Now we have King George in the USA..proof

Senators call Bush's ignoring of laws 'unprecedented'

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/06/28/news/bush.php


Senators call Bush's ignoring of laws 'unprecedented'
By Kate Zernike The New York Times

Published: June 28, 2006
WASHINGTON Senators on the Judiciary Committee have accused President George W. Bush of an "unprecedented" and "astonishing" grab of power for making use of a device that gave him the authority to revise or ignore more than 750 laws enacted since he became president.

By using what are known as signing statements, memorandums issued with legislation as he signs it, the president has reserved the right to not enforce any laws he thinks violate the Constitution or national security, or that impair foreign relations.

A lawyer for the White House said Bush was only doing his duty to uphold the Constitution. But Senator Arlen Specter, the Republican of Pennsylvania who is chairman of the Judiciary Committee, on Tuesday characterized the president's actions as a declaration that he "will do as he pleases," without regard to the laws passed by Congress.

"There's a real issue here as to whether the president may, in effect, cherry- pick the provisions he likes and exclude the ones he doesn't like," Specter said at the hearing.

"Wouldn't it be better, as a matter of comity," he said, "for the president to have come to the Congress and said, 'I'd like to have this in the bill; I'd like to have these exceptions in the bill,' so that we could have considered that?"

Specter and others are particularly upset that Bush reserved the right to interpret the torture ban passed overwhelmingly by Congress, as well as congressional oversight powers in the renewal of the Patriot Act.

Michelle Boardman, a deputy assistant attorney general, said the statements were "not an abuse of power."

Rather, Boardman said, the president has the responsibility to make sure the Constitution is upheld. He uses signing statements, she argued, to "save" statutes from being found unconstitutional. And he reserves the right, she said, only to raise questions about a law "that could in some unknown future application" be declared unconstitutional.

"It is often not at all the situation that the president doesn't intend to enact the bill," Boardman said.

The fight over signing statements is part of a continuing battle between Congress and the White House. Specter, and many Democrats, have raised objections to the administration's wiretapping of phones without warrants from the court set up to oversee surveillance.

Last month, Specter accused Vice President Dick Cheney of going behind his back to avoid the Judiciary Committee's oversight of surveillance programs.

The bills Bush has reserved the right to revise or ignore include provisions that govern affirmative action programs, protect corporate whistle- blowers, require executive agencies to collect certain statistics, and establish qualifications for executive appointees.

Senators and two law professors before the panel said that if the president objected to a bill, he should use his power to veto it - something he has not done in his six years in office.

Boardman said the president had inserted 110 statements, which senators said applied to 750 statutes, compared with 30 by President Jimmy Carter.

The number has increased, Boardman said, but only marginally, and only because national security concerns have increased since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and more laws have been passed. She acknowledged that the increase might be construed as "a lack of good communication" with Congress.

But Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, said the committee was making too much of the statements. "It is precedented," he said, "and it's not new."

Senators said they had been expecting a higher-ranking official from the office of legal policy, and Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the senior Democrat on the committee, chastised the White House for not sending "anybody who would have authority to speak on this."

"But then, considering the fact that they're using basically an extra-constitutional, extra-judicial step to enhance the power of the president, it's not unusual," he said.

<snip> more content after this, had to snip for copyright reasons

Clinton had the Line Item Veto as well whats your point?

The President of the United States was briefly granted this power by the Line Item Veto Act of 1996, passed by Congress in order to control "pork barrel spending" that favors a particular region rather than the nation as a whole. The line-item veto was used 11 times to strike 82 items from the federal budget[2] [3] by President Bill Clinton.

However, U.S. District Court Judge Thomas F. Hogan decided on February 12, 1998 that unilateral amendment or repeal of only parts of statutes violated the U.S. Constitution. This ruling was subsequently affirmed on June 25, 1998 by a 6-3 decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the case Clinton v. City of New York.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line-item_veto

The Line Item Veto was smack in the face of democracy.

It meant that a bill could pass thru the house and the senate only to be signed by the President after he (the President) removed parts of the legislation he did not agree with. This is unconstitutional as it meant that the President was in effect creating laws that did not pass thru both houses.

Briana Dawson

He's acting like a Dictator or a King when he issues those signing statements. Clinton may have had the wrong idea, but at least it went through Congress FIRST.

