The Decider

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"Do you have blacks, too?" —- George W. Bush, speaking to Brazilian President Fernando Cardoso, Washington, D.C., Nov. 8, 2001

...

Bush challenges hundreds of laws: President cites powers of his office
By Charlie Savage
Boston Globe, April 30, 2006

WASHINGTON -- 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.

But with the disclosure of Bush's domestic spying program, in which he ignored a law requiring warrants to tap the phones of Americans, many legal specialists say Bush is hardly reluctant to bypass laws he believes he has the constitutional authority to override.

Far more than any predecessor, Bush has been aggressive about declaring his right to ignore vast swaths of laws -- many of which he says infringe on power he believes the Constitution assigns to him alone as the head of the executive branch or the commander in chief of the military.

Many legal scholars say they believe that Bush's theory about his own powers goes too far and that he is seizing for himself some of the law-making role of Congress and the Constitution-interpreting role of the courts.

Phillip Cooper, a Portland State University law professor who has studied the executive power claims Bush made during his first term, said Bush and his legal team have spent the past five years quietly working to concentrate ever more governmental power into the White House.

''There is no question that this administration has been involved in a very carefully thought-out, systematic process of expanding presidential power at the expense of the other branches of government," Cooper said. ''This is really big, very expansive, and very significant."

For the first five years of Bush's presidency, his legal claims attracted little attention in Congress or the media. Then, twice in recent months, Bush drew scrutiny after challenging new laws: a torture ban and a requirement that he give detailed reports to Congress about how he is using the Patriot Act.

Bush administration spokesmen declined to make White House or Justice Department attorneys available to discuss any of Bush's challenges to the laws he has signed.

Instead, they referred a Globe reporter to their response to questions about Bush's position that he could ignore provisions of the Patriot Act. They said at the time that Bush was following a practice that has ''been used for several administrations" and that ''the president will faithfully execute the law in a manner that is consistent with the Constitution."

But the words ''in a manner that is consistent with the Constitution" are the catch, legal scholars say, because Bush is according himself the ultimate interpretation of the Constitution. And he is quietly exercising that authority to a degree that is unprecedented in US history.

Bush is the first president in modern history who has never vetoed a bill, giving Congress no chance to override his judgments. Instead, he has signed every bill that reached his desk, often inviting the legislation's sponsors to signing ceremonies at which he lavishes praise upon their work.

Then, after the media and the lawmakers have left the White House, Bush quietly files ''signing statements" -- official documents in which a president lays out his legal interpretation of a bill for the federal bureaucracy to follow when implementing the new law. The statements are recorded in the federal register.

In his signing statements, Bush has repeatedly asserted that the Constitution gives him the right to ignore numerous sections of the bills -- sometimes including provisions that were the subject of negotiations with Congress in order to get lawmakers to pass the bill. He has appended such statements to more than one of every 10 bills he has signed.

''He agrees to a compromise with members of Congress, and all of them are there for a public bill-signing ceremony, but then he takes back those compromises -- and more often than not, without the Congress or the press or the public knowing what has happened," said Christopher Kelley, a Miami University of Ohio political science professor who studies executive power.

Military link
Many of the laws Bush said he can bypass -- including the torture ban -- involve the military.

The Constitution grants Congress the power to create armies, to declare war, to make rules for captured enemies, and ''to make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces." But, citing his role as commander in chief, Bush says he can ignore any act of Congress that seeks to regulate the military.

On at least four occasions while Bush has been president, Congress has passed laws forbidding US troops from engaging in combat in Colombia, where the US military is advising the government in its struggle against narcotics-funded Marxist rebels.

After signing each bill, Bush declared in his signing statement that he did not have to obey any of the Colombia restrictions because he is commander in chief.

Bush has also said he can bypass laws requiring him to tell Congress before diverting money from an authorized program in order to start a secret operation, such as the ''black sites" where suspected terrorists are secretly imprisoned.

Congress has also twice passed laws forbidding the military from using intelligence that was not ''lawfully collected," including any information on Americans that was gathered in violation of the Fourth Amendment's protections against unreasonable searches.

Congress first passed this provision in August 2004, when Bush's warrantless domestic spying program was still a secret, and passed it again after the program's existence was disclosed in December 2005.

On both occasions, Bush declared in signing statements that only he, as commander in chief, could decide whether such intelligence can be used by the military.

In October 2004, five months after the Abu Ghraib torture scandal in Iraq came to light, Congress passed a series of new rules and regulations for military prisons. Bush signed the provisions into law, then said he could ignore them all. One provision made clear that military lawyers can give their commanders independent advice on such issues as what would constitute torture. But Bush declared that military lawyers could not contradict his administration's lawyers.

