He claimed a pocket veto, while technically Bush vetoed the bill under the Constitution. In the president’s Memorandum of Disapproval, he gave one main reason: his objection to Section 1083 of the legislation.

Call me crazy (or just plain realistic), but I’m reluctant to take our dear president’s word as to his actual motive(s) for such a strange method of vetoing the bill.

There just might be more to it.  Read more 

Henry Waxman (Actual Member in Good Standing of the Democratic Party, representing the Golden State) is interested in how the EPA arrived at a decision to not protect California’s environment as much as Californians would like to…

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., sent a letter to EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson demanding “all documents relating to the California waiver request, other than those that are available on the public record.”  Read more 

Come on! Don’t you get it:

Vice President Cheney’s office has refused to comply with an executive order governing the handling of classified information for the past four years and recently tried to abolish the office that sought to enforce those rules, according to documents released by a congressional committee yesterday.

Cheney’s office argued that it is exempt from the rules in this case because it is not strictly an executive branch agency. [although the President is!]

Now Waxman:  Read more 

Which Henry Waxman does so very deftly:

“We want to return to civility and bipartisanship,” Waxman said. “Legislation ought to be based on evidence, not ideology.”

And if we can manage the discourse so that being “evidence-based” and “non-ideological” is how the words Civil and Bipartisan get redefined, then I am all for it.  Read more