Does this mean we can forget about that “Unitary Executive” nonsense they’ve been peddling?

From the “you can’t have it both ways” chronicles, we have this dandy little paradox – the president claims the right to do as he damn well pleases because he is a "Unitary Executive" in a time of war…and then yesterday, he turns around and claims he is not a member of the Executive Branch?

Good thing surrealism is my cup of fur. Otherwise I might set my locks alight.

I just can’t square how an executive order, signed by the executive, covering all the executive agencies somehow doesn’t apply to the executive and vice-executive. WTF???

We are talking about vital National Security information, and frankly, these weasels have a lousy record of protecting and safeguarding that information (Scooter “Treason” Libby, anyone?) In fact, they have a track record of cherry-picking intelligence and they used their phony intel to start an illegal war that has displaced 4 million Iraqi’s, hastened or directly caused the death of up to a million more, indebted the American treasury to the Chines to the tune of 4 trillion dollars, killed over 3500 American GI’s and wounded ~30,000 more.

That these feckless fools would even try to peddle this bullshit reasoning makes me livid. Who the fuck do they even think they are?

This is not a monarchy. We as a nation eschewed that notion in 1776. And our founding fathers lie spinning in their graves.

From the LA Times:

"We don't dispute that the ISOO has a different opinion. But let's be very clear: This executive order was issued by the president, and he knows what his intentions were," Fratto said. "He is in compliance with his executive order." (Bloggers aside: Where is the signing statement that clarifies the resident’s intent?)

Fratto conceded that the lengthy directive, technically an amendment to an existing executive order, did not specifically exempt the president's or vice president's offices. Instead, it refers to "agencies" as being subject to the requirements, which Fratto said did not include the two executive offices. "It does take a little bit of inference," Fratto said.

Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists' government secrecy project, disputed the White House explanation of the executive order.

He noted that the order defines "agency" as any executive agency, military department and "any other entity within the executive branch that comes into the possession of classified information" — which, he said, includes Bush's and Cheney's offices.

Frankly, I don’t trust these ideologues, morons and warmongers with information even with oversight. And the experts on national security are as non-plussed as I am about the White House assertion that the executive branch is exempt from executive oversight that has to be inferred from an executive order.

[These claims of exemption] fit what they saw as a pattern in the administration of avoiding accountability, even on matters of national security.

"If the president and the vice president don't take their own rules seriously, who else should?" said Tom Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, a nongovernmental research institute at George Washington University in Washington that lobbies for open government.

"If they get a blank check, it's a recipe for disaster. I can't think of a quicker way to break down the credibility of the entire security-classification system."

Blanton noted that the White House had acknowledged that a substantial number of in-house e-mails had disappeared in recent years, at a time when investigators wanted to review them for possible evidence of inappropriate leaks of classified information.

"If there are all these great safeguards in place, then where are the e-mails?" Blanton asked.

These offenses are deadly serious folks. They undermine the Social Contract, practically to the point of nullification.

Bush and Cheney are two men with a handful of craven minions doing their bidding. We are a nation of 300 million, and we are represented by 535 Senators and Representatives, whose job it is to protect our interests and the Social Contract.

If they take this latest exhibit of mendacity lying down – we need 535 new Representatives and Senators.

Just when you think Dick Cheney has bottomed out, he digs deeper into the pit of perfidy, hubris and arrogance

Dick Cheney finds oversight of his office so distasteful that he has gone so far as to attempt to abolish the office within the National Archives that oversees the dissemination of national security information and is charged with protecting sensitive national security information.

Yes, children, you read that right. Rather than comply with the rule of law, Cheney just tried to make the problem go away entirely by eliminating the Information Security Oversight Office that wanted to keep tabs on the national security information tht his minions have amply displayed they can’t be trusted with.

The ISOO is a small shop, about 25 people work there. They have been trying to get information from Cheney for years, and he has stonewalled. When the ISOO got pushy, Cheney tried to just make them go away.

What, exactly, is that fat bastard hiding?

