Hello? Is anyone out there?

I find this article (from CNN) extremely upsetting, so naturally I pass it on to all of you. The upsetting part is not the content of the article. The problem is that it has taken the American Bar Association, supposedly THE locus of legal authority and sagacity within the U.S., this long to come up with a statement which I could have penned 6 months ago, even though I have absolutely no experience in Constitutional law. (You may remember: I wrote one of these emails expressing the same ideas and concerns.) This is not to toot my own horn, as anyone with the slightest capacity for logic should be able to see the problem of allowing a single president, in six short years, to contest the binding force and legal validity of more laws than all other presidents combined and multiplied by 133%! Rather, it is to stand awesomely dumbstruck at the all but nonexistent sense of public responsibility and outrage by the appropriate parties in the country over the last several years, whether it be the ABA or the large media conglomerates or veterans’ associations or the public at large.


For those of you who have not had math in a while:

All former presidents: 224 years, 42 presidents, +/- 600 contested laws

Mr Bush: 6 years, +/- 800 contested laws

Consult your magic 8-balls: is this a gross violation of the separation of powers according both to the Constitution and to the entire history of precedent for all three branches of government?

John Doe’s line from the movie Seven keeps ringing in my head: “Wanting people to listen, you can’t just tap them on the shoulder anymore. You have to hit them with a sledgehammer. Then you’ll notice you’ve got their strict attention.” I can’t tell if Mr Doe is right (if so, what would it take to get our attention these days?) or morbidly mistaken (I’d call the Towers a rather large sledgehammer, but this only seems to have put us in a coma).

-W

*NOTICE TO ALL READERS OF THIS POST*

Due to the Potentially Threatening Statements in the last lines of this Post, the Author and all Readers (YOU) have been placed on a List of Potential Threats to National Security. Your Phones will now be Tapped, your Financial Records Observed and Recorded, your Email Screened, and your Pets may be Abducted and flown to third world countries to be “Interrogated” in order to extract Vital Information. In such event, do not attempt to Obtain a writ of Habeas Corpus: the Constitution does not apply to Terrorist Hamsters.

ABA: Bush violating Constitution

Bar association president says signing statements erode democracy

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush's penchant for writing exceptions to laws he has just signed violates the Constitution, an American Bar Association task force says in a report highly critical of the practice.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/07/24/lawyers.bush.ap/index.html

Florida's shame - not the 2000 election

EDIT: I am still getting the hang of this self-indulgent, self-important, utterly ridiculous business called blogging. My ineptitude includes, but is not limited to, copyright issues. Thus, I have had to delete The Economist article in the following post. However, I recommend you all go out and get a subscription today so that you can check the archives and understand my shame for my home state. I guarantee you won't be disappointed (in The Economist, that is; you will be disappointed in Florida).

This mostly goes out to my Floridian friends and family, though the rest of you may be interested in yet another deplorable moral and political failure in the Sunshine State. For the last 6 years people have tended to groan when I mention being from Florida, followed by some crack about the 2000 elections. This only goes to show their pathetic knowledge; after all, there is so much more to Florida’s ineptitude than this.

-W.

Trouble in Tallahassee

Jul 6th 2006 | TAMPA
From The Economist print edition