Other provisions required the Pentagon to retrain military prison guards on the requirements for humane treatment of detainees under the Geneva Conventions, to perform background checks on civilian contractors in Iraq, and to ban such contractors from performing ''security, intelligence, law enforcement, and criminal justice functions." Bush reserved the right to ignore any of the requirements.

The new law also created the position of inspector general for Iraq. But Bush wrote in his signing statement that the inspector ''shall refrain" from investigating any intelligence or national security matter, or any crime the Pentagon says it prefers to investigate for itself.

Bush had placed similar limits on an inspector general position created by Congress in November 2003 for the initial stage of the US occupation of Iraq. The earlier law also empowered the inspector to notify Congress if a US official refused to cooperate. Bush said the inspector could not give any information to Congress without permission from the administration.

Oversight questioned
Many laws Bush has asserted he can bypass involve requirements to give information about government activity to congressional oversight committees.

In December 2004, Congress passed an intelligence bill requiring the Justice Department to tell them how often, and in what situations, the FBI was using special national security wiretaps on US soil. The law also required the Justice Department to give oversight committees copies of administration memos outlining any new interpretations of domestic-spying laws. And it contained 11 other requirements for reports about such issues as civil liberties, security clearances, border security, and counternarcotics efforts.

After signing the bill, Bush issued a signing statement saying he could withhold all the information sought by Congress.

Likewise, when Congress passed the law creating the Department of Homeland Security in 2002, it said oversight committees must be given information about vulnerabilities at chemical plants and the screening of checked bags at airports.

It also said Congress must be shown unaltered reports about problems with visa services prepared by a new immigration ombudsman. Bush asserted the right to withhold the information and alter the reports.

On several other occasions, Bush contended he could nullify laws creating ''whistle-blower" job protections for federal employees that would stop any attempt to fire them as punishment for telling a member of Congress about possible government wrongdoing.

When Congress passed a massive energy package in August, for example, it strengthened whistle-blower protections for employees at the Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The provision was included because lawmakers feared that Bush appointees were intimidating nuclear specialists so they would not testify about safety issues related to a planned nuclear-waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada -- a facility the administration supported, but both Republicans and Democrats from Nevada opposed.

When Bush signed the energy bill, he issued a signing statement declaring that the executive branch could ignore the whistle-blower protections.

Bush's statement did more than send a threatening message to federal energy specialists inclined to raise concerns with Congress; it also raised the possibility that Bush would not feel bound to obey similar whistle-blower laws that were on the books before he became president. His domestic spying program, for example, violated a surveillance law enacted 23 years before he took office.

David Golove, a New York University law professor who specializes in executive-power issues, said Bush has cast a cloud over ''the whole idea that there is a rule of law," because no one can be certain of which laws Bush thinks are valid and which he thinks he can ignore.

''Where you have a president who is willing to declare vast quantities of the legislation that is passed during his term unconstitutional, it implies that he also thinks a very significant amount of the other laws that were already on the books before he became president are also unconstitutional," Golove said.

Defying Supreme Court
Bush has also challenged statutes in which Congress gave certain executive branch officials the power to act independently of the president. The Supreme Court has repeatedly endorsed the power of Congress to make such arrangements. For example, the court has upheld laws creating special prosecutors free of Justice Department oversight and insulating the board of the Federal Trade Commission from political interference.

Nonetheless, Bush has said in his signing statements that the Constitution lets him control any executive official, no matter what a statute passed by Congress might say.

In November 2002, for example, Congress, seeking to generate independent statistics about student performance, passed a law setting up an educational research institute to conduct studies and publish reports ''without the approval" of the Secretary of Education. Bush, however, decreed that the institute's director would be ''subject to the supervision and direction of the secretary of education."

Similarly, the Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld affirmative-action programs, as long as they do not include quotas. Most recently, in 2003, the court upheld a race-conscious university admissions program over the strong objections of Bush, who argued that such programs should be struck down as unconstitutional.

Yet despite the court's rulings, Bush has taken exception at least nine times to provisions that seek to ensure that minorities are represented among recipients of government jobs, contracts, and grants. Each time, he singled out the provisions, declaring that he would construe them ''in a manner consistent with" the Constitution's guarantee of ''equal protection" to all -- which some legal scholars say amounts to an argument that the affirmative-action provisions represent reverse discrimination against whites.

Golove said that to the extent Bush is interpreting the Constitution in defiance of the Supreme Court's precedents, he threatens to ''overturn the existing structures of constitutional law."

