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NYT Uncovers New Steps Toward Fascism   

Comment by Larry Ross, June 23, 2007

 

Bush despises democracy and the Constitutional sharing of power. Thus he rejects the laws passed by Congress including the ban on torture. Congress and the media are turning a blind eye to this and letting him succeed with his trampling of the US Constitution. They fund his illegal wars and agree with his lies. They don't even call for his impeachment or take any preventative action. Basically they have let a power-mad, deluded neocon regime and it's leader, George Bush, take over the US government, lie to the people and congress, and then on the basis of those lies, lead the country to war.

Bush has been able to grab the power to start 'pre-emptive nuclear wars on his own account and introduce nuclear weapons into existing conflicts', start wars based on lies and threaten more. And it's all with the approval of Congress, political leaders and most media. Congress, political leaders and the media are playing dumb as if what he is doing in the name of the US is not their concern. They have done little or nothing to stop this Administration from going on to great crimes.

What a joke that the NYT looks forward to the end of Bush's reign to stop the madness. The damage he can do to the US and the world in the next year is colossal, and there is no guarantee that his Administration will not try and stay in power by declaring a crisis and postponing the elections. A US war on Iran will give him the crisis he needs to seize power, and carry on the neocon plans for global domination.

Congress and the media are pretending it's all for the best in the best of all possible worlds. They are sharing and helping cover and implement Bush lies. One of the few choices open to rational US citizens who want to stop Bush is an American idea for DIY impeachment, a link also found on this site.

 

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Don't Veto, Don't Obey

editorial by NYT, June 22, 2007

 

President Bush is notorious for issuing statements taking exception to hundreds of bills as he signs them. This week, we learned that in a shocking number of cases, the Bush administration has refused to enact those laws. Congress should use its powers to insist that its laws are obeyed.

    The Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan arm of Congress, investigated 19 provisions to which Mr. Bush objected. It found that six of them, or nearly a third, have not been implemented as the law requires. The G.A.O. did not investigate some of the most infamous signing statements, like the challenge to a ban on torture. But the ones it looked into are disturbing enough.

    In one case, Congress directed the Pentagon in its 2007 budget request to account separately for the cost of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was a perfectly appropriate request, but Mr. Bush issued a signing statement critical of the rule, and the Pentagon withheld the information. In two other cases, federal agencies ignored laws requiring them to get permission from Congressional committees before taking particular actions.

    The Bush administration's disregard for these laws is part of its extraordinary theory of the "unitary executive." The administration asserts that the president has the sole authority to supervise and direct executive officers, and that Congress and the courts cannot interfere. This theory, which has no support in American history or the Constitution, is a formula for autocracy.

    Other presidents have issued signing statements, but none has issued as many, or done so with the same contemptuous attitude toward the co-equal branches of government. The G.A.O. report makes clear that Mr. Bush's signing statements were virtually written instructions to executive agencies to flout acts of Congress. Senator Robert Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia, has said that the report shows that Mr. Bush "is constantly grabbing for more power" and trying to push Congress "to the sidelines."

    Members of Congress have a variety of methods available to make the administration obey the law. They should call the agency heads up to Capitol Hill to explain their intransigence. And they should use the power of the purse, the authority the founders wisely vested in the people's branch, as a check on a runaway executive branch.

    When the Bush presidency ends, there will be a great deal of damage to repair, much of it to the Constitutional system. Congress should begin now to restore the principle that even the president and those who work for him are not above the law.

Original story......