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Showing posts with label Executive Power. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Executive Power. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Fiorina Says Palin Not Qualified to Run Major Company
Ok, so I really loathe and despise Carly Fiorina. However, I give thanks to her today for speaking a little bit of truth.
Yeah, Carly, because it's not as if she's running for a job that is 100 times more complicated and important than failing miserably at the job of being the CEO of HP, right?Carly Fiorina, a key surrogate for John McCain on economic issues, said on Tuesday that Sarah Palin does not have the experience needed to run a major company like the one that Fiorina formerly headed.
"Do you think [Sarah Palin] has the experience to run a major company, like Hewlett Packard?" asked the host.
"No, I don't," responded Fiorina. "But you know what? That's not what she's running for."
Watch It:
Update: When asked about the above interview later in the day during an MSNBC interview, Fiorina replied: “Well, I don't think John McCain could run a major corporation, I don't think Barack Obama could run a major corporation, I don't think Joe Biden could run a major corporation.
Update 2: Bye, bye, Carly. Today, the McCain campaign threw Carly Fiorina under the bus for her comments above. McCain was said to be "furious" and a staffer said that "Carly will now disappear".
Posted by Metavirus at 9/16/2008 01:42:00 PM 0 comments
Tags: Carly Fiorina , Election 2008 , Executive Power , Experience , Gaffes , General Election , Sarah Palin
Thursday, September 11, 2008
ABC News Exposes Palin Book Banning Inquiry
ABC News does some actual reporting and exposes more about Sarah Palin's "rhetorical inquiries' about banning books at the local library. See the video below.
My main question to anyone out there that sees this is the same as my main question to come out of the Troopergate investigations. Do you think that everyday, savvy politicians are stupid enough to come right out and actually ask for something nefarious to be done?
In Troopergate, of course we're likely not going to discover a smoking gun where Palin says to the Public Safety Commissioner: "You are hereby commanded to fire my sister's ex-husband or I will fire you in retaliation." We have gotten what we would have expected in an abuse of power investigation. She and her staff made pointed "inquiries" about the status of her sister's ex-husband with the police force and expressed "curiosity" about how crappy it would look for the department if they retained him. This is the way of sneaky, savvy politicians -- don't say it in a way that will get you caught.
This book banning thing is cut of the same cloth. Once she was elected mayor, she "rhetorically inquired" of the town Librarian what her reaction would be if Mayor Palin asked her to ban certain books. The Librarian responded negatively and said that wouldn't be appropriate. Guess what happened? The Librarian was sacked a couple months later. Big freaking surprise. So don't whine to me how no books were actually banned -- Sarah Palin was licking around the edges to feel out how receptive the Librarian would be to an under-the-table order to ban some -- gasp! -- gay-positive books. When she realized the Librarian wouldn't play ball, she fired her in order to appoint a more pliable alternative. Stay classy, Sarah.
Posted by Metavirus at 9/11/2008 01:21:00 PM 1 comments
Tags: Alaska , Election 2008 , Executive Power , General Election , John McCain , Sarah Palin
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Palin Lawyer Stonewalling Troopergate Investigation
Wow, does it sound familiar to anyone to see a corrupt executive in an abuse of power investigation lawyer-up and then start stonewalling the investigation for political purposes (hello, Alberto Gonzales)? Well, it looks like that's the road Sarah Palin decided to go down in the ever-developing Troopergate scandal currently brewing in Alaska. It seems like only days ago--and, indeed, it was--that the folks close to Sarah Palin were downplaying her Troopergate scandal back home as a minor conflict that would be amicably resolved. Palin had agreed to cooperate fully with a probe being conducted by the state legislature, and things were proceeding smoothly enough that it appeared subpoenas wouldn't even be issued. The whole issue was being framed less as a scandal than as a misunderstanding everyone wanted to get to the bottom of. Not any more. Palin lawyered up a couple of days ago, hiring local attorney Thomas Van Flein, and she has abruptly shifted to a far more combative mode. First, Van Flein suggested that Palin might not sit down with investigators for a planned deposition later this month after all, citing the "bad timing" of the investigation. (Given that the investigation preceded her vice presidential nomination, it would seem reasonable to suggest the latter was the "bad timing.") Now, in a move worthy of the political big leagues, Palin has filed an ethics complaint against herself with a state personnel board whose three members she appointed, and demanded that it handle the issue exclusively and the legislature's independent investigation--unanimously authorized by a bipartisan panel--be shut down. I'm skeptical that this new, aggressive posture will serve Palin well: It ramps up the heat on the story and makes Palin look more like a typical pol under investigation and less like someone with minor issues to resolve back home. But evidently those around Palin--perhaps on the McCain campaign staff?--have now concluded that there is enough there there to make stonewalling preferable to downplaying. Either that or Palin felt that resisting legislative inquiries is an area where she needed to bone up if she was going to serve in a GOP administration.
