Digby: Laying Landmines

Dday wrote about Bush pulling out his trusty pen earlier today and issuing yet another signing statement, this time saying the congress has no right to tell the president he can't build permanent bases in Iraq. A reader reminded me that Bush was a busy unitary boy today. He was also issuing executive orders about what the congress is and isn't allowed to appropriate money for:

As legislators and federal officials prepared to leave town for the Christmas recess last month, Congress hurriedly passed a massive 3,400-page spending bill to keep the government running for the next fiscal year. Tucked inside the report language of the omnibus bill, and not technically bound by the force of law, were nearly 9,000 congressional earmarks worth an estimated $7.5 billion.