OMNI
PRESIDENTIAL POWER NEWSLETTER #4
February 4, 2020
Presidents’
Day, 3rd Monday in February
GEORGE WASHINGTON’S BIRTHDAY FEB. 22.
Compiled
by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology.
http://omnicenter.org/donate/
What’s at Stake: Vice-president Dick Cheney’s
entire political life was devoted to strengthening the presidency.
The Tea Party right-wing Republican
Congress members’ extreme hatred against government regulation of business and
taxes of corporations and the wealthy made the Obama presidency seem weak and
Congress strong. Then the alliance of
President Trump with the Republican-controlled Congress revealed a President
triumphant, possessing the power of kingly rule. Now in 2019 the House has returned to the
Democratic Party, and some control over presidential absolutism has
returned. But as the books and articles
cited below show, we cannot think the danger of an unchecked president is over.
Particularly, expect no reversal of
the power accumulated by the Commander in Chief in foreign affairs, since it
was granted by bipartisan decisions during the past The US has some 800 foreign military bases
and 10 carrier battle groups (US bases in motion!) the president, the Pentagon,
and Congress consider US territory not to be surrendered to anybody, including
the few peace makers in Contress!
These newsletters show
circumstantially the steady increase of presidential power, particularly in
foreign policy (accelerating during wars, which have become permanent). In foreign affairs particularly the
acceptance of the President as Commander-in-Chief will continue to move the
country toward totalitarian rule.
OMNI
Presidents‘ Day NEWSLETTER #1. April 5, 2015.
U.
S. CONGRESS, the MONEY/CORPORATE/CONGRESSIONAL/MEDIA
OMNI
Presidents’ Day Newsletter #2, February 19, 2018. http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2018/02/presidents-day-2018.html
Presidents’ Day Newsletter #2, February 19, 2018. http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2018/02/presidents-day-2018.html
OMNI
PRESIDENTS’ DAY Newsletter #3, FEBRUARY 18, 2019 (3rd
Mondays). PRESIDENTIAL POWER, BALANCE OF POWERS, ROLE OF CONGRESS, Money,
Corporations, Media https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2019/02/presidents-day-newsletter-february-18.html
Table of Contents, Power of Presidency Newsletter #3
Fulbright,
The Crippled Giant. The rise of presidential and fall of
congressional power.
Brandon
Prins, Treaty Power: Theodore Roosevelt, George W. Bush, and Congress
Brands
on Woodrow Wilson in WWI
Dick
Cheney, Afghan and Iraqi Wars and Expanded Unitary Executive
From
Truman to Obama: Andrew Bacevich, America’s Path to Permanent War (see his
The New American Militarism)
From
1940s to the 21st Century and George W. Bush: Gary Wills, Bomb Power
State
Secret Privilege and Unchecked Pres. Power:
Louis Fisher, In the Name of National Security
National
Security and the President’s Secret Government: Fred Branfman, The U.S. Indo-China War and Rise of
Presidential Power.
Jonathan
Stevenson, Presidential and Pentagon Power Struggle During Afghan and Iraq Wars
Obama,
Presidency, and Drones: Lloyd Gardner, Killing Machine
Feeble
Resistance: Congress vs. Obama and Black Budget 2014
US
House Votes to Restore Its War Powers, special thanks to Rep. Lee 2020
TEXTS
Rise of Presidential Power as Congress Declines
J. William Fulbright, The Crippled Giant, and other books and essays. The Rise of Presidential Power
was Paralleled by Decline of Congressional Power and therefore of
Constitutional Democracy. See
earlier newsletters
FINE-TUNING TREATY POWER: Theodore Roosevelt and George Bush and
their Congresses
International Commitments in an Era of Unilateral Presidential Power
International Commitments in an Era of Unilateral Presidential Power
A Comparison of the Treaties
and Executive Agreements Negotiated by the Administrations of George W. Bush
and Theodore Roosevelt by Brandon C. Prins
Texas Tech University
& Bryan W. Marshall
Miami University
Paper prepared for the Shambaugh Conference,
“Building Synergies Institutions and Cooperation in World Politics,” October
12-15, University
of Iowa
Treaty-making involves the constitutional struggle for policy control.
Both Congress and the president are defined as official actors in the making of
international commitments, and both closely guard their constitutionally
defined roles. Yet extant scholarship generally concludes Congress rarely
matters in establishing U.S. formal commitments abroad. Indeed, it is
frequently pointed out that only 21 treaties have been voted down by the U.S.