A president who ignores the court, backed by a Congress that is unwilling to challenge him, Golove said, can make the Constitution simply ''disappear."

Though Bush has gone further than any previous president, his actions are not unprecedented.

Since the early 19th century, American presidents have occasionally signed a large bill while declaring that they would not enforce a specific provision they believed was unconstitutional. On rare occasions, historians say, presidents also issued signing statements interpreting a law and explaining any concerns about it.

But it was not until the mid-1980s, midway through the tenure of President Reagan, that it became common for the president to issue signing statements. The change came about after then-Attorney General Edwin Meese decided that signing statements could be used to increase the power of the president.

When interpreting an ambiguous law, courts often look at the statute's legislative history, debate and testimony, to see what Congress intended it to mean. Meese realized that recording what the president thought the law meant in a signing statement might increase a president's influence over future court rulings.

Under Meese's direction in 1986, a young Justice Department lawyer named Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote a strategy memo about signing statements. It came to light in late 2005, after Bush named Alito to the Supreme Court.

In the memo, Alito predicted that Congress would resent the president's attempt to grab some of its power by seizing ''the last word on questions of interpretation." He suggested that Reagan's legal team should ''concentrate on points of true ambiguity, rather than issuing interpretations that may seem to conflict with those of Congress."

Reagan's successors continued this practice. George H.W. Bush challenged 232 statutes over four years in office, and Bill Clinton objected to 140 laws over his eight years, according to Kelley, the Miami University of Ohio professor.

Many of the challenges involved longstanding legal ambiguities and points of conflict between the president and Congress.

Throughout the past two decades, for example, each president -- including the current one -- has objected to provisions requiring him to get permission from a congressional committee before taking action. The Supreme Court made clear in 1983 that only the full Congress can direct the executive branch to do things, but lawmakers have continued writing laws giving congressional committees such a role.

Still, Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Clinton used the presidential veto instead of the signing statement if they had a serious problem with a bill, giving Congress a chance to override their decisions.

But the current President Bush has abandoned the veto entirely, as well as any semblance of the political caution that Alito counseled back in 1986. In just five years, Bush has challenged more than 750 new laws, by far a record for any president, while becoming the first president since Thomas Jefferson to stay so long in office without issuing a veto.

''What we haven't seen until this administration is the sheer number of objections that are being raised on every bill passed through the White House," said Kelley, who has studied presidential signing statements through history. ''That is what is staggering. The numbers are well out of the norm from any previous administration."

Exaggerated fears?
Some administration defenders say that concerns about Bush's signing statements are overblown. Bush's signing statements, they say, should be seen as little more than political chest-thumping by administration lawyers who are dedicated to protecting presidential prerogatives.

Defenders say the fact that Bush is reserving the right to disobey the laws does not necessarily mean he has gone on to disobey them.

Indeed, in some cases, the administration has ended up following laws that Bush said he could bypass. For example, citing his power to ''withhold information" in September 2002, Bush declared that he could ignore a law requiring the State Department to list the number of overseas deaths of US citizens in foreign countries. Nevertheless, the department has still put the list on its website.

Jack Goldsmith, a Harvard Law School professor who until last year oversaw the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel for the administration, said the statements do not change the law; they just let people know how the president is interpreting it.

''Nobody reads them," said Goldsmith. ''They have no significance. Nothing in the world changes by the publication of a signing statement. The statements merely serve as public notice about how the administration is interpreting the law. Criticism of this practice is surprising, since the usual complaint is that the administration is too secretive in its legal interpretations."

But Cooper, the Portland State University professor who has studied Bush's first-term signing statements, said the documents are being read closely by one key group of people: the bureaucrats who are charged with implementing new laws.

Lower-level officials will follow the president's instructions even when his understanding of a law conflicts with the clear intent of Congress, crafting policies that may endure long after Bush leaves office, Cooper said.

''Years down the road, people will not understand why the policy doesn't look like the legislation," he said.

And in many cases, critics contend, there is no way to know whether the administration is violating laws -- or merely preserving the right to do so.

Many of the laws Bush has challenged involve national security, where it is almost impossible to verify what the government is doing. And since the disclosure of Bush's domestic spying program, many people have expressed alarm about his sweeping claims of the authority to violate laws.

In January, after the Globe first wrote about Bush's contention that he could disobey the torture ban, three Republicans who were the bill's principal sponsors in the Senate -- John McCain of Arizona, John W. Warner of Virginia, and Lindsey O. Graham of South Carolina -- all publicly rebuked the president.

