posted
Bush has roughly 62 days left as president of the US, what will he do with them. Ordinarily, a lame duck President, particularly one that is highly unpopular and whose party just lost the election, would pretty much spend that time packing up the office. He might take the opportunity to make a few controversial pardons or sneak through a few last executive orders but he would but thats about it.
But with the current global economic crisis that needs immediate action and the end of UN mandate in Iraq, Bush has some leverage that might not ordinarily exist. For example he has already tried to tie bailout for GM to the columbian free trade agreement.
This thread is for people to post both news links about what Bush is doing and speculations about what might happen.
[ November 25, 2008, 02:15 PM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
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posted
In a bizarre turn of events Dick Cheney and Alberto Gonzales have been indicted by a grand jury in south texas for their role in a federal prison scandal. link.
Will Bush offer a pardon on his way out the door?
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posted
Bush can't pardon people for state offenses. The news story is depressingly vague on the important details, but it seems as if these are state charges.
The "burrowing" thing is par for the course. I've personally witnessed it in three administration changes: Reagan to Bush, Bush to Clinton, and Clinton to Bush.
If we want to stop it, we should pass a law prohibiting such transfers. I'd have a lot of respect for Schumer and Feinstein if they passed a law to that effect at the start of a Democrat's term. I'm not holding my breath, though.
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quote:Bush can't pardon people for state offenses. The news story is depressingly vague on the important details, but it seems as if these are state charges.
I've searched the internet and can't find a clear answer to this. The charges involve a federal prison, so federal charges might be possible but as best I can tell these are in fact state charges. Gonzales was indicted for using his position to stop the investigation. I don't know if this means that he stopped a federal investigation which might be reinstituted under a new administration or if he used his federal office to interfere with a state investigation.
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quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: If we want to stop it, we should pass a law prohibiting such transfers. I'd have a lot of respect for Schumer and Feinstein if they passed a law to that effect at the start of a Democrat's term. I'm not holding my breath, though.
I had no idea this went on, but it's not at all surprising. You're right too- that should be something that Obama would promise not to do.
Feinstein is my state senator (and a friend of the family)... I think I'll write a little note.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: Bush has roughly 62 days left as president of the US, what will he do with them. Ordinarily, a lame duck President, particularly one that is highly unpopular and whose party just lost the election, would pretty much spend that time packing up the office. He might take the opportunity to make a few controversial pardons or sneak through a few last executive orders but he would but thats about it.
But with the current global economic crisis that needs immediate action and the end of UN mandate in Iraq, Bush has some leverage that might not ordinarily exist. For example he has already tried to tie bailout for GM to the columbian free trade agreement.
This thread is for people to post both news links about what Bush is doing and speculations about what might happen.
Why bother issuing executive orders that Obama will just undo in 60 days?
Obama can undo most of whatever Bush does in his last 60 days, and Bush knows it. Furthermore, I doubt he wants to make things any harder for Congressional Republicans in the new Congress.
I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if he did anything, but at the same time, I really don't expect anything major.
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posted
The hardest things to undo are actions that create rights in private parties: leases (mineral, logging, etc.) and contracts. Some permitting is hard to undo (in that the legal standard for revoking a permit is higher than the standard for denying it.
The other thing is that undoing some things will require notice and comment rulemaking, which takes time to undo. Actions performed by private parties pursuant to new regulations will not be subject to sanctions retroactively without congressional action - and even then, it can be difficult.
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quote:Why bother issuing executive orders that Obama will just undo in 60 days?
This isn't unique to this Presidency. Every President in my memory has issued a number of executive orders during the last lame duck weeks.
During the first few months, every administration is extremely busy with new appointments, congressional hearings, and a variety of transitions. Even if he wanted to, it is doubtful that Obama could simply over turn every Bush executive order on his first day in office.
