the republican response to the SCOTUS ruling will be...

[mike_c]

...an open, bald-faced assault on human rights, spearheaded by the Republican leadership in Congress. Get ready for America's version of the "Law for Removing the Distress of the People and the Reich," better known as The Enabling Act of 1933. This is the same congress that passed the USA PATRIOT Act without reading it, and the same congress that thinks a debate about an anti-flag burning amendment is the most important business before it. In other words, a congress consumed by appearances, a congress that stumbles over itself to march in lockstep with the administration rather than appear "unpatriotic." This is also the congress that confirmed two recent supreme court nominees who were distinguished by their unvarnished support for the primacy of presidential power.

SCOTUS has drawn the line in the sand clearly-- the ultimate impediment to an imperial presidency is U.S. law and international human rights treaties codified as U.S. law. The answer: change the law and discard the treaties. Just as the Reichstag willingly discarded democracy in Germany in 1933, I predict that the administration will now begin to work openly with the republican leadership to legally discard the limits of presidential power in America. They'll even use some of the same rationale-- a national emergency, threats from within and abroad, etc.

http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/dictator.htm

...Hindenburg signed two decrees put before him by Hitler. The first offered full pardons to all Nazis currently in prison. The prison doors sprang open and out came an assortment of Nazi thugs and murderers.

The second decree signed by the befuddled old man allowed for the arrest of anyone suspected of maliciously criticizing the government and the Nazi party.

A third decree signed only by Hitler and Papen allowed for the establishment of special courts to try political offenders. These courts were conducted in the military style of a court-martial without a jury and usually with no counsel for the defense.

On March 23, the newly elected Reichstag met in the Kroll Opera House in Berlin to consider passing Hitler's Enabling Act. It was officially called the "Law for Removing the Distress of the People and the Reich." If passed, it would in effect vote democracy out of existence in Germany and establish the legal dictatorship of Adolf Hitler....

Before the vote, Hitler made a speech in which he pledged to use restraint.

"The government will make use of these powers only insofar as they are essential for carrying out vitally necessary measures...The number of cases in which an internal necessity exists for having recourse to such a law is in itself a limited one," Hitler told the Reichstag....

But one man arose amid the overwhelming might. Otto Wells, leader of the Social Democrats stood up and spoke quietly to Hitler.

"We German Social Democrats pledge ourselves solemnly in this historic hour to the principles of humanity and justice, of freedom and socialism. No enabling act can give you power to destroy ideas which are eternal and indestructible."

Hitler was enraged and jumped up to respond.

"You are no longer needed! - The star of Germany will rise and yours will sink! Your death knell has sounded!"

The vote was taken - 441 for, and only 84, the Social Democrats, against. The Nazis leapt to their feet clapping, stamping and shouting, then broke into the Nazi anthem, the Hörst Wessel song.

Democracy was ended. They had brought down the German Democratic Republic legally....