James Nagy – 1/15/06

This page was last updated on January 15, 2006.

Bush undermines Constitution; James Nagy; Beaver County Times; January 15, 2006.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“President Bush is attempting to undermine our Constitution. On the advice of legal scholars, who support a radically new direction for our democracy, Bush has adopted the practice of including a signing statement when signing bills into law.

“There is no precedent for such statements. If permitted, they will allow the president to ignore laws passed by Congress and to write his own instead.”

[RWC] Given the coverage of the signing statement issue even by the mainstream media, I can only assume Mr. Nagy is lying instead of just being wrong. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, signing statements go back at least as far as Andrew Jackson. More recently, Democrat heroes FDR, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, and Jimmy Carter used signing statements.

“Such power should only be granted if we intend to have a dictator or a king.

“Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito seems to be of the opinion that these statements are appropriate. He needs to be asked if Bush’s signing statement, in which he claims to have authority to selectively ignore a law prohibiting torture, is legally binding.

“All these dangerous legal precedents ride on the coattails of antiabortion laws.

“Before I would accept a dictatorship with its secret police tracking every woman’s reproductive history, I would seek other humanitarian means to dissuade women from acting against their own best interests.”

[RWC] From signing statements to anti-baby killing laws? It’s interesting to see how some “minds” work.