Something has to be created to fill the hole left by removing the order and as Dagonee mentioned there are legal requirements for notice, comment and so forth. Even if the hole is filled by something as simple as "go back to the previous rule", someone has to vet that previous rule to make sure it didn't have any serious problems, the rule has to be circulated for comment, recommendations from career civil servants need to be considered. All of that is going to be difficult to do before Obama has appointed people to head the agencies involved and those appointees have been approved by congress.
Consider for example the link I gave about the change in EPA regulations for air quality in National Parks. The change would make if possible to site power plants and other pollution sources close to National Parks. Nine of 10 EPA regional administrators have either official dissented or criticized the plan in writing but the administration is expected to approve it. NPCA is already planning to file a petition for Obama to overturn the plan. So why bother passing it at all? Because chances are good that it will stay in effect for at least several months and that during that time permits will be issued that will be very difficult to revoke even if the plan is ultimately changed.
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posted
The EPA really has much more massive things to worry about regarding air quality than how close power plants are to National Parks. Ever since CAIR was thrown out, there's been a lack of any clear regulation regarding energy pollutants.
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True enough. But I've invested a good bit of time studying air pollution in Yellowstone so its a subject close to my heart.
This rule change is pretty typical of the things Presidents often do during their last days in office. Its something that everyone knows the next administration wouldn't approve, but not so big and so high profile to make changing it high on the next administrations priority list. Its the sort of thing that could stick around for years simply because it wasn't high enough on the list to get immediate attention.
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posted
Obama seems to be casting a pretty wide net with his transition team. He has a small army of people looking at departments and executive orders. Plus Congressional approval won't be nearly as hard as it might have been in previous administrations. He's going to have a 58 seat majority in the Senate, at least, and a huge majority in the House. That's a crap ton of wriggle room.
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posted
I was going to link some past examples of lame-duck executive orders, but all the sources I found were too partisan to inflict on this thread.
Suffice it to say that, as Rabbit said, it's common and often targeted at low profile but high impact.
To my mind, criticism or praise of lame-duck orders should be the same as if the orders were not lame-duck. When Clinton left, there was a bunch of complaints about midnight rule-making from the right-leaning punditirati. Now we'll see it from the left-leaning punditirati. It's pretty meaningless to me.
This is a side-effect of the executive-driven regulatory state and the lag period between election and inauguration. If I thought there was a chance to have a real national discussion on the structural elements underlying this phenomenon, I'd welcome the attention in the media. But as far as I can tell, the national coverage is always pretty much blah-blah-blah partisanship.
The important factors here are:
1.) the orders are presumably within the president's (or, in larger sense, the executive agency's) power, else the actions won't be permanent and the changeover would be irrelevant.
2.) Bush is the President and the relevant agency is still empowered to make these decisions.
3.) anything I've thought of so far that removes 2 would have serious negative repercussions or would be blatantly unconstitutional.
One thing to note is that Obama and his appointees can decide how the government responds to any suits brought to challenge these rules AND gets to make what are called "interpretive rules" (without notice and comment) that dramatically affect the real-world impact of these rules. This is just as appropriate as Bush's promulgating of these rules - it's the president's prerogative.
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quote:To my mind, criticism or praise of lame-duck orders should be the same as if the orders were not lame-duck. When Clinton left, there was a bunch of complaints about midnight rule-making from the right-leaning punditirati. Now we'll see it from the left-leaning punditirati. It's pretty meaningless to me.
I more or less agree, with the exception that lame duck rules can frequently include some controversial items that would be politically unpopular under rule by either party. A lame duck president can do those things because there is no politcal price to pay. That can be good or bad depending on your perspective and the particular action. Its definitely worth watching what's done either way.
One thing that makes this year different from many past situations is the economic crisis. Ordinarily, one would expect that a lame duck president whose party didn't control the legislature would not have any leverage on any legislative issues. The congress majority would likely just stall on everything until their man had the veto power.
But this year, there is pressure both internationally and nationally indicating that the US can't wait until late January to act on the economic issues. So George Bush has some leverage that a lame duck president wouldn't ordinarily have.
While I agree that anything he does along these longs will most likely be legal, I also think its a pretty unethical use of power.
