BS: US Congress has no oversight power??!

Subject: BS: US Congress has no oversight power??!
From: Azizi
Date: 22 Mar 07 - 07:38 PM

In several television interviews today, Press Secretary Tony Snow said that "The Legislative Branch has no oversight responsibility over the White House."

Since when???!!

Check out these two news video interviews in which Snow makes this remarkable statement:

http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=2595472n ABC "The Early Show"

and

http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=49750&cl=2170257&ch=61492&src=news

ABC News

**

Talk about constitutional crisis in the US of A.

If it wasn't here before, it's here now.

Subject: RE: BS: US Congress has no oversight power??!
From: Azizi
Date: 22 Mar 07 - 07:44 PM

The federal government's website for children 6-8 years presents this information:

"One of the most important implied powers is Congress's authority to investigate and oversee the executive branch and its agencies, such as the Department of Defense and the Department of Justice. Congress also holds hearings on matters of general public concern. Sometimes members of Congress conduct these hearings to identify problems that create a need for new laws. In other cases Congress holds hearings to raise public awareness about an issue.

There are, however, some congressional powers that are rarely used such as the ability to impeach an official and amending the Constitution".

http://bensguide.gpo.gov/6-8/government/national/congress.html

-snip-

Maybe Tony Snow forgot about Congress' oversight responsibility because for at least the last 6 years it has been so rarely used.

Subject: RE: BS: US Congress has no oversight power??!
From: Rapparee
Date: 22 Mar 07 - 07:59 PM

It's called "checks and balances" -- something that's been missing for a while and which seems to be coming back into fashion.

Subject: RE: BS: US Congress has no oversight power??!
From: Bobert
Date: 22 Mar 07 - 08:06 PM

Well, Mizzy, as you know Bush has use either "executive priveldge" or when that wasn't nough "executive order" to block oversight...

Probably the most bizarre case is when he invoked "executive order" to protect Cheney from havibng to release the names or content of the folks who were involved in writing the "energy policy"...

And with the courts now packed with idealogues that he has appointed, including the two highly partisan ideologues in Alito and Roberts there is no chance in Hell that Bush will have to pay the price...

...and the Dems know it... Sure, they can use their supona powers all they want but any time that Bush thinks that having his folks appear before Congress and actually ***have*** to do so under oath, it won't happen...

What we have no is waht the righties and Repubs have complained about going back decades and that is ***judical activism*** like hasn't been seen in decades... And it's wrapped in partisan politics...

Yeah, historians and Americans will one day look back on Bush as perhaps the worst prersident ever but..

...with 9/11 and lots of $$$ behind him he has been enabled to earn that distinction...

That's the problem when when the bad stars align and it will take a long, long time before our constitutional form of governemnt rights itself from ther executive abuses that will be the centerpiece of Bushs legacy...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: US Congress has no oversight power??!
From: Rapparee
Date: 22 Mar 07 - 08:11 PM

Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution outlines the powers of Congress:

Section 8. The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;

To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;

To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;

To establish post offices and post roads;

To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;

To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;

To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;

To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;

To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;

To provide and maintain a navy;

To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;

To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;--And

To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.

"...To make rules for the government..." pretty much says it all, doesn't it?

Subject: RE: BS: US Congress has no oversight power??!
From: Azizi
Date: 22 Mar 07 - 08:28 PM

"Congressional oversight
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Congressional Oversight refers to oversight by Congress of the Executive Branch, including the numerous Federal Agencies.

Congressional Oversight refers to the review, monitoring, and supervision of federal agencies, programs, activities, and policy implementation. Congress exercises this power largely through its standing committee system. However, oversight, which dates to the earliest days of the Republic, also occurs in a wide variety of congressional activities and contexts. These include authorization, appropriations, investigative, and legislative hearings by standing committees; specialized investigations by select committees; and reviews and studies by congressional support agencies and staff

Congress's oversight authority derives from its "implied" powers in the Constitution, public laws, and House and Senate rules. It is an integral part of the American system of checks and balances.

Report on the Organization of Congress[2]

Oversight is an implied rather than an enumerated power under the U.S. Constitution. The government's charter does not explicitly grant Congress the authority to conduct inquiries or investigations of the executive, to have access to records or materials held by the executive, or to issue subpoenas for documents or testimony from the executive.

There was little discussion of the power to oversee, review, or investigate executive activity at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 or later in the Federalist Papers, which argued in favor of ratification of the Constitution. The lack of debate was because oversight and its attendant authority were seen as an inherent power of representative assemblies which enacted public law.

Oversight also derives from the many and varied express powers of the Congress in the Constitution. It is implied in the legislature's authority, among other powers and duties, to appropriate funds, enact laws, raise and support armies, provide for a Navy, declare war, and impeach and remove from office the President, Vice President, and other civil officers. Congress could not reasonably or responsibly exercise these powers without knowing what the executive was doing; how programs were being administered, by whom, and at what cost; and whether officials were obeying the law and complying with legislative intent.

