The latest encroachment on basic freedoms arrived this week with the usual packaging: The need to keep us all safe. But domestic deployment of tens of thousands of soldiers would do no such thing, and in fact would only serve to further aggrandize the Pentagon.

For more on pruning back executive power see Pruning Shears.

The collection of furtive shenanigans we’ve come to call The Bailout took an extraordinary turn at the start of the week when we guaranteed hundreds of billions of dollars for yet another diminished ex-titan of Wall Street. The proper response is not resignation but redoubled activism.

For more on pruning back executive power see Pruning Shears.

The Electoral College, when it is noticed at all, is usually dismissed as an anachronism at best and a foe of democracy at worst. But some of our current problems might be more manageable if we made more use of it, not less.

For more on pruning back executive power see Pruning Shears.

Now that the election is over and we can look forward to a new administration on January 20th it is very tempting to be satisfied with counting down the days left in the current one. Doing so will allow some dangerous precedents to be set, though, and can only have negative consequences.

For more on pruning back executive power see Pruning Shears.

One of the White House’s favorite questionable practices is the use of foreign media to import stories that cannot originate domestically. Congress urgently needs to investigate, not despite the brief time left to do so but because of it.

For more on pruning back executive power see Pruning Shears.

America was founded and existed for a short time without a president. As we prepare to elect our next one it may be useful to look back to when we didn’t have one at all, and to the very limited role envisioned for it by its creators.

For more on pruning back executive power see Pruning Shears.

Our extranational shadow justice experiment has been a failure on virtually every level. The clear response would seem to be closing it, but circumstances inside the Beltway may trump the obvious.

For more on pruning back executive power see Pruning Shears.

A court ruling this week put new pressure on the administration to release seventeen noncombatatants held at Guantánamo. Their plight, and that of others similarly held, hint at the magnitude of the injustice there – and suggests why those responsible for it are so eager to keep them locked away.

For more on pruning back executive power see Pruning Shears.

The House rejection of the bailout on Monday was also a rejection of incompetent officials and questionable lawmaking processes. And even if the worst nightmares threatened on us come to pass as a result we will, believe it or not, get along.

For more on pruning back executive power see Pruning Shears.

Some thoughts from The Editors on how the Great Lobbyist Payback has the two parties playing familiar roles.