Shot in the Dark

Nothingburger

Joe Doakes, formerly of Como Park, emails:

The auto-pen pardons look bad, but I’m certain they will be upheld.  It’s a matter of federal law but examples from Minnesota might be illustrative. 

A deed to convey real estate is not valid without the signature of the grantor.

A signature is any mark intended to authenticate an instrument.  Making your X on the deed is a “signature.”  The law does not discriminate against the illiterate.

And a signature may be made by the signer, or by rubber stamp bearing the signer’s name, or made by another at the direction of the signer.  The law does not discriminate against the handicapped.

Given the broadness of the concept in widely different areas of the law, I am confident the courts would have no trouble upholding everything Biden signed by autopen the same as if he personally signed every document.  

They have to – otherwise there’s no end to the chaos caused by acknowledging that he was mentally incompetent and somebody else was running the country.  Can’t admit that publicly even though everybody knows it. 

Joe Doakes

The fact that Biden’s actions were protected by the same measures that protect illiterates and incompetents somehow takes a little sting off.

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Mitch Berg

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3 responses to “Nothingburger”

  1. justplainangry Avatar
    justplainangry

    The only way they can uphold that sig as valid is to literally declare PIC to be handicapped, namely mentally. And if he was mentally incapacitated, then he did not know what he was signing, hence all autopen signed docs are invalid. But with ACB and Roberts minding the gates, they will twist in the wind to uphold all signatures, basically ruling that you do not have to be in the right mind to run the country. Stare Decis is going to bite us all in the back, first that two-bit judges can override Executive actions and now this. Very soon t-shirts, “Bananas was a Woody Allen fiction, not a documentary” will be all the rage.

  2. jdm Avatar
    jdm

    ^ Very true, jpa (and good post from Mr Doakes).

    However, the real problem is that Republicans don’t have the balls do what any Democrat would do (see what Trump or even Nixon went through). Republicans still think of the Clinton Impeachment as a huge miscalculation, political and otherwise, even tho’ Clinton was guilty as charged.

  3. bikebubba Avatar
    bikebubba

    I don’t know what the law says, but I do think that it SHOULD note that there ought to be some verifiable way that we know that the President has actually signed a law, pardon, or executive order. Autopen only if he cannot actually sign, and might be a good idea to have video evidence.

    Autopen can be great for basic White House correspondence, but it’s important that we know that President actually engaged on more important things.

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