Pelosi threat to sue Bush over Iraq bill

Source: The Hill

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is threatening to take President Bush to court if he issues a signing statement as a way of sidestepping a carefully crafted compromise Iraq war spending bill.

Pelosi recently told a group of liberal bloggers, “We can take the president to court” if he issues a signing statement, according to Kid Oakland, a blogger who covered Pelosi’s remarks for the liberal website dailykos.com.

A lawsuit could be seen as part of the Democrats’ larger political strategy to pressure — through a series of votes on funding the war — congressional Republicans to break with Bush over Iraq.

Lawmakers have tried to sue presidents in the past for taking what they consider to be illegal military action, but courts have rejected such suits.

Read more: http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/pelosi-threat-to-sue-bush-over-iraq-bill-2007-05-08.html

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It is a start. Now if we can just move him from the civil court over to the criminal court, we will really be getting somewhere.

And what does Speaker Pelosi think the Reagan/Bush/Bush Supreme Court will do?

Elect a Democrat President.

Have Congress pass a bill.

Democratic President issues a signing statement putting 6 more Justices on the Supreme Court.

See, if they don't reel in the power NOW, it passes unrestrained and unchecked to the Democrat who holds the office next.

Whatever the Supreme Court decides, they have to realize they are deciding for both Republicans AND Democrats.

The Democrats have to show how hard they're trying.

The Republicans...it's their president, their war, their mess.

Alito, Roberts, Kennedy, Scalia and Thomas and order them to the Hague to answer for their crimes against humanity - especially Kennedy, Scalia and Thomas for the illegal 2000 decision.

That way, we can go left.

Hawkeye-X

I mean, he's dead...
didn't they go through this with Ken Lay?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Lay
The guy croaked and the judge had to vacate his conviction because of it?
Wasn't too happy about it IIRC, but that WAS the law....

About all they could do with Rehnquist would be to review and maybe reverse some of his rulings...

fucking drug addict who was high all the time!

It was legal. Unpopular, yes. Un-passed by Congress, yes, but perfectly legal. The Court's size has fluctuated throughout our history and is not set by the Constitution.

Enlargement of the Court may be the only way that a Democratic president and Congress can really rollback the effects of the Reagan/Bush/Bush Court.

but we would need a super majority in Congress to get those justices confirmed. Nice thought though.

What happened to the up or down vote ?

This country needs to have the rose-colored glasses stripped away.

Is it really going to take another 622 days before anything meaningful is done about the criminal in the WH?

"Take the president to court." Yeah, there's an idea. Or you could stop wasting time and lives and IMPEACH him.

But we have a government entirely (almost) made up of politicians who are more worried about the consequences that their actions might have on their jobs rather than worrying about the consequences that their actions (or inaction) will have on us and the world.

Congress obviously views this as some sort of pissing match, not as a matter of consequence to real human beings that bleed and die and have their souls shattered every day in Iraq while they continue playing their stupid power games.

If it were within MY power, I'd make every Congress member spend a week in Iraq patrolling with our troops or hiding in schools and homes with civilian Iraqis. No special treatment, no McCain-magnitude protection -- they'd live the way their hosts do. While there they'd have to read the Downing Street Memos, study the Constitution, and return (if they do) with a 200 word essay explaining why they still aren't prepared to IMPEACH the SOBs.

Make any member of congress that votes to authorize military action serve a tour in the military before he or she can be re-elected to public office. That would make the bastards think twice before sending out the troops.

I'm someone who believes prior military service should be a REQUIREMENT for all Congressional candidates. They've got the power to wage war (or abdicate that power to the president), they should at least know something about it.

that when I am not blinded by rage with regards to all of this crap, I am torn on this issue.

On one hand, I agree with you completely... the power to wage war should not be given to those who know nothing about it. However, I also feel that congress should be representative of the population as a whole. With that in mind, requiring military service would skew the demographic makeup of congress away from the actual makeup of the nation.

Frankly, I think that term limits would be a good tool as well. If you were not allowed to run for re-election, you wouldn't be so burdened by worrying about how your votes will effect your next campaign.

