Tuesday, February 18, 2020

Unitary all powerful chief executive above the law -- I have a question

I have a question for Bill Barr which no one seems to have asked yet. Barr's legal, judicial and constitutional philosophy is one of a strong all powerful chief executive.  The nation has long debated that ideological question.  For decades it has been the subject in the formulation of our Constitutional republic, through the institution of slavery, to the 20th century's Great Depression and beyond.  I, too, when formulating my political opinions wrestled with the concept of a strong chief executive. I did so because those on the right were decrying, for example, FDR's New Deal and John Kennedy's actions on behalf of civil rights, as well as Lyndon Johnson's advocacy for human rights.  The right wing for years thought it was a breach of the balance of power the Founders created for the president to stray into areas which either belong to other branches of Congress or more properly reside in the states.  Many viewed FDR's New Deal as tyrannical. 

What is the role of the Chief Executive when working to ameliorate the effects of a Great Depression, waging war, or even providing health insurance?  Up until FDR the president thought his powers were limited and that there was nothing more that could be done during the Great Depression by Herbert Hoover except to let the economy adjust on its own.   Meanwhile millions were starving and millions were sick.  Later persons of color who served the nation in war were not let into all white colleges and universities or drink from water fountains labeled "white."  These mammoth injustices which since FDR called out for strong executive power.  I advocated for a strong executive when justice had to prevail or when the existential life of the nation was in question.

Since Trump the trajectory of that power for which I once advocated can be seen through his plethora of executive orders that come down heavy not for the least of these but against those who have the least.  He has relegated those seeking protection from tyranny to mandating a new Trumpian tyranny.  He has relegated children vying for safety in this nation to cages, he has signed Muslim bans, he has cozied up to the worst of world dictators, celebrated with Russian ambassadors over a firing of an FBI director, encroached through eminent domain on private property for his wall to keep desperate immigrants out, imposed economically destructive tariffs, advocated for the attorney general to lower sentencing on a convicted felon in a case where the defendant was his friend.  This has never happened before.  He has nominated judges who do not meet even the standards of the American Bar Association. He has sent federally empowered ICE into states which have sanctuary cities to arrest those who have been given state protection.  He lowered pollution standards in streams and waterways that provide drinking water.  He eliminated standards for fossil fuel drilling and for the extraction of dirty coal.  He cancelled the nuclear proliferation agreement with Iran which was working, and he denies the scientific certainty of climate change while our nation drowns in floods and suffers along with other nations many other catastrophic weather related disasters.  Ask Australians if they believe in climate change.

Much of the power which the president thinks he has and Mr. Barr thinks lives within his presidential right to wield is dedicated to undoing the justice of many decades of injustice.  Trumpian power is inhumane, cruel, vicious and is dedicated to inflate his bank accounts and maintaining power while he existentially destroys our nation.

I therefore ask Bill Barr if he believes in a strong chief executive does he do so if the the president were a Democrat?  Does he think a unitary strong executive should prevail only if the president is Republican advocating for the richest in the nation and above the law our Founders feared?

Bill Barr Must Resign -- By Donald Ayer Former U.S. Deputy Attorney General under George H. W. Bush

The attorney general is working to destroy the integrity and independence of the Justice Department, in order to make Donald Trump a president who can operate above the law.

Former Deputy Attorney General Shares Dire Warning If William Barr Does Not Resign--By Josephine Harvey

Donald Ayer, a deputy attorney general under George H.W. Bush, predicts a grim outcome for America if Barr continues to serve Trump. 

A former deputy attorney general in George H.W. Bush’s administration has warned that the integrity of the Justice Department has been compromised by the current attorney general, William Barr, paving the way for “virtually autocratic” leadership by President Donald Trump.
In an op-ed for The Atlantic published Monday, Donald Ayer, who has known Barr for more than four decades and once worked with him at the Department of Justice, warned of a grim future if his former colleague is not removed from office.
Reflecting on Barr’s first year of service, Ayer concluded that he has “appeared to function much more as the president’s personal advocate than as an attorney general serving the people and government of the United States.”
Any optimism that Barr would stand strong against attempts to inject politics into the department’s work was misplaced, Ayer wrote, highlighting a series of “disturbing” events beginning with his “public whitewashing of Robert Mueller’s report, which included powerful evidence of repeated obstruction of justice by the president,” and ending with the “worst of all”: Barr’s reported intervention in the criminal prosecution of Trump’s friend Roger Stone. 
“For whatever twisted reasons, he believes that the president should be above the law, and he has as his foil in pursuit of that goal a president who, uniquely in our history, actually aspires to that status.”
The fundamental reason that Barr is unfit for office, according to Ayer, is that he does not believe in the central tenet of America’s democracy: that “no person is above the law.” 
“Bill Barr’s America is not a place that anyone, including Trump voters, should want to go,” Ayer concluded.
“It is a banana republic where all are subject to the whims of a dictatorial president and his henchmen. To prevent that, we need a public uprising demanding that Bill Barr resign immediately, or failing that, be impeached.”
Ayer is just one of more than 2,000 former prosecutors and DOJ officials to call for Barr’s resignation in the wake of the extraordinary events of the past week. Last Tuesday, four career prosecutors withdrew from the Stone case after top Justice Department officials overruled their sentencing recommendation. Seemingly confirming concerns that Barr had intervened on his behalf, the president openly applauded Barr for “taking charge” of the case on Twitter. Later in an interview, Barr said that constant tweets and commentary were complicating his job.
Barr’s push back was faulted widely as an attempt to cover up what critics suggested was a coordinated attempt between him and Trump to defuse the firestorm over the preferential treatment given Trump’s longtime ally.

Democratic Presidential Convention--On to November

  I watched the Democratic convention last evening until my body's demand for sleep overtook me around midnight.  Having followed thin...