King Deciderer

Deigns to put his royal seal upon the scrolls.... but with restrictions.



But... if he sticks signing statements to all of the laws Congress passes.... just why is it we need Congress?



(*psst* ... for those who don't use the verb to deign as often as Bush:
deign: verb: do something that one considers to be below one's dignity)

What journalists used to do

Back when we actually had news:

Previously, reporting on "what the government does, not just what it says" was the basic function of political journalism. But these days, journalists who actually do that are so rare -- they stand out so conspicuously -- that they win Pulitzer Prizes for it.

Glenn Greenwald is writing about Charlie Savage who won a Pulitzer Prize today:

The Pulitzer Prize Committee today recognized the work of one of America's few truly excellent political journalists:

Charlie Savage of The Boston Globe won for national reporting for his revelations that President Bush often used "signing statements" to assert his controversial right to bypass provisions of new laws.

Even for months after The New York Times first revealed -- back in December 2005 -- that the Bush administration had been secretly eavesdropping on Americans in violation of FISA for the prior four years, there were virtually no journalists writing about the Bush administration's theories of lawlessness which gave rise to that specific lawbreaking. And there were virtually no journalists who recognized or described just how profoundly radical that behavior was.

But as I've noted many times, Savage was one of the very few journalists in the country who understood, investigated and reported on the radical theories of executive power embraced by this President. And once he began reporting on those abuses, he was relentless in his efforts to draw public attention to the administration's conduct.

Journalists used to report on those in government not be friends with them. Will we ever get real oversight again?

Nobody can say no to the boy king!

Congress is unnecessary and full of fussy old busybodies. Sheesh!

"Hours after signing an agreement yesterday on cooperation with India on civilian nuclear technology, President George W. Bush issued a "signing statement" insisting that the executive branch was not bound by terms of the agreement approved by the House of Representatives and Senate."
[snip]
"First, President Bush took particular exception to a section declaring the policies of the United States, noting that his "approval of the Act does not constitute my adoption of the statements of policy as U.S. foreign policy." The statements of policy included opposition to nuclear weapons production by all non-nuclear weapons states, as well as promoting India's commitments to control the proliferation of nuclear fuel cycle technology, cooperate in preventing Iran's development of nuclear weapons, and limit expansion of existing nuclear arsenals in South Asia.

Next, President Bush said that a control placed by Congress on transfers to India of items that would run afoul of Nuclear Suppliers Group guidelines "unconstitutionally delegated legislative power to an international body," and he therefore considered the section "advisory" in nature.

Then, the president declared that 8 sections of the bill in total had to be construed "in a manner consistent with the President's constitutional authority to protect and control information that could impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative processes of the Executive, or the performance of the Executive's constitutional duties."

One section of the bill to which the president qualified his assent called on the the National Nuclear Security Administration of the US Department of Energy to engage the nuclear scientific community in India to develop cooperative nonproliferation activities, particularly with nuclear safeguards in mind. In another section of the bill, Congress had called on the president to issue determinations to Capitol Hill that India was aligning its nonproliferation policy in a manner consistent with US global nonproliferation goals, and also that civil cooperation with the US was not contributing to India's nuclear weapons program."