Cheney: VP's office not part of Executive branch.

This is more than Cheney making idiotic statements, he made those statements so they he could get away with not disclosing information to the oversight committee. Typical Cheney behavior.

Cheney ignoring executive order on classified info oversight: House panel

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source

He is undefensible and should go if the American public had any guts at all.

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squinney wrote:

Hey, MM recognized it was an idiotic thing to say. He wasn't defending what was said or denying it was said, just that he hadn't seen it yet for himself.

He also didn't try to say Cheney was right or that he had a good point or any other nonsense, so give him his props, guys.

There you go again being reasonable, squinney. What are you trying to do, balance out BPB?

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squinney wrote:

Hey, MM recognized it was an idiotic thing to say. He wasn't defending what was said or denying it was said, just that he hadn't seen it yet for himself.

He also didn't try to say Cheney was right or that he had a good point or any other nonsense, so give him his props, guys.

Fair enough.. half full rather than half empty.

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Ticomaya wrote:

squinney wrote:
Hey, MM recognized it was an idiotic thing to say. He wasn't defending what was said or denying it was said, just that he hadn't seen it yet for himself.

He also didn't try to say Cheney was right or that he had a good point or any other nonsense, so give him his props, guys.

There you go again being reasonable, squinney. What are you trying to do, balance out BPB?

tico, if I wanted **** from you I'd spoon it off your chin Very Happy

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Bush Claims Oversight Exemption, too.

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Well, there ya go.

Are we under a dictatorship, yet?

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If we had a congress Cheney would already be impeached for refusal to follow the law. If this goes too the Supreme court the republicans on the court will say Cheney is right. Can Justices who are biased by conserative idealogy be impeached?

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rabel22 wrote:

If we had a congress Cheney would already be impeached for refusal to follow the law. If this goes too the Supreme court the republicans on the court will say Cheney is right. Can Justices who are biased by conserative idealogy be impeached?

Sure they can,but only AFTER you impeach those that are biased by a liberal idealogy.

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rabel22 wrote:

If we had a congress Cheney would already be impeached for refusal to follow the law. If this goes too the Supreme court the republicans on the court will say Cheney is right. Can Justices who are biased by conserative idealogy be impeached?

The setup of the courts and DOJ has been part of the deliberate plan all along.

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This raises some interesting legal questions. Since Cheney is part of the legislative branch then he should be under the same guidelines as the legislative branch. There is no statute allowing the legislative branch to declassify information. Does this mean that Cheney's office illegally declassifed information when it set out to dispute Wilson? It seems it would mean that.

What is the normal response to a member of the legislative branch that leaks classified information? Don't they have their ability to see classified information revoked?

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Cheney will do whatever he wants with impunity. end of story. no debate. it's sickening....

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Bush "the decider" decides again

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White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Cheney is not obligated to submit to oversight by an office that safeguards classified information, as other members and parts of the executive branch are. Cheney's office has contended that it does not have to comply because the vice president serves as president of the Senate, which means that his office is not an "entity within the executive branch."

"This is a little bit of a nonissue," Perino said at a briefing dominated by the issue. Cheney is not subject to the executive order, she said, "because the president gets to decide whether or not he should be treated separately, and he's decided that he should."

.....

Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) said he plans to propose next week, as part of a spending bill for executive operations, a measure to place a hold on funds for Cheney's office and official home until he clarifies to which branch of the government he belongs. Emanuel acknowledged that the proposal is just a stunt, but he said that if Cheney is not part of the executive branch, he should not receive its funds. "As we say in Chicago, follow the money," he said.

Washington Post Link

Great stunt, Emanuael! Aint you a riot? Now, go do something about this, cause it isn't something to yuk yuk about with "stunts!"

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http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/23/132229/743

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Via e-mail:

Washington, D.C. - House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel issued the following statement regarding his amendment to cut funding for the Office of the Vice President from the bill that funds the executive branch. The legislation - the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations bill -- will be considered on the floor of the House of Representatives next week.

