Paul Craig Roberts A Bi-Partisan Attack on the Constitution: The Mukasey Conspiracy

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Tue Mar-04-08 12:02 AM
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Paul Craig Roberts A Bi-Partisan Attack on the Constitution: The Mukasey Conspiracy

The Mukasey Conspiracy

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
March 3, 2008

Having made the mistake of confirming Michael Mukasey as US Attorney General, the Democrats again find their efforts to hold Republican government officials accountable for illegal and unethical behavior stonewalled by the Department of Justice (sic) and blocked by the brownshirt tactics for which the Bush Regime is now infamous. ..... Mukasey gave House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the majority Democrats in Congress the finger and refused to refer the House of Representatives charges against the two Bush Regime operatives to a federal grand jury for investigation. Following the now established practice by the Bush Regime, Mukasey told the Speaker of the House that members of the executive branch are above the law and are not accountable to the US Congress, formerly a co-equal branch of government under the US Constitution in the days now past when the executive branch felt obliged to abide by the Constitution.

ukasey boldly asserted in his letter to Congress that Miers and Bolton are immune from congressional subpoenas and, thereby, their "noncompliance did not constitute a crime."

.....

Pelosi herself was instrumental in making the executive branch unaccountable to Congress or to law when she declared impeachment of Bush to be "off the table." This declaration by the Speaker of the House has effectively released the Bush Regime from any accountability, just as the Enabling Act released Hitler from any accountability to the Reichstag, the German constitution, or statutory law.
Moreover, the case for impeaching Bush and Cheney--indeed the entire administration--is by far the most powerful and necessary case for impeachment that has ever existed. By declaring Bush unimpeachable, Pelosi is giving away Congress' only remaining power to prevent tyrannical rule by the executive branch. If Bush is above impeachment, every future president will be as well.

The Democrats naively believe that just one more year and the Bush Regime horror will be gone. But that is not the case. No matter who is the next president, the Bush Regime has established that the executive branch is no longer a co-equal branch of government. It is the primary branch, armed with unaccountability and the discretion to consult with other branches of government if it so wishes. The US Congress cannot give up the powers it has given up during the Bush years and ever expect to get them back.

.....

If a Regime that has come to be despised and deplored by a majority of Americans and the world can ride roughshod over law and the Constitution, constitutional government obviously has no future in America.
Pelosi says the House of Representatives is going to file a civil suit against the Bush administration for refusing to help it enforce its subpoenas. Who does Pelosi think is going to prosecute the suit, the politicized Republican US Attorneys? The Republican federal judges who have helped to create the unaccountable executive?

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The only power the House has left is impeachment, and Pelosi is too frightened to use it. Why is the Speaker of the House afraid to use the power the Constitution gives her to remove from office a president who deceived Congress and the American people, who violated US and international law, and who is a clear and present danger to American liberty, to the US Constitution, and to peace and stability in the world?

This one indefensible and sickening fact remains.

Nancy Pelosi has given away the only power that We The People have to hold this malignant executive accountable.

History will not be kind to her contribution to the loss of the United States Constitution.