Here's Christopher Orr of the conservative New Republic with some thoughts on how this will be a bad strategy for her:
Although, maybe I shouldn't be writing about this at all because any criticism of Queen Sarah is inherently sexist.
Posted by Metavirus at 9/03/2008 03:22:00 PM 0 comments
Tags: Corruption , Election 2008 , Executive Power , Experience , General Election , John McCain , Judgment , Sarah Palin , Troopergate
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Restraining Bush's Expansion of Executive Power
I wrote a post a week or two that asked all my readers to consider which Democratic candidate for President, "Which candidate will most likely roll back President Bush's unconstitutional expansion of executive power?"
Well, I left it to you to ponder and, lo and behold, here's a new article in Reason that asks and answers the question better than I could:
Read More: I Don't Want Yoo to Show Them the WayAccording to John Yoo, the president's powers under the Constitution are so broad that the Constitution itself cannot restrain them. In a recently declassified 2003 memo, the former Justice Department official asserted that Congress, despite its Article I powers to "make rules concerning captures on land and water" and "for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces," has no business regulating the treatment of military prisoners. Yoo also cited a 2001 memo in which he had concluded that "the Fourth Amendment had no application to domestic military operations."
Compared to Yoo, all three of the remaining major-party candidates for president sound moderate when they talk about executive power. But Barack Obama is the one who seems to care most about restoring the rule of law and the separation of powers after eight years of an administration that has sorely abused both.
[snip]
Although Clinton now claims to have a modest view of presidential power, she was singing a different tune a few years ago. "I'm a strong believer in executive authority," she told George Stephanopoulos of ABC News in 2003. "I wish that, when my husband was president, people in Congress had been more willing to recognize presidential authority." With the War on Terror as a rationale, her wish could be her command.
Earlier: Obama and Clinton on Executive Power
Posted by Metavirus at 4/16/2008 02:06:00 PM 0 comments
Tags: Barack Obama , Case for Obama , Election 2008 , Executive Power , Hillary Clinton , Primaries
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Obama and Clinton on Executive Power
Here is a thought exercise for you on this lovely Sunday morning. It is a thought exercise I haven't heard echoed anywhere over the last few months.
Considering the recent revelations about the substance and content of the Bush Administration's torture policies and the John Yoo memo, that basically stated that as long as the President authorizes it, torture is not illegal under any law or treaty, we need to ask ourselves "Which candidate will most likely roll back President Bush's unconstitutional expansion of executive power?"
For an example of why it is so important to consider this question, think on this question and answer series in an interview with John Yoo:
Doug Cassel: If the president deems that he's got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person's child, there is no law that can stop him?
John Yoo: No treaty.
Doug Cassel: Also no law by Congress -- that is what you wrote in the August 2002 memo...
John Yoo: I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that.
So, sit with yourself for a few minutes and think to yourself: "Which candidate will most likely roll back President Bush's unconstitutional expansion of executive power?"
I believe that fair-minded people everywhere will come to the conclusion that Barack Obama would be our only chance.
I don't believe that Hillary Clinton would pass up the opportunity to inherit and maintain a presidency that is unanswerable to any law or treaty.
Posted by Metavirus at 4/06/2008 09:12:00 AM 0 comments
Tags: Barack Obama , Election 2008 , Executive Power , General Election , Hillary Clinton , Primaries
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