Quote:
Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
couple things:
first, unless "Gang of 4" is a term you have learned long ago, you shouldn't use it that way. it intimidates me into thinking you know way more than i posssibly could, so i figure why bother. OTOH if you just plucked it from the article, you should introduce the term to your reader.
second, she could have objected to any number of things that in no way object to the practice. the rest of your guys were silent but we have to assume her letter was some ringing denouncement? no thanks.
third, this issue is critical to the debate Ty wants to have. Ty wants to talk about "congressional oversight." I bet he is going to propose giving congress some real teeth!
But to me an intial question is what will congress do with whatever authority is does get, and when we now look at what it does with the authority it has now we know it simply misuses that authority to attempt political hatchetjobs with no real concern for whether it is helping or harming the country. I believe everyone agrees that is what's going on, Ty abstaining.
so now we can frame the question ty wants to talk about:
Should we give congress strong new oversight authority where it has been using its present authority solely for political gain, and with disregard for whether it harms the country?
Have at it everyone!
I say no, because it seems to me congress' current authority is sufficient to misuse its oversight for political gain with disregard for whether it harms the country. Our system is working!
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Someone needs to oversee the CIA et al. Do you think it should be the executive branch, without any legislative involvement, or do you think it should be both branches -- and, hey, let's throw the judiciary in there as well. I vote the latter. Because unchecked power tends to produce bad results, and I don't see any systemic reason why the executive branch would fail to misuse the oversight powers in the way that you think Congress will. It's happened before.
And if you're interested in specific proposals, just read the post from Marty Lederman that I quoted from and linked to. He worked at OLC and knows more about this stuff than you and I.
