{"id":702,"date":"2006-01-20T15:41:52","date_gmt":"2006-01-20T20:41:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/?p=702"},"modified":"2009-04-12T21:23:14","modified_gmt":"2009-04-13T01:23:14","slug":"zenith-of-powers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2006\/01\/20\/zenith-of-powers\/","title":{"rendered":"Zenith of Powers"},"content":{"rendered":"

This<\/a> is an interesting read – here’s a quick snippet:<\/p>\n

The assertion that the president is perennially “at the zenith of his powers” seems to be a common theme of this administration, doesn’t it? And the assertion that president is not claiming he has “a blank check that says [he] can do whatever he wants” rings rather hollow. It seems he is doing exactly that, and claiming that a vague, generalized authorization to prevent terrorism somehow trumps a law saying not to do certain particular, specified things. I’m not sure if anyone in the White House or the Justice Department went to law school, or understands basic logic for that matter, but generally speaking, the specific takes precedence over the general. For example, if there are two laws on the books, one that says “you are authorized to eat three meals a day” and another that says “you’re not allowed to eat broccoli,” you can’t justify eating broccoli, in defiance of the specific ban, by citing the generalized “three meals a day” law. That simply is not how laws, or logic, work. Just saying.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“The assertion that the president is perennially “at the zenith of his powers” seems to be a common theme of this administration, doesn’t it? And the assertion that president is not claiming he has “a blank check that says [he] can do whatever he wants” rings rather hollow.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pimUj-bk","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6280,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2025\/02\/11\/oathbreaker\/","url_meta":{"origin":702,"position":0},"title":"Oathbreaker","author":"Keith Survell","date":"February 11, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Talking about sworn oaths and the people who break them.","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":708,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2006\/02\/11\/the-progression-of-my-computers\/","url_meta":{"origin":702,"position":1},"title":"The Progression of My Computers","author":"Keith Survell","date":"February 11, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Just for fun, here's the progression of my computer(s) through the years.","rel":"","context":"In "personal"","block_context":{"text":"personal","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":268,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2004\/10\/08\/enemy-combatants-and-the-war-on-terror\/","url_meta":{"origin":702,"position":2},"title":"“Enemy Combatants” and “The War on Terror”","author":"Keith Survell","date":"October 8, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been conflicted over the idea of the President of the United States being able to declare a U.S. Citizen an \"enemy combatant\" and hold him\/her without the \"Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus.\" It bothered me so much that I decided to look into it myself.","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":657,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2005\/10\/05\/can-this-nomination-be-justified\/","url_meta":{"origin":702,"position":3},"title":"Can This Nomination Be Justified?","author":"Keith Survell","date":"October 5, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"\"[T]he president has forfeited his right to be trusted as a custodian of the Constitution. The forfeiture occurred March 27, 2002, when, in a private act betokening an uneasy conscience, he signed the McCain-Feingold law expanding government regulation of the timing, quantity and content of political speech.\"","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":585,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2005\/08\/04\/big-brother-inc\/","url_meta":{"origin":702,"position":4},"title":"Big Brother, Inc.","author":"Keith Survell","date":"August 4, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Some people worry about the powers that unions have, and the abuses of that power ... they argue that unions give too much of an advantage to workers, at the expense of the employer. Well, apparently someone thought \"we've regulated unions enough, let's go the other way now.\"","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":245,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2004\/10\/27\/the-torture-memo\/","url_meta":{"origin":702,"position":5},"title":"The torture memo","author":"Keith Survell","date":"October 27, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"To quote: What should the President do when defending the country requires breaking the laws? Why, he should break the laws, which usually means instructing his subordinates to do so. He, and they, remain subject to punishment, and he remains subject to impeachment.","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}