Presidential Power

Does The President Really Matter?

Posted 04.26.2012

Read More: Video, Freakonomics, Freakonomics Video Series, Freaknomics Huffington Post, Mitt Romney, Health Care Reform, Business News, Presidential Power, Barack Obama, Business News

As Mitt Romney and President Obama begin the battle in earnest for the White House, they're touting their ability to do everything from fix the econom...

Read Whole Story

The GOP and Presidential Power

Robert J. Spitzer | Posted 03.04.2012

Read More: Calvin Coolidge, Ronald Reagan, Signing Statements, Jon Huntsman, Ron Paul, State Secrets, President Obama, Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney, James Madison, Presidential Power, Robert A. Taft, Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, Conservatives, Counterterrorism, William H. Taft, Charlie Savage, War Powers Resolution, Politics News
Robert J. Spitzer

As we begin the countdown to the November elections, let's appreciate how much American governance has become a debate over presidential power -- from health care, to the economy, to foreign policy.

Read Post

Unleashing "Senator" Biden: What Happened to Judicial Appointments, the War Powers Resolution?

Peter M. Shane | Posted 07.31.2011

Read More: Vice President, Libya, Judicial Nominations, Presidential Power, Obama, Joe Biden, Rule of Law, Biden, War Powers Resolution, Politics News
Peter M. Shane

The Administration has nominated candidates for only 10 of 16 vacancies on the U.S. Courts of Appeals, and 38 candidates for 72 vacancies in the District Courts. Why not give the Vice President a bigger role?

Read Post

Obama, War Powers, and Yoo

Robert J. Spitzer | Posted 05.28.2011

Read More: Supreme Court, Libya, George W. Bush, Living Constitution, War, War Powers Act, Originalism, Article II, Presidential Power, John Yoo, Constitution, Barack Obama, War Powers, Obama Libya, Politics News
Robert J. Spitzer

Yoo's chief problem as a constitutional commentator is that his underlying constitutional analysis of presidential power is literally the opposite of what the Founders intended and wrote.

Read Post

Libyan Invasion as Further Expansion of Obama's Executive Power

Rob Kall | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Congressional War Authorization, Libya, Congress, Presidential Power, Libya No Fly Zone, Executive Privilege, Politics News
Rob Kall

The Obama White house says the adventure in Libya is not a war. Well over 100 cruise missiles have been shot into Libya. We've established a no-fly zone -- an act of war.

Read Post

Power to the Congress

Craig Barnes | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Leadership, Diane Feinstein, Plutocracy, President Obama, Presidential Power, Harry Reid, Congress, Democrats, Politics News
Craig Barnes

The president has met with Republicans and put together a tax deal that was, he said, the best he could get from them. Despite the outraged cries of liberal democrats, this may actually be a very good thing.

Read Post

The Power of the President

Mike Lux | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: 2010 Obama Administration, Center for Barack Obama, Presidential Power, 2011 Obama Administration, Executive Power, Barack Obama, Politics News
Mike Lux

Progressives need to spend less time commiserating over all the good things that Congress should do but won't, and more time thinking about the things Obama could do if he aggressively seized the reins of government.

Read Post

Presidential Powers: Prudence or Perversion? Playing Jeopardy

Coleen Rowley | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Presidential Powers, John-Yoo-Protest, Bush Torture, John Yoo, Presidential Power, Robert Delahunty, Torture Memos, Torture, Bush Torture Memos, John Yoo Memo, John Yoo Torture, Politics News
Coleen Rowley

If we're playing Jeopardy, and we are, this would be the answer: It's the real no-brainer answer to the legal and ethical questions posed by the ...

