From Pulitzer-Prize winning author (from his series of articles in the Boston Globe regarding Bush and signing statements), Charlie Savage - Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy  Read more 

President Bush has used signing statements attached to adopted legislation more times than all the prior 41 presidents combined. As Charlie Savage poignantly described it in his April 30, 2006 article in the Boston Globe:

[Bush] has signed every bill that reached his desk, often inviting the legislation’s sponsors to signing ceremonies at which he lavishes praise upon their work.

Then, after the media and the lawmakers have left the White House, Bush quietly files “signing statements” — official documents in which a president lays out his legal interpretation of a bill for the federal bureaucracy to follow when implementing the new law. The statements are recorded in the federal register.

Of course, since that Pulitzer Prize-winning article, Bush has managed to use his veto three times (twice to halt stem-cell research and once to avoid halting the Iraq War). However, his singing statements continue unabated.  Read more 

As usual, Charlie Savage of the Globe is all over this one, while the courtiers at Versailles on the Potomac check their hair in the mirrors and piss on the carpets.

Here in the text of “Presidential Signing Statements Act of 2007” are the findings of Spector’s bill:

Congress finds the following:

(1) While the executive branch has a role in enacting legislation, it is clear that this is a limited role. Article I, section 7 of the Constitution provides that when a bill is presented to the President, he may either sign it or veto it with his objections, and his veto is subject to a congressional override by two-thirds majorities in the House of Representatives and Senate.

(2) As the President signs a bill into law, the President sometimes issues a statement elaborating on his views of a bill.

(3) This practice began in the early 1800s, and such statements have been issued by Presidents including James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, John Tyler, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush.

(4) Much more recently, some courts have begun using presidential signing statements as a source of authority in the interpretation of Acts of Congress.

(5) This judicial use of presidential signing statements is inappropriate, because it in effect gives these statements the force of law. As the Supreme Court itself has explained, Article I, section 7, of the Constitution provides a ‘single, finely wrought and exhaustively considered, procedure’ for the making of Federal law. I.N.S. v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919, 951 (1983). Presidential signing statements are not passed by both Houses of Congress pursuant to Article I, section 7, so they are not the supreme law of the land. It is inappropriate, therefore, for courts to rely on presidential signing statements as a source of authority in the interpretation of Acts of Congress.

(6) The Supreme Court’s reliance on presidential signing statements has been sporadic and unpredictable. In some cases, such as Bowsher v. Synar, 478 U.S. 714, 719 n.1 (1986), the Supreme Court has relied on presidential signing statements as a source of authority, while in other cases, such as the recent military tribunals case, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 126 S.Ct. 2749 (2006), it has conspicuously declined to do so. This inconsistency has the unfortunate effect of rendering the interpretation of Federal law unpredictable.

(7) As the Hamdan case demonstrates, the Justices of the Supreme Court appear to disagree with one another on the propriety of reliance on presidential signing statements in the interpretation of Federal law. The Supreme Court, with its nine competing perspectives and its jurisdictional restriction to cases and controversies, may remain unable to resolve this difference of opinion and establish a clear rule abjuring such reliance.

(8) Congress has the power to resolve judicial disputes such as this by enacting rules of statutory interpretation. This power flows from Article I, section 8, clause 18, which gives Congress the power ‘To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof’. Rules of statutory interpretation are necessary and proper to bring into execution the legislative power.

(9) Congress can and should exercise this power over the interpretation of Federal statutes in a systematic and comprehensive manner.

(10) Congress hereby exercises this power to forbid judicial reliance on presidential signing statements as a source of authority in the interpretation of Acts of Congress.

Screw you, King George! Removing Bush’s putative authority to rewrite or ignore laws He doesn’t like through signing statements is a major front in our war to restore Constitutional government.

