I completely agree that this administration has taken the concept of executive power and executive privileges to such a ridiculous extreme that even Richard Neustadt is probably rolling around in his grave. However, I think your conception on the role of the AG is a bit simplistic. As a government attorney (although at the municipal level), I can tell you that identifying your client is sometimes difficult and isn't as cut-and-dried as you are making it out to be. Yes, you do represent the corporeal and somewhat amorphous entity of the polity that employs you, but in practice how do you make decisions? As a lawyer yourself Glenn, you know that you don't exercise complete initiative of your own in doing your job (whether it be deciding to sue, settling a case, or whatnot). You are at the direction of your client. But if your client is "the people" or "the country," from whom do you get your marching orders on any particular topic? You really have two options here: 1) you get your direction from elective representatives who are designated as your superiors (in the federal case, the head of the executive branch, i.e. the president; in some municipalities it is a city council or city supervisor/mayor); or 2) you set policy yourself as the representative of "the people". Each has its own potential pitfalls obviously. The first is that you become so beholden to the parochial interests of the elected official for that particular moment that you overlook your obligation to the polity. This happens when your boss asks to rubber stamp something that is clearly a violation of the law (which pretty clearly has happened over the last 7 years). The danger of going too far the other direction is that you have an unelected person setting policy, which reduces accountability (at least directly as the superior could theoretically fire them, although even that becomes somewhat constrained in many instances).

In practice, a government attorney ends up serving multiple masters: his executive branch boss, his legislative bosses (although this is a diffuse relationship and complicated), "The Law," "the people" and even to an extent his own ethics and institutional legitimacy (this particularly becomes the case with the Solicitor General's office as it must keep its legitimacy before the SCOTUS).

Sorry for the ramble and I guess I'm not really disagreeing with you that it is an incorrect and facile statement that the president "is the AG's client" but having personally experienced this type of thing, on a smaller scale, I can tell you it isn't as cut and dried as how I took your presentation.

Depends on the type of account. Most 401ks are tax deferred, not tax free. Only Roth-type accounts provide tax free on the gains, but of course you fund it with after tax income.

What is depressing is how the media legitimizes this nonsense. I mean, the guy writes for World Nut Daily of all things and this is clearly just cobbled together internet spew that doesn't even merit a snopes.com debunking yet the guy gets interviewed like he actually has something to say about a presidential candidate. We are so screwed.

It's correct. He was elected at age 29 and turned 30 on November 20, a week and change after the election, so he met the qualification upon entering the office. Makes me feel like a slacker at age 37.

These people are seriously deranged. They've somehow internalized a rather standard primary battle into being personally dissed and their entire sense of self questioned and no amount of logic, policy perspective, direction from their supposed candidate, or even common sense will penetrate that.

This does have all the trappings of a classic GOP false flag operation. They have been doing this since Nixon. Back then it was stealing letterhead to write letters from one Democratic candidate about the other, or writing fake letters to the editor about Edward Muskie, etc. etc. These days is fake riots in Palm Beach County and PUMAs.

Edmund, not Edward.

You are a cartoon.

That is some seriously weak sauce.

How many people wuold get in a bowling alley fight. Awesome.

Are you this Elephantman?:

http://www.slate.com/id/2198949/

If so, thanks for foisting this travesty on all of us.

See kids, this is what happens when you drink lead paint:

And to remember that Louisiana at the time and New Orleans then and now is run by democrats who did and do nothing. Luckily for the fastest acting federal response to any natural disaster of Katrina's magnitude, the mess created by Nagin and the other democrat hooligans was less than what it could have been.

Refutation would require something semi-rational to refute. Arguing with the fantastical is rather pointless. You might as well have said "unicorns stole the world's largest diamond from my bedroom." To which the only natural response is "ooooookay" while making that little circular motion with a finger near the temple.

The spin will obviously be that this is a "private matter" and that any discussion of it will be "attacking a 17 year old girl." Never mind that it shows this woman can't even instill her avowed "values" that she wants to inflict on the country into her own family. The media will of course go along and only report on how nasty those mean Democrats are being even mentioning such a thing.

It is also no accident that this was released in the middle of a hurricane. The stated excuse of "dispelling rumors" is nonsense. They wanted this shot into a media black hole.

Obama's email requesting donations simply goes to the American Red Cross website.

You stay classy Republicans.

Probably. Don't parental policies (in this case provided by the taxpayers of Alaska) only include unmarried minors?

Per WaPo:

"This election is not about issues" -Rick Davis, McCain Campaign Manager.

It's rare for them to flat out state such things although I seriously weep when I see what has become of our political process. Way to go GOP.