Today, we had another class discussion. We talked briefly about the court cases from yesterday, and talked about the expanding role of the Presidency. We started talking in depth about the "Imperial Presidency", which is when a President takes on more power than is constitutionally granted. We talked specifically about the expansion of power with signing statements as a form of "line by line" veto.
At lunch today, I went to look around Rockefeller Center for the last time, and bought lunch from a street vendor instead of eating in the cafeteria, which was a welcome change.
The afternoon session was filled with research and work, as usual, and I managed to finish pretty much all of the sources I needed, which was good.
After check-in and dinner, I went with some friends to Chinatown and Soho for shopping. It eventually ended up that we would be waiting on one friend that wanted to do shopping, while the rest of us were apathetic to the thought of buying clothes, so that some of us eventually went to Times Square for some last minute souvenir shopping (because we know everyone is going to be asking for one...) All in all, today was really fun, and I know I'm bracing myself for the last night of work tomorrow night here in New York City!
So did you take my advice and buy coffee mugs?
ReplyDeleteWinston,
ReplyDeleteMuch of what follows is reprinted from my comments to Yueming but they’re just as relevant to your blog:
Presidential signings were a very controversial tool used by W. and are still a matter of contention. He wasn’t alone in using them but he was the latest President so his tenure is still under heavy scrutiny and discussion.
Does it really matter whether these signings are for the good of the people or not? Isn’t the issue whether the President has the right to ignore laws that have been enacted by Congress?
And who’s to say whether these signings are for the good of the people? In most of the cases involving W’s signings, we can only imagine that the Republicans would have a radically different idea than the Democrats on whether these were good for the people or not.
Call me stupid or just stubborn but I believe in the rule of law. As long as we have a set of rules or laws then we’re all obligated to follow them. No one anointed us as God and gave us the authority to follow only the ones we agree with and ignore the rest. If we have rules, then we follow them. If we don’t like the rules, then we take action to change them. What’s irresolute, though, is that we don’t just break them.
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I hope that when you were all loading up on the souvenirs you kept in mind that you still have a 50 pound weight limit for your luggage. You’ve already added more than a half dozen books. I’d hate to see you in front of the check-in counter trying to figure out what to leave and what to take.