MetaFilter posts tagged with cheney and politics

Presidential Crimes

homunculus — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 14:55:19 -0800

Presidential Crimes: Moving on is not an option. "In deciding about legal redress, we need to be clear about the large stakes in our decision. The very multiplicity of the apparent crimes, the sheer array of arguably broken laws, is dizzying. But that multiplicity must be faced, for in it we will see that what got in President Bush’s way was not any one law but the rule of law itself. It is the rule of law that has been put in jeopardy by a project of executive domination; it is the rule of law that will continue to be in peril; and it is only, therefore, by addressing the crimes through legal instruments—through a formal, legal arena, and not simply through the electoral repudiation of bad policy—that the grave and widespread damage stands a chance of being repaired."

Ready from Day One, 2001 Edition

wendell — Fri, 02 May 2008 11:59:04 -0800

"Only Nixon could go to China," and only ex-Republican ex-Senator Lincoln Chafee can explain how George W. Bush set out "to preempt the Congress... on every issue", "turned his back on (his) bedrock campaign pledges", and become simultaneously America's most powerful and least popular President (and why there could never be a "surely this..." moment). NOT just another OMGBUSH commentary, this should be required reading for anybody who honestly wants to know what went wrong.

Views on Impeaching Bush and Cheney

psmealey — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 07:37:54 -0800

Tough talk about impeachment. A public opinion poll from the American Research Group recently reported that more than four in ten Americans — 45% — favor impeachment hearings for President Bush and more than half — 54% — favored impeachment for Vice President Cheney. In the video segment linked to here (available via javascript pop-up window from the main linked page), Bill Moyers gets perspective on the role of impeachment in American political life from Constitutional scholar Bruce Fein, who wrote the first article of impeachment against President Bill Clinton, and THE NATION's John Nichols, author of THE GENIUS OF IMPEACHMENT. Transcript is available here.

"Your Superfluous Excellency" no more... more like Capo di tutti i capi

psmealey — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 15:06:48 -0800

'A Different Understanding With the President' The first of four chapters in this week's Washington Post on how Dick Cheney became the most influential and powerful man ever to hold the office of vice president. This series examines Cheney's largely hidden and little-understood role in crafting policies for the War on Terror, the economy and the environment. By Barton Gellman and Jo Becker.

Darth Cheney Strikes Back

homunculus — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 20:26:36 -0800

Hussein's Prewar Ties To Al-Qaeda Discounted. A newly declassified report (PDF) by the Pentagon's inspector general claims that Iraq was not working with al-Qaeda before the U.S. invasion and that the intelligence was manipulated by then-Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith. On the same day as the report came out, Dick Cheney claimed that they did have a relationship via Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Zarqawi may be dead, but he's still useful. [Via TalkLeft.]

Scooter throws Turd Blossom under the bus

ibmcginty — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 17:23:13 -0800

Politics/PlameFilter: In opening arguments today in the Plame investigation perjury case against Vice President Cheney's former Chief of Staff I. Lewis Libby, the prosecutor portrayed Libby as an agent of a Cheney-driven media offensive. Perhaps the biggest surprise of the day came from Libby's attorney, who portrayed his client as a White House-chosen scapegoat for Karl Rove's misdeeds. A conservative reporter saw in Libby's emerging defense a "dramatic split inside the Bush White House." An MSNBC host asked whether this hullabaloo could lead to Cheney's resignation. Background on the case. Liveblogging of today's arguments from an anti-administration perspective.

King for a Day

saulgoodman — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 10:45:19 -0800

Cheney's Cheney and the Unitary Executive Theory. An excellent article from the New Yorker on the mysterious forces at work behind the Bush administration's expansion of executive powers.

Exit Card, Rove Flips?

digaman — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 06:39:44 -0800

Intrigues at the White House: Andrew Card, Bush's longtime chief of staff -- the guy who briefly interrupted the President's reading of The Pet Goat one rough morning in 2001 and took heat for the Katrina and Dubai debacles -- is out, replaced by budget director "Yosh" Bolten, the one-time founder of a club called "Bikers for Bush." Meanwhile, is Rove rolling over for Patrick Fitzgerald, and if so, what's the angle?

E-shredding the Plame E-vidence

digaman — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 14:28:57 -0800

Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald says emails relevant to the Valerie Plame leak investigation have gone missing from the White House. "In an adundance of caution," Fitzgerald wrote [PDF] to "Scooter" Libby's lawyers on January 23, "we advise you that we have learned that not all email of the Office of the Vice President and the Executive Office of President for certain time periods in 2003 was preserved through the normal archiving process on the White House computer system." Might this help explain why Alberto Gonzales -- now the Attorney General, and lately so busy mustering arguments to assert that Bush's NSA domestic-spying program is "legal" -- waited 12 hours before instructing White House staff to preserve documents relevant to the leak investigation after telling Andrew Card about it? Shades of the late, great yoga instructor, Rose Mary Woods. [More on Plame here.]

