Year: 2007

Cheney, the Prodigal Veep, Returns to the Exec Branch

Buck Banks

Home again: The Politico is reporting that Vice President Dick Cheney has dropped his novel — and weird — argument that his office is not subject to an executive order regarding classified documents and is, after all, part of the executive branch of our fine government. Want to know why the sudden change of mind?

The decision follows a threat by Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), the No. 3 House Democrat, to try to cut off the office’s $4.8 million in executive-branch funding.

Man, you gotta love Rahm. First he engineers the Dems’ take-back of Congress and then he figures out a way to get Cheney to slither home from Mordor to the executive branch — threaten to turn off the bling-bling faucet. But what’s still not clear is, well, everything:

David S. Addington, Cheney’s chief of staff and counsel, wrote in a three-paragraph letter to Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) on Tuesday that the executive order on classified national security information does not give the archivists authority over the president or vice president. Addington said that therefore it “is not necessary in these circumstances to address the subject of any alternative reasoning.”

That amounted to throwing in the towel, according to administration officials speaking on condition of anonymity. The White House has no plans to reassert the argument there is any vice presidential distinction from the executive branch, the officials said.

Two senior Republican officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the rationale had been the view of the vice president’s lawyers, not Cheney himself.

White House spokespeople have been struggling to answer questions about the argument without repeating, amplifying or embracing it. Blogs, comics and pundits feasted on the neither-fish-nor-fowl argument, with Jon Stewart joking on “The Daily Show” Tuesday night that the vice president may be “half she-wolf.”

Emanuel has scheduled a vote on the veep office’s funding schedule for tomorrow and says the vote will still be held, despite the capitulation by Cheney’s evil minions.

CNN Reporting Republicans Finally Oppose Iraq Occupation

Trish

It’s finally happening. Republicans are starting to join the rest of us traitorous terrorist-loving surrender monkeys in opposing the ongoing occupation in Iraq.

Anti-war sentiment among Republican poll respondents has suddenly increased with 38 percent of Republicans now saying they oppose the war.

In the latest CNN-Opinion Research Corporation poll released Tuesday, 69 percent of those polled believe things are going badly in Iraq. Seventeen percent think the situation is improving.

Thirty percent of Americans polled say they favor the war, the lowest level of support on record. Two-thirds are opposed.

Anti-war sentiment among Republican poll respondents has suddenly increased with 38 percent of Republicans now saying they oppose the war.

Moreover, 63 percent of Americans are ready to withdraw at least some troops from Iraq. Forty-two percent of Republicans agree.

Fifty-four percent of Americans do not believe U.S. action in Iraq is morally justified.

The telephone poll of 1,029 adult Americans was conducted between June 22 and 24, 2007, and has a sampling error of plus-or-minus 3 percentage points.

Coulter Tries to Bait Terrorists into Killing Edwards

Trish

The bitch is back, and “bitch” is not a word I use often, believing both it sexist and insulting to female dogs. After all, “asshole” or “total fucker” will usually suffice and both are non gender-specific. But Ann Coulter, who said yesterday on Good Morning America, of all the inappropriate places, that she wishes John Edwards had been killed in a terrorist plot, fits the bill.

After famously calling Edwards a “faggot” in March, Coulter reached new lows even for her. And when Elizabeth Edwards was allowed to call in live to Hairball with Chris Matthews, Coulter showed herself painfully uncomfortable trying to defend the indefensible. How many times can one person toss her hair back or shift in her seat and recross her legs?

Rudy’s New S.C. Chair Caused Controversy with Racist Statements

Jon Ponder

One week ago, Rudolph Giuliani’s finance chairman in South Carolina, Thomas Ravenel, had to step down because he was indicted by the feds who accuse him of distributing massive amounts of cocaine.

In 2000, Arthur Ravenel referred to the NAACP as the “National Association of Retarded People.” Then said he was being “lynched” because of the controversy.

Today, the Giuliani campaign announced that Ravenel’s father, Arthur, would serve as a state co-chair. They either did not vet the elder Ravenel’s reputation in South Carolina, or they simply did not care that he has a history of creating controversy by making racist statements, including this beaut from January 2000:

Republican state Sen. Arthur Ravenel told the crowd at a Statehouse rally that lawmakers should not cave into the pressure of outside influences when they return next week for a legislative session that is certain to take up the divisive issue.

Ravenel told the crowd that he was recently confronted with questions by an out-of-state reporter who asked: “Aren’t you people in South Carolina worried about what the people in the rest of the country think about you?” To which the crowd shouted back with a resounding “No.”

“Can you believe that there are those who think that the General Assembly of South Carolina is going to . . . knuckle under, roll over and do the bidding (of) that organization known as the National Association for Retarded People?” lawmaker Ravenel asked the cheering crowd.

Later, reacting to the controversy, Ravenel proved how truly tasteless he is. “I made a rhetorical slip,” he told a Charleston newspaper, “and they want to lynch me for it.”

Does the U.N. Still Matter?

Buck Banks

Parade magazine, that venerable arbiter of objectivity and fairness, is running an on-line poll this week about the United Nations. It’s a simple question: Does the U.N. still matter? That’s a fair question — would that it had been asked in the context of a fair and objective article.

