Bush challenges hundreds of laws
President cites powers of his office
President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.Among the laws Bush said he can ignore are military rules and regulations, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about immigration services problems, ”whistle-blower” protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research.
Legal scholars say the scope and aggression of Bush’s assertions that he can bypass laws represent a concerted effort to expand his power at the expense of Congress, upsetting the balance between the branches of government. The Constitution is clear in assigning to Congress the power to write the laws and to the president a duty ”to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” Bush, however, has repeatedly declared that he does not need to ”execute” a law he believes is unconstitutional.
Former administration officials contend that just because Bush reserves the right to disobey a law does not mean he is not enforcing it: In many cases, he is simply asserting his belief that a certain requirement encroaches on presidential power.
(Globe Staff Graphic / Joan McLaughlin)
- What is God for?
- The Case Againts Religion As A Dogmatic Institution Part 1
- The left’s own religious extremists
- We should all be secularists
- Break Looms Within American Baptist Church - Good riddance, bitches!
- Honoring Culture and Heritage
- Heads Down for the Rapture
- GAO Says Government Pesters Wounded Soldiers Over Debts - “Retired Army Staff Sgt. Ryan Kelly, who lost a leg in a roadside bombing, received a letter in 2004 saying he was in debt to the government and was in jeopardy of being referred to a collection agency.” THIS is what passes for supporting the troops by conservatives.
- 150=20 in Iraq - Money well spent on ‘bringing democracy to Iraq’!
- Fitzgerald to Seek Indictment of Rove
Move over, Maynard - Stephen Colbert is my new Jesus!
At the White House Correspondent’s Dinner, Colbert roasted Bush - and how - and apparently der Chimpenfurher was not amused, nor was frau Laura. C&L has the full video, you’ve GOT to see this. You can see the entire thing in 3 parts at YouTube:
He took no prisoners, absolutely none! Topics he nailed from TrueBlueMajority @ Kos: “NSA wiretapping, Katrina, Global warming, capitalist kissing up to China, the Republican aversion to facts, secret prisons in Eastern Europe, bad reporting on WMD intelligence, the complicity of the mainstream media, retired generals attacking Rumsfeld, the 32% approval rating, Jeff Gannon, Plamegate, the relentlessness of Helen Thomas asking tough questions, the culture of corruption…”
The genius of Colbert is not just that he’s funny as hell, but that he’s unafraid to back it all up. This is after all the man who coined the term “truthiness”. The standout zingers for me were:
I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things, like aircraft carriers, rubble, and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message that no matter what happens to America she will always rebound with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the world!Mayor Nagin is here from New Orleans, the Chocolate City… Mayor Nagin, I’d like to welcome you to Washington D.C., the Chocolate City with a marshmallow center… and a graham cracker crust of corruption.
[Jesse Jackson] is a very challenging interview… It’s like boxing a glacier. Enjoy that metaphor, by the way, because your grandchildren will have no idea what a glacier is.
The greatest thing about this President is you know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday!
To the Press Corps:
Over the last 5 years you people were so good, over tax cuts, WMD intelligence, global warming - we Americans didn’t want to know, and you had the courtesy to not find out.Write that novel you’ve got kicking around in your head–you know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the Administration–you know, fiction!
After watching this, check out the interview he did with the brilliant and handsome Sam Harris, author of The End Of Faith, my current read.
Um, just no. Scroll down and you’ll see why. It’s not a topiary garden, man. *cue “Uncle Creepy” music*
Lawsuit challenges use of gay-themed storybook
Two couples who say a suburban school district undermined their parental rights by giving out and reading storybooks with gay themes without telling them first have filed a federal lawsuit against school officials.
The couples claim the officials broke state law, violated their civil rights, and were trying to teach their children about a lifestyle they consider immoral.
Lexington school superintendent Paul Ash said the schools have no agenda and have done nothing illegal.
Last month, Joseph and Robin Wirthlin objected when a teacher read a storybook about two princes who fall in love to their son’s second grade class without notifying them.
Okay, where do I even begin. This one’s pretty clear cut for me, so the first thing I did before writing this up was to investigate. We’re talking about white, upper-middle class looking Christian (can there really be any question as to their political affiliation?) people here, in Lexington, Massachusetts. Marinate on that for a minute before jumping to the obvious.
I was first interested in the questionable book itself. The name given to said atrocious scourge of literary filth is Who’s In A Family? by Robert Skutch. You can see a hi-res cover shot of the book as well as read an excerpt on its Amazon.com listing. Fairly innocuous so far. Surely there had to be more going on than what appears here in a book that explains how some children are raised in single parent homes, some by grandparents, some by traditional opposite sex parents, some by multiracial parents, some by Kate & Allie/My Two Dads/Full House/Different Strokes same-sex parents, you get the idea. There’s even a lesson plan offered by Scholastic, in case there were questions about how to present this book.
What? Nothing sexually charged or remotely explicit? Are you fucking kidding me with this? You mean there’s no hidden issue of Honcho in there? No copy of The Homosexual Bible (Queen James & New Testament versions) cleverly wrapped in that watercolor & chalk cover? No Damron in case little Heather wants to book an Olivia Cruise for Mommy & “Mommy’s friend”? None of that? Then WHAT.THE.FUCK???