''We believe the president understands Congress's intent in passing, by very large majorities, legislation governing the treatment of detainees," McCain and Warner said in a joint statement. ''The Congress declined when asked by administration officials to include a presidential waiver of the restrictions included in our legislation."

Added Graham: ''I do not believe that any political figure in the country has the ability to set aside any . . . law of armed conflict that we have adopted or treaties that we have ratified."

And in March, when the Globe first wrote about Bush's contention that he could ignore the oversight provisions of the Patriot Act, several Democrats lodged complaints.

Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, accused Bush of trying to ''cherry-pick the laws he decides he wants to follow."

And Representatives Jane Harman of California and John Conyers Jr. of Michigan -- the ranking Democrats on the House Intelligence and Judiciary committees, respectively -- sent a letter to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales demanding that Bush rescind his claim and abide by the law.

''Many members who supported the final law did so based upon the guarantee of additional reporting and oversight," they wrote. ''The administration cannot, after the fact, unilaterally repeal provisions of the law implementing such oversight. . . . Once the president signs a bill, he and all of us are bound by it."

Lack of court review
Such political fallout from Congress is likely to be the only check on Bush's claims, legal specialists said.

The courts have little chance of reviewing Bush's assertions, especially in the secret realm of national security matters.

''There can't be judicial review if nobody knows about it," said Neil Kinkopf, a Georgia State law professor who was a Justice Department official in the Clinton administration. ''And if they avoid judicial review, they avoid having their constitutional theories rebuked."

Without court involvement, only Congress can check a president who goes too far. But Bush's fellow Republicans control both chambers, and they have shown limited interest in launching the kind of oversight that could damage their party.

''The president is daring Congress to act against his positions, and they're not taking action because they don't want to appear to be too critical of the president, given that their own fortunes are tied to his because they are all Republicans," said Jack Beermann, a Boston University law professor. ''Oversight gets much reduced in a situation where the president and Congress are controlled by the same party."

Said Golove, the New York University law professor: ''Bush has essentially said that 'We're the executive branch and we're going to carry this law out as we please, and if Congress wants to impeach us, go ahead and try it.' "

Bruce Fein, a deputy attorney general in the Reagan administration, said the American system of government relies upon the leaders of each branch ''to exercise some self-restraint." But Bush has declared himself the sole judge of his own powers, he said, and then ruled for himself every time.

''This is an attempt by the president to have the final word on his own constitutional powers, which eliminates the checks and balances that keep the country a democracy," Fein said. ''There is no way for an independent judiciary to check his assertions of power, and Congress isn't doing it, either. So this is moving us toward an unlimited executive power."