"The Vice President has a choice to make. If he believes his legal case, his office has no business being funded as part of the executive branch. However, if he demands executive branch funding he cannot ignore executive branch rules. At the very least, the Vice President should be consistent. This amendment will ensure that the Vice President's funding is consistent with his legal arguments. I have worked closely with my colleagues on this amendment and will continue to pursue this measure in the coming days."

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It being an executive order, I have no problem with amending the order to exempt the President and Vice President.

But don't try to claim the VP's office isn't part of the Executive branch.

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Cheney ordered Secret Service logs destroyed, paper reports John Byrne
Published: Saturday June 23, 2007

VP created new secret document classification, keeps 'man-size' safes

A massive piece in Sunday's Washington Post reveals the true extent of secrecy Vice President Dick Cheney requires.

So clandestine is the Vice President's work that he has created a new secret document designation: "Treated As: Top Secret/SCI."

That's not all: the piece also reveals that Cheney keeps 'man-size' Mosler safes on hand for "workaday business" and has destroyed all Secret Service visitor logs, in addition to already refusing to comply with a national security directive issued by President Bush, which RAW STORY first reported earlier this week.

Not only does he refuse to give the names of his staff, Cheney won't even disclose how many people he employs.

"Across the board, the vice president's office goes to unusual lengths to avoid transparency," the Post article says. "Cheney declines to disclose the names or even the size of his staff, generally releases no public calendar and ordered the Secret Service to destroy his visitor logs."

"Stealth is among Cheney's most effective tools," the piece adds. "Man-size Mosler safes, used elsewhere in government for classified secrets, store the workaday business of the office of the vice president. Even talking points for reporters are sometimes stamped "Treated As: Top Secret/SCI."

"Experts in and out of government said Cheney's office appears to have invented that designation, which alludes to "sensitive compartmented information," the most closely guarded category of government secrets," the Post adds. "By adding the words "treated as," they said, Cheney seeks to protect unclassified work as though its disclosure would cause "exceptionally grave damage to national security."

The Post intimates that Cheney's office is like a black hole -- everything goes in, but nothing comes out.

"In the usual business of interagency consultation, proposals and information flow into the vice president's office from around the government, but high-ranking White House officials said in interviews that almost nothing flows out," the Post reporters note. "Close aides to Cheney describe a similar one-way valve inside the office, with information flowing up to the vice president but little or no reaction flowing down."

Read the full Post article here.
link

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DrewDad wrote:

It being an executive order, I have no problem with amending the order to exempt the President and Vice President.

But don't try to claim the VP's office isn't part of the Executive branch.

This is a administration that knows how to twist every amendment or law to its own advantage, wonder how they let this one slip by them to where now they will have re-word it?

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http://blog.washingtonpost.com/cheney/chapters/pushing_the_envelope_on_presi/index.html

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The Supreme Court has defined cruelty as an act that "shocks the conscience" under the circumstances. Addington suggested, according to another government lawyer, that harsh methods would be far less shocking under circumstances involving a mass-casualty terrorist threat. Cheney may have alluded to that advice in an interview with ABC's "Nightline" on Dec. 18, 2005, saying that "what shocks the conscience" is to some extent "in the eye of the beholder."

Eager to put detainee scandals behind them, Bush's advisers spent days composing a statement in which the president would declare support for the veto-proof bill on detainee treatment. Hours before Bush signed it into law on Dec. 30, 2005, Cheney's lawyer intercepted the accompanying statement "and just literally takes his red pen all the way through it," according to an official with firsthand knowledge.

Addington substituted a single sentence. Bush, he wrote, would interpret the law "in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President to supervise the unitary executive branch and as Commander in Chief."

Cheney's office had used that technique often. Like his boss, Addington disdained what he called "interagency treaties," one official said. He had no qualms about discarding language "agreed between Cabinet secretaries," the official said.

Top officials from the CIA, Justice, State and Defense departments unanimously opposed the substitution, according to two officials. The ranking national security lawyer at the White House, John B. Bellinger III, warned that Congress would view Addington's statement as a "stick in the eye" after weeks of consensus-building by national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley.

