David Swanson's "Daybreak"
 
David Swanson is co-founder of AfterDowningStreet.org and Washington Director of Democrats.com. He's also a board member of Progressive Democrats of America, the Backbone Campaign, and Voters for Peace as well as a member of the legislative working group of United for Peace and Justice.

Subtitled "Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming A More Perfect Union, Daybreak" is Swanson's first book, a timely and impressive account of presidential extremism, congressional complicity, the urgency for progressive change, and how to do it.

Swanson exposes what was wrong under George Bush and provides a compelling prescription for real change. 

In his book "Cracks in the Constitution," Ferdinand Lundberg explained that the supreme law of the land, the Constitution, never deterred presidents or sitting governments from doing what they wished, then inventing justifications for their actions. During eight years in office, George Bush personified it and said so in his own words. In 2005, he told congressional Republican leaders:

Swanson's book is a call to arms for change, an alert about what's wrong with the nation, the urgency to restore the rule of law, save the republic, and necessity to get engaged enough to matter. After eight years under Bush - Cheney and Obama's early months, the government is more than ever corrupted, imperial, and extremist. Undoing the damage will take years of committed effort, and Swanson explains how:

Presidential Power Grab and How to Repair It

George Bush's "attorneys openly argued before a congressional committee that the president (may) violate any law until the Supreme Court specifically rules in favor of it." He used signing statements to rewrite them, issued one-man rule Executive Orders, and unconstitutionally usurped "unitary executive" powers that Chalmers Johnson called a "bald-faced assertion of presidential supremacy....dressed up in legalistic mumbo jumbo."

Congress let him bypass the Constitution and do as he pleased. Police state laws were enacted. Permanent wars are waged for world dominance. Torture became official US policy. Government is more secretive and intrusive than ever. Illegal spying is pervasive. Dissent is targeted. Social decay is deepening. Democracy is eroding and dying. Incestuous ties between favored business interests and government created a cesspool of corruption, and America is plagued more than ever by the dynamic that doomed earlier empires - what Chalmers Johnson calls "isolation, overstretch, the uniting of local and global forces opposed to imperialism, and in the end bankruptcy." Under Obama, little so far has changed as the nation strays further toward tyranny and ruin.

The Power of War

Article 51 of the UN Charter authorizes the "right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member....until the Security Council has taken measures to maintain international peace and security." Preemptive attacks are banned at all times with no exceptions. 

The Nuremberg Charter's Article VI explicitly prohibits the following:

The Constitution's Article I, Section 8 empowers Congress alone to declare war, even though since 1941 it deferred unconstitutionally to the president.

If America is under attack or faces an imminent threat, the November 1973 War Powers Resolution lets the president deploy US forces for up to 60 days plus an additional 30 days for withdrawal, subject to congressional authorization and without a declaration of war.

Post-9/11, no threat existed, yet the Bush administration used deception to wage illegal aggressive wars in defiance of the above constitutional and international law standards. Republican and Democrat Congresses acceded, and so has Barack Obama by continuing an open-ended Iraq occupation and stepped up belligerency against Afghanistan and Pakistan, with perhaps other nations and regions to follow.

If it chooses, Congress can end wars by no longer funding them. Article I, Section 7, Clause I says:

September 11 was the pretext for launching a long-planned premeditated attack against Afghanistan - a non-belligerent country posing no threat to America and one that sought peaceful engagement. Non-existent weapons of mass destruction then became justification for waging preemptive war against Iraq. Both conflicts are blatantly illegal, yet continue without end.

On January 17, 2003 (ahead of the Iraq war), Law Professor and international human rights law expert Francis Boyle introduced six articles of impeachment against George W. Bush on charges of "high crimes and misdemeanors," including:

On June 10, 2008, Congressman Dennis Kucinich introduced 35 Articles of Impeachment against George W. Bush, citing among other charges:

The Power of Money

As explained above, only Congress has "the power of the purse" to spend or not spend as it chooses and also how much. Under constitutional and statutory law, "it is illegal to use government funds for anything other than what Congress appropriates them for." Yet lawless spending occurs regularly, including through unaccountable black budgets, and Congress does nothing to stop it.

Through a signing statement, George Bush empowered himself to transfer funds from authorized programs to secret ones. It was one of Kucinich's impeachment charges against him.

Then in 2008, the Bush administration began looting the federal Treasury to reward criminal bankers for their crimes and accelerated the process of transferring public wealth to Wall Street. Obama greatly stepped up the practice, and on July 20, 2009, AP reported that:

At the same time, the economic crisis is worsening. Credit remains frozen. The worst housing and commercial real estate slump since the Great Depression continues. Foreclosures threaten millions. Job losses keep mounting. True unemployment, according to economist John Williams (with all uncounted categories included), approaches 21% and is rising. Savings have greatly eroded. Government debt levels are unparalleled during peacetime. Major banks are effectively insolvent. Households are too over-extended to spend or borrow more, and the administration offered little relief to them or states unable to meet their budget commitments, so they adjust by slashing essential social services, including health care, education, and everything for the most needy.

