Who @ 178

Great words, from a great orator.

Does he have the shoe-leather to back them up? Or is he just inciting others to take to the streets … In short, can he walk the walk, or is he just another air-bag politician …?
…

… two very prominent ESTABLISHMENT Dem lawyers, Nick Katzenbach and Fritz Schwartz calling for Mukasey to release the secret torture memos.
…

If they can get prominent REPUBLICAN lawyers to join in…..?

Cuomo kept saying this was not partisan and that ALL lawyers should be doing this, …

He could certainly talk to Bruce Fein.

selise:

My understanding was that the bombing at Bhutto’s arrival was Musharraf’s rebuff to our advances.

Don’t disregard the idea that our people may have suggested to Bhutto that she go back and then suggested to Musharref that he off her, so there’ll be no resurgent democratic process over there.

Don’t forget how low they will go.

I like what Cuomo said, but that doesn’t seem to be what is taught and/or cherished at the nation’s leading law schools now. …

Maybe Cuomo should be AG.

Ok, enough BS.

Here’s my $500.00 for the suit. As a taxpayer, I believe I have standing. if I don’t then my son-in-law is an Iraq veteran – is that standing?

Who’s the law firm and where do I send my money? ACLU?

It doesn’t work quite that way. They say you have to show your rights were violated or you were harmed. If it’s NSA spying it’s all secret, so nobody can gain standing, despite the obvious fact somebody’s rights are being violated.

Another situation which is similar is when the court recently knocked down affirmative action as being prejudicial and therefore not “equal treatment”. Of course, they’re saying there is no direct proof that the blacks (of today) as a group have been harmed and therefore there is no cause to ‘provide relief’ to any individual or group.

By denying standing they deny justice and take us one step closer to complete destruction of our Constitution.

I’d like to see the next Dem administration warn each and every state in the union that they have to support equal treatment under the law by providing substantially equal funding for each school child in their state.

On the voting front, a Dem administration could demand ‘equal treatment’ by requiring that each and every precinct in a state use exactly the same voting method. It has to be equal for all and verified as effective or else the SCOTUS might disqualify the vote as they did in Florida (Bush v. Gore, 2000).

Incidentally, why was it “Bush v. Gore” rather than “Bush v. State of Florida”? Gore wasn’t preventing Bush from doing anything? It was the state of Florida which supposedly was allowing the recount which Bushies thought might take away Dubya’s ‘presumed victor’ status.

If ‘equal treatment’ is demanded by this court, then it should be done with great vigor.

The bottom line, as I believe the Founders saw it, with regard to the awesome power entrusted to the federal government in case of the need to commit our nation to war:

It cannot and should not be tolerated or accepted as “Constitutional” that Congress can more easily vote to authorize a beginning of war than to order an end of war, on our behalf.

Yet that is what “legislating” war (see the AUMF, based on the War Powers Resolution) results in: requiring a veto override to end war that was begun by simple majority vote, when a belligerent president defies the clear majority will of the nation and its Congress by vetoing legislation, where no presidential signature or veto ought to be required at all.

Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 is exclusive to the Legislative Branch – but today’s Members of Congress want to pretend otherwise, and refuse to assert their own Constitutionally-bestowed powers, so that today ending a war supposedly requires Executive Branch approval, even after a majority in Congress has already so voted (by ‘declaration’ as opposed to by legislation).

The strongest footing for Congress in a potential Article I vs. Article II clash about this in court would be an affirmative declaration of peace, or end to war, by majority vote of the Legislative Branch, that the Executive then defies. But Congress thus far refuses to exercise its power in that regard, and thus to pursue the matter in court as need be.

Here’s an analysis and explanation, originally generated by Gov. Richardson’s presidential campaign (but apparently rarely if ever mentioned by him), that spells this concept out quite clearly:

Http://wa4richardson.blogspot……ation.html

looseheadprop, you may find this link to a July, 2007 Congressional Research Service report pdf helpful:

Http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL33837.pdf

It summarizes [with a noticeable Executive Branch-biased tinge at key junctures (i.e., with a partisan Cheney Party line - Yoo is cited in a footnote), I thought] much of the history of Congressional authority with regard to war powers, including cites, and it was apparently written to help Congress consider options for ending our involvement in and squatter’s claim to Iraq.

