[Ninong]

If anyone thinks that the "thumpin'" he received on November 7th has in any way diminished the President's arrogance and disregard for the Constitution of the United States, then all they need to do is check out his double signing statements that he attached to the "Henry Hyde United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act."

As Chris Kelley, a political science professor at Miami University of Ohio who has studied presidential signing statements closely, points out on his blog, this is "deception at its finest."

Hours after signing an agreement yesterday on cooperation with India on civilian nuclear technology, President Bush issued a signing statement insisting that he was not bound by the terms of the agreement approved by the House of Representatives and the Senate. In fact, he issued two signing statements!

President Bush has now issued a total of 137 signing statements and has made 1,097 separate and distinct challenges to the provisions of laws he has signed. You may remember that I pointed out previously in this forum that when President Bush signed the McCain anti-torture bill that he had fought against for weeks, he attached a signing statement saying that he reserved the right to authorize torture whenever he decided it was necessary. He's the Decider-in-Chief!

[Ninong]

More proof that we live in a Decidership. The Decider-in-Chief has attached a signing statement to a recent postal reform bill claiming that he has the power to look at your mail without a warrant. You can add that power to his power to declare you, or anybody else in the entire world, an enemy combatant. And we all know what that means.


The President asserted his new authority when he signed a postal reform bill into law on Dec. 20. Bush then issued a "signing statement" that declared his right to open people's mail under emergency conditions.

That claim is contrary to existing law and contradicted the bill he had just signed, say experts who have reviewed it.

You can read the entire article here.

P.S. -- All of his signing statements are contrary to the bills to which they are attached. That's the whole idea! Under our new form of government -- the Unitary Executive Decidership -- the Decider-in-Chief gets to decide which laws he will obey and which ones he will ignore.