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posted
You should make the number in the thread title count down, give us something to smile about each day Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Yozhik: I think we should invade Canada.
We try that a few years back and it didn't turn out so well.
Let's go for Mexico, we've had better luck there.
We haven't tried it in almost 200 years. Besides, they don't have the British helping them now, we could totally take 'em.
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: ... Besides, they don't have the British helping them now, we could totally take 'em.
Yes, because the Americans have had so much luck invading countries with roughly 30 million people recently Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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quote:In the latest bizarre development in the case, the lame-duck prosecutor who won the indictments was a no-show in court Wednesday. The judge ordered Texas Rangers to go to Willacy County District Attorney Juan Guerra's house, check on his well-being and order him to court on Friday.
Half of the eight high-profile indictments returned Monday by a Willacy County grand jury are tied to privately run federal detention centers in the sparsely populated South Texas county. The other half target judges and special prosecutors who played a role in an earlier investigation of Guerra.
Here's where my skepticism doubles:
quote:An attorney for the private prison operator The GEO Group filed motions accusing Guerra of "prosecutorial vindictiveness."
One motion said Guerra had hijacked "the grand jury process and disregarded the requirements of the Code of Criminal Procedure designed to protect defendants' due process rights."
Some attorneys argued that Banales may not have the authority to schedule an arraignment because the indictments were invalid. One lawyer said Guerra never should have been allowed to present the cases to the grand jury because at least four of the indictments deal with people who had some role in the investigation of his office last year.
"He is the witness, the victim and the prosecutor," said the attorney for Mervyn Mosbacker Jr., a former U.S. attorney who was appointed special prosecutor to investigate Guerra.
District Clerk Gilbert Lozano, District judges Janet Leal and Migdalia Lopez, and special prosecutors Mosbacker and Gustavo Garza, a longtime political opponent of Guerra, were all indicted on charges of official abuse of official capacity and official oppression.
The grand jury tied all of their charges to an earlier investigation of Guerra's office.
Edit: Rabbit, I'm not quite sure which of Bush's actions you're calling a "pretty unethical use of power" for a lame duck. Are you referring only to Bush's use of the veto threat to gain leverage on legislative issues there, or to the non-legislative things we've been discussing as well?
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quote:Rabbit, I'm not quite sure which of Bush's actions you're calling a "pretty unethical use of power" for a lame duck. Are you referring only to Bush's use of the veto threat to gain leverage on legislative issues there, or to the non-legislative things we've been discussing as well?
My primary concern is the idea that the President (or any other official) might threaten to stymy an urgent action unless people concede to some demand. I'm sure you've seen little kids do this. They wait until the entire family is rushing to go somewhere and then they refuse to put on their shoes until they get a cookie. The greater the importance of actually getting underway quickly, the more likely it is that the kid will get his cookie.
A few days back, there was a report that Bush had made his support for an plan to bailout US automakers contingent on democratic support for the the Columbian free trade agreement. Now I'm not sure this actually happened and wasn't a rumor, but it is the kind of thing I would consider an unethical use of power. I know this kind of thing happens all the time in politics and members of both parties are guilty of it. In fact, this is the primary source of all those line item pork barrel project McCain complains so much about. That fact that its common doesn't make it an ethical use of power.
In most circumstances, a lame duck president with an unfriendly congress wouldn't have the ability to cut any deals like that because whatever issues were in the works could be put off until after Jan. 20. In that sense I think Bush has more power than a typical lame duck President. That doesn't mean he will necessarily abuse it, I just think we should be wary of it.
The other issues are in more of a gray zone to me. I could argue that a President derives his power from the people and so has an ethical obligation to respect the will of the people. Using his last hours in office to undermine the goals of his democratically elected successor is not in keeping with that spirit.
On the other hand, I could argue that even democratically elected leaders have a responsibility to use their own best judgement and not simply to follow popular opinion. There are many times when making an unpopular choice is the ethical route.
