Monday, May 1, 2006

President claims power to disregard 750 statutes

No, I am not talking about Russia's President Putin.

President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.

<...>

For the first five years of Bush's presidency, his legal claims attracted little attention in Congress or the media. Then, twice in recent months, Bush drew scrutiny after challenging new laws: a torture ban and a requirement that he give detailed reports to Congress about how he is using the Patriot Act.


The article

9 Comments:

Blogger Jim said...

The man has a disturbing habit of attaching "signing statements" to the legislation that he signs. Those statements usually say something like, "Yeah, I'm signing this bill into law but I don't have to follow it if it conflicts my authority under Article II to do pretty damned well whatever I please."

May 01, 2006  
Blogger lemming said...

Sounds like a personalized line-item veto

May 01, 2006  
Blogger Nölff said...

George Bush does not care about statutes.

May 01, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm going to jump on Dan Savage's bandwagon and say "ITMFA!"

(I think you can go to www.itmfa.com to learn more, but due to language, I'm not going to try it from my office computer...)

May 01, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

hopefully we'll get a Democratic congress (or at least tip the balance in the Senate) so that someone in congress will have the balls to stand up to Bush when he pulls this crap. So far, they've rolled over.

May 01, 2006  
Blogger John Good said...

I'm glad that so many people are finally getting hip to his "signing statements".

May 01, 2006  
Blogger Exit 465 said...

He can't even spell Constitution. I can't believe that we allow this man to have such unchecked power. Very scary. I told a friend the other day that I never bought into the 2nd Amendment Folks' argument about arming yourself to protect you against your government until now. How ironic.

Did anyone else catch Steven Colbert sticking it to the Bushies and the press at the White House Correspondents Dinner? Bush was so pissed!

May 01, 2006  
Blogger lilmammal said...

I wish I hadn't missed the Colbert bit. Everyone is talking about it!

May 02, 2006  
Blogger torporindy said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcIRXur61II

May 02, 2006  

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