The President
The White House
July 11, 2008*:

Today, I have signed into law H.R. 6304, the FISA Amendments Act of 2008. The Act authorizes critical intelligence gathering activities designed to defend the United States and its interests at home and abroad and provides much-needed flexibility to manage effectively the personnel and taxpayer resources devoted to the national defense.

Section 301(b) of the Act purports to place require the Inspectors General of the Department of Justice, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the National Security Agency, the Department of Defense, and any other element of the intelligence community that participated in the President's Surveillance Program, to complete a comprehensive review of all of the facts necessary to describe the establishment, implementation, product, and use of the product of the Program; access to legal reviews of the Program and access to information about the Program; communications with, and participation of, individuals and entities in the private sector related to the Program; interaction with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and transition to court orders related to the Program; and any other matters identified by any such Inspector General that would enable that Inspector General to complete a review of the Program, with respect to such Department or element.

The executive branch shall construe the requirements on the Inspectors General in section 301(b) as advisory in nature, so that the provisions are consistent with the President's constitutional authority as Commander in Chief and to supervise the unitary executive branch.

What then?

*What you're looking at is an adaptation of one of Bush's oft-used signing statements. Since the "administration" claims that the AUMF and the president's "inherent powers" under the Constitution authorize his domestic spying as a "military" operation, a signing statement simply rejecting the obligation of the Inspectors General (a part of the "unitary executive") to produce these reports would be entirely consistent with everything the White House has argued to date, on this and other related subjects.

So, shorter version without legalese: The people supporting this FISA bill say it has accountability built right into it, because it requires the Inspectors General to conduct inquiries and produce reports on what happened.

What if Bush says, "Yeah, but I'm not going to do it"?

I'm ignorant about what happens when a new President takes over and I was wondering if learned people here at DailyKos can help:

If Sen. Obama becomes President, can he do the following:

1. release Cheney's visitor list when he was creating energy policy?

2. compel Rove, Libby, Myers, Bolten, Rumsfeld, Rice, etc. to appear before Congressional hearings like the Siegelman case, the fired attorneys, false intelligence, Plame affair, Halliburton, Blackwater, wire-tapping, torture, CIA secret prisons, etc.?

3. release the documents and emails that the Bush admin has been withholding?

4. pass Webb's GI Bill and soldier leave bill?

5. sign up for Kyoto protocols?

6. rescind Bush's signing statements?

Or are all these off-limits to the new President because the previous one already put those policies into law?

Friday night I sat down to watch Chris Mathews and I haven't been lately.  Here comes the new dilema with Barak Obama, saying people are frustrated and bitter, over the last 20 some years of the Bush/Clinton/Bush Era in America.  Chris and David Schuster are discussing how bad this could be to blame Guns, Religon, and antipathy, for Obama.

Hardball is over now, and Keith Obermann is getting ready to come on.  "Breaking News, Clinton and McCain respond to Obama's comments.  Not 45 minutes after Chris gave Clinton and McCain their attack talking points to use, they both used them.  The first thing that came to mind, How come Clinton is always coming out to attack Obama, the same time McCain does?  Or she attacks Obama over McCain?  

As much as anything else, presidential campaigns are won and lost by the media narratives that rightly or wrongly come to define a candidate.  In the case of Repubican nominee John McCain, the seemingly unshakable narrative of the political "maverick" could not be further off the mark. At almost every turn, McCain in his eternal quest for the White House has reversed long-held positions, compromised core principles and swallowed his pride in order to curry favor with both the leading lights of the conservative movement and right-wing Republican primary voters.  The untold story of campaign 2008 is simply that of John McCain's transformation from maverick to prostitute.

DICK Cheney "SO"

copyright © 2008 Betsy L. Angert.  BeThink.org

In March 2008, as Americans pay homage to the thousands of soldiers and civilians lost in five years of battle we discover that the Administration and the elite allied with earlier Executive Branches are more contemptuous of the citizenry than we ever thought possible.  

I love this place. I know, I know, it's like a family reunion where there's bickering and partisanship, name-calling and feuds galore.   But at the end of the day, I feel very much engaged in the Public Commons and appreciate everyone who contributes.

I just wish there weren't so many diaries about candidates!!  I care, but I'm NUMB from the sheer volume!!!!  

What worries me more is the Constitution... and how quickly it's slipping into a coma.

We must keep alive the stories that pertain to blatant and pernicious violations of Constitutional Law.  These include contempt citations against Joshua Bolten and Harriet Miers, the Don Siegelman case, presidential signing statements, and much, much more.  If you want to give the breath of life back to the document that makes this nation great, check out my quick and dirty list below.

Much has been made over the Bush administration's lack of respect. . .heck, acknowledgment of the existence. . .of the Constitution and the laws that orbit around it. Little appears to have come from the Bush presidency except, one would suspect, that George has left behind his Big Chief tablet and salami-sized pencil in favor of the Sharpie pen. What am I saying? Bush has practiced his penmanship to the peril of us all with his egregious use of "signing statements". President Clinton did it also, but not NEARLY to the extent that George has. Can we hope that part of the "change" that Obama and Hillary have been tossing around is the reversal of this trend? More on the flip. . .