Under most circumstances in our democracy, there is a kind of natural balance between those two contradictory demands. A democratically elected leader will likely share the values and perspective of a majority of the voters so occasions where his/her judgement differs dramatically from the popular view will be rare. The necessity to answer to the voters in the next election cycle, will be strong incentive to persuade the voters he/she is doing the right thing but an elected leader normally has some time to demonstrate the effects of those choices before being called to account. In the end, if we believe our leaders are making the wrong decisions too much of the time, we can throw them out.
That balance is thrown off during a lame duck period so I think that executive orders issued by a lame duck President, deserve more scrutiny than under other circumstances. Abuse of power is more likely and so we need to be more wary of it.
It is however important to admit that this election was not simply a plebiscite on G.W. Bush. He was elected to serve through noon on Jan. 20, 2009 and nothing in this election changes that.
[ November 20, 2008, 04:02 PM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
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posted
Do you honestly think that Dubya woulda agreed to allow Iraqis to hold USsoldiers hostage for any reason other than in hopes of providing Obama (and by extension, the Democrats) with a very nasty political headache?
Cuz that is all the status of forces agreement is.
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quote:A few days back, there was a report that Bush had made his support for an plan to bailout US automakers contingent on democratic support for the the Columbian free trade agreement. Now I'm not sure this actually happened and wasn't a rumor, but it is the kind of thing I would consider an unethical use of power.
I can see situations where that might be the case, but not the one you describe. Whether the Colombian Free Trade agreement is ratified is an important part of U.S. economic policy. It is also opposed by the single biggest (by number of people) special interest group favoring the bailout - the autoworker unions. It makes perfect sense to me to link those two items, especially given that many people calling for the bailout are simultaneously calling for increased protectionism. Since it seems the government is about to consider remaking the domestic auto industry, and since the free-ness of trade is such an important part of that industry, I think considering the issues together is not only ethical but the right thing to do, whichever way the decision comes out.
Regardless of the specifics here, though, I don't see the lame-duck status as relevant to the analysis. Had this happened in February of '07, Bush would be able to make the same kind of deals. I don't see the ethical consideration to be different. If anything, the lameness only strengthens Congress's hand here.
quote:In most circumstances, a lame duck president with an unfriendly congress wouldn't have the ability to cut any deals like that because whatever issues were in the works could be put off until after Jan. 20. In that sense I think Bush has more power than a typical lame duck President. That doesn't mean he will necessarily abuse it, I just think we should be wary of it.
The big difference I see between our views is what we're comparing now to. You think the relevant comparison is to other periods of lame-duckness (at least, that's how I interpreted the above quote). I think the relevant comparison is to other periods of time-sensitive crisis. Bush having more power than a typical lame duck is not nearly as important to my ethical analysis of the situation as Bush having more power because there is a time-sensitive crisis going on.
As I said above, there are situations where using the time-sensitive crisis to accomplish unrelated goals would be ethically problematic, but I don't think the specifics here are one of them.
[quote]I know this kind of thing happens all the time in politics and members of both parties are guilty of it. In fact, this is the primary source of all those line item pork barrel project McCain complains so much about. That fact that its common doesn't make it an ethical use of power.[quote]
It sounds like you're more opposed to certain kinds of trade-offs in the legislative process than to the lame duckness aspect itself, but that you think the lame duckness factors into that calculation. I agree that tradeoffs on unrelated issues present significant ethical concerns. I'm not saying (and I don't think you are) that such tradeoffs are always unethical. But I do think they are often unethical and far too common.
Using a crisis situation to enhance one's power in negotiating such tradeoffs heightens the potential level of unethicalness.
I don't think we differ that much on the underlying principles. I think what I don't agree with is the idea that the baseline of low power during normal lame duckness is relevant to considering how much power the lame duck should wield in those situations where circumstances give him more influence.
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Dagonee, I'm not arguing that lame duckness should change the standard for what is ethical vs. unethical use of power.
My concern is that lame duckness invalidates some of the checks and balances in the system that discourage the unethical use of power. I think that will tend to increase the probability that power will be abused.