The Supreme Court made legitimate the oversight powers of Congress, subject to constitutional safeguards for civil liberties, on several occasions. In 1927, for instance, the High Court found that in investigating the administration of the Justice Department, Congress was considering a subject "on which legislation could be had or would be materially aided by the information which the investigation was calculated to elicit."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_oversight

Subject: RE: BS: US Congress has no oversight power??!
From: Bobert
Date: 22 Mar 07 - 08:40 PM

You know, Miz, you are completely correct that the Founding Fathers inplied powers to Congress to have oversight over the exectutive...

But this isn't yer grandfather's, okay, great greatgrandfather's 1927 Congress...

Bottom line, the Supreme Court will ***govern*** those powers and with the terribly ideological Republican Supreme Court, these powers of oversight won't be restored until this Supreme Court has a Democratic executive that this Supreme Court's contitituents think needs reeking in...

Tom Jefferson would puke at what this country has become...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: US Congress has no oversight power??!
From: GUEST,Observer
Date: 22 Mar 07 - 09:33 PM

Azizi, one thing you should realize is that there is absolutly no credibility associated with anything ever written in Wikipedia!!!

Subject: RE: BS: US Congress has no oversight power??!
From: Rapparee
Date: 22 Mar 07 - 10:03 PM

But there is in the Constitution.

And Bobert, the Supremes are not immortal....

Subject: RE: BS: US Congress has no oversight power??!
From: Don Firth
Date: 22 Mar 07 - 10:23 PM

Sidebar regarding Wikipedia and it's accuracy:

I can't recall now whether it was Nature or Science magazine, but one of the two published an article some months ago about the accuracy of Wikipedia. They chose about twenty entries at random on academic and scientific subjects (as opposed to pop-star biographies or political entries—which, incidentally, usually include a tag warning that this article is biased) and compared them with entries on the same subjects in the Encyclopedia Britannica. This comparison of articles was conducted by acknowledged experts in the various fields in question.

They found that the Wikipedia entries contained an average of four inaccuracies or mistakes. The entries in the Encyclopedia Britannica contained an average of three inaccuracies or mistakes. But—the survey noted that the entries in Wikipedia were generally considerably longer and contained more information than those in Britannica. Along with this, the info in Wikipedia was, in general, more up to date. So they declared it a wash. A tie.

They also noted that errors in Wikipedia entries can be corrected within minutes, whereas errors in Britannica have to wait for the next revision, or the yearbook, to be corrected. This is an immense advantage over hard-copy encyclopedias. Another immense advantage is that Wikipedia is free and it pops onto your screen with a few mouse-clicks. A full set of the Encyclopedia Britannica at Amazon lists for $520.00, and shipping weight is 144.8 lbs.

I recently had a couple of articles published in a music magazine on the early history of troubadours and wandering minstrels. I found Wikipedia to be an excellent source of information, and it steered me in a number of directions that it might not have occurred to me to investigated had it not been for the various links it offered. I also have a fairly substantial hard-copy library on the same subject, so all of my facts were checked and cross-checked.

NO source of information, no matter how authoritative, should be accepted wholesale. Cross-check with other sources, and during the whole research process, make sure your brain is in gear.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: US Congress has no oversight power??!
From: artbrooks
Date: 22 Mar 07 - 10:32 PM

It seems to be that GeoB and his cronies are distinguishing between the Executive Branch and the White House; that is, between the various Federal agencies and the aids and advisers who work directly for the Office of the President.

Subject: RE: BS: US Congress has no oversight power??!
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 02:53 AM

"the Supremes are not immortal.... "

But I did like their songs...

Subject: RE: BS: US Congress has no oversight power??!
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 07:18 AM

Mr. Snow has it backwards. It's not congressional oversight that's not ensconced in the Constitution, it's executive privilege. Executive privilege is a courtesy extended to the executive branch by the other branches. It's a custom, not a Constitutional provision.

Subject: RE: BS: US Congress has no oversight power??!
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 07:47 AM

Rap,

You are exactly right... The Supremes are political animals just as everyone else is... They put their pants on one leg at a time... Scalia, perhaps, is the most political we've had in my life time because he is not content letting the country "evolve" as mush as playing to the conservative right who, if they had their way, would overturn Brown v. Topeke Board of Education...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: US Congress has no oversight power??!
From: kendall
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 07:59 AM

Azzi, none of the links you put up work.

Yesterday on the NBC news there was a segment on wikipedia, and it convinced me that it is not credible.