None of that mattered. With Cheney's weight behind it, White House counsel Harriet E. Miers sent Addington's version to Bush for his signature. "The only person in Washington who cares less about his public image than David Addington is Dick Cheney," said a former White House ally. "What both of them miss is that ..... in times of war, a prerequisite for success is people having confidence in their leadership. This is the great failure of the administration -- a complete and total indifference to public opinion."

The post isn't pulling punches against Cheney these days..

Cycloptichorn

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A Vice President Without Borders, Bordering on Lunacy
A Vice President Without Borders, Bordering on Lunacy
By Maureen Dowd
The New York Times
Sunday 24 June 2007

It's hard to imagine how Dick Cheney could get more dastardly, unless J. K. Rowling has him knock off Harry Potter next month.

Harry's cloak of invisibility would be no match for Vice's culture of invisibility.

I've always thought Cheney was way out there - the most Voldemort-like official I've run across. But even in my harshest musings about the vice president, I never imagined that he would declare himself not only above the law, not only above the president, but actually his own dark planet - a separate entity from the White House.

I guess a man who can wait 14 hours before he lets it dribble out that he shot his friend in the face has no limit on what he thinks he can keep secret. Still, it's quite a leap to go from hiding in a secure, undisclosed location in the capital to hiding in a secure, undisclosed location in the Constitution.

Dr. No used to just blow off the public and Congress as he cooked up his shady schemes. Now, in a breathtaking act of arrant arrogance, he's blowing off his own administration.

Henry Waxman, the California congressman who looks like an accountant and bites like a pit bull, is making the most of Congress's ability, at long last, to scrutinize Cheney's chicanery.

On Thursday, Mr. Waxman revealed that after four years of refusing to cooperate with the government unit that oversees classified documents, the vice president tried to shut down the unit rather than comply with the law ensuring that sensitive data is protected. The National Archives appealed to the Justice Department, but who knows how much justice there is at Justice, now that the White House has so blatantly politicized it?

Cheney's office denied doing anything wrong, but Cheney's office is also denying it's an office. Tricky Dick Deuce declared himself exempt from a rule that applies to everyone else in the executive branch, instructing the National Archives that the Office of the Vice President is not an "entity within the executive branch" and therefore is not subject to presidential executive orders.

"It's absurd, reflecting his view from the first day he got into office that laws don't apply to him," Representative Waxman told me. "The irony is, he's taking the position that he's not part of the executive branch."

Ah, if only that were true. Then maybe W. would be able to close Gitmo, which Vice has insisted he not do. And Condi wouldn't have to worry every night that she'll wake up to find crazy Dick bombing Iran, whispering to W. that they have to do it before that weak sister Hillary takes over.

"Your decision to exempt your office from the president's order is problematic because it could place national security secrets at risk," Mr. Waxman, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, wrote to Cheney.

Of course, it's doubtful, now that Vice has done so much to put our national security at risk, that he'll suddenly listen to reason.

Cheney and Cheney's Cheney, David Addington, his equally belligerent, ideological and shadowy lawyer and chief of staff, have no shame. After claiming executive privilege to withhold the energy task force names and protect Scooter Libby, they now act outraged that Vice should be seen as part of the executive branch.

Cheney, they argue, is the president of the Senate, so he's also part of the legislative branch. Vice is casting himself as a constitutional chimera, an extralegal creature with the body of a snake and the head of a sea monster. It's a new level of gall, to avoid accountability by saying you're part of a legislative branch that you've spent six years trying to weaken.

But gall is the specialty of Addington, who has done his best to give his boss the powers of a king. He was the main author of the White House memo justifying torture of terrorism suspects, and he helped stonewall the 9/11 commission. He led the fights supporting holding terrorism suspects without access to courts and against giving Congress and environmentalists access to information about the energy industry big shots who secretly advised Cheney on energy policy.

Dana Perino, a White House press spokeswoman, had to go out on Friday and defend Cheney's bizarre contention that he is his own government. "This is an interesting constitutional question that legal scholars can debate," she said.

