Anyone hear about Bushie's SIGNING STATEMENT:it changes laws

[orleans]

it can alter the meaning

i never heard of this before and i am horrified!

(someone tell me why we have "lawmakers" again? what purpose do they serve if that freak in the white house can do this shit?)

this is from salon 1/5/06
Bush's war on professionals
by sidney blumenthal

snip

"During his first term, President Bush issued an unprecedented 108 statements upon signing bills of legislation that expressed his own version of their content. He has countermanded the legislative history, which legally establishes the foundation of their meaning, by executive diktat. In particular, he has rejected parts of legislation that he considered stepped on his power in national security matters. In effect, Bush engages in presidential nullification of any law he sees fit. He then acts as if his gesture supersedes whatever Congress has done."

snip

"Last week, when Bush signed the military appropriations bill containing the amendment forbidding torture that he and Vice President Cheney had fought against, he added his own "signing statement" to it. It amounted to a waiver, authorized by him alone, that he could and would disobey this law whenever he chose. He wrote: "The executive branch shall construe Title X in Division A of the Act, relating to detainees, in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President to supervise the unitary executive branch and as Commander in Chief and consistent with the constitutional limitations on the judicial power, which will assist in achieving the shared objective of the Congress and the President, evidenced in Title X, of protecting the American people from further terrorist attacks." In short, the president, in the name of national security, claiming to protect the country from terrorism, under war powers granted to him by himself, would follow the law to the extent that he decided he would."

kennedy mentioned this on this week w/george Stephanopoulos:
http://www.canofun.com/blog/videos/2006/kennedyalitoexecutivepower.asx

if that link doesn't take you to the video then go to
http://www.canofun.com/blog/viddate.asp
and click on kennedy-alito-executive power 1/8/06

[Kagemusha]

1. It doesn't alter the meaning, if the courts do their jobs.

Will Alito? Since signing statements were his idea in the first place? Perhaps... perhaps not. But now I see why Bush likes the guy.

[fooj]

2. Yes. I read about it and I'm telling anyone who will listen about it!

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...

Little Lord Pissypants wants to be King! :grr:

[orleans]

3. randi rhodes was telling listeners to print up this article

and read it. i don't know if she explained what it was about--i didn't hear it if she did. but i found the link on her website and read it.

unbelievable!

[momster]

28. King George or King John

King John (or John Lackland) sealed but did not sign Magna Carta, trying thereby to weasel out of the provisions he'd agreed to, under duress of the barons. John was such a rotten king that no other king of England has ever had his name. Let's hope there's never another Bush for President.

[yankeeinlouisiana]

4. Please tell me this isn't legal!

:grr:

[FloridaPat]

5. They talked about it this morning on a talk show. They think he is

using the signing statement for when he is impeached or brought before the World Court for war crimes, he can say he was legal doing all this stuff.

Anyone else in this country coming up with the crap he has come up with would be in a funny farm. I can't believe 30% still think this clown is presidental material. And where have the opposition party been for the last 5 years as this jerk has decided he doesn't need to follow any laws. Why are we hearing about it only now?

[orleans]

8. in that article i mentioned...

"Political scientist Phillip Cooper, of Portland State University in Oregon, described this innovative grasp of power in a recent article in the Presidential Studies Quarterly. Bush, he wrote, "has very effectively expanded the scope and character of the signing statement not only to address specific provisions of legislation that the White House wishes to nullify, but also in an effort to significantly reposition and strengthen the powers of the presidency relative to the Congress." Moreover, these coups de main not only have overwhelmed the other institutions of government but have taken place almost without notice. "This tour de force has been carried out in such a systematic and careful fashion that few in Congress, the media, or the scholarly community are aware that anything has happened at all." "

http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2006/01/05/spying/print.html

now read that last line again.

what a deal for the rest of us and the rest of this world!