For example, lame duck Presidents usually issue a number of controversial pardons in their final hours. Controversial does not necessarily imply unethical but questionably ethical pardons are much more likely to be controversial. So for example during the last month of his Presidency, George H.W. Bush issued 37 pardons. Of those, 6 were associates of GHW Bush who had been indicted but not convicted of criminal activity in the Iran Contra affair. I would consider those 6 pardons to questionably ethical because of conflict of interest. Bill Clinton pardoned 140 people in his final hours. One of those pardoned was Clinton's half brother. I would consider that questionably ethical for the same reason. Now I would have questioned the ethics of those pardons no matter when in the Presidents term they occurred. I don't think the fact that they occurred in the lame duck period made a difference in whether or not they were ethical. I do however think that lameduckness made it easier for both those Presidents to issue those questionable pardons. Lameduckness removes some of the deterrents against abusing power and therefore increases the temptation to abuse power.
Usually that is counterbalanced by the fact that lame ducks have very little power. Therefore, in a crisis situation that enhances a lame duck Presidents power, there is need to be particularly wary of abuse.
Its not that I think the standard for what constitutes abuse should be lowered. Its that I think abuse is more likely to occur in a lame duck situation and so we need to be more concerned and attentive to any potential abuses.
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posted
OK, I see where you're coming from now. Thanks for explaining. I don't think we disagree about much, if anything, on this.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: I'm sure you've seen little kids do this. They wait until the entire family is rushing to go somewhere and then they refuse to put on their shoes until they get a cookie. The greater the importance of actually getting underway quickly, the more likely it is that the kid will get his cookie.
I'm seen kids tantrum because they don't want to put on their shoes, and I've seen kids tantrum because they want a treat. I've never seen a kid of the "refuse to put on shoes" age use this level of premeditated rationality in their tantrums.
I've also never known a parent that it would have worked on. Bribery to get a kid to put on shoes I've seen. Aquiescence to out and out extortion, not so much.
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quote: Finally, in case you haven't heard it, the hot rumour has Citigroup merging with Goldman imminently. Apparently the new firm will be called "Sachs and the Citi".
quote:Not to start an argument or discussion, but when it comes to Mexico who's "invading" who?
Us, by continuing to occupy California
It's not an occupation, and technically Mexican control was never ceded to the U.S. government, because the Californian settlers who occupied the region when the Mexicans withdrew established an independent republic, the California Republic in Sonoma, which lasted only about a month. So the takeover from Mexico was in fact facilitated by non U.S. Americans. Technically. We revolted- it was not an invasion.
Edit: I will add that the situation bears a passing resemblance to the takeover of South Ossetia by Russia. In fact, the revolt happened during a time in which the Mexican military was increasing its presence in fear of Russian encroachment into California from the north, if you can believe that. By the time news arrived in California of the Mexican-American war, the idea of the revolt got swallowed up in a push to join forces with the U.S. Military against Mexico, but the revolt did in fact begin as an independent movement.
It's obvious that the takeover of California proceeded from the M-A war's depletion of Mexican military resolve, but still, California's independence from Mexico is not a clear cut result of invasion.
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posted
I think that a President's final pardons and midnight laws are the true telling of who they are. I really didn't care at all the Clinton got a BJ from Monica, I believed the Republicans wasted a ton of time, money and manpower trying to impeach him. When Clinton pardoned Marc Rich, I was disgusted, and it is the reason I will agree that he is a slimy craphead.
Look for Bush's orders to be super pro business.
He's really a horrible, horrible, horrible President.
And if your brand of Religion is a big fan of home, i'd think twice. Or Once. Posts: 377 | Registered: Jul 2003
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Hmmm, a pretty massive bailout of Citigroup, once the largest bank in the US:
quote: The federal government agreed Sunday night to rescue Citigroup Inc. by helping to absorb potentially hundreds of billions of dollars in losses on toxic assets on its balance sheet and injecting fresh capital into the troubled financial giant.