But I think very few in Congress are actually representative of their constituents anymore in so far as lifestyle, income, etc. Meanwhile, most of them DO have constituents who enlist in the military. So I don't see that such a requirement would make them different from the people they're supposed to represent. But it surely would make them different from the CEOs they DO represent!

I'm certainly not saying that it is a bad idea at all. Certainly, I think it is better than the current situation. Just not quite the perfect solution... but then again, there probably is no perfect solution.

Sometimes I have to remember to not let myself be paralyzed by idealism.

It's the only thing that separates us from THEM. (Politicians in general, Neocons specifically.)

There's only one perfect solution, at least for me, and that's bed! :)

A belated welcome to DU, whopis01! Hope to chat with you again.

btw... I love your avatar

I think all of us should be required to do a couple year stint in service to our country. Notice I didn't say just military service as I see so many other underserved areas that one could serve in. I think that we take our citizenship and its duties way too lightly.

I have never been in favor of required military service. Mainly from the point of view of cost vs. quality. It takes a lot of money to train a soldier, and if entering service were a requirement, there would be a huge increase in the percentage of people who served for the minimum amount of time possible.

However, to open it to other areas could be more beneficial. After all, there are plenty of people who would never seek a career in the military who would be happy to make a career out of other forms of national service.

Reminds me of Heinlein's concept of requiring military service to be a full citizen and earn the right to vote. Perhaps requiring national service before vesting those rights would be a good step.

The only way they are held accountable is by being re-elected. If they have term limits, then they can do whatever batshit crazy stuff they want and blow raspberries into the faces of whoever sent them there. Make 'em go through the meatgrinder of an election every single time. Make 'em explain why they did what they did.

So you want Congress to be made up of War Mongers? I just don't buy the argument that the only reason people join the military is to get an education. I think they join because they want to be soldiers.. Soldiers kill people....

...and that was the ONLY reason. And there were a lot of women with me (and men in our brother company) whose reasons were the same, that's a fact.

Only because most are already too old for military service by the time they run for Congress. (I know the enlistment age limit has been raised to 42 because of Iraq; I mean under normal circumstances.)

I'll respond to your other suggestion about term limits here: yes. If it will stop politicians from worrying more about keeping their seats/majority/chances for the WH than their duty to this country, which should be their number one concern, bring on term limits.

I promise, put the Bush twins in uniform and send their useless, over-privileged (but moderately cute) asses out on patrol and Bush would be looking for a way to bring back the troops.

You can tell who really hurts for American families and it's not the people with nothing to lose.

Whether it's them or their kids, I think they'd change their minds fast and start treating this with the seriousness and urgency required. You're absolutely right about who cares and who doesn't.

Honestly, I don't believe he does. From the little dribs and drabs of info we've seen that he had better things to do than visit when one of them was in the hospital as a child. You never see him with either of them in any kind of personal situation. I seem to remember that he didn't even go to their graduation. Except for election time and inauguration, I can't remember seeing him with either daughter. They may be present at the same time -- this shin-dig with the Queen -- but there doesn't seem to be much interaction on a father-daughter level. I checked Google Images and the last pictures of him with either child are 2004.

to serve because of the actions of their parents.

You have to respect the rights of the individual.

Whether we like it or not, impeachment is a political process, not a legal one. Even if we caught George having sex with a 5 year old boy on the floor of the Senate while simultaneously shooting Ted Kennedy with an illegal assault rifle, you can't FORCE a Republican to vote to remove the war criminal from office. The Republicans have shown that they have no interest in ethics or morality, they simply give it lip service to get the brain-dead fundy vote.

Right now we don't have the votes to remove either Bush or Cheney and I doubt we could remove Gonzales, regardless of the comments made by GOP members trying to play both ends against the middle.

On top of that, when the Republicans tried impeaching Clinton, they LOST votes in the election. The Dems are both gutless and unwilling to take a chance that what the American people want is Bush removed. They don't want to lose seats in the 2008 election but gain them at the expense of Bush's trashing of the Republican Party.

is comparing apples and oranges. There was no significant public support for it. There was no grass roots effort taking place across the country to push for it.

The impeachment process is just that, a process. It is not something that happens instantly. There is time to build support during the trial.

The only way of being certain that the impeachment battle can not be won is to not fight the battle.

