Matt Taibbi Quotes

Ultimately, what we want to do is see the president follow the laws.

The president does not have the option of choosing which laws he will follow and which he will ignore.

I believe in enforcing the laws as written by the Legislature, as signed by the governor.

President Obama has adopted a practice of picking and choosing which laws he wants to enforce. In most cases, his laws of choice conveniently coincide with his administration's political agenda.

Advice and consent does not mean rubber stamp in the Senate.

The President has no authority to direct anyone to disobey the law.

What we had to do was to make it more dangerous for the federal government not to enforce federal law.

The legislature makes, the executive executes, and the judiciary construes the law.

The Founders of this Nation entrusted the lawmaking power to the Congress alone in both good and bad times … the President's power to see that the laws are faithfully executed refutes the idea that he is to be a law-maker.

Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced

The President cannot refuse to enforce a law simply because he does not like it.

Are you willing to let any President choose what laws to enforce and what laws to change?

It's not so much the attorney general's job to decide what laws to enforce. We should do our jobs and enforce laws effectively as we're able.

I do not agree with the use of 'signing statements' to effectively act as a line-item veto, except when the President believes a law or a provision within a law is unconstitutional.In general, if a President signs a law, they are committing themselves to enforcing it. If they don't believe it should become a law, they should veto it.

In Sacramento you simply had to think about what the law ought to be and leave it to someone else to implement. In San Francisco, you hear about it the next day.

[The impeachment power] is the heaviest piece of artillery in the congressional arsenal, but because it is so heavy it is unfit for ordinary use.

If our forefathers had wanted Congress to be the Commander in Chief, they would have said so.

The authority of Congress must be respected …. The President must confine himself to his executive duties—to obey and execute, not make the laws.

Our whole system of self-government will crumble either if officials elect what laws they will enforce or citizens elect what laws they will support.

The laws of the United States must be executed. I have no discretionary power on this subject; my duty is emphatically pronounced in the Constitution.

All new laws, though penned with the greatest technical skill, and passed on the fullest and most mature deliberation, are considered as more or less obscure and equivocal, until their meaning be liquidated and ascertained by a series of particular discussions and adjudications.

… courts do not substitute their social and economic beliefs for the judgment of legislative bodies, who are elected to pass laws

Whatever the People has last ordained shall be held as binding by law.

Don’t bother interpreting the statute for us: we know it better than you do, for we made it.

If there should happen to be an irreconcilable variance between the two [the Constitution and legislation], that which has superior obligation and validity ought, of course, to be preferred; or, in other words, the Constitution ought to be preferred to the statute, the intention of the people to the intention of their agents.