Senate in its 230 year existence. While true, such a figure presents an
incomplete picture of congressional influence. Presidents may covet greater
institutional capacity to direct unilaterally U.S. foreign policy, but
opposition in both the House and Senate frequently reins in an uncompromising
White House. In this paper we compare the international commitments made by
Presidents George W. Bush (2001-2004) and Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909). We
find the Senate’s role in influencing and/or altering treaties has been
under-estimated in most analyses. While the Senate rarely rejects a treaty
negotiated by the president with a recorded floor vote, the Senate can and does
attach amendments and reservations to treaties that affect U.S. obligations and
responsibilities. More importantly, though, and even less recognized are
treaties killed by the Senate through inaction. At least 21 treaties during
Roosevelt’s administration were rejected by the Senate, none of them by a
formal floor vote. By ignoring Senate influence before an official floor vote
risks under-estimating the influence the Senate has on U.S. commitments abroad.
This paper also explores the domestic political authority under which presidents
negotiate international agreements. Most scholars conclude that international agreements signal
unilateral presidential power. Yet, many are negotiated pursuant to
congressional statutes or previously ratified treaties. In both cases, Congress maintains
influence over the process.
Woodrow Wilson, the Presidency, and WWI
Hold Your Labels
BY H.W. BRANDS, BLOOMBERG NEWS. February 3, 2011 at 3:28 a.m.
. The man who tried to save the world from tyranny is now being excoriated as a liberal fascist by the likes of Glenn Beck, Jonah Goldberg, and other conservatives. This story is only available from the archives. Click here to contact the online desk. Editorial, Pages 14 on 02/03/2011. Part of the article explains the increase of presidential/administrative power during WWI and during wars in general.
Hold Your Labels
BY H.W. BRANDS, BLOOMBERG NEWS. February 3, 2011 at 3:28 a.m.
. The man who tried to save the world from tyranny is now being excoriated as a liberal fascist by the likes of Glenn Beck, Jonah Goldberg, and other conservatives. This story is only available from the archives. Click here to contact the online desk. Editorial, Pages 14 on 02/03/2011. Part of the article explains the increase of presidential/administrative power during WWI and during wars in general.
Dick
Cheney Vice President of the United States under George W. Bush championed "unitary
executive" to expand power
Cheney concentrated on efforts to strengthen and expand the powers of the presidency--and his own great influence within the George W. Bush administration. As described in Barton Gellman's account of the Cheney vice presidency, "Angler," he not only deftly maneuvered the vice presidential nomination for himself but went on to shape the office of the vice presidency into an unprecedented power center in its own right. Cheney championed the theory of the "unitary executive," holding that the Constitution bestowed total power upon the president as commander in chief of the armed forces in wartime. In the process, he embraced and stoutly defended administration legal positions justifying extreme practices in foreign and domestic intelligence surveillance that dismayed civil liberties defenders. Joe Biden labeled Cheney as the most dangerous vice president in the history of the Republic. Source: A Life of Trial & Redemption, by Jules Witcover, p.402 , Oct 5, 2010
Cheney concentrated on efforts to strengthen and expand the powers of the presidency--and his own great influence within the George W. Bush administration. As described in Barton Gellman's account of the Cheney vice presidency, "Angler," he not only deftly maneuvered the vice presidential nomination for himself but went on to shape the office of the vice presidency into an unprecedented power center in its own right. Cheney championed the theory of the "unitary executive," holding that the Constitution bestowed total power upon the president as commander in chief of the armed forces in wartime. In the process, he embraced and stoutly defended administration legal positions justifying extreme practices in foreign and domestic intelligence surveillance that dismayed civil liberties defenders. Joe Biden labeled Cheney as the most dangerous vice president in the history of the Republic. Source: A Life of Trial & Redemption, by Jules Witcover, p.402 , Oct 5, 2010
From Truman to Obama
Bacevich, Andrew. Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War. Metropolitan, 2010. Library Annex JZ1480 .B335 2010 .
Bacevich, Andrew. Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War. Metropolitan, 2010. Library Annex JZ1480 .B335 2010 .
Interv. Democracy Now (7-2-10).
Regardless of
the president or party, the basic edifice of the U.S. National Security State
(NSS) has remained unchanged: 1) a worldwide military presence; 2) armed forces
not for defense but for dominance; and 3) intervention in other nations from
influencing elections to military invasion (over 40 since1945 according to
William Blum in Killing Hope and Rogue State U.S.
From Publishers Weekly
U.S.