The agreement marks a new phase in government efforts to stabilize U.S. banks and securities firms. After injecting nearly $300 billion of capital into financial institutions, federal officials now appear to be willing to help shoulder bad assets, on a targeted basis, from specific institutions.
...
Under the plan, Citigroup and the government have identified a pool of about $306 billion in troubled assets. Citigroup will absorb the first $29 billion in losses in that portfolio. After that, three government agencies -- the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. -- will take on any additional losses, though Citigroup could have to share a small portion of additional losses.
The plan would essentially put the government in the position of insuring a slice of Citigroup's balance sheet. That means taxpayers will be on the hook if Citigroup's massive portfolios of mortgage, credit cards, commercial real-estate and big corporate loans continue to sour.
In exchange for that protection, Citigroup will give the government warrants to buy shares in the company.
In addition, the Treasury Department also will inject $20 billion of fresh capital into Citigroup. That comes on top of the $25 billion infusion that Citigroup recently received as part of the the broader U.S. banking-industry bailout.
The government didn't require Citigroup to make changes to its executive ranks or its board in return for government assistance. However, Citigroup agreed to "comply with enhanced executive compensation restrictions," the government said Sunday, and also will implement a government-backed plan to modify distressed mortgages that is designed to curb foreclosures.
Despite the unprecedented scope of the rescue plan, it's not clear whether it will be enough to stabilize Citigroup. The roughly $300 billion pool of assets that are included in the rescue plan represent only a sliver of the company's more than $3 trillion in assets, including its holdings in off-balance-sheet entities.
Jitters about such "hidden" assets helped trigger the nose-dive in Citigroup's stock last week. Among the off-balance-sheet assets are $667 billion in mortgage-related securities.
Quality stuff, so this one bank has absorbed nearly as much straight bailout money ($45 billion) as the entire US auto sector is asking for ($50 billion), the taxpayer has to be ultimately on the hook for almost $300 billion in crummy assets (including credit card debt!), and to top it all off it might not even be enough.
On a related note, I wonder how much of the banking sector the US government has to nationalize before the government ownership of US banks (both in shares and assets such as these) starts to approach China's ownership of Chinese banks Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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quote:A county prosecutor who brought indictments this week against Vice President Dick Cheney and others pounded his fist and shouted at the judge Friday during a routine hearing. Willacy County District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra asked Presiding Judge Manuel Banales to recuse himself from the case, which alleges abuse at federally run prisons.
...
"Now all of a sudden there is urgency," Guerra shouted. "Eighteen months you kept me indicted through the election."
Guerra lost his bid for re-election in the March primary and will leave office in January. He was indicted last year on charges he extorted money from a bail bond company and used his office for personal business, but the charges were dismissed last month.
posted
Considering that those "troubled assets" are worth $0.24 to $0.41 on the dollar IF Citibank could find any buyers, that leaves the Feds eating ~$150billion to ~$200billion in losses IF they could find buyers AND IF Citibank can come up $29billion+ in cash before going under.
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posted
Only if they intended to sell those assets. The thinking is that the price does not reflect the actual risk in the assets.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Danlo the Wild: Look for Bush's orders to be super pro business.
He's really a horrible, horrible, horrible President.
By golly you've hit on it! Business is evil! Isn't money the root of all evil?
We should all take our busi... er, our mon... er...
everyone should just not buy anything. That'll show those evil people that provide us with goods and services!
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One of the highly speculative questions raised is whether Bush might offer amnesty to unnamed persons in the CIA and military who have been involved in controversial torture or domestic spying actions. The ethical and legal issues involved make it an interesting question, even if it never actually happens.
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There's not a lot of legal issues about the pardons themselves: it's clear Bush can grant them, and he can grant them for classes of people, for all crimes, without naming them (Carter pardoned unnamed persons who violated the selective service act).
The legal effects will be two-fold: 1) there will be no grand jury or other executive-driven investigation or prosecution for the pardoned crimes, and 2) there will be no basis for those pardoned to take the fifth amendment in congressional investigations or in prosecutions of those not pardoned.
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