There’s also this brief recap, from a Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. site (he helped to try to challenge the Iraq AUMF in court, before the invasion was launched):

During the Vietnam War, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit heard a series of cases challenging the authority of the executive branch to wage war. In Orlando v. Laird, 443 F 2d 1039 (2nd Cir. 1971), the federal appeals court reiterated an earlier holding that “the constitutional delegation of the war-declaring power to the Congress contains a discoverable and manageable standard imposing on the Congress a duty of mutual participation in the prosecution of war.” Id. at 1042. It further stated: “Judicial scrutiny of that duty, therefore, is not foreclosed by the political question doctrine.” Id. The Second Circuit held that “the test is whether there is any action by the Congress sufficient to authorize or ratify the military activity in question.” Id.

The court in Orlando found that “[t]he Congress and the Executive have taken mutual and joint action in the prosecution and support of military operations in Southeast Asia from the beginning of those operations.” Id. The court cited the following evidence to support this holding: 1) the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution passed by Congress in 1964; 2) congressional action “appropriating billions of dollars to carry out military operations in Southeast Asia;” and 3) congressional action “extending the Military Selective Service Act with full knowledge that persons conscripted under that Act had been, and would continue to be sent to Vietnam.” Id.

In a subsequent opinion, the Second Circuit found that the congressional repeal of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1970 did not remove congressional authorization for the war. DaCosta v. Laird, 448 F. 2d 1368 (2nd Cir. 1971). The court held: “[T]here was sufficient legislative action in extending the Selective Service Act and in appropriating billions of dollars to carry on military and naval operations in Vietnam to ratify and approve the measures taken by the Executive, even in the absence of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.” Id. at 1369.

http://www.jessejacksonjr.org/…..03663.html

[The 1973 War Powers Resolution addressed and mooted part of the Second Circuit rulings that are summarized there (in particular by requiring “specific statutory authorization” in lieu of appropriations bills, as authorization for a conflict). Dick Durbin: take note…]

Jackson’s site also excerpts a James Madison quote favored by Senator Byrd, which includes this clear statement:

“In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found, than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace to the legislature, and not the executive department.” – James Madison

If Congress alone can declare war, Congress alone can end war. That is the “at least as easy to end as to begin” authority which Congress has abdicated in the face of irresponsible, violent men holding the office of the presidency.

Cuomo’s “sweeter than partisan victory” entreaty is vital. I think of people in Congress now as people who ran for office simply to be “party members” rather than to be legislators or public servants. They surrender their own judgement and will to the decisions of a mere handful of equally powerful (under the Constitution) representatives (Pelosi, Hoyer, Emanuel, Reid, etc.) who happen to have been appointed (by party members, not elected by the people) to head their party faction in Congress, and then somehow consider that “democracy” and a full and fair democratic process. [Or at least that it’s simply “the system” which it is both much easier to just accept, and futile to resist.] The Founders were so right to worry about political factions. We have seen their nightmares come true, before our eyes.

Jim R @ 75

I forget where I found this, but since Madison wrote the Constitution and all….enjoy.

“Those who are to conduct a war cannot in the nature of things, be proper or safe judges, whether a war ought to be commenced, continued, or concluded. They are barred from the latter functions by a great principle in free government, analogous to that which separates the sword from the purse, or the power of executing from the power of enacting laws.” – James Madison

And from pma’s link @ 93 (FYI, Cuomo also made a very effective recent appearance on Hardball to denounce the Kyl/Lieberman Iran resolution after it passed in the Senate, as I recall):

“SENATORS Jim Webb of Virginia and Hillary Clinton of New York are right to demand that the president go before Congress to ask for a “declaration of war” before proceeding with an attack against Iran or any other nation. But there is no need for this demand to be put into law, as the two Democrats and their colleagues are seeking to do, any more than there is need for legislation to guarantee our right of free speech or anything else protected by the Constitution.

[snip]

Because the Constitution cannot be amended by persistent evasion, this mandate was neither erased nor modified by the actions or inactions of timid Congresses that allowed overeager presidents to start wars in Vietnam and elsewhere without making a declaration.

Indeed, asking for more legislation now would imply that the Constitution doesn’t mean what it already says.

It would repeat the mistake made by Congress in 2002 when it tried to delegate to President Bush the non-delegable power that the founders chose to give to the legislative branch. Congress’s eagerness to shed the burden making the decision by passing resolutions that purportedly “authorized” the president to decide whether to start a war denied the nation the careful Congressional inquiry intended by the Constitution.” – Mario Cuomo

Precisely, Mr. Madison. Precisely, Mr. Cuomo.

The “let’s kill all the lawyers line” is fruitful to remember for another reason, discussed in a different context recently by Scott Horton.