(thank you congress & msm for keeping us so up to date and aware of shit. :boring: :boring: :boring: :boring: :boring: :boring: :boring:

[FloridaPat]

11. but aren't all the bill signings done in front of the press? Lots of

people around? Doesn't he have to have this recorded somewhere so he can go back and point out where he changed things? I can see where the MSM has ignored them. But what about Democrats and Independents? No one noticed in 5 years of this?

[orleans]

16. i don't get it either.

but apparently--he alters things by this signing statement. maybe it is something he submits in writing and doesn't have to say a word when all the "lawmakers" are hovering over him smiling.

i don't know.

[MiniMe]

17. He signed this one in the middle of the night, after a photo op

with John McCain. McCain is really pissed about this.

[FloridaPat]

22. I thought he went to bed at 9pm and doesn't work overtime.

[buff2]

6. Why is he getting by with this?

Where are the damn Senators and Congressmen/women? He is doing the very same things our troops are DYING to protect us from...or so that's what we are being told by the wingnuts....OUR FREEDOM,DEMOCRACY,they are "shedding their blood" so we can remain free from "terrorists"so why in the hell is this country being ran by a DICK-tator who is America's BIGGEST terrorist and a threat to America's future???

I'm telling you,I don't understand this at all. Isn't there ANYONE out of over 250 million people that can STOP him? Is he really JESUS CHRIST in a suit? Inquiring minds want to know. :grr:

[Dunvegan]

13. More like the Anti-Christ in an ill-fitting box-built-in-the-back suit.

He has to go...the Revolutionary War was fought and the Constitution put in place with the primary intention that we should be forever free of any king...especially those named George.

[high density]

7. So...

Law says: "Do not torture people."

Bush vision on signed legislation: "I understand this law to mean that I can torture people at my discretion."

?? And this is OK? Come on, this is bullcrap. This is such a crazy world we're living in right now.

[Cobalt Violet]

9. Recommended. 1st I heard of it.

We do have a dictator. :scared:

[firefox]

10. We are ruled by treason.

[FloridaPat]

12. Now that's a good quote for a banner or bumper sticker.

[many a good man]

14. Its done for the Courts

I remember hearing some conservative spout off about this. When interpreting legislation, the Court often looks to the Congressional record and other sources to infer the intent behind a bill. Backers say the executive's understanding should be just as admissible.

This is an attempt at an historic shift in the balance of powers. It hasn't yet been tested in a court of law. I can't see how any jurist could reasonably give equal weight when the bills are of the Legislature.
:shrug:

[Wordie]

21. Do our congresspeople know about this?

Many republicans would not agree to such an usurpation of their power, which this clearly is. But how could they not know? Isn't this "legislating from the Oval Office?" Sure sounds like it to me.

Recommended.

[LizW]

25. And you know who one of those backers is?

One of those you mention who thinks the presidential signing statement should carry the same weight as congressional statements of intent?

Alito.

THIS is the litmus test Bushco has been using for judicial appointments. Not abortion or strict construction, but the unilateral expansion of the powers of the executive.

We are in deep shit.

[mom cat]

15. This is a critical reason for fighting Alito's nomination.

[MiniMe]

18. Alito apparently pushed for this when he worked under RayGun

[TankLV]

19. Now this is the first I've heard of this!

May I humbly ask what the fuck are we paying our DEMOCRATIC politicians for?

What the fuck are these asswipes DOING all day long for goddamn crissake?

[DarleenMB]

20. It is NOT legal

Several well known attorneys have been asked about this (forget which "liberal" radio talk show I was listening to) and it is NOT legal.

Now Bush might think it is because we all know he thinks he's king of the world but in the end, it means nothing. He is not above the law nor is he exempt from the law.

But tell everyone anyway.

