This American Life - The Audacity of Govt

Good stuff from NPR's This American Life. Here is the key to this whole thing for me. The U.S. under Bush routinely breaks international law (treaties, WTO rulings, etc.), and they refuse to abide by international rulings of law. There is no question that the U.S. is in violation of law, because cases have gone to court and they have been adjudicated, and the U.S. has lost. But the key is that there is "no enforcement mechanism" as the lawyer says it. There is nothing that the U.N. or the WTO or the offended country or anybody else can do to punish the U.S. government or make the U.S. abide by the law, including its own laws.

Well, not entirely. We have exactly 1 and only 1 enforcement mechanism--impeachment.


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Stories of the Bush Administration, its unique style of asserting presidential authority, and its quest to redefine the limits of presidential power.

Prologue.

Host Ira Glass talks with Yale law professor Jack Balkin about what he calls the Bush Administration's "lawyering style," a tendency to fight as hard as it can, on all fronts, to get what it wants. Ira also plays tape from a news conference with New York Senator Charles Schumer, in which he takes the Justice Department to task for refusing to pay death benefits to the families of two auxiliary policemen who were killed in the line of duty, even though federal law grants those benefits. (5 minutes)

Act One. The Prez vs. The Commish.

Ira Glass tells the story of a little-known treaty dispute with far-reaching ramifications for our understanding of executive power. The dispute is between the President and one of his appointees...to the International Boundary Commission with Canada. This little-known commission carried out its function without fanfare or incident for over a hundred years, until a couple of retirees in Washington State built a wall in their backyard and, quite literally, set off an international incident. (23 minutes)

Song: "Oh, Canada,"


Act Two. This American Wife.

This American Life contributor Jack Hitt uncovers a strange practice within the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service. If a foreign national marries a U.S. citizen and schedules an interview for a green card, but the U.S. citizen dies before the interview takes place, the foreign national is scheduled for deportation with no appeal—even if the couple has children who are U.S. citizens. Jack talks with Brent Renison, a lawyer who's representing over 130 people in this situation, mostly widows, who are seeking to overturn the Immigration Service's rule. (20 minutes)

Song: "Goodbye," The Postmarks


Act Three. 44.

Ira Glass interviews Charlie Savage, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the Boston Globe, who's written a book called Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy about the ways the Bush Administration claims executive powers that other presidents haven't claimed. Charlie talks with Ira about the current candidates for President and their views on the scope of executive power.

Charlie Savage's book comes out in paperback soon. (4 minutes)

Song: "Declare Independence," Bjork