I love that Cheney was able to bully Colin Powell, Pentagon generals and George Tenet when drumming up his fake case for war, but when he tried to push around the little guys, the National Archive data collectors - I'm visualizing dedicated "We the People" wonky types with glasses and pocket protectors - they pushed back.

Archivists are the new macho heroes of Washington.

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Calling Cheney's Bluff
Posted 06/25/2007
Calling Cheney's Bluff
The Nation

Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel has come up with the right response to Dick Cheney's attempt to suggest that the Office of the Vice President is not part of the executive branch.

The House Democratic Caucus chairman wants to take the Cheney at his word. Cheney says his office is "not an entity within the executive branch," so Emanuel wants to take away the tens of millions of dollars that are allocated to the White House to maintain it.

The root of the controversy is in a fight that the vice president has picked with the National Archives, which is charged with keeping tabs on how the offices of the president, the vice president and their appointees handle classified documents.

Under federal legislation enacted in 1995, members of the executive branch must work with the Archives to preserve classified documents. The law was backed up, at least in part, by an executive order issued four years ago by President Bush. But Cheney and his staff have refused for five years to file reports that are required as part of the oversight process. Why? Because the vice president -- that's the vice president -- claims he is not exactly a member of the executive branch.

So what is Cheney? Because the vice president serves in the frequently ceremonial position of president of the Senate, Cheney's office now claims that he is a member of the legislative branch -- and thus unburdened by any responsibility to cooperate with the Archives.

Forget the fact that the Constitution clearly defines the vice presidency as an executive position.

Forget the fact that, since then-Congressman Cheney wrote the Iran-Contra investigation minority report defending the "right" of the Reagan administration to set its own foreign policy, he has been a consistent and aggressive advocate for increasing the authority of the executive branch.

Forget the fact that, since the Supreme Court handed power to the Buch-Cheney ticket in December 2OOO, Cheney has fashioned himself as the most powerful vice president in history.

Forget the fact that when Cheney has steadfastly refused to share classified information with the U.S. House and Senate.

Forget the fact that when Cheney actually makes his way to Capitol Hill it is famously to spew obscenities at Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy.

O.K., says Emanuel.

If Cheney's a member of the legislative branch, the Democratic Caucus chair suggests, the vice president won't need all the money that currently goes to pay for his executive office, extensive staff and that secure undisclosed location that is so often his haunt. So Emanuel plans this week to offer an amendment to a spending bill that would defund the Office of the Vice President.

Of course, there would still be funding for the Office of the Senate President. But, let's be frank, the rare tie-breaking duties and ceremonial administrative functions associated with that position won't require more than a smidgen of the money that now goes to the vice president's epic executive-branch operations.

"This amendment will ensure that the vice president's funding is consistent with his legal arguments," say Emanuel, a former aide to President Clinton who, like Cheney, has served in both the legislative and executive branches.

Come to think of it, no matter what branch of the government he happens to occupy, doesn't it make sense to defund Cheney? At this point in the Bush-Cheney interregnum, any move that disempowers Dick Cheney can only benefit the Republic.

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squinney wrote:

Waxman is on the case. Look Here for more info and documentation.

I don't think he went to public school. I think he's just pushing as far as he can to have full run of things with no oversight, no checks, etc. He's gotten by with it so far, so just like any other snotty nosed brat he's gonna keep going.

Who's gonna stop him?

What is so amusing is that you and your confreres who belive that the VP is the most venal of base politicians in this here republic, also believe Henry Waxman to be a the quintessential non-partisan White Knight.

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Walter Hinteler wrote:

I won't believe that there's any conservative out there willing to stand on his or her hind legs and defend Cheney for his new war on democracy.

You know Walter, many of us conservative sub-humans might wish to respond to your oh so scathing comments but it's damned hard to balance ourselves on two legs, and we would rather reserve the effort for copulation that engaging in banter with you.

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Cheney: VP's office not part of Executive branch.

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