Nothing But Contempt For Those Who Trample The Constitution

Yesterday was truly a historic day. The United States House of Representatives stood up to those in the Bush administration who believe they are not subject to the Congressional oversight that is mandated by our nation's Constitution.

A Congress that once was asleep at the wheel has finally woken up to hold the Bush administration accountable for their abuse of power and disrespect for the rule of law.

Yesterday, I joined my colleagues in passing a resolution finding former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and current White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with subpoenas duly issued by the Committee on the Judiciary.

In this era of unprecedented expansion of presidential power, the last thing we in Congress should do is abdicate our responsibility to act as a check and balance to a president determined to assert his dominance over the Legislature, a co-equal branch of government elected by the American people.

When witnesses under subpoena refuse even to appear before a congressional committee and when executive privilege is asserted despite compelling legal arguments to the contrary, Congress must act to preserve its constitutional powers.

Yesterday's New York Times Editorial board stated the case very clearly when they wrote, "If Congress fails to enforce its own subpoenas, it would effectively be ceding its subpoena power. It would also be giving its tacit consent to the dangerous idea of an imperial president -- above the law and beyond the reach of checks and balances. The founders did not want that when they wrote the Constitution, and the voters who elected this Congress do not want it today."

For far too long, certain high-level staff at the White House have blatantly ignored the law and refused to comply with the Judiciary Committee subpoenas. These same individuals have been given ample opportunity in which to cooperate with this legally binding process. And, frankly, the justifications for their refusal to testify before Congress are few and fleeting.

Formal congressional action against individuals who turn their back on the law and the will of the American people is not only appropriate, but required of us for the sake of future generations.

When historians write the chapters on the Bush administration years from now, they will retell some of the most egregious and unmatched abuses of power our nation has ever witnessed. The president has made it clear that he believes that ultimate power lies entirely in the White House with no opportunity for accountability.

However, the American people don't accept the president's interpretation of the laws of our land.

They understand the genius of having a separate and equal branch of government that represents the people and holds the Executive branch accountable.

They understand that the Constitution of the United States of America -- the most revered document ever conceived by our nation -- should never be trampled upon.

And for those that do trample on it, by every right we are to hold them in contempt.

Comments

[Maya11]

Their wake-up call was November 2006.They finally stopped hitting the snooze button.

[TXfemmom]

Whereas Congress has finally held some of the Bush thugs in contempt, I also hold Congress in contempt.

They should have done this from the day they were sworn in, and only now, when confronted with the reality that they stand for election and must answer to the electorate which gave them a mandate, which they have squandered, do they act.

There are twenty different situations in which Congress should have acted forcefully and boldly, and we may well have been saved some of the horror of this administration. Pelosi and Reid must go, they provided inept, indecisive, and weak leadership and nothing better can be expected of them, and the next leadership should know that they will be expected and demanded to produce results. Once a new President and a new Congress is installed, this administration, and the criminals within it must be investigated, indicted, and convicted and spend a good, long time in prison, so others will not contemplate unsurping and ignoring the Constitution, the freedoms within, and the responsibilities granted and demanded by it.

[research]

Agreed:

Again this looks like SHOW. The BushCo courts will reject the house claims, while time's a wasting. Will BushCo succeed this time in starting their war with Iran?

Congress: There is ONE and ONLY ONE remedy provided in the constitution:

Impeachment!

[Nutcase]

If the title of your headline truly reflects your sentiments, you must have lots of contempt for those that take away the rights of people with mental illness.

cognito ergo populistae

[foreffectivegovernment]

Thanks for the article. Now would be a good time to really "Support the Troops" and help them and their families get even for this injustice.

WASHINGTON -- Hundreds of U.S. Marines have been killed or injured by roadside bombs in Iraq because Marine Corps bureaucrats refused an urgent request in 2005 from battlefield commanders for blast-resistant vehicles, an internal military study concludes.

The study, written by a civilian Marine Corps official and obtained by The Associated Press, accuses the service of "gross mismanagement" that delayed deliveries of the mine-resistant, ambush-protected trucks for more than two years.

Cost was a driving factor in the decision to turn down the request for the so-called MRAPs, according to the study. Stateside authorities saw the hulking vehicles, which can cost as much as a $1 million each, as a financial threat to programs aimed at developing lighter vehicles that were years from being fielded.
After Defense Secretary Robert Gates declared the MRAP (pronounced M-rap) the Pentagon's No. 1 acquisition priority in May 2007, the trucks began to be shipped to Iraq in large quantities.

The vehicles weigh as much as 40 tons and have been effective at protecting American forces from improvised explosive devices (IEDs), the weapon of choice for Iraqi insurgents. Only four U.S. troops have been killed by such bombs while riding in MRAPs; three of those deaths occurred in older versions of the vehicles.