In Sunday’s diary, "Painful Reflections on Presidents Day," I was thinking about the war policies of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. I was saddened by an article by Lincoln scholar, Thomas J. DiLorenzo, "Bush’s Lincolnian Assault on Civil Liberties (Or, Al Gore Is Right)."

Tuesday afternoon, two other Lincoln scholars were online discussing their two new books (Allen C. Guelzo, Lincoln and Douglas: The Debates That Defined America; and William Lee Miller, President Lincoln: The Duty of a Statesman). I’m not familiar with the work of Guelzo, but Miller is the author of a study important to me, Arguing About Slavery: John Quincy Adams and the Great Battle in the United States Congress (1998).
The two scholars responded to email queries about Lincoln.

Here's a procedural curveball coming down for everyone's favorite McMaverick. This morning, the Senate will take up the conference report (definition) on the Intelligence Authorization bill (H. Rept. 110-478, accompanying H.R. 2082), which will contain in Section 327 the following:

SEC. 327. LIMITATION ON INTERROGATION TECHNIQUES.

     (a) Limitation- No individual in the custody or under the effective control of an element of the intelligence community or instrumentality thereof, regardless of nationality or physical location, shall be subject to any treatment or technique of interrogation not authorized by the United States Army Field Manual on Human Intelligence Collector Operations.

     (b) Instrumentality Defined- In this section, the term `instrumentality', with respect to an element of the intelligence community, means a contractor or subcontractor at any tier of the element of the intelligence community.

Look familiar?

If so, it's probably because you've seen some of it before, as here:

SA 1977. Mr. MCCAIN (for himself, Mr. GRAHAM, Mr. HAGEL, Mr. SMITH, and Ms. COLLINS) submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by him to the bill H.R. 2863, making appropriations for the Department of Defense for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2006, and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:

   At the appropriate place, insert the following:

  SEC. __. UNIFORM STANDARDS FOR THE INTERROGATION OF PERSONS UNDER THE DETENTION OF THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE.

   (a) IN GENERAL.--No person in the custody or under the effective control of the Department of Defense or under detention in a Department of Defense facility shall be subject to any treatment or technique of interrogation not authorized by and listed in the United States Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation.

That language above is the text of what became known as the McCain-Graham amendment to the Fiscal Year 2006 Defense Appropriations bill -- an amendment that passed the Senate by the overwhelming vote of 90-9.

Of course, the 90-9 vote notwithstanding, the McCain-Graham language drew this signing statement from George W. Bush:

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.

Oh well! It's just a law, so who cares? Not even the Senate cares, really, considering that they now write themselves out of laws, anyway.

Regardless, the Senate will find itself voting on torture again tomorrow. Well, sort of. As with almost everything in the Senate, the vote will and won't be on torture.

WTF? I'll tell you WTF.

The crucial vote will ultimately be procedural in nature. Section 327 was added in conference (definition) -- "air dropped" in Hill parlance -- meaning that it was in neither the House nor the Senate version of the bill, but got shoehorned into the report by the conferees (definition), anyway.

That means Section 327 will be subject to a point of order (definition) that its presence in the report violates Senate Rule XXVIII, which states:

2. (a) Conferees shall not insert in their report matter not committed to them by either House, nor shall they strike from the bill matter agreed to by both Houses.

And if there is something in there like that, as is the case with section 327:

(c) If new matter is inserted in the report, a point of order may be made against the conference report and it shall be disposed of as provided under paragraph 4.

And paragraph 4 says:

4. (a) A Senator may raise a point of order that one or more provisions of a conference report violates paragraph 2 or paragraph 3, as the case may be. The Presiding Officer may sustain the point of order as to some or all of the provisions against which the Senator raised the point of order.

(b) If the Presiding Officer sustains the point of order as to any of the provisions against which the Senator raised the point of order, then those provisions against which the Presiding Officer sustains the point of order shall be stricken.

So if a Senator raises a point of order against section 327, it's very likely the Presiding Officer of the Senate (definition) will rule, on the advice of the Parliamentarian (definition), that section 327 will have to come out of the report.

But Rule XXVIII has a curveball in it:

5. (a) Any Senator may move to waive any or all points of order under paragraph 2 or 3 with respect to the pending conference report by an affirmative vote of three-fifths of the Members, duly chosen and sworn.

An affirmative vote of three-fifths. That's the (in)famous 60 vote threshold. What it means in this case is that the Senate can vote to let section 327's prohibitions against torture stay in the bill if 60 Senators agree to allow it.

So here's the question: Does McCain vote to join the Rubber Stamp Republicans, or does he stand up and say outlawing torture is important enough to waive a point of order for?