My guess is that rather than take an opportunity to have someone else open a door for you as a parent, these ballbreaking bastards want to stifle any possible conversation feasible that might ser
ve to illuminate. Here we have a golden shower opportunity for parents to sit down with their children and have an open, honest discussion about their own values and morals in relation to subjects like these that like it or not DO EXIST in the world. I suppose it would be one thing if a children’s book was read in a public school that was oriented around families and more specifically around parents, even say exclusively heterosexual parents, and gave descriptions of sexual contact between the heterosexual consenting adult parents. Clearly, that is inappropriate. I personally wouldn’t want my own children subject to such things, so we agree on that much of it. The reality herein is that in no way does this book address any kind of sexual issue OR politic, so I’m flummoxed as to how one takes issue with it. Is it really such a big deal to educate children on the different ways that families are made? Is there some kind of assimilation going on that is trying to legitimize behavior that some may find inappopriate? For that, you have to go to her royal uptightness, Michelle Malkin, and see just how we should feel collective shame for the treatment of this one particularly honorable, responsible parent. Responsible in this case being an unwillingness to simply keep his child home rather than subject them to questionable education practices and use that time to have the kind of conversation I alluded to earlier. Oh no - responsible, involved parenting according to Malkin is creating a scene at the school rather than opting for the obvious choice of keeping the child home on a day when subject matter didn’t met their moral and ethical standards for propriety. Bear in mind, there is a lengthy email exchange between this parent and the school (see here) that leaves little in the way of doubt as to the school’s position from a legal standpoint, yet it came to the moron getting arrested via his own stupidity. Plenty of Christian schools, and if you’re that serious about it then there’s always homeschooling, fucknut.
So we have to remove the issue of sex, which I agree would be inappropriate in an elementary school setting, even if it were about something as controversial as what heterosexuals might do with Mr. & Ms. Privacy. The larger issue for me is this constant push to sanitize everything possible into this neat, populistic, homogeneous bubble. Because THAT is the real world we ALL live in, no? Ignore it and it doesn’t really exist? That’s a fine way for parents to ensure that once their children get exposed to inevitable instances where they’re forced to think for themselves, they’ll come to realize just how completely full of shit Mom & Dad were. Many of those values will take a leap out of the first window, and they’ll be lucky if resentment for the years of stifling doesn’t come in to replace the chasm that will be left. Don’t act like you you don’t know what I’m talking about, this is all of us!
These “responsible parents” are the ones churning out children that play violent video games and have no respect for themselves, but hey - at least they’ve been told that two loving, responsible parents that don’t happen to look a thing like Ozzie & Harriet are not a ‘real’ family. I call bullshit on that, if for no other reason than Ozzie & Harriet are completely mythological, always have been, and always will be. At no time in history was a family such as that one really normal or even common, for that matter. Many of you reading this don’t even know who the fuck they were historically, and that’s for good reason - because they never really existed even metaphorically for fuck’s sake. My guess is that the average American family looks a lot more like Roseanne, historically. And you know what? That’s fine with me. That I could deal with, I’d have done a Menendez brothers on the Nelsons had I been David or Ricky, if for no other reason than the fact that all that toile upholstery would be enough to get me acquitted on an insanity plea. Let’s face it, you were a lot more protected under the afghan that graced the back of Dan & Roseanne Conner’s sofa than you ever would have been under Harriet Nelson’s apron.
Christ on ice skates, there’s some veddy eentadesting schtuff going on. Well, not so much interesting as enraging and pathetic. Rather than a conventional news post, I’m gonna sum it all up.
- Michelle Malkin, whom John Aravosis calls “the poor man’s Ann Coulter” *insert screaming laughter here* gets hers on Politics TV.
- New report on Katrina rips the Bush Administration a new asshole. Just what they needed, another one.
- The terrorists are winning. I said this months ago, you do what Bush has done and you’ll create more of them than you can ever kill. Meanwhile, 320 billion has been spent on the war in Iraq thus far, currently at 6 billion a month/200 million a day - and there’s no end or presumed exit strategy in sight.
- Consider the money being thrown away in Iraq, then consider the $8.4 billion first-quarter profits that Exxon just announced. Gas is $3/gallon. Need I say more?
- If that’s not enough, consider the $1.2 million collective debt owed by almost 900 battle-injured soldiers to the Department of Defense. These debts have “resulted in significant hardships” to the soldiers and their families, according to a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report [.pdf]. Pissed much?
- Whoregate what?
- Specter bitchslaps Bush’s NSA Wiretapping program.
- Conservatives Bow to Industry, Block Amendment to Scan All Shipping Containers If you need more proof that right-wing lawmakers care a helluva lot more about their ties to industry than about safeguarding the country, we now have proof.
- Religious leaders band together against gay marriage. I for one am exhausted from destroying the institution of heterosexual marriage, but it’s my job apparently. Weren’t we supposed to have a better union contract for this bullshit? I mean Jethuth Chritht!
- GOP tax rebate plan is just more stupid bullshit. Stop trying to put a goddamned bandaid on a gaping wound, get a brain morans! You know it’s a really bad idea when even the Cato institute says it’s stoopid.
ManBearPig. Actually sounds kind of like a hot daddy I’d like to have do naughty things to me.
EDIT: Now the link above is fixed. TA DAAA!!!
Anyway, Tool is back and this new album is fantastic. Better than Lateralus, I’d dare say. It’s out May 2nd, definitely a must-have.
