The Island of Logic

Obama severely criticized George W. Bush for using signing statements while on the campaign trail. (See video below) A signing statement is a written comment by the President at the signing of legislation. Usually this is just a statement about the bill, but sometimes a President will state that a part of the bill is unconstitutional and they will chose to ignore it or enforce it in a way that they think is more constitutional. It’s similar to the line item veto which past Presidents have wanted to use to cut down on Congress’ pork barrel spending but the signing statement is only used on constitutional or unconstitutional grounds. The line item veto is not law, but frankly neither is the signing statement. I do believe this is an overreach of executive power and I did not support George W. Bush when he used it. The Judicial branch is responsible for declaring legislation constitutional or unconstitutional, but they have been shirking in that responsibility also. Remember Campaign Finance Reform? If a President believes a piece of legislation is unconstitutional he should veto the entire piece. Obama has now broken his campaign promise to not use signing statements when he tried to ignore restrictions to international aid payments in a signing statement. (Read below)

From Hot Air:

The House rebuked President Obama for trying to ignore restrictions to international aid payments, voting overwhelmingly for an amendment forcing the administration to abide by its constraints.
House members approved an amendment by a 429-2 vote to have the Obama administration pressure the World Bank to strengthen labor and environmental standards and require a Treasury Department report on World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) activities. The amendment to a 2010 funding bill for the State Department and foreign operations was proposed by Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), but it received broad bipartisan support.
The conditions on World Bank and IMF funding were part of the $106 billion war supplemental bill that was passed last month. Obama, in a statement made as he signed the bill, said that he would ignore the conditions.
They would “interfere with my constitutional authority to conduct foreign relations by directing the Executive to take certain positions in negotiations or discussions with international organizations and foreign governments, or by requiring consultation with the Congress prior to such negotiations or discussions,” Obama said in the signing statement.

Iowahawk takes the death of Michael Jackson and the meltdown of the California economy and and combines them into a beautiful piece of satire. This is truely a great read.

http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2009/07/fans-flock-to-mourn-california-18492009.html

    Oops, the kind of thing you might say if you spill somebody’s drink accidentally, or if you call someone the wrong name, or lock your keys in your car. It happens to most of us at some time or another. However it is totally inappropriate as a response when you blow nearly $800 billion of taxpayer’s money on a government program that blew up in your face. That was jist of VP Joe Biden’s response on ABC when he said that “everyone guessed wrong” on the economic stimulus package. Oops!
    Hold on. If Obama and his team failed to grasp the severity of the crisis, were they incompetent? And if they botched the diagnosis, then what about their prescription — stimulus spending plenty of critics warned would come too late to be effective?
   America still waits for the promised recovery. Last week unemployment climbed to 9.5 percent, a 26-year high and well above the 8 percent the administration predicted. Worse, Biden’s remarks suggest the current economic team might be out of its element.
    And by the way not “everyone” guessed wrong Einstein, exactly what was the voting record on this “Stimulus” package, lets review shall we?

    And to make matters worse none of those voting had even read the bill, but were urged to vote for it anyway. Kinda gives new meaning to the “blind leading the blind”.
I will give you this Mr. VP you were right on the guessing part, next time you get the urge to guess at something, try a game show.