Whatever Happened to Signing Statements? (Dave Lindorff)

[marmar]

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Whatever Happened to Signing Statements?

Perhaps the best indication of the toothlessness and complicity of the new Democratic Congress is that President Bush, who between September 2001 and December 2006 used so-called “signing statements” and a bogus claim of extra-constitutional executive authority as commander in chief in time of war to invalidate 1200 laws or parts of laws passed by Congress, hasn’t issued a single one since January.

As for vetoes, there was just one, for the first Iraq War supplemental funding bill—the one that actually contained a deadline of sorts for ending the conflict.

The truth is, this Congress, elected by a public that made it clear it was sick and tired of the Iraq War, has really done little or nothing to challenge the president—not on global warming, not on the Iraq War, and not on his unilateral gutting of traditional and Constitutionally protected civil liberties.

The truth is, there has been little for this president to object to coming out of this supposedly oppositional Congress.

On Memorial Day, as close to 150,000 US troops risk death and create mayhem in Iraq, as 3500 soldiers’ graves at home get fresh flowers, as 26,000 gravely injured Iraq War veterans nurse their wounds with little help from an over-stretched and underfunded Veterans Administration medical system, we Americans have to face the fact that we have lost control of our government to a trillion-dollar war machine that moves of its own accord.

A criminal president and vice president have succeeded in tricking us into a war that had no justification, and that can have no good end. And what once was an opposition party has succumbed, though a combination of greed and cowardice, to become an accomplice in crime.

The president, now surely among the least popular leaders in the nation’s long history, has no need of signing statements any longer because he faces no organized opposition in Washington. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/

[rpannier]

1. I'm waiting for it on the Iraq funding bill

where scrub-ya tells everyone he's issued a statement where he doesn't have to report on Iraqi progress

[On the Road]

2. Hasn't Pelosi Threatened Legal Action Against Bush

if he tries to break the law via a signing statement? At least in one particular instance this year?

[MrPrax]

3. Good rap...

(from the link)

We’ve all learned this without the help of the mainstream media, which goes on about its devious business of pretending that everything is as it was, with two combative and ideologically opposed parties.

You got that right...it's scary in a way Orwell couldn't have imagined.

The whole time the Machine is giving the impression of scaling back war, it has laid the ground for three or four more wars involving everyone from Iran to Russia to China to Sudan to Venezuela to who the fuck knows...the belligerence, self-righteousness and arrogance of the Cabal is increasingly overtaken by the corporate media itself.

They seem to be, just finishing the sentences of dictators these days...

[Demeter]

4. I Do Believe That Bush Was Warned Off Such Stupid Steps

by the change in Congress and the public mood. But what difference does it make whether he writes it down or not? He has no intention of obeying any law (unless at the point of a very large gun).

[Igel]

5. 29 bills have been presented for signing since Jan. '07.

Thirteen of them involved renaming buildings or a park; 1 involved funding a road.

A few involved funding, including the one that was vetoed. The others have little to say about the executive branch, one way or the other--amend a law to modify nutrition standards for seniors, make it possible to enlarge NATO, etc., etc.

Here's a good one: "To amend the Ethics in Government Act of 1978 to extend the authority to withhold from public availability a financial disclosure report filed by an individual who is a judicial officer or judicial employee, to the extent necessary to protect the safety of that individual or a family member of that individual, and for other purposes."

Or "To amend the Public Health Service Act to provide waivers relating to grants for preventive health measures with respect to breast and cervical cancers."

Some probably are good: "To amend the Public Health Service Act to add requirements regarding trauma care, and for other purposes." One affects nobody but Congress: "To revise the composition of the House of Representatives Page Board to equalize the number of members representing the majority and minority parties and to include a member representing the parents of pages and a member representing former pages, and for other purposes."

If you want to look at the list yourself, go to http://thomas.loc.gov/bss/d110query.html . 2/3s of the way down the page there's a box for "stage in legislative process"; scroll until you find "presented to president". Leave everything else blank or unchosen. Click on 'search', and up comes all the bills presented. A whopping 29 as of 6 am this morning.