I've heard it all before and no offense, but as excuses go the ones you cite stopped impressing me long ago.

Welcome to DU.

Thanks for the welcome. Like you, I would love to see Bush, Cheney and Gonzo impeached, removed and tried for war crimes and then their criminal asses in prison for the rest of their lives.

However, I just don't see it happening. And the reasons I cite are very likely reasons in the backs of the new Democratic majority. Hold onto the power so they can use it to stop the war.

Bush doesn't want the war stopped on his dime. He wants the Republicans to claim the Democrats "lost" the war and that's how it will spin in 2009 when we finally remove troops from Iraq. It's not any different than the historical revisionism being pushed by conservatives that we would have won Vietnam had we only stayed there long enough. There's not a bit of truth in the claim, but conservatives aren't interested in facts; they think their opinions ARE facts.

If you impeach and lose, you won't significantly weaken Bush as commander-in-chief. In fact, you make him look stronger, as he survived the impeachment process. And if you don't KNOW you can get the votes by the time the process comes to the end, you lose.

When Congress started the process of impeaching Nixon, the American public was against it. Two years later, over the course of the investigations, the people grew MAD AS HELL at what came out. Nixon was forced to resign rather than be impeached. There are more people behind impeachment of Bush** now than back then when it started for Nixon.

And I hate to say this, but reasons of political expediency (we need to hold onto power, etc) make me VERY angry. Imagine if Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin and all the rest had decided not to declare independence and fight the British, because they knew if they lost they'd be hung for treason.

Period.

When Nixon was impeached, there was still a certain amount of ethics in politics. That went out the window with the Republican Revolution of 1994. The crap pulled by DeLay, Gingrich, Lott et al would never have flown in the Republican party of Goldwater and Eisenhower. Further, the Republicans then were a lot like the Democrats now, meaning that they felt they had to answer to their constituents. Today's Republicans give lip service to the voters but really answer only to the central party apparatus, as that's where the money comes from, and name recognition and voter intimidation wins elections even if your candidate is a slimy weasel who should be serving time in some correctional facility.

Republicans remember that when they tried to impeach Clinton, it wasn't for having sex with a woman who wasn't his wife, it was for lying under oath. True, it was a perjury trap and wouldn't stand up in a court of law, but the Repbublicans counted upon the American people being mad as hell by the time the investigation was completed and that those mad-as-hell American people would put pressure on the Democrats to remove Clinton.

It didn't work that way. The American people saw the impeachment attempt as a crass attempt to remove a popular President. They responded at the polls by removing some Republicans from the majority.

The fact of the matter is that NO ONE knows what the American people really want from the last election rather than an end to the Iraq War. No complete, comprehensive polls have been done across the country on the subject of removing the President. And, how many people worried about being attacked by Jihadists will really see the efforts by Bush as unlawful? They may not like the war and may hate him personally but do they see the need to impeach and remove him? Sad to say, impeachment under the Republicans was a weapon and not a means to right a sinking ship. When you pull that weapon out again, you have to be cognizant of what might happen, whether intended or not.

Most of his moves he can claim resulted from changes in the law ala Patriot Act, and in other cases, his use of signing statements that he can claim his White House counsel (Miers and Gonzales) told him were legal. Unless you have an exceptionally angry electorate wanting Bush's head on a platter and willing to take out that anger on anyone with an (R) after their name on election day (and right now the GOP and their pollsters don't think it's that bad, though it could get that bad)

Bush never intended to fight an insurgency. Liberals don't intend to piss off voters and make the majority of moderates think that the Dems are no different from the GOP. What seems the right thing to do at the time might not always be.

...than in doing what's best for this country is part of the problem that's destroying our government, and I've no time for them.

If Congress were to stop the war now and pull out the troops, the Republicans would claim that the Democrats "lost" the war.

If a Democrat is president in 2009 and the war is ended then and the troops are pulled out, the Republicans will claim that the Democrats "lost" the war.

If they thought it would help them, the Republicans will claim that the Democratic majority in Congress harmed the nation by not impeaching Bush when they had the chance!

You could go on worrying about these arguments forever. That is exactly what they hope you will do.


