Last night, with the Patriot Act’s surveillance and investigative measures due to expire at midnight, and Congress having just passed an extension while President Obama was on a European pub crawl (or, y’know, addressing Parliament, attending the G-8 summit, meeting with Medvedev, strategizing with world leaders about the revolutions in the Middle East… whatever, same difference), President Obama needed to urgently sign the Patriot Act extension bill into law, lest our national security be threatened. (Candidate Obama could not be reached for comment.) But the bill was on the wrong side of the ocean! You’d think maybe it could be faxed or e-mail to him, but apparently not. Instead…
White House aides used a machine called an autopen to “sign” President Obama’s name to the Patriot Act extension … Obama was in France at the G8 summit and directed his staff to apply his signature to the bill. It’s the first time he’s ever “signed” a bill in such a fashion, aides say.
Time was of the essence in signing the Patriot Act extension because the surveillance and investigative measures it renews were to expire at midnight Thursday. Administration officials said an expiration of those authorities for even hours would cause significant problems.
The Constitution, unsurprisingly, makes no mention of autopens or robo-signing. It says that a bill “shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States: If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it.” However, Obama aides point to a 2005 opinion from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel that concluded that, despite the Constitution’s requirements, a bill need not be physically presented to the president or actually signed by him to become law.
I haven’t read the OLC opinion, but I’m pretty sure this means that, technically, the “autopen” is now the President of the United States. The robot takeover has begun. #PANIC!
P.S. Doug Powers: “It’s possible that eventually TOTUS [TelePrompTer of the United States] and the autopen will become completely self-aware.” The Robots have us right where they want us…
I realize they are few and far between these days but you think they could have faxed the bill to him and had him sign that or something.
Silly Brendan – TOTUS is still in charge – this time, instead of having The Wetware perfom, TOTUS had the autopen do so … that’s all … nothing to see here … move on, move on …
They skipped Biden? Whew!
…or, y’know, addressing Parliament, attending the G-8 summit, meeting with Medvedev, strategizing with world leaders about the revolutions in the Middle East… whatever, same difference…
You left out making a complete ass of himself (again) before foreign heads of state. But hey, at least Obama never looked stupid trying to open locked doors like that idiot frat boy Bush, right? (okay, bad example) Also, Sarah Palin is stoopid…
Remind me again how many unnecessary wars Obama has started or how many economies he has rode into the ground? On that score its still Bush 2 – Obama 0
Also, Sarah Palin IS stupid, thats not a partisan slam, its objective fact. She thought thinks that asking her what she reads is a gotcha question and an attack on her character.
Also, auto correct/complete is stupid and the “thougt” in that last comment shouldn’t be there 🙂
Let us consider #5 …
Afghan government sponsored Taliban/al qaeda kill 3000+ citizens of a bunch of civilians of various countries on 9/11 – then Bush, with support from various countries, with explicitly-sought support of Congress, goes into Afghanistan and removes the Taliban-supporting government – and our davidkian proudly proclaims that *Bush* started it ?
Iraq under Saddam Hussein tries to physically take over Kuwait – and Bush the Elder worked with Congress and the UN and got together a coalition that chased Saddam back out again … is *this* one of the 2 Bush-started wars, in davidkian- think/speak ?
Iraq under Saddam Hussein breaks the first Iraq War cease-fire right left and centre, and after 14 ? 17 ? UN Resolutions, Bush II gets Congress to support it and the UN to support it, and leads a coalition in to remove Saddam and his regime from power, successfully … in davidkian thought/speak – is *this* one of the wars Bush started ?
Then there’s Libya, currently … Bush has been out of office for over 2 years – so Obama has to be the C-in-C who is sending in US forces to attack Libya … and that’s without the explicit support of Congress … and yet, davdikianly, Libya isn’t a war, right ?
As for the economy – 9/11 could easily have sent the US economy into a recession – and yet, with whatever they did do (that helped) or didn’t do (that would have hindered, the US didn’t go into a recession … indeed, it continued prospering, more and more …
Then the 2006 election happened … the Dems take over both houses (including with Obama as Senator … prior to that, the annual federal deficit had been going down, significantly … between 2006 and 2008, that trend started coming undone … 2008, the Dems get supermajorities in both houses and get the White House … so the Dems turned the economy round, from Bush’s excessively high deficits, right, and they brought the deficits down again ?
OK – if that’s not exactly what happened, what did the Dems do with the economy and the annual federal budget deficits ? Why, they increased the annual federal budget deficits – and, while doing so, managed to make the US business climate increasingly hostile, too …
As yet, Obama hasn’t riddent he US economy into the ground … which is not for the lack of him trying …