“new cabinet level powers”? If you mean Homeland Security then you are dead wrong. Criminal Justice is my field and that needed to be done 20 yrs ago. In fact, the cooperation between CIA, FBI, SBI and other agencies has been so bad since Carter Admin. that most of unsolved crimes could have been solved if agencies shared information. I for one believe that if it were not for this forced sharing of info that we would have had another major 9/11 already. My only objection has been that FEMA should have been a seperate entitity from the criminal aspect of it, so it could be held accountable for its own spending and response.
As for Congress holding President accountable, it is you who does not understand government. The Executive Branch, The Legislative Branch and The Judicial Branch have very little control of one another..and certainly not in the way you think they should operate. Real positive change is by holding the elected officials to the ‘ACTUAL CONSTITUTION’. Positive change is not electing the democrats.
Congress can by two thirds vote override his Veto. They can as well use powers of impeachment. They can indeed approve or decline his appointed Cabinet members and judges. The Legislative Branch is the only one who can remove from office via impeachment the other two branch's. Judges legislating from the bench should be considered Judaical Misconduct for example and an impeachable offense.
I don't know of two many in Criminal Justice/Law Enforcement who don't think they need more powers and more departments and databases even on innocent citizens just in case ya know what I mean.
The city in my county thinks it needs 10 red light cameras for example in a 20 light town. Never mind the fact they are a direct violation of a person having the right to face their accuser in court and are actually a form of extortion. Either pay the lower fine or loose basically. It's one of the few things where you can be punished for acts you did not commit.
DHS was created as a make a political job department. The biggest problem in government is too many agencies hold federal police powers and some agencies as well have also become writers of their own laws.
As for another 9/11? I know what has stopped that. It was stopped on 9/11 on the last plane to go down. Citizens unwilling to let the hi-jackers decide their response to terrorism and responed to the threat. Armed citizens is the reaL answer but most Criminal Justice types think only they are good enough or special enough to carry a weapon and go armed without miles of red tape and government permission.
You know it's odd too that Gonzales for example wanted databases on private citizens Internet surfing yet it was perverts in the DOJ going after kids on taxpayers computers.
I think the FEDS need to get out of a lot of things including airline security. Let the airliners do it themselves. Let them put plain clothes armed officers and armed crewmembers on their planes. {what happened to arming the pilots and crew BTW?} What happened whan they put Sky Marshalls back on planes? Some clown in the Bush administration had to put them on TV showing their operations.
Limit such agencies police powers as the Tennessee Valley Authority Security to the confines of their reservation as well. Yet they travel the roads of 7 state area with nothing on their cars to identify their agency except a light bar and POLICE {no agency name} on their car doors. I can see their purpose but also a need to limit where their powers should end as well. They should end at the TVA property line unless in such cases of actual pursuit.