Shakespeare used that line about 1600, just as Elizabeth and the Tudors gave way to the Stuarts. James I and his successor, Charles I, exalted in the divine right of kings to such an extreme that Cromwell led a parliamentary rebellion within less than fifty years. [No doubt spurred by Protestant fervor and the relatively recent ability of many people to read (of first, the Bible), which induced more critical thinking about who had a voice in society and government and why. The proto-revolutionary aspects of Jesus’ character were not missed.]

While the Stuart monarchy was restored within a generation, within another generation Parliament forcibly replaced James II and installed monarchs (William and Mary, after whom the Virginia college is named) who accepted Parliament’s voice and more limited rights of the king. That took place at the dawn of the Enlightment a generation or two before Edmund Burke in England and Adams, Jefferson and Mason here (all lawyers).

My point is this: recent political prosecutions of Democratic lawyers are not meant solely to deprive the Dems of funding or to elect their Republican opponents. They have achieved that. It is also to gut a principal social role of lawyers as advocates for opposition to government abuse.

KKKarl Rove’s favorite tactic is the personal, but behind-the-scenes, attack (however baseless) to gut the credibility of his opponent. (He often does this by accusing his opponents of having his client’s own worst traits.) With that done, it doesn’t matter how accurately they decry wrongdoing and abuse. People stop listening.

Mr. Cuomo needs to spread his message far beyond the New York Bar’s top lawyers. But they have the power and resources to help do that. And we can help.

Just got back from visiting & I must note that earlofhuntingdon, as he did yesterday, does a great job of clarifying the historic context of the playwright his fellow players often referred to as “our Will.”

Much thanks to an articulate scholar of that history, e of h.

http://www.latimes.com/media/a…..860990.pdf

Who @ 178

Great words, from a great orator.

Does he have the shoe-leather to back them up? Or is he just inciting others to take to the streets and face arrest, interrogation, being placed on “terrorist watch lists,” “no-fly lists,” having a permanent FBI file created on them which might block getting any job requiring a security clearance, etc.? In short, can he walk the walk, or is he just another air-bag politician like his parents warned against?

I’m serious! Think how much impact it would have if Mario Cuomo (and other prominent Americans — like Al Gore) literally took to the streets in civilized, democratic protest. THAT would be leadership and would inspire, empower, and encourage millions of Americans, far beyond any words Mr. Cuomo might speak to a well-heeled audience of rich lawyers.

Well that’s where I got out my tinfoil further upthread. We suddenly have two very prominent ESTABLISHMENT Dem lawyers, Nick Katzenbach and Fritz Schwartz calling for Mukasey to release the secret torture memos.

You got Cuomo—certainly an establishment Dem—talking about taking to the streets to an audience of establishment lawyers—makes me wonder if they aren’t trying to get folks up outta their chairs

It won’t work if it’s Al Sharpton and Susan Sarandon and Mark Green, again. But if it’s Cuomo and Gore and partners fron White and Case, or Sullivan and Cromwell, or Clearly Gottlieb (apologies to firms I left out)

That would be, in its way as powerful as that group of republican Senators going to see Nixon to tell him to resign.

If they can get prominent REPUBLICAN lawyers to join in…..?

Cuomo kept saying this was not partisan and that ALL lawyers should be doing this, Hence his “something sweeter than partisan victory” line.

Maybe something is brewing?

I don’t know, both I can wear tinfoil with the best of ‘em.

We can add to the list the National Lawyers Guild who, at their recent meeting in Washington, DC, enthusiastically passed a resolution to impeach both Bush and Cheney, including:

Be it further resolved that the National Lawyers Guild will establish an NLG Impeachment Committee open to all members to coordinate action by the NLG in support of impeachment, to work with national and grassroots impeachment organizations, and to provide legal assistance for those efforts to strengthen the national campaign for impeachment; and

Be it further resolved that the NLG Impeachment Committee will help organize and coordinate events at the local, state, and national level to build public participation in the campaign to initiate impeachment investigation, impeachment, and removal of Bush and Cheney from office without further delay; and

Be it further resolved that the National Lawyers Guild calls on NLG members to ask their respective member of Congress to support H. Res. 333 to impeach Cheney and to introduce or support other impeachment resolutions; and

Be it further resolved that the National Lawyers Guild calls on all other state and national bar associations, state and local government bodies, community organizations, labor unions, and all other citizen associations to adopt similar resolutions and to use all their resources to build the campaign demanding that Congress initiate impeachment investigation, impeach, and remove Bush and Cheney from office without further delay.

The NLG has a home page where you can find out who your local contact person is, so that you can join forces with them. In my case, the local contact person had not gone to the meeting and was not familiar with the resolution, so some local education may be required :-)

Bob in HI