ORIGINAL IMAGE: Jim Young, Reuters, April 30, 2006
IMAGE ALTERATION: /anomalous

Comments

	Miguel.Sanchez says: Killing children for OIL! Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )
	jallen "To Be" dragonhide says: I'd rather kiss a baboon's ass than Bush Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )
	AnomalousNYC says: "I'm the commander — see, I don't need to explain — I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being president." -- George W. Bush Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )
	AnomalousNYC says: "I know what I believe. I will continue to articulate what I believe and what I believe — I believe what I believe is right." -— George W. Rome, Italy, July 22, 2001 Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )
	AnomalousNYC says: "If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator." -— George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Dec. 19, 2000 Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )
	AnomalousNYC says: "I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn't do my job." -— George W. Bush, to a group of Amish he met with privately, July 9, 2004 Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )
	AnomalousNYC says: "God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East." -- George W. Bush to Mahmoud Abbas, June 26, 2003 "In a democracy, it is the people, not God, who make the decisions. The president is supposed to represent the will of the people." -- Ira Chernus, June 30, 2003 Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )
	AnomalousNYC says: "I hear the voices, and I read the front page, and I know the speculation. But I'm the decider, and I decide what is best." -- George W. Bush, April 18, 2006 Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )
	AnomalousNYC says: "Let me put it to you this way. I do not need a poll or a focus group to tell me where I need to lead this country." -- George W. Bush, May 17, 2005 Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )
	AnomalousNYC says: "I'm the kind of person, I don't really try to chase popular polls, or popularity polls. My job is to do my job and make the decisions that I think are important for our country and for the world." -- George W. Bush, June 25, 2004 Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )
	AnomalousNYC says: "You know, there's a lot of people in the world who don't believe that -- that people whose skin color may not be the same as ours can be free, and self-govern. I reject that. I reject that strongly. I believe that people who practice the Muslim faith can self-govern. I believe that people whose skins aren't necessarily -- are, you know -- a different color than white can self-govern. And, the Prime Minister -- I don't want to put words in his mouth, but -- I think he shares that great sense of optimism and possibility." --George W. Bush, April 30, 2004, speaking with the Canadian Prime Minister Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )
	AnomalousNYC says: "The world is more peaceful and more free under my leadership." -- George "President of the World" Bush, Oct. 28, 2003 Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )
	AnomalousNYC says: "But all in all, it's been a fabulous year for Laura and me." --George W. Bush, a few weeks after the September 11 attacks. Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )
	AnomalousNYC says: "You know, I could run for governor but I'm basically a media creation. I've never done anything. I've worked for my dad. I worked in the oil business. But that's not the kind of profile you have to have to get elected to public office. 1989 interview with George W. Bush, as quoted in "Fortunate Son" by James Hatfield, Jul. 2, 1989 "FINK: When you're not talking about politics, what do you and [your father] talk about? DUBYA: Pussy." -- 1988 interview with George W. Bush, by David Fink of the Hartford Courant at the 1988 Republican National Convention, New Orleans, Louisiana, Aug. 14, 1988 Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )
	spinlab says: All of this really makes it no surprise that the director of the CIA just stepped down ... Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )
	AnomalousNYC says: "God loves you, and I love you. And you can count on both of us as a powerful message that people who wonder about their future can hear." -- Reverend George W. Bush, March 3, 2004 Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )
	AnomalousNYC says: "We don't believe that freedom is America's gift to the world. We believe freedom is the God Almighty's gift to each and every person in the world." --George "I'm not killing you, I'm freeing your soul" Bush, Oct. 15, 2003 Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )
	AnomalousNYC says: "My faith tells me that acceptance of Jesus Christ as my savior is my salvation, and I believe I made it clear that it is not the governor's role to decide who goes to heaven. I believe God decides who goes to heaven, not George W. Bush." -- George "Humility" Bush, Dec. 3, 1998 Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )
	AnomalousNYC says: "One of the great things about America, one of the beauties of our country, is that when we see a young, innocent child blown up by an IED, we cry." --George "Killin & Cryin" Bush, March 29, 2006 Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )
	AnomalousNYC says: For a half century, America defended our own freedom by standing watch on distant borders. ...There is only one force of history that can break the reign of hatred and resentment, and expose the pretensions of tyrants, and reward the hopes of the decent and tolerant, and that is the force of human freedom. ...The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world. ...Freedom, by its nature, must be chosen, and defended by citizens. ...America will not impose our own style of government on the unwilling. Our goal instead is to help others find their own voice, attain their own freedom, and make their own way. ...America's influence is considerable, and we will use it confidently in freedom's cause. ... We will persistently clarify the choice before every ruler and every nation, the moral choice between oppression, which is always wrong, and freedom, which is eternally right. ...In the long run, there is no justice without freedom. ... Some, I know, have questioned the global appeal of liberty, though this time in history, four decades defined by the swiftest advance of freedom ever seen, is an odd time for doubt. ...Eventually, the call of freedom comes to every mind and every soul. ...Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves. ...Division among free nations is a primary goal of freedom's enemies. ...Yet because we have acted in the great liberating tradition of this nation, tens of millions have achieved their freedom. ...One day this untamed fire of freedom will reach the darkest corners of our world. ... America has need of idealism and courage, because we have essential work at home, the unfinished work of American freedom. ... In America's ideal of freedom, citizens find the dignity and security of economic independence, instead of laboring on the edge of subsistence. ... In America's ideal of freedom, the public interest depends on private character ... In America's ideal of freedom, the exercise of rights is ennobled by service. ...We cannot carry the message of freedom and the baggage of bigotry at the same time. ...Did our generation advance the cause of freedom? ...Americans by choice and by birth, are bound to one another in the cause of freedom. ...We felt the unity and fellowship of our nation when freedom came under attack. ... We go forward with complete confidence in the eventual triumph of freedom. ...We have confidence because freedom is the permanent hope of mankind ...When citizens marched in peaceful outrage under the banner "Freedom Now", they were acting on an ancient hope that is meant to be fulfilled. ...Renewed in our strength, tested but not weary, we are ready for the greatest achievements in the history of freedom. -- George W. Bush, second inaugural address, Washington, D.C., Jan. 20, 2005 Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )
	AnomalousNYC says: We will pass along to our children all the freedoms we enjoy -- and chief among them is freedom from fear. ...The only force powerful enough to stop the rise of tyranny and terror, and replace hatred with hope, is the force of human freedom. ...America will stand with the allies of freedom to support democratic movements in the Middle East and beyond, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world. ...And because democracies respect their own people and their neighbors, the advance of freedom will lead to peace. ... The beginnings of reform and democracy in the Palestinian territories are now showing the power of freedom to break old patterns of violence and failure. ... To promote peace and stability in the broader Middle East, the United States will work with our friends in the region to fight the common threat of terror, while we encourage a higher standard of freedom. ...We expect the Syrian government to end all support for terror and open the door to freedom. Today, Iran remains the world's primary state sponsor of terror -- pursuing nukyular weapons while depriving its people of the freedom they seek and deserve. ... Our generational commitment to the advance of freedom, especially in the Middle East, is now being tested and honored in Iraq. ...And the victory of freedom in Iraq will strengthen a new ally in the war on terror ... We will succeed in Iraq because Iraqis are determined to fight for their own freedom, and to write their own history. ...We are standing for the freedom of our Iraqi friends, and freedom in Iraq will make America safer for generations to come. ...And we have said farewell to some very good men and women, who died for our freedom, and whose memory this nation will honor forever. ...Ladies and gentlemen, with grateful hearts, we honor freedom's defenders, and our military families. ...The attack on freedom in our world has reaffirmed our confidence in freedom's power to change the world. We are all part of a great venture, to extend the promise of freedom in our country... and to spread the peace that freedom brings. ...The road of Providence is uneven and unpredictable -- yet we know where it leads. It leads to freedom. Thank you, and may God bless America. -- George W. Bush, 2005 State of the Union address, Washington, D.C., Feb. 2, 2005 Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )
	AnomalousNYC says: In this decisive year, you and I will make choices that determine both the future and the character of our country. We will choose to act confidently in pursuing the enemies offreedom -- or retreat from our duties in the hope of an easier life. ...Every step toward freedom in the world makes our country safer -- so we will act boldly in freedom's cause. Far from being a hopeless dream, the advance of freedom is the great story of our time. ...We're writing a new chapter in the story of self-government -- with women lining up to vote in Afghanistan, and millions of Iraqis marking their liberty with purple ink, and men and women from Lebanon to Egypt debating the rights of individuals and the necessity of freedom. ...And we do not forget the other half -- in places like Syria and Burma, Zimbabwe, North Korea, and Iran -- because the demands of justice, and the peace of this world, require their freedom, as well. No one can deny the success of freedom, but some men rage and fight against it. ...We love our freedom, and we will fight to keep it. ...[We're] helping the Iraqi government to fight corruption and build a modern economy, so all Iraqis can experience the benefits of freedom. And third we're striking terrorist targets while we train Iraqi forces that are increasingly capable of defeating the enemy. Iraqis are showing their courage every day, and we are proud to be their allies in the cause of freedom. ...Ultimately, the only way to defeat the terrorists is to defeat their dark vision of hatred and fear by offering the hopeful alternative of political freedom and peaceful change. ...Tonight, let me speak directly to the citizens of Iran. America respects you, and we respect your country. We respect your right to choose your own future and win your own freedom. ...In all these areas -- from the disruption of terror networks, to victory in Iraq, to the spread of freedom and hope in troubled regions -- we need the support of our friends and allies. ...American leaders -- from Roosevelt to Truman to Kennedy to Reagan -- rejected isolation and retreat, because they knew that America is always more secure when freedom is on the march. ...Together, let us protect our country, support the men and women who defend us, and lead this world toward freedom. ...America is a great force for freedom and prosperity. ...Before history is written down in books, it is written in courage. Like Americans before us, we will show that courage and we will finish well. We will leadfreedom's advance. -- George W. Bush, 2006 State of the Union Address, Jan. 31, 2006 Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )
	AnomalousNYC says: "See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda." —- George W. Bush, May 24, 2005 Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )
	AnomalousNYC says: "And I just -- I cannot speak strongly enough about how we must collectively get after those who kill in the name of -- in the name of some kind of false religion." -- George "Which Religion would you be referring to?" Bush "I think they're inspired by an ideology that is so barbaric and backwards that it's hard for many in the Western world to comprehend how they think." -- George W. Bush re muslims protesting in over 100 countries over racist cartoons published in Denmark, May 20, 2005 Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )
	AnomalousNYC says: "The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him." —- George W. Bush, September 13, 2001 "I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority." -— George W. Bush, March 13, 2002 "I -- I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him." --George W. Bush re Osama Bin Laden, March 13, 2002 "Uhh -- Gosh, I -- don't think I ever said I'm not worried about Osama bin Laden. It's kind of one of those, uhh, exaggerations." --George W. Bush, Third Presidential Debate, Tempe, Arizona, Oct. 13, 2004 Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )
	AnomalousNYC says: "This is one of the most intellectually gifted presidents we've had." -- Karl Rove, Jan. 19, 2005 Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )
	gillianleigh says: god this is terrifying. thanks for compiling everything in one place. Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )
	AnomalousNYC says: you're welcome. "God speaks through me." —- George W. Bush, Smoketown, Pennsylvania, July 16, 2004 (first reported in the local papers, including the Intelligencer Journal and the Lancaster New Era) Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )
	AnomalousNYC says: . In a national Gallup poll taken this weekend, George Bush's approval ratings dropped to 34%. What is not mentioned is the racial component of support for Bush. Take a guess at what Bush's approval rating is among Black Americans. Really, take a guess. . . . . . . . . . . Are you ready for this? . . . . . . TWO PERCENT . . . 98% of blacks say they disapprove of George Bush as president. Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )
	AnomalousNYC says: Wars, Debt and Outsourcing: The World is Uniting Against the Bush Imperium By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS Counterpunch, April 25, 2006 Is the United States a superpower? I think not. Consider these facts: The financial position of the US has declined dramatically. The US is heavily indebted, both government and consumers. The US trade deficit both in absolute size and as a percentage of GDP is unprecedented, reaching more than $800 billion in 2005 and accumulating to $4.5 trillion since 1990. With US job growth falling behind population growth and with no growth in consumer real incomes, the US economy is driven by expanding consumer debt. Saving rates are low or negative. The federal budget is deep in the red, adding to America's dependency on debt. The US cannot even go to war unless foreigners are willing to finance it. Our biggest bankers are China and Japan, both of whom could cause the US serious financial problems if they wished. A country whose financial affairs are in the hands of foreigners is not a superpower. The US is heavily dependent on imports for manufactured goods, including advanced technology products. In 2005 US dependency (in dollar amounts) on imported manufactured goods was twice as large as US dependency on imported oil. In the 21st century the US has experienced a rapid increase in dependency on imports of advanced technology products. A country dependent on foreigners for manufactures and advanced technology products is not a superpower. Because of jobs offshoring and illegal immigration, US consumers create jobs for foreigners, not for Americans. Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs reports document the loss of manufacturing jobs and the inability of the US economy to create jobs in categories other than domestic "hands on" services. According to a March 2006 report from the Center for Immigration Studies, most of these jobs are going to immigrants: "Between March 2000 and March 2005 only 9 percent of the net increase in jobs for adults (18 to 64) went to natives. This is striking because natives accounted for 61 percent of the net increase in the overall size of the 18 to 64 year old population." A country that cannot create jobs for its native born population is not a superpower. In an interview in the April 17 Manufacturing & Technology News, former TCI and Global Crossing CEO Leo Hindery said that the incentives of globalization have disconnected US corporations from US interests. "No economy," Hindery said, "can survive the offshoring of both manufacturing and services concurrently. In fact, no society can even take excessive offshoring of manufacturing alone." According to Hindery, offshoring serves the short-term interests of shareholders and executive pay at the long-term expense of US economic strength. Hindery notes that in 1981 the Business Roundtable defined its constituency as employees, shareholders, community, customers, and the nation." Today the constituency is quarterly earnings. A country whose business class has no sense of the nation is not a superpower. By launching a war of aggression on the basis of lies and fabricated "intelligence," the Bush regime violated the Nuremberg standard established by the US and international law. Extensive civilian casualties and infrastructure destruction in Iraq, along with the torture of detainees in concentration camps and an ever-changing excuse for the war have destroyed the soft power and moral leadership that provided the diplomatic foundation for America's superpower status. A country that is no longer respected or trusted and which promises yet more war isolates itself from cooperation from the rest of the world. An isolated country is not a superpower. A country that fears small, distant countries to such an extent that it utilizes military in place of diplomatic means is not a superpower. The entire world knows that the US is not a superpower when its entire available military force is tied down by a small lightly armed insurgency drawn from a Sunni population of a mere 5 million people. Neoconservatives think the US is a superpower because of its military weapons and nuclear missiles. However, as the Iraqi resistance has demonstrated, America's superior military firepower is not enough to prevail in fourth generation warfare. The Bush regime has reached this conclusion itself, which is why it increasing speaks of attacking Iran with nuclear weapons. The US is the only country to have used nuclear weapons against an opponent. If six decades after nuking Japan the US again resorts to the use of nuclear weapons, it will establish itself as a pariah, war criminal state under the control of insane people. Any sympathy that might still exist for the US would immediately disappear, and the world would unite against America. A country against which the world is united is not a superpower. Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )
