Bush creates an "out" before signing bill banning torture

Where did this bullshit maneuver come from? I'm genuinely mystified.

Redstone

Oh, it's not in any of the enumerated Amendments. It's in the new one that's classified due to security reasons, the one that says that the Bush gang can do anything and everything they want.

Redstone

ball rolling.

http://www.slate.com/id/2134919/
President Ronald Reagan, guided by his Attorney General Edwin Meese III (and urged on enthusiastically by a young lawyer called Samuel Alito), launched a concerted policy to start to use signing statements as a means of reinforcing the executive's message and consolidating its power. Meese arranged to have them published for this very reason. Until the Reagan presidency, the executive branch had only ever issued a total of 75 signing statements. Reagan, Bush I, and Bill Clinton deployed them 247 times between them. (Clinton issued more statements than Bush I, but fewer than Reagan). According to Cooper, by the end of 2004, Bush had issued 108 signing statements presenting 505 different constitutional challenges. He has yet to veto anything.


There's been lots written about Dubya's abuse of the signing statement, just not picked up much by the MSM.

The Problem with Presidential Signing Statements: Their Use and Misuse by the Bush Administration
By JOHN W. DEAN
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20060113.html

Presidential signing statements are old news to anyone who has served in the White House counsel's office. Presidents have long used them to add their two cents when a law passed by Congress has provisions they do not like, yet they are not inclined to veto it. Nixon's statements, for example, often related to spending authorization laws which he felt were excessive and contrary to his fiscal policies.

In this column, I'll take a close look at President Bush's use of signing statements. I find these signing statements are to Bush and Cheney's presidency what steroids were to Arnold Schwarzenegger's body building. Like Schwarzenegger with his steroids, Bush does not deny using his signing statements; does not like talking about using them; and believes that they add muscle.



But like steroids, signing statements ultimately lead to serious trouble.

Relying On Command, Rather Than Persuasion

Phillip Cooper is a leading expert on signing statements. His 2002 book, By Order of the President: The Use and Abuse of Executive Direct Action, assesses the uses and abuses of signing statements by presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Cooper has updated his material in a recent essay for the Presidential Studies Quarterly, to encompass the use of signing statements by now-President Bush as well.

By Cooper's count, George W. Bush issued 23 signing statements in 2001; 34 statements in 2002, raising 168 constitutional objections; 27 statements in 2003, raising 142 constitutional challenges, and 23 statements in 2004, raising 175 constitutional criticisms. In total, during his first term Bush raised a remarkable 505 constitutional challenges to various provisions of legislation that became law.

more...

What the F... is that?
:wtf:

of the law.

Who needs the two other branches?

is a phony.

Impeachment is the only way to shutdown the evil one.

As many dog-and-pony shows as he runs.

He's interested? He should be outraged. He'll listen and pass a law saying Bush is "The Decider" and anything he does is legal by virtue of his saying so. Bush cannot interpret laws or the Constitution, that's for the courts.

That's all the congress has to say.

"You don't have that power Mr. President. If you break the law you just signed you will be held accountable."

But you see, Bush knows that congress has no intention of holding him accountable for anything. He can break the law all he wants and call it National Security. The congress won't bat an eye.

I put a road side memorial kind of sign. Fake flowers,ribbons,etc. and to it I nailed a handwritten sign, "Accountability
R.I.P."

I may have to "rip" that idea off!

:D

<snip>

But Specter and his allies maintain that Bush, in practical terms, is doing an end-run around the veto process in the name of national security. In the sixth year of his presidency, Bush has yet to issue a single veto.

Rather than give Congress the opportunity to override a veto with a two-thirds majority in each house, he has issued hundreds of signing statements invoking his right to interpret the law on everything from whistleblower protections to how Congress oversees the USA Patriot Act.

"It means that the administration does not feel bound to enforce many new laws which Congress has passed," said David Golove, a law professor at New York University who specializes in executive power issues. "This raises profound rule of law concerns. Do we have a functioning code of federal laws?"

http://www.kare11.com/news/national/national_article.aspx?storyid=128050

What a world embarassement Bush is.

wartime pResident.

Is is even possible at this point?

SOOO many of bush's evildoings get swept under the carpet by the media, but these 'signing statements' are very much newsworthy, considering the contempt they demonstrate for the laws of the land.

Repukes are all the same, 'okay now you need stop ignoring the law, pretty please.' A REAL Congress, with REAL statesmen/women would have sooooo impeached this Worthless Wart on society by now!!!!

Wish we had some REAL Congresspeople who had guts and a backbone.

Bush administration? He's all hot air; no real desire to set the country straight by subpoenas and indictments against them.

Then why create a new bill that does the same thing?

Any research the admin has done into this is completely irrelevant, since it's not the president's business to create laws - especially not laws that place the president outside the law.

this little asshole is totally out of control and they know it. They need to start impeachment proceedings or just shut the hell up and go home.
:grr:

All hail king George, ruler of all branches of government, and faithful servant of the Lord! :puke:

www.bushisantichrist.com

Did your dear friend stab you in the back once again? How many will it take before you learn?