Army colonel turned academic, Bacevich (The
Limits of Power Main Library JK271 .B24 2008) offers an unsparing, cogent, and important critique of
assumptions guiding American military policy. These central tenets, the
"Washington rules"--such as the belief that the world order depends
on America maintaining a massive military capable of rapid and forceful
interventions anywhere in the world--have dominated national security policy
since the start of the cold war and have condemned the U.S. to "insolvency
and perpetual war." Despite such disasters as America's defeat in Vietnam
and the Cuban missile crisis, the self-perpetuating policy is so entrenched
that no president or influential critic has been able to alter it. Bacevich
argues that while the Washington rules found their most pernicious expression
in the Bush doctrine of preventive war,
Barack Obama's expansion of the Afghan War is also cause for pessimism:
"We should be grateful to him for making at least one thing unmistakably
clear: to imagine that Washington will ever tolerate second thoughts about the
Washington rules is to engage in willful self-deception. Washington itself has
too much to lose."
Also
see his The New American Militarism: How
Americans Are Seduced by War in UAF’s Mullins Annex.
Nuclear Weapons and Presidential Power
Gary Wills, BOMB POWER :The Modern Presidency and the National Security State. Penguin, 2010. From the 1940s to the 21st century and George W. Bush.
Gary Wills, BOMB POWER :The Modern Presidency and the National Security State. Penguin, 2010. From the 1940s to the 21st century and George W. Bush.
Rev. by George Perkovich, Washington Post, Sunday, February 7,
2010
Gary Wills begins his provocative account of the atomic bomb's impact on the republic with a high-detonation assertion. "The Bomb," he writes, "altered our subsequent history down to its deepest constitutional roots," redefining the presidency in ways that the Constitution does not intend. "It fostered an anxiety of continuing crisis, so that society was pervasively militarized. It redefined the government as a National Security State, with an apparatus of secrecy and executive control. It redefined Congress, as an executor of the executive." Book review: 'Bomb Power' by Garry Wills
Gary Wills begins his provocative account of the atomic bomb's impact on the republic with a high-detonation assertion. "The Bomb," he writes, "altered our subsequent history down to its deepest constitutional roots," redefining the presidency in ways that the Constitution does not intend. "It fostered an anxiety of continuing crisis, so that society was pervasively militarized. It redefined the government as a National Security State, with an apparatus of secrecy and executive control. It redefined Congress, as an executor of the executive." Book review: 'Bomb Power' by Garry Wills
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State Secrecy Privilege
Fisher, Louis. In the Name of National Security: Unchecked Presidential Power and the “Reynolds” Case. UP Kansas, 2006. Law Library Stacks KF228.R485 F57 2006
The Supreme Court upheld in United States v. Reynolds (1953) a new precedent, allowing the executive branch to assert an all-encompassing “state secret privilege” as a basis for withholding information from public scrutiny.
See
Fisher’s books in Mullins.
PRESIDENTS’ SECRET GOVERNMENT and WARS
Fred Branfman. The US
Indo-China War and Rise of Presidential Power under Secrecy and the Guise of
National Security
Fred
Branfman, one of the nation's leading experts on U.S. Executive Branch Secret War
since revealing the U.S. Secret War in Laos to the world in 1969, will be
speaking in Tulsa at the Tulsa Community College on March 4, 2014 at 11
A.M.. and at the University
of Tulsa
"Americans need to understand the
phenomenon of 'U.S. Executive Secret War' both because it is becoming
the dominant mode of U.S. warmaking abroad, and our Executive Secret
Government is coming home in the form of surveillance and a variety
of other activities which create the potential for a domestic police
state," he stated.
Branfman
is the author of "Presidential War in Laos: 1964-70" and compiled
Voices From the Plain of Jars: Life
Under An Air War, recently
reissued by the University of Wisconsin Press. It is the only book to emerge
from the Indochina War written by the peasants who comprised 95% of the
population, suffered most, but were heard from least. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post,
Harper's, The New Republic, Nation, and many other publications.
Most
recently he has published over 20 articles on the Executive Branch's
"National Counterterrorism Strategy" throughout the Muslim World, and
Executive surveillance and other police activities in the United States.
"Although
the U.S. Executive justifies its warmaking by claiming it does so to
enhance national security, it has in fact weakened U.S. national
security as never before. As a result of its drone and ground assassination
strategy its foes have vastly gained in strength, most seriously in
nuclear-armed Pakistan where U.S. policy has strengthened our enemies, weakened
our allies and, according to the former U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson, made it
far more likely that nuclear materials will fall into U.S. foes'
hands.
