Beloved Leader to Congress: You are Fucking Irrelevant, Don't waste my time, I'll ignore you and all your work at my pleasure. Go home, take a junket, talk trash, collect cash for re-election to do my future bidding. You,Congress, are all LESS THAN fucking NOTHING as far as I am concerned, if you don't like it: BITE ME!
Buzz around left blogistan: Preznit Dik Tator is pretty much a de facto dictator, as the talk about signing statements seems to illustrate. Well, the discussion is somewhat academic until you look under the hood. Here are some samples.
Dec. 30: When requested, scientific information ''prepared by government researchers and scientists shall be transmitted [to Congress] uncensored and without delay."
Bush's signing statement: The president can tell researchers to withhold any information from Congress if he decides its disclosure could impair foreign relations, national security, or the workings of the executive branch.
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Dec. 23, 2004: Forbids US troops in Colombia from participating in any combat against rebels, except in cases of self-defense. Caps the number of US troops allowed in Colombia at 800.
Bush's signing statement: Only the president, as commander in chief, can place restrictions on the use of US armed forces, so the executive branch will construe the law ''as advisory in nature."
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Aug. 5: The military cannot add to its files any illegally gathered intelligence, including information obtained about Americans in violation of the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches.
Bush's signing statement: Only the president, as commander in chief, can tell the military whether or not it can use any specific piece of intelligence.
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Nov. 5, 2002: Creates an Institute of Education Sciences whose director may conduct and publish research ''without the approval of the secretary [of education] or any other office of the department."
Bush's signing statement: The president has the power to control the actions of all executive branch officials, so ''the director of the Institute of Education Sciences shall [be] subject to the supervision and direction of the secretary of education."
And that just a SAMPLE!. There's a link on the BoGlo page to all of them. I'm a little afraid to read them all, but I guess I will.
The republican fuckwits who have stood by and allowed this to happen while they controlled congress...gee, how long would they have stood for this if the Clenis™ been writing signing statements like these on the legislation they passed.
I think it's time someone took these fucks to court over this, if that's possible. Clearly they have crossed separation of powers off the list of things they need to worry about. I have a feeling that if this story gets out and is more widely reported and understood, many Americans will start to wonder about the actual machinations that have been going on in their names, and that may well translate into a sea-change in the Congress in November. We can only hope...
posted by Jo Fish on 05.01.06 at 04:18 PM
Comments:
Clearly they have crossed separation of powers off the list of things they need to worry about.
But that is precisely the point: the Bush administration is taking back territory earlier administrations gave up too easily. The president, as head of the Executive Branch, has final authority in how the that branch runs. Congress can put a check on that by appropriating or not money for those various executive functions, but constitutionally they cannot tell the president how to run his branch of the government, anymore than the president can tell Congress what rules they m ust run their respective houses under or tell the Supreme Court how it must go about its duties.
In short, none of the three branches of government can tell the other two how to go about their business.
posted by: bean on 05.01.06 at 05:27 PM [permalink]
Oh my, Bean, I was just coming in to ask Jo if there was a Schiavo bill (or set of bills) that Our Feckless Leader was playing with amongst the >700 bills he's threatened to "set aside" while "signing" them (talk about mixed messages--he should sign or not sign, the coward). But you don't like our system of checks and balances. Preznit Dik Tator (bwah!) is, as Jo outlines in his post, doing the interpreting, legislating and enforcing of laws. No matter how desperately you want to back yer Preznit Dik Tator, that's what you're backing, a dictator.
The Republicans used to care about America more than they cared about the Party.
Not anymore. Loyalty oath signers put their party first. America second.
posted by: merlallen on 05.02.06 at 08:12 AM [permalink]
Good God, that may be the dumbest thing I've ever seen Bean say. What does Congress do, if not pass laws to be carried out by the executive? Did the Founding Fathers establish it simply as a debating society?
Go re-read the Constitution, summon up some "strict constructionism," and then come back here and apologize.
posted by: Tony on 05.02.06 at 09:08 AM [permalink]
Tony, you miss the point. Yes, Congress passes laws that the Executive then enforces, but here's the important point: Congress cannot pass a law telling the Executive how to conduct its own business for the very reason that Congress cannot pass laws that violate the Constitution, and the Constitution clearly states that no branch can tell the others how to go about their business.
For Nina, the checks and balances come from, say, Congress refusing to appropriate money for something the Executive wants; the Executive vetoing a bill or not spending the money the Congress has appropriated for a certain thing; and the Judicial interpreting the laws passed and signed by the Congress and the Executive and refereeing disputes between the two.
Whether what the Bush admin is doing is wise or not is a separate question, but Constitutionally its doing exactly what the Constitution gives it the power to do.
posted by: bean on 05.02.06 at 12:16 PM [permalink]
That's different from the executive deciding how to enforce a law. That's the executive ignoring a law. Ignoring a law is, by definition, illegal. When the president does it, it's unconstitutional.
You can't be for real. No one raised in America could honestly believe that OK.
posted by: Tony on 05.02.06 at 03:07 PM [permalink]
The libertarian Cato Institute on Bush's unconstitutional expansion of powers:
Unfortunately, far from defending the Constitution, President Bush has repeatedly sought to strip out the limits the document places on federal power. In its official legal briefs and public actions, the Bush administration has advanced a view of federal power that is astonishingly broad
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6330
Oh, and he had the nerve to issue a proclamation celebrating "Law Day" yesterday.
posted by: Tony on 05.02.06 at 03:20 PM [permalink]
The conservatives will rue the day they let a president set precendence like GWB. A liberal president will be able to use the SAME arguments and tactics to ram home a liberal agenda... and AMEN, BROTHER!
bean is nothing more than a diverson troll, and nothing less than a garden variety moron.
I won't believe some can be that ignorant to think that the Executive and just manufacture it's own criteria in which to determine the laws it decides to follow or not. Not only that - but to believe that a (for the most part) group of Veteran's would buy that shit - lock, stock and barrell.
I hope theres a good mental health care facility in your area, bean. You seriously need the assistance. Badly.
posted by: Barndog on 05.04.06 at 05:49 AM [permalink]
Mr. Bush has several times publically voiced the preference to be dictator. I remember him first saying it immediately after his first meeting with Alan Greenspan two days after Al Gore had thrown in the towel. Greenspan was evidently less than enthusiastic about big tax cuts for the rich. Bush has been widely quoted as saying he is accountable to no one.
Let's not debate as to whether he is doing everything possible to act as a dictator.
Now what?
posted by: bill on 05.08.06 at 01:34 AM [permalink]
