Dear President-Elect Obama:
You have been receiving a great deal of advice since November 4, 2008 from people and groups who either want you to advance policies not covered in your campaign or who want you to be more specific about initiatives you emphasized.
There are two suggestions which may not be among your store of recommendations that need to be considered before you take office on January 20, 2009.
First, the public would benefit from a concise recounting of the state of the union and where the Bush Administration has left our country. As is your style, you can render such a bright line of serious problems inside and outside the government in a matter-of-fact manner. Otherwise, a blurring of who was responsible for what can taint your presidency.
Second, you need to make a clean break from the Bush regime’s law of rule to our declared commitment to the rule of law as in the firm adherence to constitutional requirements and statutory and treaty compliance. There is a Bush-Cheney stream of criminal and unconstitutional actions which are on auto-pilot day after day. You have pointed out some of these abominations such as a policy and practice of torture and violations of due process and probable cause. The task before you is to break these daily patterns just as soon as you ascend to the Presidency or be held increasingly responsible for them. This can be significantly accomplished by executive orders, agency or departmental directives, whistle-blower protections, enforcement actions and explicit legislative proposals.
With Americans wishing you well in this most portentous of times, the last thing they want to see is you tarnished by the preceding rogue regime and its ruthless monarchical forays. To avoid this contagion of power over law and its contiguous accountabilities at a time when you are striving for a “clean slate” administration, you must be decisive and eschew any excessive harmony ideology which has seemed to be your nature vis-à-vis those who are powerful but are opposed to your views.
One possible impediment to your making a comprehensive clean break for restoring the rule of law is that you have too easy an act to follow. There are a long list of violated civil liberties that need to be restored (the American Civil Liberties Union has compiled a list of immediate actions for you to take), and resolute commitments must be made so that it is clear the United States, for example, will not engage in, or countenance, torture. Only a few restorations, however, would produce a sense of relief and flurry of accolades — but they are hardly sufficient.
There are also regulations and interpretations of statutes that scholars believe to have been erroneous as a matter of law. As one guide for your new era of overdue regulation or reregulation—given the corporate wrongdoing these days—you may wish to refer to the Center for Progressive Reform’s report By the Stroke of the Pen.
The Bush lawlessness and state terrorism are like a contagious disease. If you do not remove their sprawling incidence, you will become their carrier. This means you must move fast to eject the mantle of war criminality and repeated unconstitutional outrages committed in the name of the American people here and abroad.
Sincerely,
Ralph Nader
Posted to IPR by Paulie
Are we still not yet aware of the fact that Ralph Nader has been more rightfully equipped for the job of commander and chief than anyone that has actually received the job in the last…oh say…70 some years?
What was funniest about this whole election was that once again the Dumb-ocratic party pissed and moaned about Ralph Nader interfering in their little two party only tango (a.k.a. the presidential election) when is actually what we all want a true DEMOCRAT to be. An upholder of democracy. A person of the people. A whistle-blower. An activist.
Wake up america. Wake up earth.
Our government has been failing us for a very long time. And much to my preconceived notions of the nutless-elected scumbags controlling our government, not one of them have the balls to stand up admit that what Ralph has been saying all along is right. Impeach bush before it is too late: or every leader from here on out will succumb to the power misuse temptations. Act immediately, defiantely, and globally against the bush regime’s illegal greed war in Iraq. Address now the perilous perch of our global environment. Climate change, energy acquisition and consumption, and human rights atrocities in Africa, Asia, and none the least Gitmo Bay must be reversed, refreshed, and repaired.
Before p.e. obama can wipe the slate clean as he says, he must use his office to chisel away the tons of shite bush and his inbreds have spackled over it.
Good luck p.e. obama.
The “will of the people” does not mean that we can circumvent the laws of the land. These laws re in place for a reason – to protect us from unscrupulous politicians that would attempt to fraudulently attempt to control us. You as a Catholic (even with the Trotskyist suffix) should understand that, Biblically speaking, we are compelled to obey the laws of the land.
Biden was in on this fraud.
“The will of the people” was not to elect someone ineligible that has lied to them at every turn, and received illegal funding.
Ted, these stupid constitutionalists can be patriots instead and submit to the will of the people, which elected Obama President, not Biden.
God bless Proposition 8, God bless Richard John Neuhauss, god bless Claiborne Pell, fuck the constitution, amen.
The article basically suggests that the cure for bad executive orders is good executive orders. No thanks!
The nation owes more than thanks to three unlikely modern day patriots: professional poker player, musician, and retired attorney, Leo Donofrio; life long Democrat and former Pennsylvania assistant attorney general, Phil Berg; and Soviet emigree and attorney, Dr. Orly Taitz (she’s also a dentist).
While Mr. Donofrio painstakingly established the airtight case that BHO could not be an Article II “natural born citizen” (at BHO’s birth, dad was British/Kenyan, not American, citizen) Leo’s Stay of the 12/15/08 electoral college vote was denied by SCOTUS as procedurally unripe.
Nevertheless, since no congressman and senator objected on 1/8/09 to Congress’ count and certification of the electoral vote which would have turned resolution of Obama’s eligibility issue over to Congress — rendering moot the Berg and Taitz (Lightfoot) cases — Berg finally does achieve standing on the issue of actual harm, to be addressed at the Friday 1/9/09 SCOTUS Conference on Writ of Certiorari. Obama’s failure to submit evidence of his constitutional qualification for the 1/9/09 conference will mean he cannot thereafter challenge Berg’s request to enjoin the 1/8/09 Congressional electoral count and certification, albeit retroactive, scheduled for SCOTUS conference Friday 1/16/09. Moreover, Chief Justice Roberts has scheduled a full Court conference on the Lightfoot case Friday 1/23/09 in the event there needs to be a Constitutionally mandated action, the Inauguration itself, to enjoin retroactively.
Now that BHO is in checkmate and cannot be POTUS, he can be a patriot as well. He need not subject the nation to the expense and trauma of requiring SCOTUS to overrule his ‘Presidency’. BHO can and should voluntarily step down with Biden becoming Acting POTUS under the 20th Amendment, and under the agreement all potential claims by the Government for itself and on behalf of others against BHO are released.