In this decision, the supreme court ruled on a case where the president had ordered Texas to obey the treaty obligations of the Vienna Convention, which states that a nation must be informed when one of its citizens is charged with a serious crime by another nation.
Texas disobeyed, and the court agreed with Texas, saying that the president had no power to order Texas to obey the law.
The court reached this decision by differentiating between treaties that deal with external issues, such as foreign relations and international affairs, and treaties that deal with regulating the domestic, or internal affairs of a nation.
Furthermore, the court differentiated between domestic treaties that contained enforcement clauses, and those that did not. The court said that domestic treaties that did not contain enforcement clauses could only be enforced by congressional law, not by presidential fiat, and required that bush have a law to enforce before he acts to enforce a domestic treaty that has no enforcement clause.
The remarkable thing is that the court actually checked bush's virtually unlimited use of presidential power, telling him his job was "to execute the laws, not make them."
If they really meant that, they would have ordered bush to arrest himself for openly breaking our laws against kidnapping, torture, and illegal searches, not to mention the breaches of our constitution that breaking these laws entailed.
The supreme court simply stated what bush has ignored during his whole administration: the president has no authority to make law, or apply authority without a congressional law to enforce.
This president has gone far beyond making his own laws, he has used his governmental authority to commit crimes and cover them under a veil of national security. Bush's crimes against the constitution and congressional law are extensive.
The president has made rules for war and captures, a power which the constitution reserves for congress.
The president has employed kidnapping and torture against congressional and international law.
The president has broken constitutional and congressional law by searching without warrants.
The president has issued "signing statements," in direct violation of the constitutionally mandated process of lawmaking.
The president has ask for, and signed a bill suspending habius corups without the required conditions of rebellion or invasion existing.
The president has broken international treaties long established by congressional law, namely the "old" geneva conventions.
It is ironic that the same president who committed all of these violent crimes against our constitution and rights is now being rightly told by the supreme court that his acts have no legitimacy without a basis in congressional law.
Strange how the court found the constitution when bush tried to use illegal authority to save lives, rather than take lives.
We would be a lot better off if the supreme court did not put him in office in the first place, or at least exercised their constitutional duties before his lawless government shattered our constitution, stole all our money, destroyed our military, and inflamed the world.
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