King Bush II does it again: Bush's Latest Abuse of Signing Statements

Over 1000 de facto acts of coup d'etat and overthrow of the Legislative and Judicial branches, and not once did our Congress stand-up for itself, the rule of law, or the Constitution!

Under our Constitution, only the Legislature has the power to legislate OUR nation's laws.

Under our Constitution, only the Judicial branch has the constitutional right to interpret OUR nation's laws!
Bush, the man, declared and exhalted himself himself dictator by his own will--NOT THE PEOPLE'S WILL--more than 1000 times, exceeding all of the preceding 42 presidents COMBINED, thumbing his nose at, and usurping the authority granted to HIS OFFICE--NOT TO GEORGE W. BUSH THE MAN! Just because it's an election year, and Bush is leaving office in 11 months, doesn't mean that he can't contiue to do more untold damage to our republic before he leaves--unless WE THE PEOPLE stop him!
Follow me under the fold as I discuss one way how we can speak-up and be heard...

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Abuse of the Week
"President Bush uses "signing statement" to defy will of Congress"

On January 28, President Bush signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008. Contained in the bill passed by Congress was a provision, contained in Section 1222, prohibiting the use of federal funds to "establish any military installation or base for the purpose of providing for the permanent stationing of United States Armed Forces in Iraq."

These kinds of prohibitions on federal spending are standard practice in Congress and are well within the legislative branch’s authority to appropriate funds and make the laws of this land.

President Bush, unfortunately, believes that he is more powerful than Congress and can pick and choose which duly approved laws he will follow and/or enforce. Over the course of the past seven years, he has abused the practice of issuing "signing statements" to ignore more than 1,000 provisions of law.

(Click on the link to read an article about signing statements by Charlie Savage of the Boston Globe, who won a Pulitzer Prize for this investigative work.)

Upon signing the National Defense Authorization Act into law, President Bush issued the following statement:

"Provisions of the Act, including [Section] 1222, purport to impose requirements that could inhibit the President's ability to carry out his constitutional obligations to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, to protect national security, to supervise the executive branch, and to execute his authority as Commander in Chief. The executive branch shall construe such provisions in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President."

In other words, President Bush will simply ignore the congressional prohibition on spending federal funds to establish permanent military bases in Iraq.

George W. Bush is not king of this nation. We must stand up against this kind of behavior.

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When even the lawyers oppose you, you know you have stepped out over and above the bounds of the rule of law and the Constitution.

Cross-posted from: SqlSpace Breaking Political News - No Censorship Zone

Over 1000 Lawyers Stepping Up to Defend Constitution

We are lawyers in the United States of America. As such, we have all taken an oath obligating us to defend the Constitution and the rule of law.... We believe the Bush administration has committed numerous offenses against the Constitution and may have violated federal laws.... Moreover, the administration has blatantly defied congressional subpoenas, obstructing constitutional oversight .... Thus, we call on House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers and Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy to launch hearings into the possibility that crimes have been committed by this administration in violation of the Constitution.... We call for the investigations to go where they must, including into the offices of the President and the Vice President. -- American Lawyers Defending the Constitution

Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2007 10:47 pm by JWAZ:

Over one thousand lawyers – including former Governor Mario Cuomo and former Reagan administration official Bruce Fein – have signed onto the above statement demanding wide-ranging investigative hearings into unconstitutional and potentially criminal activity by the Bush administration.

In a conference call with reporters yesterday, Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights and winner of the 2007 Puffin/Nation Prize for Creative Citizenship, said: "The majority of lawyers in this country understand that the Bush administration has really gone off the page of constitutional rights and off the page of fundamental rights, and is willing to push the Congress to restore those rights."

Ratner said he was "dismayed" that a Democratic majority has failed "to push on key illegalities... the torture program, and now the destruction of the tapes involving the torture program; the warrantless wiretapping, the denial of habeas corpus, the secret sites/rendition program, special trials, and of course what we now know is the firing of US Attorneys scandal.... The minimal that absolutely is needed to get us back on the page of law is to have serious investigative hearings that go up the chain of command and figure out who is responsible for what."

Ratner noted that even with regard to the US attorney's investigations, where Congressional committees held Harriet Miers, Josh Bolten, and Karl Rove in contempt, leadership has failed to enforce these actions by bringing the resolutions to a vote. "Just announcing that investigations will be held and subpoenas will be issued is terribly insufficient unless Congress is willing to enforce the subpoenas by issuing contempt citations," Ratner said.

"Congress has a constitutional duty to oversee the activities of the executive branch and our entire system of government is threatened when Congress simply folds before an obstinate executive. Issuing contempt citations against Bolten, Miers, and Rove should be Congress's first order of business in 2008."

Marjorie Cohn, president of the National Lawyers Guild, discussed the administration's torture program violating three US-ratified treaties and the US torture statute; the illegal War in Iraq violating the US-ratified UN Charter as a war of aggression; and Attorney General Michael Mukasey's conflict of interest in overseeing investigations into the torture program and the destruction of the CIA interrogations tapes.

Also speaking with reporters was Jesselyn Raddack, a former Justice Department ethics lawyer who served as an advisor during the interrogation of John Walker Lindh (the "American Taliban"). Raddack said, "My e-mails documented my advice against interrogating Lindh without a lawyer, and concluded that the FBI committed an ethics violation when it did so anyway. Both the CIA videotapes and my e-mails were destroyed, in part, because officials were concerned that they documented controversial interrogation methods that could put agency officials in legal jeopardy.... "

Raddack pointed to the Department of Justice's investigations of Enron and Arthur Anderson for obstruction of justice and destruction of evidence, and the need for the same aggressive oversight and legal proceedings in these scandals.

This is a vital effort by those charged with defending our constitution, as Ratner said, "This lawyers' letter and the growing number of signatures we'll have on it, and prominent people – it's a way of saying to Congress, ‘You need some backbone. You need to have a serious investigation, wherever it might go, on these issues that really have taken the United States out of the mainstream of human rights.' It's absolutely critical... We've opened up the door to illegality.... Unless we have accountability on those illegalities, we're going to be facing a very bleak future in which fundamental rights will not really be obeyed."

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