"The
U.S. Executive Branch, without informing let alone obtaining the consent of
Congress or the American people, dropped 2 million tons of bombs on Laos, as
much as was dropped on all of Europe and the Pacific in WWII. But it still
lost, just as it is losing in Iraq, Afghanistan and throughout the Muslim world
after wasting $4 trillion that could have been used to create jobs at
home," he stated. And the human cost -- over 20 million civilians killed,
wounded and made homeless by the U.S. Executive in Iraq and Indochina alone --
has been staggering.”
COMPETITION FROM THE PENTAGON: MILITARIZATION DURING AFGHAN AND IRAQ
WARS
Jonathan Stevenson. “Owned by the Army: Has the President Lost Control of His Generals?” Harper’s Magazine (May 2011). A quick history of the growing power of the Pentagon, presidents’ struggles with high officers, and the extraordinary power of General Petraeus: the “compromise of civilian control….the logical outcome of a national policy based on endless war.” The disaster to our democracy by the ascendancy of military power has resulted in “a civilian leadership increasingly likely to internalize military priorities and attitudes.” [Stevenson’s defense of a civilian president’s control of the military seems undermined by his own argument.] --Dick
Jonathan Stevenson. “Owned by the Army: Has the President Lost Control of His Generals?” Harper’s Magazine (May 2011). A quick history of the growing power of the Pentagon, presidents’ struggles with high officers, and the extraordinary power of General Petraeus: the “compromise of civilian control….the logical outcome of a national policy based on endless war.” The disaster to our democracy by the ascendancy of military power has resulted in “a civilian leadership increasingly likely to internalize military priorities and attitudes.” [Stevenson’s defense of a civilian president’s control of the military seems undermined by his own argument.] --Dick
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Mullins Main Library
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OBAMA and Drones
Killing Machine: The American Presidency in the Age of Drone Warfare by LLOYD C. GARDNER. New P, 2013. 304pp.
Killing Machine: The American Presidency in the Age of Drone Warfare by LLOYD C. GARDNER. New P, 2013. 304pp.
Publisher’s
Summary:
FROM
THE “DEVASTATINGLY EFFECTIVE” (ANDREW BACEVICH) CHRONICLER OF AMERICAN FOREIGN
POLICY, A SCATHING NEW ASSESSMENT OF THE AMERICAN PRESIDENCY AND U.S. GLOBAL
POWER
Thomas E.
Donilon, the national security advisor, remarked that what surprised him the
most about Obama in office was: “He’s a president who is quite comfortable with
the use of force on behalf of the United States.” —FROM KILLING MACHINE
With Obama’s
election to the presidency in 2008, many believed the United States had entered
a new era: Obama came into office with high expectations that he would end the
war in Iraq and initiate a new foreign policy that would reestablish American
values and the United States’ leadership role in the world.
In this
shattering new assessment, historian Lloyd C. Gardner argues that, despite cosmetic changes, Obama has simply
built on the expanding power base of presidential power that reaches back
across decades and through multiple administrations. The new president
ended the “enhanced interrogation” policy of the Bush administration but did
not abandon the concept of preemption. Obama withdrew from Iraq but has
institutionalized drone warfare—including the White House’s central role in
selecting targets. What has come into view, Gardner argues, is the new face of
American presidential power: high-tech, secretive, global, and lethal.
Killing Machine skillfully narrates the drawdown in
Iraq, the counterinsurgency warfare in Afghanistan, the rise of the use of
drones, and targeted assassinations from al-Awlaki to Bin Laden—drawing from
the words of key players in these actions as well as their major public critics.
With unparalleled historical perspective, Gardner’s book is the new touchstone
for understanding not only the Obama administration but the American presidency
itself.
Praise for Killing Machine:
“Gardner
delivers an engrossing blow-by-blow account of a decade of fierce debates and
painful events that offer excruciating parallels with the Vietnam War.”
—PUBLISHERS
WEEKLY (STARRED REVIEW)
Lloyd C.
Gardner is Professor Emeritus of History at Rutgers University and the author
or editor of more than a dozen books, including The Long Road to Baghdad and Three
Kings (both from The New Press). Mullins
Library: Internet Resource JK558 .G37 2013 Browse
(Feeble)
RESISTANCE 2014
Global
Network [globalnet@mindspring.com]
Global
Network [globalnet@mindspring.com]
February 12,
2014, 03:53 pm
Lawmakers want to see the ‘black budget’
By Julian Hattem
Dozens of
House lawmakers want the Obama administration
to release the secret “black budget” used to fund intelligence agencies.
