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Tuesday, January 3, 2006 |
Balkinization: "The President signed the Defense Appropriations bill on Friday. In his signing statement he did at least two notable things.
First, with respect to several provisions of the bill, the President signaled his intention to reserve his authority, as Commander in Chief, to ignore statutory mandates. These include provisions that require advance notice of congressional committees before the use of funds to initiate a special access program, a new overseas installation, or a new start program; and a 'report and wait' provision that requires the President to wait 15 days after notifying six congressional committees before using certain appropriations to transfer defense articles or services to another nation or an international organization for international peacekeeping, peace enforcement, or humanitarian assistance operations.
Most importantly, as to the McCain Amendment, which would categorically prohibit cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees by all U.S. personnel, anywhere in the world, the President wrote:
The executive branch shall construe Title X in Division A of the Act, relating to detainees, in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President to supervise the unitary executive branch and as Commander in Chief and consistent with the constitutional limitations on the judicial power, which will assist in achieving the shared objective of the Congress and the President, evidenced in Title X, of protecting the American people from further terrorist attacks.
Second, the President unsurprisingly signals that the Administration reads the Graham Amendments to cut off currently pending habeas cases."
The above will make Bush personally liable for breaching the Constitution, breaching national and international law and civil rights.
Bush has just nullified the American Constitutional Democracy and is now acting as a self-appointed dictator.
4:56:53 PM 
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AmericaBlog: "Well, isn't this growing curiouser and curiouser. Now Bush is saying that some of the calls he's illegally tapping are being made FROM the US and that the people making them are Al Qaeda or Al Qaeda affiliates.
So now there are Al Qaeda members and Al Qaeda affiliates inside the United States making phone calls, we know who they are, and:
1) Bush is letting known terrorists and known terrorist affiliates roam around our country free, which begs the question: Why aren't they under arrest?
2) Bush is saying that the courts would never grant a warrant to listen to the phone calls of Al Qaeda members or Al Qaeda affiliates inside the United States. That's just a lie."
12:07:55 PM
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© Copyright 2006 Hetty Litjens.
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