This is the claim, ungrounded in the constitution, that the president may withhold information from Congress or the courts and forbid his aides to testify if it would damage, in any way, the smooth operation of the executive branch.Presidents used to be fairly forthcoming with information.
On the other hand, demonstrations can be "spontaneous" and therefore weak or irrelevant, ungrounded in any organisation with staying power; this is why Americans' hopes for colour revolutions that supposedly express "the will of the people" are so often disappointed.
So why should he have to answer to anyone over such ungrounded questions?
Mr Lavrov said to accuse Russia of "violation of US laws and even some sort of conspiracy" in the case of Mr Snowden was "absolutely ungrounded and unacceptable".
Word had travelled like an ungrounded current around the small country and through the family's large circle of friends; many people knew about Uri's death before his parents did.
But the relentless note of incipient hysteria, the invitation to panic, the ungrounded scenarios — the overwhelming and underlying desire for something truly terrible to happen so that you could have something really hot to talk about — was still startling.
The sentimental strain is both unconvincing and ungrounded, but in the all-too-rare moments when Murphy, who invests with psychodrama the role of a misfit learning manners, lets himself go the movie comes brilliantly to life.
He's thoughtful and observant, even when you think his mind has wandered to a different planet, but he can be disorienting to talk to, like there's an ungrounded wire in his head giving off manic sparks.