There are times when it is more important to do what is right and what is necessary, rather than worrying about how things will be spun or how the revisionists will treat it. This is one of those times.

Try focusing on this part, instead. It's the key phrase:

If you impeach and lose, you won't significantly weaken Bush as commander-in-chief. In fact, you make him look stronger, as he survived the impeachment process. And if you don't KNOW you can get the votes by the time the process comes to the end, you lose.

Your assumption that the impeachment process will end in a failure to remove Bush from office is just that, an assumption.

No matter how many times you claim that it will fail, it is still just an assumption.

To say "if you don't KNOW you can get the votes by the time the process comes to the end, you lose" is false. You lose the impeachment process if you don't HAVE the votes by the time the process comes to an end.

Worrying about whether or not Bush looks stronger or looks weaker, or worrying about whether or not every action you take will meet with guaranteed success is not how a government should be run.

Here is another assumption: If Bush is impeached, but the Republican minority in the Senate manage to prevent him from being removed from office, those Republicans will be shown to be going against the will of the people and their will come out of the process weaker than before.

Is that a fact? No, like your statements, it is an assumption. It is just an example of how an impeachment that fails to remove Bush from office can still be beneficial to the nation.

By the way, if you don't want to be criticized on certain points you make in the posting that you deem to not be the "key phrase", I would suggest that you leave them out of future postings.

Clinton should never have been impeached and it was against the will of the people that he was impeached and the people who went on that witchhunt lost votes. The country is aware of Bush/Cheney's crimes or are becoming more so now and the will of the people is for impeachment this time and if Congress doesn't heed the people they will again pay with lost votes. Frankly that last part is the only similarity. Ignore the will of the people at your peril, Congress!

Welcome JPettus. I don't agree with you this time but I'm sure we'll be on the same side in another fight.

To compare this with the impeachment of Clinton is to take a narrow minded, simplistic, unrealistic view of the situation.

The only valid comparison to be made is that in each case, Congress is failing to uphold the will of the people. Once by going through the impeachment process and once by failing to do so.

They don't. I'm all for doing WHATEVER it takes.

This country is going to hell in a handbasket.... and why are we arguing about the braking contractor?

...and the will to put country before political party. Too bad there's very little of that in Congress.

in the Constitution about "signing statements" being an integral part of our governing process.

Redstone

Or only allow him to use crayons. Secret Service could require that in the interest of protecting the idiot from stabbing himself.

could still do some serious damage if it was in the wrong hands (or wrong nose)

It would be silly to sue for damages, of course.


But suing for an injunction to nullify a signing statement would force the Supreme Court, conservative as it is, to make a clear constitutional ruling on how much or little power these signing statements will have for all Presidents to come.


Pelosi would probably want to focus on a separation of powers argument, e.g. Bush exceeded his constitutional powers, rather than argue the merits of Bush's decision-making (which would probably get dismissed as a political issue, instead of a legal issue).


It wouldn't be a slam-dunk, but with the right lawyers working on it, it might not be such a long shot either.


Good job, Ms. Speaker. It shows at least some Dems are thinking outside the box.

I will not be holding my breath to see if the Dems have any follow through on this one... probably won't be long before Pelosi decides that suing the president will not be "on the table" anymore.

Sticking with her metaphor, if the Constitution is "on the table" then its Article II Section 4 must therefore also be "on the table."


I mean, these Congresspeople have sworn to uphold the Constitution, in its entirety, not just picking and choosing which provisions they're most comfortable with.

the consitution says the president must enforce the law as written or veto it.

Msongs
www.msongs.com/political-shirts.htm

Honestly, I didn't fully realize this.

Why are we having to ask for justice when laws are broken? I don't get it.

Thanks.

you use whatever tools you have to get it out of the way.

If people call them silly, feeble, not this-enough, or that-enough: still you try them all.

have to do, to restore Constitutional government (--that is, once we get rid of Diebold and ES&S).

You think Cheney's hunting buddies are going to rule for Pelosi? Dream on.

Lot of work to do before that could happen. Basic work. Democracy from the bottom up.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x3256948

Unbelievable!!!

IMPEACH IMPEACH IMPEACH!!! :grr:

They are too worried about how they will look if they are not successful.

