Bob

"Bush administration officials unveiled a bold new assertion of executive authority yesterday in the dispute over the firing of nine U.S. attorneys, saying that the Justice Department will never be allowed to pursue contempt charges initiated by Congress against White House officials once the president has invoked executive privilege...."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?hpid=topnews

So what do you think of the new executive privileges? Sounds a bit dodgy to me...

effi

Everything he does or says sounds dodgy to me. I saw on Lou Dobbs last nite where America passed a law 5 years ago saying that all food imported into the USA must have the country of origin marked on it. This law has never been implemented. The lobbyists have been blocking it, mainly the meat industry giants. They are right now trying to get this law overturned. WTF, so all that shit from China is just going to sail on into this country. Boycott China I say. I don't know why people in this country are not rioting in the streets, oh, but wait, none of them watch the news or read a newspaper. If they do they say "it won't happen to me". War, what war, are we at war then?
Anyone been on ebay recently and seen all the shite from China, they are flooding the site with crap, selling gold jewellry for 99c and having a mailing price of $150????? Apparently the woman in charge of ebay thought it would be a good idea to let them in, go figure. I could go on and on, don't get me started.

penguinsix

It's a bit technical. Congress for decades was not subject to most of the laws they passed, because the separatation of power prevented those agencies (run by the executive) from investigating and charing those persons employed by the legislative branch. For example OSHA (workplace safety and health rules) didn't apply to the Congress, nor technically did the minimum wage, or civil rights laws. Congress is now covered by those rules, but has their own enforcement branch for those items if I remember properly.

And there have been other examples--where a commission would be set up by the Executive Branch but the legislation called for X number of people appointed by the President, X number by the House and X by the Senate. This failed because it got Congress into the Executive branch's powers.

So now we have a Congressional contempt charge (not an executive or a judicial contempt, but something out of the Congress). That is is being questionned, rightly so, on constitutional grounds (the law says Congress can forward to a US attorney their contempt charges, but a challenge was issued well over 30 years ago and would probably be done by every President as well).

While it certainly fans the fires politically, it is an interesting legal and constitutional point that needs to be resolved.

Manc

how we gonna do that?
they make everything..........
they own all our debt..........

yes lets boycott China. they call in the debt, and we're all left working for 30 cents per hour.

great idea and well thought through.

Incidentally, they just executed the head of their FDA........so it's not like they're just giving this food lark a free pass...... executed him FFS.

fatbrit

All hail...

Manc

got your little red book handy.

fatbrit

Always prepared.

effi

They only executed him to try to save face. Why would we buy food from them anyway, they barely have food to feed their own people? They are a
3rd world country FFS. I will be checking out labels on everything from now on. Hopefully by the time they rule the world I will be 6ft under.
Oh and try to get a sense of humour eh, I thought it was only the americans who had none, you are running a close second though.

Manc

oooh such ignorance.

NC Penguin

Don't underestimate the Latino population in the US (legal and illegal).

surly

Using the would dodgy to describe the Bush administration is a gross understatement. Crooks, liars and criminals might be more appropriate desciption.
The whole bunch of them should be in Gitmo. IMHO