Is there ONE Democrat in the House or Senate who will stand up and say what the columnist below proves: George Bush, you are a liar, a shameless prevaricator, and a shredder of the Constitution.
While Bush burns the Constitution, Democrats fiddle and fuss. Read this from Martin Garbis: (bold mine).
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/martin-garbus/bushs-claim-that-cheney-_b_16234.html
"Bush's Claim that Cheney Has the Right To Declassify Information and Overrule Judgments of Congress and the CIA Is One of the Greatest Lies Thus Far Told
"Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, CIA
Presidential signing statements are old news. What is new is Bush's claim that they, rather than Congress, define both the extent of presidential authority and the intent behind a law passed by Congress.
Cheney's claim that Bush can give him permission, through a signing statement, to act contrary to the Constitution, laws, rules and regulations passed by Congress and the dozens of regulatory agencies is founded in fantasy.
The scope of the claim is breathtaking. According to Bush, any rule promulgated by an agency - whether it be the CIA or the SEC - can be discarded by the executive.
George W. Bush issued 23 signing statements in 2001; 34 statements in 2002, raising 168 constitutional objections; 27 statements in 2003, raising 142 constitutional challenges; and 23 statements in 2004, raising 175 constitutional criticisms. In total, during his first term Bush raised a remarkable 505 constitutional challenges to various provisions of legislation that became law.
That number may be approaching 600 challenges by now. Yet Bush has not vetoed a single bill, notwithstanding all these claims in his own signing statements that they are unconstitutional. Nor can anyone make the claim that his signing statement allows people in the executive department to ignore laws Congress passed.
Rather than veto laws passed by Congress, Bush claims his signing statements invalidate laws that limit the executive branch's power. He and Nixon say the same thing - the law is what the President says it is and if the President says it is legal, it is legal. The notion that he can tell the people and elected Congress that he alone knows what the people want, was referred to, in a recent article by the Conservative judge Richard Posner, as "the Fuhrer Principle." Indeed, Adolf Hitler said "my pride is that I know no statesman in the world who, with greater right than I, can say he is representative of the people." Bush claims a mysterious method of intuition, perhaps coming from God rather than 500 elected officials. They need not discuss or vote on this issue, says Bush, because I know the answers.
The Bush Classified Information signing statement has very recent precedent. President Bush recently used a signing statement to attempt to nullify the recent controversial McCain amendment regarding torture.
To describe Bush's view is to make clear that his legal position has nothing at all to do with democracy or this Constitution. If a new law requires the President to report to Congress on NSA surveillance on Americans, Bush's signing statement will reject the law, and he will state (as he did on the McCain torture bill) 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."
According to Bush, it is as if no law restricting him or ordering him to do something has been passed.
The President's signing statements are rewriting Congress's laws by reinterpreting them and by claiming that the Congress's laws are merely advisory.
The increased use of a signing statement contradicts the Constitution that says a veto is the President's only and exclusive avenue to prevent a bill's becoming law. Bush and Cheney cannot ignore the intelligence agency's complex structure for classifying and declassifying information.
Congress should stop it immediately."
