i thought this was a joke

after all i had just been to the onion. read some pretty funny articles and saw some pretty funny pictures. perhaps, i thought, one of those onion articles accidentally escaped and made it's way over to the progressive. really. i thought that. surely this article COULD NOT be real. wtf is the king of the united states issuing signing statements or executive orders or directives about LEBANON for? wtf gives him the RIGHT to issue signing statements about LEBANON?

it's NO joke

Bush’s Executive Order on Lebanon Even Worse than the One on Iraq
August 3, 2007 By Matthew Rothschild

George W. Bush is churning out executive orders and Presidential directives just as fast as Dick Cheney’s lawyers can fill up yellow legal pads.
The power that he is asserting—no, grabbing—with these executive orders is astonishing and alarming. Such power imperils our liberties and our democratic system of government.
Two weeks ago, Bush issued an extraordinary executive order entitled, “Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq.”
It gives to the Secretary of the Treasury the authority to freeze the property of people who are engaging in violence or who “pose a significant risk” of engaging in violence against the Iraqi government or the economic and reconstruction plan for Iraq.
It also bans donations of “food, clothing, and medicine, intended to be used to relieve human suffering” to anyone whose property has been frozen.
On August 1, Bush issued a similar executive order, this one entitled, “Blocking Property of Persons Undermining the Sovereignty of Lebanon or Its Democratic Processes and Institutions.”
Syrian meddling in Lebanon constitutes an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States,” Bush asserted, adding, “I hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat.”
This executive order is even more sweeping.
Where the one on Iraq applies to people who engage in violent acts or pose a significant risk of engaging in violent acts, this one doesn’t even bother to limit it to that. Anyone who engages in any act—violent or nonviolent—against the government of Lebanon can now have his or her property frozen.........


please note, the white house website confirms it is NO joke