Read Post

"Bomb Power," or How the Atomic Bomb Ended a War, Increased Presidential Power and Eroded the Constitution

Tom Alderman | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Garry Wills, Iran-Contra, Ronald Reagan, Cia, Secret Security State, Stephen Hoye, Iraq, The Manhattan Project, Dick Cheney, Covert Actions, Iran, Guatemala, Gulf of Tonkin, Cuban Missle Crisis, Fidel Castro, Richard Nixon, Vietnam, Korea, Diem, President Kennedy, Atomic Bomb, Bomb Power, The Justice Dept., Patrice Lumumba, Foundind Fathers, Signing Statements, The Atomic Energy Commission, Congress, Edwin Meese, Democracy, The Shah of Iran, David Addington, Iraq War, Nuclear Weapons, Ike, Cambodia, Presidential Power, President Eisenhower, Jimmy Carter, Lyndon Johnson, Nixon, World War II, Unitary Executive, Accountability, Pulitzer Prize Winning Author, Books News
Tom Alderman

While the bomb ended World War II, it also started a chain reaction that exploded into America's permanent secret security state -- with emphasis on the word 'permanent.'

Read Post

Health Care Reform Testing Obama's Power Of Persuasion

The New York Times | Sheryl Gay Stolberg | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Health Care Bill, Obama Power, Barack Obama, Health Care Reform, Obama Administration Health Care, Presidential Power, Obama Health Care, Health Care, Health Care Summit, Politics News

Tempers were fraying in the White House Cabinet Room as night turned into morning on Jan. 15. President Obama had been cloistered nearly all day with ...

Read Whole Story

Can the President Override Any Law He Wants?

Ira Glasser | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: John-Yoo-Memo, John Yoo, Presidential Power, John Yoo Torture, President Constitution, Politics News
Ira Glasser

Can the President of the United States override any domestic law as well as any international law as a consequence of his war powers under the Constitution?

Read Post

'Shadow Elite': War And The Deadly Privatization Of Public Power

Lawrence B. Wilkerson | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Privitization of Power, Janine Wedel, Al Qaida, Department of Defense, Privatization of War, Arianna's Reading, War, Shadow Elite, Afghanistan, Iraq, Books, Presidential Power, Terrorism, Usaid, Books News
Lawrence B. Wilkerson

Killing people for state purposes should be the ultimate public power in a democratic federal republic such as ours. Yet war's privatization proceeds at an alarming pace.

Read Post

Presidential Power Grows: Will You Love Every Future President?

David Swanson | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Patriot Act, Presidential Power, Presidential Signing Statements, Obama Presidential Power, Politics News
David Swanson

Some of the powers that Bush and Cheney stole from Congress, the courts, and the states are being abused less severely under Obama; others, more so; but far more crucially, all are being maintained.

Read Post

A 'Must Read' for the Book Czar

William Fisher | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan, U.S. Constitution, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Presidential Power, Founding Fathers, James Madison, George H.W. Bush, Politics News
William Fisher

Ambitious assertions of presidential power are the logical outcome of a decades-long trend that started with Reagan and culminated under the "unitary executive" doctrine embraced by the George W. Bush administration.

Read Post

The Rise of American Czarism

David Sirota | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Vice Presidential Powers, Presidential Power, American Czarism, Presidents, Politics News
David Sirota

Presidents almost always usurp power. And while Obama will hopefully usurp it less, the move towards American Czarism will no doubt continue to imperil our democracy.

Read Post

Conservative Lawyers Defend Holder (and the Unitary Executive)

Doug Kendall | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Eric Holder Attorney General, Presidential Power, John Yoo, Constitution, Unitary Executive, Surveillance. Torture, Barack Obama, Rule of Law, Dick Cheney, Politics News
Doug Kendall

The letter in defense of Eric Holder is a classic articulation of the idea that the President is a unitary executive. It also happens to be essentially right.

Read Post

As Congress Lay Dying

David Swanson | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Congressional Powers, Russ Feingold, Congress, Presidential Powers, Jerrold Nadler, Obama Transition, Presidential Power, Barack Obama, Politics News
David Swanson

The only possible path to truly transformative democratic change lies in re-empowering and reforming Congress.

Read Post

One Interview, Two Gaffes

Mark Kleiman | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Lying, John McCain, Presidential Power, Media, Clinton, Telcom Immunity, Kenner, Media News
Mark Kleiman

John McCain gave an interview to Newsweek and flip flopped twice, which may be a single-interview record.

Read Post