CNN/Jack Cafferty BLASTS Bush for his illegal "signing statements" - VIDEO

[Nothing Without Hope]

Windows Media and QuckTime video links at the Crooks & Liars site:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/posts/2006/06/28/cafferty-bush-and-his-signing-statements-hes-the-decider/#more-8334

Cafferty: Bush and his signing statements: He’s the Decider!

By: John Amato on Wednesday, June 28th, 2006 at 12:17 pm



Cafferty: Some members of Congress want to know why President Bush claims he can sometimes just ignore the law if he feels like it. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter is holding hearings on Mr. Bush’s use of something called bill-signing statements.

The president reserves the right to revise, interpret or disregard a measure on national security or constitutional grounds. President Bush has done this 110 times to challenge 750 separate laws passed by the Congress, including a ban on the torture of detainees and the renewal of the Patriot Act.

Specter calls it a challenge to quote the plain language of the Constitution. And Senator Dianne Feinstein says if the president’s going to nullify part of the law, it should be done using the veto, something President Bush has never done. But the White House insists it’s important for the president to express reservations about the constitutionality of certain provisions of laws, because, of course, he’s the decider and he can decide these things just by looking at them.

The Justice Department, of course, also defended the president. No surprise there. It’s the president’s Justice Department. You think Alberto Gonzales is going to come out and say President Bush is abusing his power? Not a chance.

[rodeodance]

1. nothing to stop him with this congress. specter caves in the end.

[oasis]

2. Bushland Uber Alles. (n/t)

[Nothing Without Hope]

3. We MUST keep the spotlight and pressure on these GOP worms. That's

what Cafferty is doing here, and we should support his efforts. In an earlier show he called Spector just another "gutless Republican worm." That sort of publicity doesn't play well back in the home district.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/06/07.html#a8619

Cafferty: Arlen Specter: a gutless Republican worm

June 7, 2006
VIDEO AT CROOKS & LIARS LINK - http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/06/07.html#a8619



CAFFERTY: We better all hope nothing happens to Arlen Specter, the Republican head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, because he might be all that is standing between us and a full-blown dictatorship in this country.

He's vowed to question these phone company executives about volunteering to provide the government with my telephone records and yours and tens of millions of other Americans.
(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAFFERTY: What an idiot I am. I actually thought at the time Senator Specter was going to exercise his responsibility to provide some congressional oversight of the executive branch, you know, see if the White House is playing by the rules. Silly me.

In the end, Senator Specter has turned out to be yet another gutless Republican worm cowering in the face of pressure from the administration and fellow Republicans. There are not going to be any hearings. Americans won't find out if their privacy is being illegally invaded.

(snip)

[Nothing Without Hope]

4. Jack Cafferty's email address:

For those who want to thank him or to reply to his question of the day:

[e-mail]

[Nothing Without Hope]

5. kick for visibility n/t

[Cha]

6. I surprised we have

someone like Jack Cafferty even talking about this on cnn.

Thanks, Jack!

[w8liftinglady]

7. kicking this...needs one more vote-Jack has a HUGE set of cajones!

[roguevalley]

8. Lou Dobbs blasted bush too in the most contemptuous voice with

the two dem strategists and Ed Rollins. Very, very good, boys.

[Nothing Without Hope]

9. Yesterday's important DU thread on bush's illegal signing statements:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1519569
thread title (7-27-06): Legal Experts to Senate:*Signing Statements = UNCONSTITUTIONAL+IMPEACHABLE

This issue is one of the big deals that has been simmering for a long time. FINALLY it is being covered in the corporate media, at least by some brave souls like Jack Cafferty.

[Nothing Without Hope]

10. John Dean's January article on the illegality of Bush's signing statements

http://writ.corporate.findlaw.com/dean/20060113.html

The Problem with Presidential Signing Statements: Their Use and Misuse by the Bush Administration

By JOHN W. DEAN
Friday, Jan. 13, 2006

(snip)

Bush has quietly been using these statements to bolster presidential powers. It is a calculated, systematic scheme that has gone largely unnoticed (even though these statements are published in the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents) until recently, when President Bush's used a signing statement to attempt to nullify the recent, controversial McCain amendment regarding torture, which drew some media attention.

Generally, Bush's signing statements tend to be brief and very broad, and they seldom cite the authority on which the president is relying for his reading of the law. None has yet been tested in court. But they do appear to be bulking up the powers of the presidency. Here are a few examples:

Suppose a new law requires the President to act in a certain manner - for instance, to report to Congress on how he is dealing with terrorism. Bush's signing statement will flat out reject the law, and state that he will construe the law "in a manner consistent with the President's constitutional authority to withhold information the disclosure of which could impair foreign relations, the national security, the deliberative processes of the Executive, or the performance of the Executive's constitutional duties."

