October 30, 2009
Word of the Day
Ukase: 1 : a proclamation by a Russian emperor or government having the force of law
(M-W)
Use it in a sentence, jk! Well, let me quote Stanford Law Professor Michael McConnell:
Mr. [Pay Czar Kenneth] Feinberg's ukase is the most prominent example (and not just by the Obama administration) of the exercise of power by an individual unilaterally appointed by the executive branch without Senate confirmation—and thus outside the ordinary channels of Congressional oversight.
McConnell is director of Stanford's Constitutional Law Center and his editorial asks what some ThreeSourcers have been asking for a while: what is his Constitutional footing for these Executive arrogations?
Some other Law Professor in Tennessee who has a little blog mentions: "You know, if a Republican President were doing this many bizarre things, public-interest lawyers would be suing right and left to stop them." I wonder where the media is [hey, stop laughing out there!] President Bush was barraged with accusations -- some well deserved -- of his and VP Cheney's "shredding the Constitution." Both were unabashed believers in Executive power.
Now that the new administration has turned the dial up from 8 to 11, these once fierce watchdogs are suddenly pretty comfortable with unipartate government: Humphrey’s Executor v United States anybody?
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By the way, yesterday's Word of the Day comes from my brother: condylarth (noun) a fossil herbivorous mammal of the early Tertiary period, ancestral to the ungulates. Do not play hangman with my brother, just don't!