	AnomalousNYC says: Please view this short video from the Union of Concerned Scientists about the US deployment of RNEP ("Bunker Buster") Nuclear Weapons against Iran: Nuking Iran VIDEO .... Administration’s Nuclear Saber Rattling on Iran Threatens Global Security Statement by Dr. Kurt Gottfried, Chairman, Union of Concerned Scientists, and Emeritus Professor of Physics, Cornell University April 11, 2006 "Recent reports suggest that the Bush administration is considering using nuclear weapons against Iran. The very fact that nuclear weapon use is being discussed as an option—against a state that does not have nuclear weapons and does not represent a direct or imminent threat to the United States—illustrates the extent to which the Bush administration has changed U.S. nuclear weapons policy. The Bush administration has explicitly rejected the basic precept that the sole purpose of U.S. nuclear weapons should be to deter the use of nuclear weapons. It has assigned a new, and provocative, mission to U.S. nuclear weapons: to dissuade or prevent other countries from undertaking military programs that could threaten U.S. interests in the future. A 'preventive' nuclear attack on Iran would fall into this category. It has also blurred the line between nuclear and conventional weapons by declaring that nuclear weapons can be used as part of military operations. This nuclear policy increases the likelihood that nuclear weapons will be used, and ultimately decreases U.S. as well as international security. Instead, the United States should commit itself to strengthen the taboo against the use of nuclear weapons that has developed over the past 60 years. Plans to use nuclear weapons against Iran also fail to recognize the immediate dangers inherent in the use of nuclear weapons. The administration is reportedly considering using the B61-11 nuclear 'bunker buster' against an underground facility near Natanz, Iran. The use of such a weapon would create massive clouds of radioactive fallout that could spread far from the site of the attack, including to other nations. Even if used in remote, lightly populated areas, the number of casualties could range up to more than a hundred thousand, depending on the weapon yield and weather conditions. Threatening to use nuclear weapons against Iran provides the strongest of incentives for nuclear proliferation, since it would send the message that the only way for a country to deter nuclear attack is to acquire its own nuclear arsenal. The administration cannot have its cake and eat it, too—it cannot have a viable nuclear non-proliferation policy while continually expanding the roles for its own nuclear weapons." Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )
	AnomalousNYC says: "All the beliefs, habits, tastes, emotions, mental attitudes that characterize our time are really designed to sustain the mystique of the Party and prevent the true nature of present-day society from being perceived. Physical rebellion, or any preliminary move toward rebellion, is at present not possible. From the proletarians nothing is to be feared. Left to themselves, they will continue from generation to generation and from century to century, working, breeding, and dying, not only without any impulse to rebel, but without the power of grasping that the world could be other than it is." --George Orwell, 1984 Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )
	cmrowell says: Great stuff. The photo reminds me of a similar one (or it might be the same?) where the old guys were standing around like this gloating about signing the late term abortion law. Not a single woman to be seen. Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )
	Ben° says: this is a nightmare!!! Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )
	mecan says: that bush guy is a moron and should be put down like the dieased and rabid dog he is. what's this reall all about anyway...? i read the reason for the iraq war was because saddam said he would no longer accept dollars for oil - only euro. now iran is saying the same thing... is this accurate? is that why the US gov. orchestrated the 911 attacks? let's hope fate kicks in soon - every president of the US elected in a year ending with a zero has been assassinated. Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )
	epicurus28 says: "God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East." -- George W. Bush to Mahmoud Abbas, June 26, 2003 I thought God commanded "thou Shalt not murder".... I've always had a problem with wars... Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )
	skyredoubt says: mecan, are you kidding? You really want to make a permanent hero out of him? Let's hope he finishes his term either in impeachment or just as a total failure that he is. Besides, let's not wish anybody death. Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )
	ILIGHT says: Hey. We need this guy to serve atleast ONE more term.... Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )
	amrtheproud says: for me Bush is not so diffrent of Binladen, both are killing in the name of god. Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )
	skyredoubt says: I do not wish death to Bin Laden either. Besides, a martyr death is probably much preferable for him. Or Bush. Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )
	StanD70 says: I guess for some, you just have to mention God for them to consider Bush ok. It's amazing how you can take what Bush says in and out of context and still meet the same conclusion...we will be better off when his dictatorship ends. Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )
	arranging constellations says: i am angry now for having read those quotes, its terrifying really that he could possess,or be suppossed to possess such power Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )
	amrtheproud says: Daikon this is so stupid... no wonder you have good photos and no comments. Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )
	farlane says: I haven't even scratched your photostream but I have to say your work is brilliant. Thank you very much for putting your beliefs on the line in such a compelling manner. Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )
	ILIGHT

The Decider

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