Presidents can "make" laws, they are just called Excutive Orders. They have been around for a long time, part of the Implied Powers clause in the Constitution. A perfect example of this would be the Office of Homeland Security.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order

Until the 1950s, there were no rules or guidelines outlining what the president could or could not do through an executive order. However, the Supreme Court ruled in Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579 that Executive Order 10340 from President Harry S. Truman placing all steel mills in the country under federal control was invalid because it attempted to make law, rather than clarify or act to further a law put forth by the Congress or the Constitution. Presidents since this decision have generally been careful to cite which specific laws they are acting under when issuing new executive orders.

your own link also says

To date, U.S. courts have overturned only two executive orders: the aforementioned Truman order, and a 1996 order issued by President Bill Clinton that attempted to prevent the U.S. government from contracting with organizations that had scabs on the payroll. The Congress may overturn an executive order by passing legislation in conflict with it or by refusing to approve funding to enforce it. In the former, the president retains the power to veto such a decision; however, the Congress may override a veto with a two-thirds majority to end an executive order.

and this one which I hate because it sent me to war

Wars have been fought upon executive order, including the 1999 Kosovo War during Bill Clinton's term in office. However, all such wars have had authorizing resolutions from Congress. The extent to which the president may exercise military power independently of Congress and the scope of the War Powers Resolution remain unresolved constitutional issues in the United States.

and this one from one of the related links

President Clinton has come under fire for using the EO as a way to make policy without consulting the Republican Congress (see the quotes at the beginning of this article). Clinton has signed over 300 EOs since 1992. In one case, he designated 1.7 million acres of Southern Utah as the Grant Staircase - Escalante National Monument. He also designated a system of American Heritage Rivers and even fought a war with Yugoslavia under Executive Order.

and heres another interesting fact from the same related link

Executive Orders have been used by every chief executive since the time of George Washington. Most of these directives were unpublished and were only seen by the agencies involved. In the early 1900s, the State Department began numbering them; there are now over 13,000 numbered orders. Orders were retroactively numbered going back to 1862 when President Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus and issued the Emancipation Proclamation by Executive Order. There are also many other Executive Orders that have not been numbered because they have been lost due to bad record-keeping. Such is not the problem today. All new Executive Orders are easily accessible

so you might want to do more than just wikipedia executive order next time. so why are you screaming about Bush? oh yeah your Democrat and therefore dislike anything Republican.

Democrat or Republican it's all the same bullshit.

At least King George wants to fight the terrorist insted of letting them out of jail like King Willie.

Considering "King Willie" had terrorists brought to trial and convicted, and Bush hasn't done shit diddle about terrorism --what exactly is your point?

King George skipped the trial and went straight for the sentence. I fully support US activities in Afganastan. I just wish King Willie did when he was in office and we wouldn't be diddling with it now.

Yeah... because the war in Afghanistan is a rip roaring success. Errr... the Taliban is coming back to power and the military is doing dick-all to prevent it? Well, it's still a partial victory. After all, we still have Iraq. Errr... the insurgents continue to gain power every day? Well, it's still a partial victory. After all, we still have the terrorists we captured and imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay. Errr... most of them aren't actually terrorists? Well... damn, I'm all out of bullshit. Could I borrow a cup, Bushbot?

Yeah, I guess you're right. We shouldn't use any military against the guys that killed 3000+ americans in one day. Maybe if we ignor them they'll stop. Just like they stopped when King Willie ignored them.

Just because Iraq is a cluster fuck dosent mean Afaganistan is a worthless cause. People hate GW so bad it flaws common sense.

GW= bad, GW uses military force, military force for any reason = bad. I'm glad prior to ww2 people didn't think like that.

Perhaps we could have used economic sanctions against Afganistan. That would have stopped them.

Last I checked, it was up to police to solve murders. As far as I've seen we have yet to positively identify or connect anyone directly involved in that attack.

Yeah, we should send the NYPD over to Afganistan to look for Al Queda.

WTF?

Yeah really wtf! Nobody ever investigated who actually took out the towers!!

No, the fact that the US has been completely unable to take Usama Bin Laden out shows that Afghanistan is a worthless cause. Supporters of Bush love him so much it flaws common sense. Studies have shown that people who voted for Bush are more likely to be misinformed about current events and politics than people who didn't vote for him.

I agree, I don't support Bush or that fucking asshole Rumsfeld. Thanks for proving my point though.

Flavian = not 100% against military action in Afganistan, Flavian = 100% Bush supporter. Give me a break.

Bin Laden has lost the ability to openly train and equip his al queda goons in Afganistan. I would say that's a worthwhile military cause.

Considering the Al Queda publicly took responsibility, what kind of investigation do you need?

That's not his job you know.

Prior to WWII there were indeed people who thought like that. (and even during WWII)


The Bush Family

Really? When did Al-Qaida (do learn to spell please) claim to be responsible for 9-11?

Kendra that is by far the most unfounded and uncited propaganda you've ever posted. his one link takes you to a story about New Zealanders, not Poles that he claims. You actually read it?