Subject: RE: BS: US Congress has no oversight power??!
From: Bee
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 08:14 AM

I'm not sure I'd trust NBC news over Wikipedia. Don Firth has it right: keep your brain in gear whatever sources you use for information.

Frankly, within their terms in power, your (US) presidents look much like dictators to me. They seem to have endless and unchecked power to do as they like, short of impeachment.

Subject: RE: BS: US Congress has no oversight power??!
From: kendall
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 08:22 AM

So, who would you trust for accurate information?

Subject: RE: BS: US Congress has no oversight power??!
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 08:23 AM

Wiki is a not for personal profit org - I prefer to trust less those institutions, such as media organisations, which ARE run for personal profit...

Subject: RE: BS: US Congress has no oversight power??!
From: Bee
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 08:28 AM

Kendall, the originating source, I suppose, is most trustworthy, providing one can burrow back that far. Otherwise, you have to go with experience and common sense, of course.

Subject: RE: BS: US Congress has no oversight power??!
From: Rapparee
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 08:37 AM

Who do you trust? Why, your local public library, of course. We'd never deliberately lie to you or give you false information.

Seriously, any source is only as good as the data in it. One of the six problems with the World Wide Web is that the data can be deliberately or unknowingly inaccurate.

The more information that is available to you the more it becomes YOUR responsibility to verify the accuracy of the information. That means comparing it to other sources of the same information, going back to the original doccuments, finding out what has developed since the original was published, and, in general, a LOT of work.

But what the hey! Ultimately, it's only your own survival....

Subject: RE: BS: US Congress has no oversight power??!
From: Rapparee
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 11:50 AM

The six basic problems with data on the Internet:

1. typos
2. accidental or deliberate errors of fact
3. opinion stated as fact
4. out of date information
5. bias
6. deliberate fraud.

If you keep in mind that anything you search for is already dated, as well as these six principles, you'll sorta be okay.

Subject: RE: BS: US Congress has no oversight power??!
From: Don Firth
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 01:30 PM

Facts, no matter where you find them—Wikipedia, Britannica, the newspaper, NBC, or wherever—can be checked against other sources. Opinions, on the other hand. . . .

"You have a right to your own opinions—but not your own facts."
                                       —the late Senator Patrick Moynihan

The problem is that, apparently, not all that many people can tell the difference.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: US Congress has no oversight power??!
From: artbrooks
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 01:53 PM

And, on the general topic on spin, and on the specific subject of data mining on the Internet, this is coming out from FactCheck.org.

Subject: RE: BS: US Congress has no oversight power??!
From: Peace
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 02:26 PM

Then of course one has to wonder who checks the checkers.

Subject: RE: BS: US Congress has no oversight power??!
From: Peace
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 02:27 PM

"The Rule of 48
All Scientists Are Blind

... some years before [Peter Leavitt] had formulated the Rule of 48. The Rule of 48 was intended as a humorous reminder to scientists, and referred to the massive literature collected in the late 1940s and the 1950s concerning the human chromosome number.
For years it was stated that men had forty-eight chromosomes in their cells; there were pictures to prove it, and any number of careful studies. In 1953, a group of American researchers announced to the world that the human chromosome number was forty-six. Once more, there were pictures to prove it, and studies to confirm it. But these researchers also went back to reexamine the old pictures, and the old studies--and found only forty-six chromosomes not forty-eight.

--Michael Crichton, The Andromeda Strain (1969;1993), p. 125."

Subject: RE: BS: US Congress has no oversight power??!
From: Azizi
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 06:07 PM

Kendall, I just checked those links and they lead to videos for me.

I'm not certain why they don't [didn't] work for you.

**

Here's more online reporting and commentary about Snow's statement that Congress doesn't have oversight over the White House:

First, I'll provide a link to an excerpt of the March 22, 2007 White House Press briefing by White House Press Secretary Tony Snow:

http://www.allamericanpatriots.com/m-news+article+storyid-21712.html

"MR. SNOW: There are -- in this particular case, the Department of Justice -- the Congress does have legitimate oversight responsibility for the Department of Justice. It created the Department of Justice. It does not have constitutional oversight responsibility over the White House, which is why by our reaching out, we're doing something that we're not compelled to do by the Constitution, but we think common sense suggests that we ought to get the whole story out, which is what we're doing."


-snip-

And here are some links to commentary about Snow's statement on morning news television shows and in his press conference:
A


http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002849.php

and

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/03/22/tony-snow-congress-does_n_44055.html

and

http://www.newshounds.us/2007/03/22/snow_tells_fox_morning_show_congress_has_no_oversight_over_white_house.php

Here's an excerpt from that last hyperlinked page:

Snow Tells Fox Morning Show: Congress Has No Oversight Over White House
Reported by Judy - March 22, 2007 - 275 comments

"Beating back the firestorm over the firing of eight U.S. attorneys, allegedly for prosecuting too many Republicans and not enough Democrats, must be high on the White House agenda because the Fox News morning show devoted a big chunk of its first hour to reinforcing GOP talking points. With videos.