The study's author, Franz J. Gayl, catalogs what he says were flawed decisions and missteps by midlevel managers in Marine Corps offices that occurred well before Gates replaced Donald Rumsfeld in December 2006.
Among the findings in the Jan. 22 study:
- Budget and procurement managers failed to recognize the damage being done by IEDs in late 2004 and early 2005 and were convinced the best solution was adding more armor to the less-sturdy Humvees the Marines were using. Humvees, even those with extra layers of steel, proved incapable of blunting the increasingly powerful explosives planted by insurgents.


Impeach Bush and Cheney for war crimes.

[RumiSouth]

In America, the people are the boss.

It's time the boss got some respect!

[KnoxBlues1]

It's time for the Representatives of the American people to impeach this imperial Presidency and Big Dick, too. Send them from the White House to the Big House. For a long, long time.

[newshawk14]

An excellent article by representative Louise
Slaughter. I'd like to draw everyone's attention
to a book by Charlie Savage, "Takeover: The Return
of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of
American Democracy." Mr. Savage does an outstanding job of making clear and simple, what
the Bush Administration has done in diminishing
our Constitution and the protections that it
affords us.

[newshawk14]

I don't know why spaces are removed from my
postings, (I'm really not illiterate), other than
I'm using Mozilla Firefox and Huffington Post
software is hostile.

[mommadona]

Yeah - takes a bit of getting used to:

SINGLE spaces aren't

DOUBLE spaces are SINGLE spaces

TRIPLE spaces are DOUBLE spaces...

yada yada

Hard on the poets and diddy posters.

[PoliticalAnimal]

It's nice to see you at the party, but too little, too late, with all due respect, Ms. Slaughter.

Where have the feckless Dems been for the past seven years while the Constitution was being trampled by neoCONs who seem to share bin Laden's goal of destroying American democracy?

The time to cheer will be if the law is passed without plenipotentiary powers for our Great Fearless UNITary Executive Commander In Chief Who Must Be Obeyed In All Things, and without retroactive immunity for rogue companies spying illegally for profit on law-abiding Americans, and when Myers and Bolton and Rove are forced to comply with your summons.

Then maybe everyone can cheer. Until then? Not so much ...

[LiarLiarIraqsOnFire]

My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total. I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution. - Rep. Barbara Jordan

[NATIONALSECURITY4US]

Why don't they investigate & test all levels of
law enforcement personnel whenever any signs of
police brutality emerges = because steroid use does make anyone including any type of police officer prone to violence & use violence...

[The Hedonistic Pleasureseeker]

Oh hey look what I found! This is beautiful!

http://action.downsizedc.org/wyc.php?cid=82

A bipartisan bill that does exactly what we want it to do: Undo the damage:

* Repeal the “Military Commissions Act of 2007” and thereby restore the ancient right of habeas corpus and end legally sanctioned torture by U.S. government agents
* Restore the ”Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act” (FISA) and thereby outlaw warrantless spying on American citizens by the President of the United States
* Give Congress standing in court to challenge the President's use of "signing statements" as a means to avoid executing the nation's laws
* Make it illegal for government agents to kidnap people and send them abroad to be tortured by foreign governments
* Provide legal protection to journalists who expose wrong-doing by the Federal government
* Prohibit the use of secret evidence to label groups or individuals as terrorists for the purpose of criminal or civil sanctions

This one simple 3-page bill will . . .

* Restore basic Constitutional protections
* Empower Americans to support human rights, democracy, and the rule of law in the world at large free from the stink of hypocrisy
* Protect Americans and American soldiers from blowback by foreign powers in retaliation for our government's transgression of America's most hallowed principles

[mommadona]

I believe Pelosi, especially Hoyer, Reid and Bayh need CONSTITUTIONAL PROCESS AND SEPARATION OF POWERS #101.

If they were performing their job descriptions, Cheney and Bush would have long been impeached and perhaps sitting on some Federal docket waiting for their sentencing for treason.

That's what ADULTS would do.

[KiwisCanFly]

About bloody time!

[BatedBreath]

When history evaluates the Bush years, it will consider his Congress a bigger failure than his administration because of how it ceded the people's power to an imperial presidency.

The House has shown a bit of backbone for which we are grateful, but the Senate has capitulated to the imperialists and corporate interests. If Congress were fully awake it would have started impeachment proceedings a year ago.

[JustifiablyParanoid]

Formal congressional action against individuals who turn their back on the law and the will of the American people is not only appropriate, but required of us for the sake of future generations.

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Uh, YEAH. Some of us have only been shouting this at the top of our bloody lungs for ages now...

[teacake]

It's good that someone in congress actually reflect the will of the people instead of selling out to the Neo-con machine. It's a real disaster for the American people to vote for Nancy Pelosi, who turned out to be nothing more than an opportunist who serve the Neo-con-backed Bush administration like a sleazy prostitute.

There must be STRONGER action against the power of evil in the Bush administration. If the Dems cannot handle the job, it's time they pack up their tent and let another party that is more capable of 'serving the American people' (instead of serving corporate interests at the expense of the American people).