So, how many Democratic co-sponsors are there for the bill?  Read more 

Atta J beat me to it this morning, that little fez wearing, vegetable eating…well, anyway, that’s not important. What is important, in addition to noting once again that our Famously Free Press took two fraking weeks to let us know about it, is that our First Challenge of the new Congress is clear. Say it with me, Dems: UNCONSTITUTIONAL. Or if you prefer:

unlawful, illegal, immoral, against the intent of the Founders, antidemocratic, unAmerican, monarchist, imperial.

But the point is, the Democratic Congress needs to get serious about this. Not just because it is how Bush will continue to get around whatever legislation they pass, but because it imperils Democracy in America for all time. Think of Hillary with this kind of power, wingnuts: does that fill you with glee? Didn’t think so.  Read more 

Your assignment, if you choose to accept it:

Read the signing statement attached to the just-this-afternoon-signed “SAFE Port Act”. Take one drink—Maker’s Mark suggested but anything not made by the Jack Daniel’s company* is acceptable—every time you run across the phrase “unitary executive.”

Make sure you have cab fare or other transportation arrangements back to your abode worked out before you commence playing if you are not there at present. We’ll see you sometime tomorrow, because you are just about to get as shitfaced as you have ever been in your life.  Read more 

Remember, editors have the power, not reporters. Editors write the headlines, not reporters. (Editors also assign stories to reporters, and decide whether to front page stories, bury them in the back of the paper, or spike them. And Judy Miller had training kneepads compared to these guys.) So, get a load of this headline:

Lawyers decry Bush’s legal interpretations

You’d never guess from this story that it’s about Bush’s signing statements, or that Constitutional issues are at stake. How do they Fuck us? Let me count the ways:

1. “Lawyers” trivializes the story right away. That the source of the report is the ABA is not mentioned. That the issue is of Constitiutional importance is not mentioned.

2. “Decry” trivializes the story even further.

3. “Legal” distorts the story completely! It gives the flavor of legality to executive—I say executive because we need to stop giving Bush the title of honor, “President,” since he is neither faithful to his oath of office nor legitimately elected—outcomes that are not merely illegal but designed to destroy the separation of powers and our Constitutional form of government (see Federalist #47).

4. “Interpretation” flushes the story right down the crapper. Under the Constitution, Bush does not have the right to interpret the law; that’s up to the judicial branch, according to the doctrine of the separation of powers. By implying that Bush can, indeed, interpret the law, the headline conceals the exact Constitutional point at issue with almost surreal precision.

Now that we’re done with how the editors butchered the story, we can look at the reporting:  Read more 

Sure, Bush, increasingly desperate to hold onto his deluded base, actually pulled out his Mighty Veto Pen and mightily vetoed a bill.

Sure, Bush is happy to have Iraqi civilians die, and armor-less soldiers have their limbs blown off, and prisoners tortured, and 14-year-olds raped and then set on fire, and helpless old people die during Katrina—all the while proclaiming the inherent dignity of blastocysts. Logic—heck, sanity—never bothered these guys, and being evil’s worked out well for them, so why would they change?

So what’s everybody missing? Vetoes aren’t important anymore, because Bush has destroyed Constitutional government. The Presidential veto is sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Why? Two words:  Read more 

Is it for everyone, or just us Little People? It’s a question that I wish more people would ask right about now

A bill becomes the rule of the land when Congress passes it and the president signs it into law.  Read more 

Oh, to be among the high and mighty as they stir from their alpine reaches and stretch forth their protective wings of Truth and Justice upon their little charge milling below like sheep:

“If Congress passes a law telling the people in the bureaucracy that ‘this is what you should do,’ and the president signs it but attaches a statement saying ‘I don’t want you to do it,’ how is that going to affect the motivation of the bureaucracy?” she said.
The task force also includes several prominent legal scholars, such as Harold Koh , dean of Yale Law School and a former official in the Reagan and Clinton administrations; Kathleen Sullivan , former dean of Stanford Law School; Charles Ogletree , a Harvard law professor; and Stephen Saltzburg , a professor at George Washington University Law School.  Read more