He might try to hide behind procedure, and claim that while he'd just love to support the substance of section 327, he's more concerned with upholding the rules of the Senate. But of course, if the integrity of the Senate is so important to him, one might wonder what he's doing bear hugging the man who wiped out all his good work (and that of 89 other Senators) with a signing statement.

The better odds are that the McMaverick just ducks the vote. After all, as ABC's Jake Tapper points out:

[I]n the 110th Congress, out of 450 votes, McCain missed 56.7% of them. The only one who missed more was a senator who had a brain hemmorhage.

Update: Cloture passes 92-4. A point of order should come next. (mcjoan)

I was born in 66. I am a disabled woman. I have never married. I am straight. I went to college. I have a successful career and am well regarded by my peers. I own my own home although it, like so many, is threatened by the Foreclosure crisis sweeping through this nation. Much of what I am I worked hard to accomplish but most of what I am comes from this country and the opportunities that it offered.  

And I look around now and see that this is not the country I grew up with.  

Over 1000 de facto acts of coup d'etat and overthrow of the Legislative and Judicial branches, and not once did our Congress stand-up for itself, the rule of law, or the Constitution!

Under our Constitution, only the Legislature has the power to legislate OUR nation's laws.

Under our Constitution, only the Judicial branch has the constitutional right to interpret OUR nation's laws!
Bush, the man, declared and exhalted himself himself dictator by his own will--NOT THE PEOPLE'S WILL--more than 1000 times, exceeding all of the preceding 42 presidents COMBINED, thumbing his nose at, and usurping the authority granted to HIS OFFICE--NOT TO GEORGE W. BUSH THE MAN! Just because it's an election year, and Bush is leaving office in 11 months, doesn't mean that he can't contiue to do more untold damage to our republic before he leaves--unless WE THE PEOPLE stop him!
Follow me under the fold as I discuss one way how we can speak-up and be heard...

I'm going to take a chance that there are a few folks needing a break from election returns and try to draw your attention to an issue that needs attention...here's to hoping, at least.

Of all the executive power grabs emanating from this White House I simply cannot figure out why this president's signing statements have not garnered more attention.  I haven't tracked down the official number (too lazy, maybe?) but estimates say he has issued a number approaching 1000 of them.

A quick memory refresher...the issue gained most traction a couple of years ago through Charlie Savage's Pulitzer Prize winning reporting for the Boston Globe.  He was the one dug into the issue and revealed the breadth and depth of this administration's efforts to put themselves outside of the law.

I know this isn't the first diary on the Kos, nor even the first diary today, to talk about how plans don't matter.

But I want to go beyond that and talk about what is important: the exercise of executive power.  President Bush has shown us how - even in the absence of significant domestic legislative accomplishment - executive branch power by itself is enough to move the country in a radically different direction.

Oh, and this is a candidate diary (pro-Barack).

During the State of the Union, which I totally ignored until this morning, President Bush let loose a doozy full of piss and vinegar but nothing of useful substance.  He was gonna get the earmarks and put a stop to them!  

Bush says that any earmarks that aren't actually in the bill as opposed to a committee report referenced by the bill will be ignored by the administration unless the administration decides they like them.  Here's the proposed Executive Order:

For appropriations laws and other legislation enacted after the date of this order, executive agencies should not commit, obligate, or expend funds on the basis of earmarks included in any non-statutory source, including requests in reports of committees of the Congress or other congressional documents, or communications from or on behalf of Members of Congress, or any other non-statutory source, except when required by law or when an agency has itself determined a project, program, activity, grant, or other transaction to have merit under statutory criteria or other merit-based decisionmaking.

OK, we all know what's happening with these signing statements. Across the country, people complain that Bush uses them to circumvent Congress' authority on . . . well, on just about everything.

So, the signing statements are legendary, and without an active Congress, apparently, we won't get change.

Some suggest, however, that it might be best to keep quiet because a Democratic president may want to use those things to hir benefit. Let go your breath cause it will never happen.

Here's why, below the fold.

Oval Office Event Draws Thousands; Top Hat and Tails, and an Outcome "Just Like The Movie"

In what started out as an inside joke, among just a few staffers, has now grown to a full-scale event, with thousands of government employees gathering around the West Wing, and the grounds of the Bush GrindHouse, to see the spectacle.

For the past seven years, as soon as The Commander Guy walks into the Oval Office on February 2nd, hearts are stopped and breath is held - will he see his shadow, a bona fide indicator of continued disregard for the laws of the country - or not.

Reports are just coming in, over the roar of the crowd - The Commander Guy saw his own shadow ... Another year of lawbreaking lays ahead!

There is no longer any room for Congress to hide. The President has brazenly declared that Congress no longer matters. If it fails to act now, Bush will be right. It won't matter any more. Neither will the Constitution.

Well Bush isn't done yet in his quest for a permanent influence in the oil rich Middle East.  While signing the Defense Act into law yesterday he also issued another signing statement.

Bush has again said that provisions in the law "could inhibit the President’s ability to carry out his constitutional obligations.
From Think Progress

Why would he issue this signing statement?
And why is the media ignoring this issue again?