Inadvertant pocket veto?

I saw some things on this last week.

The President had a couple of bills come to his desk, bills he had made a big deal of needing to have passed. The one, allows him to federalise the National Guard, by fiat.

His signing statement, as to be expected, shows a callous disregard for the actual law.

"A number of provisions in the Act call for the executive branch to furnish information to the Congress or other entities on various subjects. These provisions include sections 219, 313, 360, 1211, 1212, 1213, 1227, 1402, and 3116 of the Act, section 427 of title 10, United States Code, as amended by section 932 of the Act, and section 1093 of the Ronald W. Reagan National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005 (Public Law 108-375) as amended by section 1061 of the Act. The executive branch shall construe such provisions in a manner consistent with the President's constitutional authority to withhold information the disclosure of which could impair foreign relations, the national security, the deliberative processes of the Executive, or the performance of the Executive's constitutional duties."

There are three other paragrpahs, which start, "The executive branch shall construe as advisory section ... of the Act, which purports..."

Here is the complete text of one of those paragraphs.

The executive branch shall construe sections 914 and 1512 of the Act, which purport to make consultation with specified Members of Congress a precondition to the execution of the law, as calling for but not mandating such consultation, as is consistent with the Constitution's provisions concerning the separate powers of the Congress to legislate and the President to execute the laws.

WTF... Congres purports to make real, you know, laws, pursuant to the powers assigned to them. But the arrogance which has been evident in his treatment of the laws he refuses to actually veto has been a recurrent theme.

Congress purports.

It was sent to him on 5 Oct.. 2006.

The other bill has gotten more press.

H.R. 6166, the Military Commissions Act.

People are saying that, as they were passed on X date, and signed more than 10 days later (even excluding Sundays, as the Constitution requires).

I've seen people discussing all sorts of arcana, what counts as a recess (I think the month and a half taken for the elections should count) and what the courts will do. But they all seem to have missed the important part. Looking at the Constitution, Art. 2 Sec. 7:

Every bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, 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, with his objections to that House in which it shall have originated, ... If any bill shall not be returned by the President within ten days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a law, in like manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their adjournment prevent its return, in which case it shall not be a law

And we see the ten days, but we also see, the clock starts on the day he gets it, not the day it gets passed by the Houses of Congress.

So the chance to get it ruled gone, on procedural grounds, is a non-starter.

Blogs

One of the things (as I alluded before) about Blogshares is that I have to look at a lot of blogs I'd otherwise never hear of.

One was a confession of how friends went on a spree of robberies, and gave her the gun, in a paper bag, before the cops showed up. She says she tossed it in the trash as she was catching a bus back home.

Tefl0nknight is a student chef, writing about his time in the trenches as he learns his trade.

Or the high school teacher who writes of the fortunes of his water polo team.

And the letter to the lover going away to Thailand, never to really return.

Most of them are dead. I see the traces of an active life, and then it fades away. No, usually it just stops. I don't know if they tired of it, or decided people didn't care, or that too many people were finding out too much. Perhaps they died. It's kind of like finding a letter in a book from a charity shop; a glimpse of a private life, gone, like perfume on the breeze.

Some minor cooking notes

I've been able to do some cooking.

Tuesday I made a chicken stew. We had some great carrots from the farmers' market. Yellow, and so tightly grained that the cut faces were slick, like glass, when one licked them.

I took one, grated it, and tossed it in with some onion;and oil, in a pot. I cubed some potatoes and, when the onions had sweated, tossed them in, with a few stalks of celery. I let them brown, stirring them so the browned bits would break, and expose more surface to the pan. Then I added water to cover, and covered the pan. After twenty minutes, or so, the water was in the potatoes, and the bottom was browned some more (that's the tricky part, lose track of the time and the bottom will scorch).

When it was just a bit shy of done, I put a tablespoon, or so, of tomato paste into the center, and let it get loose, and runny, from the heat, before I stirred it into the veggies.

A pint, or so, of broth (chicken) and the same of water, a few peppercorns. Cut carrots to bite sized pieces and chop some tomatoes into large bites, and add them, with some more celery (don't forget the leaves, and the heart. Stir, every so often.

About twenty minutes before serving I cut up some chicken breasts (we'd roasted a couple, so Marcia can rubberise them for the classroom) and tossed them in.

Because the potatoes had been abused by the browning, and stirred as they cooked, they made the broth thick, and the texture was perfect, without the need to use any extra starch.

Monday I made pasta. Barry and I put up sauce on Sunday, with a load of heirloom, and a Better Girl, tomatoes. He is fortunate to have a juicer, so no need to strain the juice from the pan (which is what I do, chop some of the tomatoes in half, and get them to fall apart in the pan, then I can just toss the rest in. As they boil, they fall apart. Then I ladle them out, and into through a strainer to remove the peels, and most of the seeds).

So, pulversise some dried oregano, basil and marjoram, toss in a few peppecorns and wait. Some onions, wilted in the pan, and then some garlic, not too much of either, and both chopped small; just a bit larger than minced. Put them in and when the sauce is a little less thick than you want, pull it off the stove.

You can can it (tomato sauce is acid enough that you can jar it at cooking heat), or let it cool and then put it into ziplocs and freeze it.

To make pasta, take what you want, put on the stove. Take onions, and cook them until they are translucent, add some chopped garlic, and cook until it's just golden. Don't let the garlic burn. If it does, just start over. When the garlic is done, add a cup, or so, of white wine (or red, your choice) I used a gewurtzraminer.

Took a couple of stalks of marjoram, and oregeno from the garden. After about an hour you'll want to pull them, so they don't go bitter; which is why just tossing them in the pot is the best way to do it. Oregeno is actually better when dried, but the fresh notes are worth adding.