But it’s not. The article is long on criticism of the U.N. and short on criticism of the Bush administration, which has done much to harm the effectiveness and standing of the United Nations. The administration’s only act more crass than thumbing its nose at the world body on the eve of the invasion of Iraq was to send John Bolton — a stolid critic of the organization — there as U.S. ambassador.

Granted, the U.N. has never been that cool, collective, Esperanto-speaking, august body of the world’s best and brightest solving the world’s problems to make a better world. But it’s all we’ve got as a super-national entity. There’s not going to be any 20-foot tall robot named Gort to come down and make the nations of the Earth stop fighting like in “The Day the Earth Stood Still.” Closest we have is U.N. Attorney General Ban Ki-moon.

So go to the Parade poll and vote that the U.N. still does matter.

Poll: Dems On a Roll — Kind of

Buck Banks

Catch the aura: Seems the Democratic Party is on the rise, with a majority of Americans polled expressing support for a “generic” Democratic candidate for prez. Problem is, there are no “generic” Dem candidates — they’ve all got liabilities and personalities and other stuff that makes them somewhat acceptable but not as the iconic Democratic uber candidate that would be the polar opposite of the current resident fo 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

National Journal’s PollWatch was sratching its number-crunching noggin over the fact that Democrats seem to be more satisfied — enthusiastic even — about their primary choices than Republicans, who will probably not be jazzed even after former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson enters the race (Thanks, Mr. President!). Other poll findings:

In a recent Newsweek survey, the three top Democrats — Hillary Rodham Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama — led in every combination of matchups against the top four Republicans — Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson. It is crucial, however, to note that the poll was [composed] of 40 percent Democrats, 29 percent Republicans and 27 percent independents.

All three Democrats had double-digit leads over Thompson and Romney.

For Democrats, the most precarious matchup may be Edwards versus Giuliani, as 48 percent said they would vote for the former North Carolina senator if the former New York City mayor was his opponent. Giuliani received 46 percent in that scenario. But Edwards stacked up best against Romney at 57 percent to 36 percent; the 21-point gap was the largest margin of all 12 heats tested.

Clinton was strongest of the three against Giuliani with her seven-point lead, and Obama was the biggest threat to McCain with his 10-point advantage. All three Democrats had double-digit leads over Thompson and Romney.

Newsweek pollsters also threw New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I) into matchups including Clinton, Giuliani, McCain, Obama and Thompson. Although there has been much speculation over which party Bloomberg might hurt more should he jump into the race, both Clinton’s and Obama’s margins of victory increased in their head-to-head matchups against the GOP front-runners with Bloomberg in the field. (His support was just north of 10 percent in all six cases.)

Also of note in the survey were the primary fields, because while Obama trails Clinton by 16 points, 27 percent still supported him — that’s the same percentage of support as the top candidate in the Republican field, Giuliani. Of course, the Republican Party has the disadvantage of an unpopular president in office now. In a new American Research Group poll, President Bush’s approval rating rests at a dismal 27 percent.

Quote du Jour

Trish
Pepsi

“There is no religion without love, and people may talk as much as they like about their religion, but if it does not teach them to be good and kind to other animals as well as humans, it is all a sham.”

— Anna Sewell (1820-1878), Quaker, author of Black Beauty

What If the US Was Commandeered by a Rogue Elements – And Nobody Cared?

Jon Ponder

By any objective measure, rogue elements at the very top of the Executive Branch have seized control of the United States government:

  • For all we know, Dick Cheney is using a frontloader to deliver state secrets to the Saudis, or the British or Israel. Since 2003, he has refused to accede to security oversight regarding secret documents from his own administration.
  • If you think Cheney wouldn’t do anything to harm the country, you are wrong. In 2003, he instructed his minions, including Scooter Libby, to unmask a CIA agent who was working on a covert project tracking blackmarket sales of weapons of mass destruction. There is no reason not to expect that one of the weapons that the agent, Valerie Plame Wilson, would have otherwise helped capture will be set off in Times Square one day.
  • Late yesterday, the White House confirmed that Pres. Bush has also refused oversight on documents.
  • For years now, when Bush has signed a bill into law that he doesn’t like, he has simultaneously countermanded it with a “signing statement” indicating his intent to break the very law he just signed. He has done this over over 700 times.
  • Pres. Bush has admitted violating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act over 1,000 times.
  • The United States Dept. of Justice is being run out of a a boiler room at the RNC.
  • To further his party’s political ends, Bush divided the country and then took us to war using an indictment against Iraq that was full of lies.

And yet what this state of affairs evinces from a wide spectrum of the American public is a shrug. “What can ya do?”

For many people, shrugging off the outrage comes from fatigue. While the Republicans controlled everything, it seemed it would never end. When the Democrats took over last year, their margin in the Senate was too slim to fully take control. The conventional wisdom now is that Bush will serve out his term, albeit under constant barrage from his critics.

But this could be changing. If action is taken against the rogue elements at the top of our government before they are scheduled to step down in January 2009, it will only be with the blessing of the Republican minority.

Bush has polled under 30 percent in four polls this year. A majority of Republicans continue to support him, roughly 60 percent in a recent poll. But this number was 20 percentage points higher six months ago.

If it continues to go down, we may find that despite Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s assurances last year, impeachment is on the table.