The Oversight Committee has learned that over the objections of the National Archives, Vice President Cheney exempted his office from the presidential order that establishes government-wide procedures for safeguarding classified national security information. The Vice President asserts that his office is not an “entity within the executive branch.”

As described in a letter from Chairman Waxman to the Vice President, the National Archives protested the Vice President's position in letters written in June 2006 and August 2006. When these letters were ignored, the National Archives wrote to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in January 2007 to seek a resolution of the impasse. The Vice President's staff responded by seeking to abolish the agency within the Archives that is responsible for implementing the President's executive order.

In his letter to the Vice President, Chairman Waxman writes: "I question both the legality and wisdom of your actions. ... [I]t would appear particularly irresponsible to give an office with your history of security breaches an exemption from the safeguards that apply to all other executive branch officials."

A fact sheet prepared by Chairman Waxman describes other instances in which the Vice President's office has sought to avoid oversight and accountability.

I have had quite enough from this imperialist prick. If he doesn’t resign for “health reasons” in the immediate future, Congress needs to grow a pair and get behind Dennis Kucinich who has introduced Articles of Impeachment against him.

Not a member of the Executive Branch my ass. Impeach his ass and see how far he can make that argument fly.

Checks & Balances are not just “Academic”

And they aren't "quaint" either. They are integral to what makes us, well, America. I am sick of my birthright being sacrificed on the altar of the "Global War on Terror™." You should be to, if your citizenship is American. And if you aren't smart enough to get properly pissed off about this, stay the hell out of my way. If you aren't in, at least don't be a hindrance to those of us who want liberty restored.

When John Conyers ordered the GAO report on signing statements, I got tingly. I’m weird that way, but you already knew that. Well, it is out. I have not had a chance to read the actual report yet (I will be doing that and following up soon) but I have read the Washington Post article about it.

For example, Congress directed U.S. Customs and Border Protection to relocate its checkpoints around Tucson every seven days to improve efforts to combat illegal immigration. But the agency took the law as an "advisory provision" that was "not always consistent with CBP's mission requirements." Instead, the agency periodically shut down its checkpoints for short periods of time, believing that would comply with congressional demands.

Frustrated by the Pentagon's broad budget submissions for the "global war on terrorism," Congress demanded in its 2006 military spending law that the Defense Department break down its 2007 budget request to show the detailed costs of global military operations, such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The department ignored the order. While the Pentagon did break out the costs of operations in the Balkans and at Guantanamo Bay, it did not detail expenditures in other operations.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency also ignored Congress's demand that it submit an expenditure plan for housing assistance and alternatives to the approaches that failed after Hurricane Katrina. FEMA told the GAO that it does not normally produce such plans.

In all those instances, presidential signing statements had asserted that congressional demands were encroaching on Bush's prerogatives to control executive branch employees as he sees fit and to receive effective services from his employees. White House spokesman Tony Fratto said Congress should not be surprised that the administration carried out the recommendations of the signing statements, although he cautioned that he could not know whether the agencies took action because of the statements.

Okay - I am not even going to address the absurdity of closing a checkpoint to increase the effectiveness of the strategy. Or that the Pentagon uses a bookkeeping system so effed up as to be unauditable. And if I go down the Katrina path one more time, I'm liable to set my locks alight. I'll just stick to the article, which you have to read to the end to get the point.

The findings are significant because they confirm that the Bush administration has sought to marginalize the peoples representatives. This means that they sought to marginalize you – when they embarked down that path – in the naked power grab that has amounted to an imperial presidency.

Bruce Fein, a conservative Constitutional lawyer who served on an American Bar Association panel that excoriated the use of signing statements in a report last year said that the report could be used as a basis for legal action against the Bush administration. "At least it makes clear the signing statements aren't solely for staking out a legal position, with the president just saying, 'I don't have to do these things, but I will,' " Fein said. "In fact they are not doing some of these things. You can't just vaporize it as an academic question."

Legal action against BushCrimCo? I’m game.

Diane Silver has more, Here and Here.