The most striking part of the more than 10 minutes of coverage came when White House spokesman and former Fox News employee Tony Snow claimed, "Congress doesn't have any legitimate oversight responsibility on the White House."

No oversight of the White House? Congress has no right to check the president's actions? What a surprise to the framers of the Constitution that would be!"...

Subject: RE: BS: US Congress has no oversight power??!
From: Stringsinger
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 07:12 PM

Not since John Adams have we seen such a dictatorial "executive" branch out of control.
Congress needs to stand up to him and bring back Habeas Corpus and congressional control.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: US Congress has no oversight power??!
From: Joe Offer
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 07:31 PM

Still, there's a definite difference between Federal agecies and the White house itself. Congress unquestionably has oversight and budget power over the agencies. While White House independence from Congressional oversight isn't ironclad, it's certainly clear that the White House is largely free from Congressional oversight.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: US Congress has no oversight power??!
From: Rapparee
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 07:39 PM

Congress also has the authority to declare war, and by that very authority the authority to "undeclare" a war. Congress can, if it wishes, revoke the authority it gave the President right after the attacks of September 11, 2001, or any part of that authority.

Congress could, I suppose, "unmake" the Justice Department and every other Department not named in the Constitution -- including Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, the Department of the Air Force, etc.

In brief, Congress might not have "oversight" over the President (apart from impeachment) but it could make it impossible for him to do anything.

Subject: RE: BS: US Congress has no oversight power??!
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 07:49 PM

Conntrarywise, it appears that the President seems to be able to make it impossible for congress to do anything.

Subject: RE: BS: US Congress has no oversight power??!
From: Amos
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 08:51 PM

Some background information on Congress' power of oversight on the execution of law.

A

Subject: RE: BS: US Congress has no oversight power??!
From: Donuel
Date: 24 Mar 07 - 01:33 PM

In October 2006, Bush signed into law the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007. Quietly slipped into the law at the last minute, at the request of the Bush administration, were sections changing important legal principles, dating back 200 years, which limit the U.S. government's ability to use the military to intervene in domestic affairs. These changes would allow Bush, whenever he thinks it necessary, to institute martial law—under which the military takes direct control over civilian administration.

Sec. 1042 of the Act, "Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies," effectively overturns what is known as posse comitatus. The Posse Comitatus Act is a law, passed in 1878, that prohibits the use of the regular military within the U.S. borders. The original passage of the Posse Comitatus Act was a very reactionary move that sealed the betrayal of Black people after the Civil War and brought the period of Reconstruction to an end. It decreed that federal troops could no longer be used inside the former Confederate states to enforce the new legal rights of Black people. Black people were turned over to the armed police and Klansmen serving the southern plantation owners, and the long period of Jim Crow began.

During the 20th century, posse comitatus objectively started to play a new role within the bourgeois democratic framework: as a legal barrier to the direct influence of the powerful military establishment and the armed forces over domestic U.S. society. It served to some degree as an obstacle against military coups and presidents seizing military control over the country. (However, National Guard troops have been legally available to the ruling class for use inside the U.S., and there have been other loopholes to the prohibition of the use of armed forces domestically, as in the mobilization of Marine troops during the 1992 L.A. Rebellion.)

So the changes to posse comitatus signed into law by Bush are extremely significant and ominous. Bush has modified the main exemptions to posse comitatus that up to now have been primarily defined by the Insurrection Act of 1807. Previously the president could call out the army in the United States only in cases of insurrection or conditions where "rebellion against the authority of the United States, make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any State or Territory by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings." Under the new law the president can use the military in response to a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, a terrorist attack or "other condition in which the President determines that domestic violence has occurred to the extent that state officials cannot maintain public order."

The new law requires the President to notify Congress "as soon as practicable after the determination and every 14 days thereafter during the duration of the exercise of the authority." However Bush, as he has often done during his presidency, modified this requirement in his signing statement, which declared, "The executive branch shall construe such provisions in a manner consistent with the President's constitutional authority to withhold information the disclosure of which could impair foreign relations, the national security, the deliberative processes of the Executive." In other words, Bush claims that he does not even need to inform Congress that martial law has been declared!

Subject: RE: BS: US Congress has no oversight power??!
From: Peace
Date: 24 Mar 07 - 09:21 PM

"In other words, Bush claims that he does not even need to inform Congress that martial law has been declared! "

That's most likely because he thinks martial law is about couples and how they are legally joined in matrimony.

Subject: RE: BS: US Congress has no oversight power??!
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 24 Mar 07 - 09:29 PM

... or unholy deadlock...