[eve_was_framed]

32. if Alito gets in, it could be then made legal (I believe)

[rodeodance]

23. I posted a few articles last few days on this issue on DU. yes. terrible.

[rodeodance]

24. here is excellant art I posted earlier on DU about this (Blumenthal)

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0105-23.htm

Published on Thursday, January 5, 2006 by Salon.com

Bush's War on Professionals
The president is determined to stop whistle-blowers and the press from halting his administration's illegal, ever-expanding secret government. But it may be too late.

by Sidney Blumenthal


New ranges of secret government are emerging from the fog of war. The latest disclosure, by the New York Times, of domestic surveillance by the National Security Agency performed by evasion of the special Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court surfaces a vast hidden realm. But the NSA spying is not an isolated island of policy; it is connected to the mainland of Bush's expansive new national security apparatus.......


Congress, at best, is held in contempt as a pest and, at worst, is regarded as an intruder on the president's rightful authority. The Republican chairmen of the House Armed Services and Senate Intelligence committees, Rep. Duncan Hunter of California and Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, have been models of complicity in fending off oversight, attacking other members of Congress, especially Republicans, who have had the temerity to insist on it, using their committees to help the White House suppress essential information about the operations of government, and issuing tilted partisan reports smearing critics. This is the sort of congressional involvement, at White House direction, that the White House believes fulfills the congressional mandate.

During his first term, President Bush issued an unprecedented 108 statements upon signing bills of legislation that expressed his own version of their content. He has countermanded the legislative history, which legally establishes the foundation of their meaning, by executive diktat. In particular, he has rejected parts of legislation that he considered stepped on his power in national security matters. In effect, Bush engages in presidential nullification of any law he sees fit. He then acts as if his gesture supersedes whatever Congress has done.

Political scientist Phillip Cooper, of Portland State University in Oregon, described this innovative grasp of power in a recent article in the Presidential Studies Quarterly. Bush, he wrote, "has very effectively expanded the scope and character of the signing statement not only to address specific provisions of legislation that the White House wishes to nullify, but also in an effort to significantly reposition and strengthen the powers of the presidency relative to the Congress." Moreover, these coups de main not only have overwhelmed the other institutions of government but have taken place almost without notice. "This tour de force has been carried out in such a systematic and careful fashion that few in Congress, the media, or the scholarly community are aware that anything has happened at all." ...........

[Toots]

26. That is virtually the same thing as "line item veto" and the Extreme Court

has ruled that can not be done. He has broken the law by doing this.

[troubleinwinter]

27. Alito tipped balance of power to Executive branch

Alito Once Made Case For Presidential Power

By Christopher Lee
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 2, 2006

As a young Justice Department lawyer, Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. tried to help tip the balance of power between Congress and the White House a little more in favor of the executive branch.

<snip>

In a Feb. 5, 1986, draft memo, Alito, then deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel, outlined a strategy for changing that. It laid out a case for having the president routinely issue statements about the meaning of statutes when he signs them into law.

Such "interpretive signing statements" would be a significant departure from run-of-the-mill bill signing pronouncements, which are "often little more than a press release," Alito wrote. The idea was to flag constitutional concerns and get courts to pay as much attention to the president's take on a law as to "legislative intent."
<snip>

Bush may be acting without fanfare for a reason. As Alito noted in his memo, the statements "will not be warmly welcomed" on Capitol Hill.

"The novelty of the procedure and the potential increase of presidential power are two factors that may account for this anticipated reaction," he wrote. "In addition, and perhaps most important, Congress is likely to resent the fact that the president will get in the last word on questions of interpretation."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/01/AR2006010100788.html

[Inland]

29. Why do we have "lawmakers"? Same reason Papa Joe and KJI had legislatures

A fig leaf, the forms of democracy and popular will, but in reality, a cheering section to "unite" around what the president will do anyway.

Remember when the war resoution for Iraq was bandied about? Bush said he would do whatever he felt was right, but it would be good if the congress would "show unity" by approving of the action.

Not like it could STOP him. But it could prevent a messy debate by just telling him okay.

The wiretapping and torture are just more examples.

Facism, anyone?

[ContraBass Black]

30. Remember the "line item veto?"

I'm not even going to bother going further.

[orleans]

31. randi rhodes is talking about this again today (monday) n/t