King George wants a line item veto?

In his State of the Union speech, George asked for Congress to give him the 'line item veto'. That made me do a double-take.

There was a line item veto once before. It was put in place in the early 90s, and was then overtuned by the U.S. Supreme Court in a case titled Clinton v. City of New York on June 25, 1998.

The Supremes found this law violated the 'presentment clause' of the Constitution. The presentment clause can be found in Article I Section 7 of the Constitution, which reads in part, "Every bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approves he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections, to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it."

In other words, the Constitution directly requires an all or nothing approval by the president. No part approval or part veto. To change this, an amendment to the constitution will be required.

Aside from the crazy idea that anyone would give King George even more power, his request of Congress has already been found unconstititional by the Supreme Court. His request for a line item veto is nothing more than empty political rhetoric.

A More Sophisticated Nixon?

Back in 1973, President Nixon forced the resignations of the Attorney General and Assistant Attorney General because they wouldn't fire Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox when he was getting too close to the heart of Watergate. The third in command (one Robert Bork) carried out the order, and Cox was fired. This incident, widely known as the Saturday Night Massacre, hastened the downfall of the Nixon regime. See This Link.

Now, the Jack Abramoff scandal comes along, and King George has followed suit. Only nobody had to be fired, because Rove and company are smart enough to know how to avoid a huge outcry. Instead, they got the bright idea to promote the chief prosecutor on the Abramoff case, Noel Hillman. See THIS link.

The result is to slow down the Abramoff investigation. This may just delay the indictments of key Republican lawmakers until after the election this fall. Although those indicted will be gone, there will be less political fallout for other Republicans.

It has also come to light that the Bush Administration previously removed the federal prosecutor of Guam, just as he was closing in on links between Abramoff and the Republican Party there. See THIS link for an excellent story.

Imagine the uproar if Clinton had removed Ken Starr at the height of Whitewater or Monicagate? I'm sure Richard Nixon would be proud!

King George lies!

In case anyone still thinks George Bush is an honest man, we should look at this big lie he told during the 2004 election:

In April 2004, Bush told an audience in Buffalo, New York: "Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution."

Want to see the context? The entire speech is on the White House (!) web site. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/04/20040420-2.html

Of course now we know that when he gave this speech, Bush had been ordering warrantless wiretaps for over two years. Why? Because it was too hard to comply with those rigorous FISA requirements, which requires retroactive approval of a secret court within 72 hours AFTER the wiretap.

This lie makes Clinton's "I did not have sex with that woman" lie pale in comparison, since it actually has something to do with his job. Not only did King George commit a felony and break the FISA law, (which says this law is the exclusive way to do wiretaps on domestic-foreign calls, and that any violation is a felony), but he purposely misled voters during the last election about his actions.

Which congressman or congresswoman has the guts to introduce the first bill of impeachment?

It's time to wake up!

Recently there were several stories about how when you first wake up, it's like you are drunk. You fumble around to turn off the alarm clock, and then stumble out of bed.

I think this is the stage our country is in right now. We are starting to wake up to the danger of the 'silent majority's' long time apathy to what has been going on with King George's Administration.

Today I read an article on the latest involuntary draft of 50,000 Americans into the Army. While they may have initially enlisted, they are now being forced to continue to serve longer than they ever agreed to. See http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060129/pl_nm/iraq_usa_stoploss_dc

This scares the hell out of me. I think about my two young boys, and I see them being drafted in a few years to go fight in the middle east. Clearly, the 'volunteer' army cannot long survive involuntary extensions of service time. Many will not enlist for indefinite service commitments.

As much as it scares me to say, I wonder if a draft wouldn't be a good thing in a way. That might be what it takes to awaken this country. Instead of those 'other' peoples kids being put in harms way, it would be everyone's kids. Then maybe we will all care a little more what our country is doing in the world. Then, maybe we will care about policies and practices that do nothing but inflame others and make terrorism attractive in the third world.

It's time to wake up our country, end the apathy, and let this republic experience true democracy.