeks to Expand Surveillance Law The Bush administration yesterday asked Congress to make more non-citizens [...]

I don’t usually read The Nation, but John Nicholas has a post up over there today talking about a group of conservatives who have finally stopped drinking the Bush Administration Kool-Aid: Just imagine if one of the leading candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination endorsed this radical agenda: • End the use of military commissions [...]

Commenter uhm pointed out this story: Executive power hot topic at New Hampshire forums Former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani yesterday defended President Bush’s extensive use of national security tools such as the USA Patriot Act as no worse than other countries, but Sen. Barack Obama said he would use executive orders to roll [...]

In today’s Washington Post, Frederich Schwarz and Aziz Huq point out why the Bush Administration’s assertion of executive power in the context of the War on Terror are fundamentally different from what the nation has seen in the past: Today, the argument for unchecked presidential power is starkly different from earlier invocations. While previous administrations [...]

Following on the heals of the House of Representatives, the Senate has approved, by a narrow margin, an Iraq War spending bill that sets a deadline of roughly one year from today by which American forces must be out of Iraq: WASHINGTON — The Democratic-controlled Senate ignored a veto threat and voted Thursday for a [...]

Earlier this month, I wrote about statements by Nebraska Republican Senator Chuck Hagel that seemed to suggest that he thought President could be impeached because of his Iraq policy. Yesterday, he appeared on ABC’s This Week and made the speculation even more explicit: WASHINGTON — Some lawmakers who complain that President Bush is flouting Congress [...]

According to The Politico, both Republicans and Democrats see advantage to be gained the coming confrontation over the U.S. Attorney firings: The White House and the Democrats who run Congress both see political advantage in the ongoing fight for public testimony by presidential advisers about the controversial firing of eight U.S. attorneys. And both have [...]

The House Judiciary Committee issued subpoenas today for five top aides to President Bush in connection with the developing investigation into the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys: A House panel today authorized the issuance of subpoenas for top White House and Justice Department aides as it investigates the firing of eight U.S. attorneys last year. [...]

Congressman John Shadegg, who I wrote about here and here during last year’s race to replace Dick Armey as House Majority Leacder, has proposed an interesting new bill called the Enumerated Powers Act: Yesterday, Congressman John Shadegg reintroduced the Enumerated Powers Act, a bill that highlights the importance of the Tenth Amendment and forces a [...]

There is much discussion in the blogosphere about Senator Chuck Hagel’s interview in Esquire where he speculates about the possibility of President Bush’s impeachment: “The president says, ‘I don’t care.’ He’s not accountable anymore,” Hagel says, measuring his words by the syllable and his syllables almost by the letter. “He’s not accountable anymore, which isn’t [...]

In the comments to Doug’s last post, and in the comments on Reddit, people seem shocked that Doug would advocate a military coup to overthrow Chavez. They’re shocked, of course, because a site called the Liberty Papers would suggest that a military coup to overthrow a quasi-democratically elected president. The key, of course, is that [...]

Well now, take a quick look at this bill, and see if you can tell me what’s wrong with it: HR 563 IH 110th CONGRESS 1st Session + H. R. 563 To vacate further proceedings in the prosecution of certain named persons. IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES January 18, 2007 Mr. HUNTER (for himself, Mr. [...]

If the 2008 presidential campaign wasn’t about electing the first woman, African American, Hispanic, or Mormon president but rather about ideas, candidates like Ron Paul might have a fighting chance to be the next president. For the purposes of this post, I’ll pretend that this race is about ideas. Ron Paul seems to be a [...]