The leadership in this Congress is sorely lacking.

mad dog Bush.

trying to get her to do that. I am afraid that she lacks to fortitude to push for what needs to happen.

to the rest of the world. It says we are waking up and there is a chance that the future USA will be a better world citizen than the current USA.

Source: Truthout.org

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is threatening to take President Bush to court if he issues a signing statement as a way of sidestepping a carefully crafted compromise Iraq war spending bill.

Pelosi recently told a group of liberal bloggers, "We can take the president to court" if he issues a signing statement, according to Kid Oakland, a blogger who covered Pelosi's remarks for the liberal website dailykos.com.

"The president has made excessive use of signing statements and Congress is considering ways to respond to this executive-branch overreaching," a spokesman for Pelosi, Nadeam Elshami, said. "Whether through the oversight or appropriations process or by enacting new legislation, the Democratic Congress will challenge the president's non-enforcement of the laws."

It is a scenario for which few lawmakers have planned. Indicating that he may consider attaching a signing statement to a future supplemental spending measure, Bush last week wrote in his veto message, "This legislation is unconstitutional because it purports to direct the conduct of operations of the war in a way that infringes upon the powers vested in the presidency."



Read more: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/050907J.shtml

:bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

Stop the SOB in his tracks.

He is not representing America. He's representing the interests of his wealthy family, their powerful friends, and corporate America.

That's why we have high prescription drug costs, high medical costs, tainted food on store shelves, inadequate law enforcement on our streets, homeless people that can't seem to get a new start on life, veterans being refused health care, and hundreds of other issues that have gotten worse under *'s "leadership".

It's time SOMEBODY put their foot down and stood up for what's right and the American people. Now is as good of a time as any.

..... in the entirety of her term as Speaker so far, Ms. Pelosi has not disappointed me one bit. She's tough and savvy .... and most importantly for a Democratic Speaker, she knows how to herd cats.

She has brought tremendous energy to the Speaker position. I wish she would be moving a bit faster toward impeachment but know that perhaps she is privvy to some info I may not have at the moment... not that I will be patient for too long. :)

Keep up the good work!

on the Constitution and our democracy. I say great!

But I wonder how enforceable a lawsuit would be, especially with the current make-up of the Supreme Court.

it purports to direct the conduct of operations of the war in a way that infringes upon the powers vested in the presidency."

came out of Jr.'s head. What a smarmy asshole comment. This is going into a Constitutional showdown come September. The giggling murderer will lose.

and while you're at it, how about reclaiming our Constitution from this anti-American administration. Habeus Corpus is a bedrock of our democracy. I'd like it back.

see Andrew Jackson. Bush could simply choose to ignore the Supreme Court decision.

the signing statements are the Executive Branch's interpretation of how laws will be enforced. My understanding of the signing statements is that provisions of the passed law violate the authority as President granted under the Constitution then he will not enforce or enact those provisions.

signing statements: http://www.usdoj.gov/olc/signing.htm

In each of the last three Administrations, the Department of Justice has advised the President that the Constitution provides him with the authority to decline to enforce a clearly unconstitutional law.(7) This advice is, we believe, consistent with the views of the Framers.(8) Moreover, four sitting Justices of the Supreme Court have joined in the opinion that the President may resist laws that encroach upon his powers by "disregard them when they are unconstitutional." Freytag v. C.I.R., 111 S. Ct. 2631, 2653 (1991) (Scalia, J., joined by O'Connor, Kennedy and Souter, JJ., concurring in part and concurring in judgment).(9)

If the President may properly decline to enforce a law, at least when it unconstitutionally encroaches on his powers, then it arguably follows that he may properly announce to Congress and to the public that he will not enforce a provision of an enactment he is signing. If so, then a signing statement that challenges what the President determines to be an unconstitutional encroachment on his power, or that announces the President's unwillingness to enforce (or willingness to litigate) such a provision, can be a valid and reasonable exercise of Presidential authority.(10) And indeed, in a recent decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Federal Election Comm'n v. NRA Political Victory Fund, supra, the court cited to and relied upon a Presidential signing statement that had declared that a Congressionally-enacted limitation on the President's constitutional authority to appoint officers of the United States was without legal force or effect. Id. at * 11.