The attempts of a constituent to get a simple answer to a simple question.

Little-noticed authority granted to the president several decades ago may be helping the architects of the crackdown in Iran. The unintended consequences are enough to justify a second look at whether those powers should stay in place.

For more on pruning back executive power see Pruning Shears.

Quotes from those involved in the events of the past week, taken from a variety of sources.

Cross posted from Pruning Shears.

A recent column by a prominent advocate of the U.S. torture program is the latest example of how its proponents refuse to address even the most basic facts concerning it.

For more on pruning back executive power see Pruning Shears.

Proponents of the Bush administration’s antiterror policies argued for vast and unchecked new powers for the president. Recent events may give them reason to question the wisdom of such absolute grants of authority.

For more on pruning back executive power see Pruning Shears.

The president has gotten considerably closer to some on the right who until recently may have been supposed to be among his strongest critics. There are some possible explanations for this, but from a progressive standpoint no satisfactory answers.

For more on pruning back executive power see Pruning Shears.

This week a rumor circulated that the president was looking to beef up the Federal Reserve at the expense of the Securities and Exchange Commission. If true it will not be a reform so much as another pull in the tug of war between the branches. Unfortunately, it will also help to obscure a more fundamental problem.

For more on pruning back executive power see Pruning Shears.

There has been a great deal of commentary lately about how the internet is threatening newspapers’ business model, but its most acute problems are within the organizations themselves.

For more on pruning back executive power see Pruning Shears.

A little noted newspaper article shows the kind of unexpected issues that will likely be popping up in the years to come. Changes in policy will not be enough to remove all traces of the torture program.

For more on pruning back executive power see Pruning Shears.

We have started to see some elaborate defenses of the Bush era torture program, but all of them resolutely ignore the issue at the very heart of it.

For more on pruning back executive power see Pruning Shears.