Posted on 06/28/2006 8:26:44 AM PDT by hipaatwo
I can't concur as to the signing statement being official. There is a process by which the Executive Branch's directives to its units to execute a law becomes part of administrative law. The issuance and recording of those directions is part of law.
The signing statements are not.
However, the idea that a president would say what his intention is is a good idea. Where I am drawing the line is over the question of whether the president can override the intent of the legislature through a signing statement.
Obviously, the Executive can, and always has, overriden the intent of the legislature through how it executes laws. The line I am drawing, therefore, is a narrow one, but it goes to the legal status of a signing statement.
I'll sign on to that. I'm in the dip's district.
We know Congressman Billybob's back ground.....what's yours?
I'll be in favor of this only if Bush can countersue Specter for being a moron.
Great idea! Can we add several others that seem to think they are the President.
" 'It has been the national-security related statements that have caused the most controversy. Last year, after months of difficult negotiations, Bush withdrew a veto threat and signed a defense-policy bill that included a provision by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., explicitly banning cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of prisoners at U.S. detention centers. But Bush's signing statement reserved the right to waive the torture ban if he concluded that some harsh interrogation techniques could advance the war on terrorism.' "
If you don't care what the media wants you to think, WHY are you using a media quote to make your argument?
Non-partisan, unlike Billy Bob.
This is more of a pro-Republican website at this point. The argument seems to be "Specter is a doofus." That's about the extent of it. They're worse than Yankees fans.
We shall see. All I've said is I think it's an appropriate debate.
Clinton WAS doing this. Clinton DID do this. It was one of the few things he did that WAS legal. Interesting screen name.
Well, if this plays out, hopefully we'll see if it's Constitutional or not. I'd be interested to see Clarence Thomas's view.
President Bush is not saying, as President Nixon did say, that he will not follow a law duly passed by Congress. President Bush is only expressing his opinion about the law.
Just because Billybob asserts it, doesn't make it so. He offered jack squat to back it up. His entire post begs the question.
PLEASE CALL THE SENATE @ 888-355-3588, and let him hear from US and what we think of his despicable actions!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Trivializing the enemy is another dangerous journalistic tactic.
Many of the Islamic terrorists are basically amateurs. The bunch rounded up in Miami recently are starting to be portrayed as victims, rather than threats. However, if one or two FBI supervisors had zigged instead of zagged back in early 2001, and the 19 or 20 911 terrorists would have been rounded up.
It would have been very easy for enterprising journalists to portray this as an overreaction by the FBI. After all, who could take seriously this plan to simultaneously hijack four aircraft and crash them into buildings? It was all too absurd, and another example of the excessive police power of the government.
Treason aside, these tactics of destruction by revelation, and trivializing the threat, do provide substantial benefits to the enemy.
While the most professional and experienced terrorists were always aware of things like traffic analysis and CIA access to international wire transfer data, most al Qaeda activists do not. But now they do, and the implications have been spelled out for them, in great deal, by helpful journalists.
This influences future reporting, which will tend to avoid connecting the dots between these revelations and the success of some future terror attack. A sort of unconscious professional courtesy. There is one new element; net based journalists. That includes widely read bloggers and reports like this. But that only keeps the crimes visible, it doesn't do much to punish the guilty, or stop the assistance these traitors are giving to those who would kill them, and us.
These traitors will continue to get away with it.
Unless their activities are shown to assist terrorists in a particularly direct and obvious way, scary stories about potential perils will continue to protect those attacking the counter-terrorism effort.
"By blurring the line between legitimate dissent and active assistance to the enemy, political opportunism has sunk to new lows."
Well, it was not intentional. I have a memory like a sieve for anything that is not business-oriented, so I chose the name of the town in which my grandfather grew up in so that I could remember it.
The signing statements are not.
Thats traditonally how the signing statements have been used, as part of the procedure where the executive states what he is going to do and how he is going to direct the agencies to administer the law.
Grants signing statements were as bland as they could get, simply putting in for the record, what he was going to do, how he was going to do it, and whom he would notify and how he wanted it carried out.
Obviously, the Executive can, and always has, overriden the intent of the legislature through how it executes laws. The line I am drawing, therefore, is a narrow one, but it goes to the legal status of a signing statement.
The signing statement, to me, needs to just be clarified, but there is no doubt that judges can take it into consideration, it can also be the clarification of what the President intends to do, and your right about the executive over riding the intent of the legislature, one thing I like about the signing statements, is that if thats the case, the legislature knows how the executive intends to do it, and what they will do, and can craft appropriate legislation narrowing the wiggle room that alot of these bills that are sent have.
The old saying is that the devil is in the details, if congress got more specific, and didn't leave the details to the executive, the signing statements would have no purpose.
Thomas and Scalia are the perfect guys for this, but I don't see it going that far, and Ed Meese was one of the biggest innovators when it came to getting "cute" with Reagans signing statements, and Robert Bork was also creative with his interpretation and beliefs with the statement, I doubt Scalia and Thomas would have views all that different.
Hey, I voted for Toomey
You've also said it's suspiciously like a line item veto and sounds unconstitutional.
Spector just loves to see his name in print. He is senile.
He has been a problem for years. It is time to get him out.
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