The upshot? It is as if no law had been passed on the matter at all.

(snip)

[OneBlueSky]

11. Bush always said he wanted to be a DICK-tator . . .

looks like he's simply declaring it so . . .

[Nothing Without Hope]

12. Read the signing statements, see for yourself:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x747472
thread title (March 24, 2006): Complete List of Signing Statements made by Bush - A Must Read

This post shows how to search for these statements.

[Nothing Without Hope]

13. Another important article on the signing statements from Knight-Ridder

This is from January:

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/nation/13568438.htm?source=rss&channel=krwashington_nation
Posted on Fri, Jan. 06, 2006

Bush using a little-noticed strategy to alter the balance of power

By Ron Hutcheson and James Kuhnhenn
Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - President Bush agreed with great fanfare last month to accept a ban on torture, but he later quietly reserved the right to ignore it, even as he signed it into law.

Acting from the seclusion of his Texas ranch at the start of New Year's weekend, Bush said he would interpret the new law in keeping with his expansive view of presidential power. He did it by issuing a bill-signing statement - a little-noticed device that has become a favorite tool of presidential power in the Bush White House.

In fact, Bush has used signing statements to reject, revise or put his spin on more than 500 legislative provisions. Experts say he has been far more aggressive than any previous president in using the statements to claim sweeping executive power - and not just on national security issues.

"It's nothing short of breath-taking," said Phillip Cooper, a professor of public administration at Portland State University. "In every case, the White House has interpreted presidential authority as broadly as possible, interpreted legislative authority as narrowly as possible, and pre-empted the judiciary."

(snip)

[Nothing Without Hope]

14. Important March article in the Boston Globe showing how Bush used

a signing statement to claim that he cannot be constrained in applying police powers under the Patriot Act:

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/03/24/bush_shuns_patriot_act_requirement/

Bush shuns Patriot Act requirement

In addendum to law, he says oversight rules are not binding
By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff | March 24, 2006

WASHINGTON -- When President Bush signed the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act this month, he included an addendum saying that he did not feel obliged to obey requirements that he inform Congress about how the FBI was using the act's expanded police powers.

The bill contained several oversight provisions intended to make sure the FBI did not abuse the special terrorism-related powers to search homes and secretly seize papers. The provisions require Justice Department officials to keep closer track of how often the FBI uses the new powers and in what type of situations. Under the law, the administration would have to provide the information to Congress by certain dates.

Bush signed the bill with fanfare at a White House ceremony March 9, calling it ''a piece of legislation that's vital to win the war on terror and to protect the American people." But after the reporters and guests had left, the White House quietly issued a ''signing statement," an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a new law.

In the statement, Bush said that he did not consider himself bound to tell Congress how the Patriot Act powers were being used and that, despite the law's requirements, he could withhold the information if he decided that disclosure would ''impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative process of the executive, or the performance of the executive's constitutional duties."

(snip)

In wording that has become very familiar, Bush wrote in this signing statement:

''The executive branch shall construe the provisions . . . that call for furnishing information to entities outside the executive branch . . . in a manner consistent with the president's constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch and to withhold information . . . "

In other words, Bush can do absolutely anything he wants to you and to me, no limit whatsoever.

[Nothing Without Hope]

15. One of the things I fear greatly: the bushies will wait for one more

judge on the SCOTUS, then go for making all his signing statements "legal." That will be the official end of even a pretense of democracy in the USA.

We knew this would happen, and it's one reason we opposed Alito and Roberts so strongly.

[Nothing Without Hope]

16. One last kick for what's left of the night n/t

[EFerrari]

17. a last last one

:kick:

[radfringe]

18. laws do not apply to the "decider"

[Swamp Rat]

19. Geaux get 'em Jack!!!

:kick:

[Nothing Without Hope]

21. Thanks for the embellishment, Swampy!

:hi:

One more bushie judge and it's all over. Habeas corpus, an ancient legal principle, upheld today by the same five sane judges who said that it wasn't nice to deliberately gerrymander in order to suppress the Hispanic vote.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2362821
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1531647

Alito is already on record as enthusiasitically supporting a "unitary executive," i.e., an absolute monarch. And of course Thomas, Scalia and Roberts would go for it too. One more bushie judge, and "legalized" signing statements would make Congress permanently powerless and utterly destroy the Constitution.

[Nothing Without Hope]

20. a morning kick n/t

[Nothing Without Hope]

22. a late afternoon kick for those who missed it n/t