Abuse of power

West Bank: a government in jail

Barghouthi was one of scores of Palestinian officials arrested by Israel after Shalit's abduction, including 33 elected members of the Palestinian legislative council and five cabinet ministers. Most have been held without charges, as Israeli law permits when someone presents a security threat. Some, according to a request by the Monitor for information on their cases from the IDF, are accused of "membership in an illegal organization" - Hamas.

Barghouthi, an independent who is not a member of Hamas but was appointed to the Ministry of Labor because of his professional management credentials, was released more than six weeks later on Aug. 14. By then, he was so thin and disheveled, his family recalls, that when he came home his children cried and his mother collapsed.

Ten Big News Stories You Aren't Hearing


If you are as old as I am (which is slightly older then dirt) you will recognize the names John Dean and Liz Holtzman.

If not then start learning your history kids.

John Dean and Liz Holtzman Square off on Impeaching Bush

The impeachment proceeding against Bill Clinton was itself a congressional abuse of power. There were no grounds for impeachment. It was a partisan effort to undo an election. It was not to protect the country from an abuse of power, which is what impeachment is all about. The framers understood—because they had lived through a monarchy—that when you have a president, even though you have a limited four-year term, even though you have checks and balances through the Supreme Court and the Congress, a president can still abuse his power, become a despot, oppress the people, and have to be removed from office. That’s why they created the impeachment power; it’s part of the way of preserving our democracy; but it has to be very carefully used, because it undoes the results of a presidential election. It cannot be used as the Republican majority tried to [with Clinton]. The American people won’t stand for it and shouldn’t stand for it.

Contra-wise, when you have a president who so seriously abuses his power as President Bush does, who signs a bill into law but says that he doesn’t have to obey it; that he doesn’t have to obey 750 bills that became laws because of his signature; that he doesn’t have to obey the explicit terms of the federal wiretapping law.... What happens to a democracy if a president says, “I’m above the law”? We dealt with that in the Nixon impeachment. The Supreme Court dealt with it when President Truman said, “I’m the commander in chief; I can seize steel mills.” [In the famous Youngstown decision] The Supreme Court said no.

by Elizabeth Holtzman