[Peace-discuss] Signing statements

[Morton K. Brussel]

I hate to disseminate bad news, but this is noteworthy.  --mkb

Signing Statement Silence

http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/30561
By David Swanson

Every major pseudo peace movement organization in the country, afraid  
to actually urge Congress to cut off the money for the illegal  
occupation of Iraq, believed it was really important to set up a  
commission to probe contractor waste in Iraq, and to once again ban  
the construction and maintenance of permanent U.S. military bases in  
Iraq. Every open-government and whistleblowers group backed the  
expansion of protections for whistleblowers and the requirement that  
intelligence agencies promptly respond to congressional requests for  
documents.

This week President Bush signed the Defense Authorization bill into  
law, and then added a statement announcing his right to violate these  
four provisions. And the silence is deafening.

The Guardian newspaper in England, and the Boston Globe wrote serious  
reports.

The Associated Press wrote an article that touched on the topic but  
missed the point.

The Virginian Pilot wrote an article that followed Senator Jim Webb's  
lead and avoided the central problem.

Senators Casey, Levin, and Webb made remarks that failed to challenge  
Bush's abuse of power or mention the word "impeachment."

The House of Representatives maintained a total and absolute silence.

And activist groups followed suit.

And they look like fools or hypocrites. All of them.

Yes, previous presidents have written signing statements, but never  
to announce their right to violate laws, only to express opinions  
about the laws that they were going to, as a matter of their  
essential duty as president, enforce.

Yes, a signing statement announcing the right to violate a law, and  
the actual violation are two different things.

Yes, a signing statement should be meaningless.

But the Supreme Court cites them and the Bush-Cheney administration  
acts on them. This is not the first time Bush has given himself the  
right to violate bans on permanent military bases, and he has  
continued to violate those bans. Bush and Cheney routinely refuse to  
provide Congress with information, to sanction contractor abuse, and  
to punish whistleblowers. These behaviors will continue, just as will  
torture and warrentless spying and various other activities that this  
administration derives the right to engage in from signing statements.

The Government Accountability Office found last year that in a small  
sample of these signing statements the Bush-Cheney administration had  
already followed through on violating 30 percent of the laws it  
claimed the right to violate. The corporate media now spins this as  
glass-half-full news (more than half the time he doesn't mean it!  
hurray!).

Last January the House Judiciary Committee held hearings on the  
matter, laying bare the violation of constitutional separation of  
powers. A Justice Department official testified that the president  
could violate any law he liked until the Supreme Court told him to stop.

Any fourth grader who has seen the Constitution could tell you he was  
wrong. Sadly, in our new reality, he was right.
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