Power of the Judiciary

For years and especially under George Bush, the federal judiciary has been stacked with judges from or affiliated with the extremist Federalist Society. It advocates rolling back civil liberties; ending New Deal social policies; opposing reproductive choice, government regulations (except industry approved ones), labor rights and environmental protections; and subverting justice in defense of privilege.

Bush's Justice Department was just as corrupted by putting politics ahead of the rule of law, hiring and firing prosecutors and other employees based on their loyalty to the Republican party, targeting the innocent opportunistically, waging war on Islam and Latino immigrants, creating justifications for administration crimes, then turning a blind eye to them.

For eight years, waging illegal wars, committing crimes of war and against humanity, violating constitutional and international laws, legalizing torture as official US policy, sanctioning police state laws, spying illegally on Americans, permitting government and corporate fraud, criminalizing dissent, and creating "a justice system stripped of all justice," became federal policy under George Bush and remains so under Obama.

Treaty and Appointment Powers

US presidents may make treaties with the advice and consent of two-thirds of the Senate. However, Status of Forces Agreements (or SOFAs) require only the approval of host countries or enough pressure applied to get it. To legitimize America's occupation, the Iraq SOFA illustrates the process.

Chalmers Johnson calls all of them "foreign military enclaves....completely beyond the jurisdiction of the occupied nation," a modern day version of 19th century China's "extraterritoriality" granting foreigners charged with crimes the "right" to be tried by his or her own government under his or her own laws.

Iraq's SOFA legitimizes permanent occupation and continued war beyond control of Congress or Iraqi officials. Nominally a 2011 withdrawal date was set, but given the impotency of the Iraqi government and the way past agreements were manipulated, US forces will remain indefinitely on dozens of bases, at least five super ones, and perhaps others yet to be built. No change is envisioned under Obama despite rhetoric claiming otherwise.

Federal appointees as ambassadors, ministers, consuls, judges, and others must be approved by the Senate, yet presidents may fill vacancies when the body is in recess. Bush took full advantage in appointing John Bolton UN ambassador over Senate objections. Yet most often, the Senate acquiesced to some of his most egregious nominees, including to the federal bench. 

Executive Power

US presidents are the most powerful officials anywhere under our system of government. Regardless of the occupant, the office is inherently imperial as one man can exploit it to his advantage, effectively becoming a dictator if he wishes. The Constitution's Article II, Section 1 grants him near-limitless power in a single innocuous sentence stating:

In times of war, presidents as military commander-in-chief are effective tyrants, and even though Article I, Section 8 grants only Congress the right to declare it, since 1941, all presidents did solely on their own authority.

They can also grant commutations or pardons freely except in cases of impeachment, make treaties with the advice and consent (not ratification) of the Senate, terminate them as well, and can rule by decree through executive agreements with foreign governments.

With rare opposition, they can appoint or discharge officials, veto congressional legislation, and nearly always be sustained. While only Congress has appropriating authority, they can release or not release funds for executive branch spending.

A huge bureaucracy is at their disposal, including powerful officials like the Secretaries of Defense, State, Treasury, and Homeland Security, and the Attorney General in charge of the Justice Department.

They can make one-man laws through Executive Orders and signing statements, powers easily abused as George Bush proved. He usurped "unitary executive" power to declare the law is what he said it was and got no congressional or judicial opposition to stop him.

Bush and earlier presidents, including Franklin Roosevelt during WW II, showed that presidents are unencumbered by constitutional restraints and can effectively rule as a sovereign, easily circumventing Congress and the courts to render the separation of powers neutralized.

Presidents also have their own private army through the Department of Homeland Security, the vast US intelligence apparatus, and much more. The CIA comprises one part. It functions as a praetorian guard operating freely outside the law and backed by a $50 billion + black budget with greater amounts available if requested.

In theory, presidents must obey the law, but can creatively interpret it to get away with murder unless Congress and the courts stop them. Rarely does it happen and never for George Bush. As for impeaching and convicting presidents for malfeasance, John Adams said it would take a national convulsion to do it, and Article II, Section 4 states it can only be for "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors." Based on the historical record, it's near-impossible to do as no president was ever removed this way and only two were ever impeached, both unjustly. Nixon resigned on his own volition, but might, in fact, have been removed if he hadn't.

Above all others, Bush and Cheney deserved impeachment, but efforts to do it failed because few in Congress had the courage of Dennis Kucinich. As a result, they were unrestrained, even though this isn't what the framers had in mind. Short of a constitutional re-make, other executives will be similarly empowered and as able to take full advantage. George Bush wasn't the first. He won't be the last, and others ahead may be worse as America hurtles recklessly toward tyranny because no constraints are in place to stop it.