WASHINGTON -- While President Barack Obama still faces stiff headwinds on a range of major legislation on his agenda, he has been signing into law a slew of smaller initiatives that had gathered dust on the Democratic wish list for years. Many of the bills had been blocked by Re …

1

1

Anna Quindlen thinks that, so far, the Obama's presidency has been exactly what the Founding Father's would have wanted.

7

8

Madison argued that the safety of a great republic, its defense against tyranny, requires the contest between factions or interests.

3

1

How quaint. The Republicans are concerned about checks and balances.

40

98

Executive Summary At the heart of American constitutional democracy is the concept of checks and balances: limits on the reach of each branch of government so that none can act unilaterally or exercise power without accountability.

1

1

With one day to go before a run-off election which will help determine the scope of the Democratic Party's majority in the United States Senate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin urged voters in Augusta, Ga., on Monday to re-elect Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R).

3

2

Is American Capitalism dead?

I recently saw a headline asking " Is American Capitalism dead? ". This question caused me to flash back to November 1989. I was in my ninth year of living and working abroad in Europe. On this particular day we awoke to news of the fall of the Berlin wall.

2

0

HELP! There's only one week left before the Bush Administration changes the Endangered Species Act and cripples our nation's most successful wildlife law. Please help out... there's only one week left to challenge thes changes.

2

4

While there may be many reasons to support Barack Obama, don't assume that a Democratic president will necessarily transform the counterterrorism policies of the current administration.

6

2

[I]t is clear that what began on September 11, 2001, as a battle for America's security became, and continues to be, a battle for the country's soul.

1

0

As the House Judiciary Committee took up the question of how best to address what its chairman described as "the Imperial Presidency of George W.

1

0

When Congress allows its own subpoena and oversight powers literally to be ignored and scoffed at, the damage to our system of checks and balances can't be overstated.

36

16

Congress has been far too compliant as President Bush undermined the Bill of Rights and the balance of powers. It now has a chance to undo some of that damage — if it has the courage and good sense to stand up to the White House and for the Constitution.

7

1

Last Thursday saw another major national security decision from the Supreme Court, which once again refused to legitimize the Bush administration's arbitrary detentions of persons asserted to be "enemy combatants." The Court held 5-4 in Boumediene v.

6

9

The Boumediene ruling does not directly require the government to release the prisoners at Guantánamo, or even to transfer them elsewhere.

4

2

In the Boumediene case, the dissenters thought that the separation principle ought to prevail because of the deference courts typically afford the political branches in wartime.

3

1

...the next president could launch preemptive wars with only minor interference from Congress, ignore the ancient right of habeas corpus and imprison political enemies, spy on American citizens without serious legal restraint, use practically any federal agency for political purp …

8

5

More memos recently have surfaced that were written early in the Bush administration by John C. Yoo from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel -- the man who gave us the administration's horrifyingly narrow definition of torture.

8

1

Almost 32 years to the day after President Ford created an independent Intelligence Oversight Board made up of private citizens with top-level clearances to ferret out illegal spying activities, President Bush issued an executive order that stripped the board of much of its autho …

10

6

Congress is deliberately converting us to a dictatorship. This open letter to Congress and the Public a) exposes the wrong-doings of Congress b) tells them what we, the people are going to do about it (right?) c) Please note that the solutions are at the end of the article.

0

1

For the past seven years, George W. Bush has expanded presidential power in ways that no one could have predicted when he took office.

1

1

Where is Congress? It's way past time for members to stand up. Historic matters are at stake.

15

16

If foreign terrorists set out to undermine confidence in the American legal system as an arbiter of justice, they could hardly do more damage than the Bush Administration has done by its use of the "state secrets" privilege.

5

0

— A US judge on Thursday struck down a law allowing federal anti-terrorism agents to access financial, telephone and Internet records without a warrant.

4

0

On Checks and Balances, Oversight, and Control

Our founding fathers understood human nature enough to know that we are flawed and need other people to help us and watch over us.

1

0