A bipartisan group of 62 members of Congress
wrote President Obama a letter on Wednesday asking him to release the fiscal
2015 spending levels for 16 federal spy agencies when he delivers the rest of
his budget to Congress on March 4.
“The current practice of providing no specificity
whatsoever regarding the overall budget requests for each intelligence agency
falls woefully short of basic accountability requirements,” the legislators
wrote.
“As you develop your fiscal year 2015 budget, we strongly urge you to take a simple step toward much needed transparency by including the total amount requested for each of the sixteen intelligence agencies. We believe the top line number for each agency should be made public, with no risk to national security, for comparative purposes across all federal government agencies.”
Wednesday’s request was led by Reps. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) and Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), who last month introduced the Intelligence Budget Transparency Act. The bill would require the administration to release basic details about the spy agencies’ budgets.
The federal government has disclosed the overall
amount of money spent to fund the intelligence community since 2007, but has
kept classified more specific details about the individual budgets of agencies
like the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency (NSA).
Documents released by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden last year showed that
the CIA has grown to eat up about 28 percent of the $52.6 billion spent in
2013. The $14.7 billion it received was about 50 percent more than the NSA’s
funding.
The White House did not immediately respond to an
inquiry from The Hill about the lawmakers' request.
Global Network Against Weapons &
Nuclear Power in Space
PO Box 652
Brunswick, ME 04011
(207) 443-9502
globalnet@mindspring.com
www.space4peace.org
http://space4peace.blogspot.com/ (blog)
PO Box 652
Brunswick, ME 04011
(207) 443-9502
globalnet@mindspring.com
www.space4peace.org
http://space4peace.blogspot.com/ (blog)
A Little More Grit from the House 2020
Matthew
Daly. (AP). “House Reasserts War Powers Authority: Repeal
of 2002 Authorization, Funding Limits on Action Against Iran Pass.” NADG
(Jan. 31, 2020). All of us should send
thanks and contribution to Rep.
Barbara Lee, D-Calif., who
sponsored the measure repealing the 2002 war authorization. “’It is time to end giving blank checks to
any president to wage endless wars.’” House Republican #2 Rep. Scalise denounced the
bill, for restricting the president’s “’ability to protect our nation.’” The bill was not expected to pass the
Republican-controlled Senate or President Trump’s veto.
Contents Presidents Day Newsletter
#1, Feb. 18/22, 2013
http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2013/02/presidents-day-newsletter-1.html
350.org 2012 AND 2013 actions
Dick: What Is Presidents’ Day?
Wills: Presidential Bomb Power
Conason: It Is Happening
Mayer: War on Terror = War on US
Scheer: “Defense” (= War) Hawks and 9-11
Daniel Ellsberg, Interview: Presidential Unconstitutional Abuse of War
Power
Contents: Presidents’ Day Newsletter #2 February 19,
2018
The Constitution
Separation of
Powers, umkc.edu/faculty/projects
J. William
Fulbright, The Crippled Giant
Increasing the Power of the Presidency
Brands,
Militarization of US Presidency, Wilson WWI
National
Security, Secrecy, State Secret Privilege, and Nuclear Weapons
Fisher
Authorization
for the Use of Military Force. Representatives
Adam Schiff and Barbara Lee
Stevenson,
Militarization Afghan and Iraqi Wars
Contents: Presidents’ Day Newsletter #3, Feb. 18, 2019
Resistance
to Trump’s National Emergency against Refugees
California
AG
The Progressive Magazine
ACLU
WWW
AFSC
UUSC
Sheppard. “Trump’s
‘National Emergency’ Power Grab.”
CONTEXTS
President Trump, Congress, and the Wall
Fram,
Lucey, and Miller, AP Summary of Present Situation
“Why Congress Rolls Over for
Trump” by Doug Sosnik. Politico Magazine. August 2, 2018.
Balance of Powers Failing:
History of Weakening Congress
Mann, Thomas and Norman Ornstein. The
Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on
Track
Presidential Power Increasing
Schlesinger, The
Imperial Presidency
Crenson,
Matthew and Benjamin Ginsberg. Presidential Power: Unchecked & Unbalanced.
Congress’s
National Emergency Act
Todd
Miller, Storming the Wall
END PRESIDENTS DAY (2-18-19), #4, FEBRUARY 4,
2020
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