Suggestion of Torture

shiska — Fri, 04 Nov 2005 12:27:35 -0800

Cheyney the Torturer? According to Dan Froomkin today, Lawrence Wilkerson (former chief of staff to the secretary of state) said that he had uncovered a "visible audit trail" tracing the practice of prisoner abuse by U.S. soldiers directly back to Vice President Cheney's office.

One big American family

Asparagirl — Mon, 03 Oct 2005 21:40:55 -0800

The family trees of American politicians - There are those with very long blue blood pedigrees, and there are those with very short and unknown pedigrees. There are also some surprises, like a certain Democratic senator and possible '08 Veep pick being somewhat closely related to the current Veep, or that certain ex-mayors have family trees that were apparently a bit inbred back in the old country. Other fun tidbits: Newt Gingrich's father was illegitimate, John Kerry is related to the rabbi who created the Golem of Prague, Pat Buchanan is related to both FDR and Marilyn Manson, Wesley Clark's father was a Kohan, Martin Luther King was born Michael Louis King, and Gary Hart was born Gary Hartpence, which was in turn derived from an ancestor named James Eberhart Pence. (more non-politicians here)

pre-emptive big feet big xxxx joke

jpoulos — Thu, 02 Dec 2004 14:26:42 -0800

Diagnosis via press release. Josh Marshall speculates on Dick Cheney's health based on a press release put out by a shoe store. The store says Cheney's feet have "changed to a size 10EEE". Swelling of the feet is a primary symptom of congestive heart failure.

Truly meta

Armitage Shanks — Mon, 27 Sep 2004 09:48:30 -0800

Truly meta. We've had posts about outing gay politicians. We had a post about Dick Cheney's gay daughter. We had a Metatalk post about revealing blogs that the author might want to keep private.

Now they're all tied togther in the story of a politician's possibly gay daughter being outed by a blog that she might or might not have been keeping private. My head hurts.

Bush camp solicits race of Star staffer

JeffK — Sat, 31 Jul 2004 08:45:48 -0800

Bush camp solicits race of Star staffer. President Bush's re-election campaign insisted on knowing the race of an Arizona Daily Star journalist assigned to photograph Vice President Dick Cheney.
The jounalist's name was Mamta Popat. She sure sounds like a terrorist.

"So cheap"

Slagman — Sat, 20 Mar 2004 12:18:09 -0800

"You've admitted what you are Fat Tony, now you're just haggling over the price." Thanks for the Churchill whore meme to RogerAiles, who flagged this comment by Justice Scalia: "If it is reasonable to think that a Supreme Court justice can be bought so cheap, the nation is in deeper trouble than I had imagined." So, what is the going rate?

Mary's Family Matters

alms — Tue, 24 Feb 2004 08:11:34 -0800

Dear Mary, your father, recently said he would support adding anti-gay prejudice to the US Constitution, making you and millions of other Americans second-class citizens. As an open lesbian who has worked for years as a public advocate for gay civil rights, you are in a unique position to defend yourself and your community in this dire hour. You're right, this is very personal.

Scalia Was Cheney Hunt Trip Guest; Ethics Concern Grows

GernBlandston — Fri, 06 Feb 2004 10:05:55 -0800

Scalia Was Cheney Hunt Trip Guest; Ethics Concern Grows Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia traveled as an official guest of Vice President Dick Cheney on a small government jet that served as Air Force Two when the pair came here last month to hunt ducks. The revelation cast further doubts about whether Scalia can be an impartial judge in Cheney's upcoming case before the Supreme Court, legal ethics experts said. The hunting trip took place just weeks after the high court agreed to take up Cheney's bid to keep secret the details of his energy policy task force.

Dear Mary:

archimago — Tue, 27 Jan 2004 06:23:44 -0800

Mary Cheney: "The next time you walk into a gay public place, be prepared for a chorus calling you everything from a quisling and a betrayer to a selfish, fiendish, nasty example of a human being." Michelangelo Signorile's open letter to the VP's gay daughter.

Astroturfing gone bad.

skallas — Mon, 29 Dec 2003 09:52:59 -0800

Astroturfing gone bad. Why aren't newspaper editors fighting this? They've seen it before. Its one thing to offer a press release and another to ask visitors of the Bush-Cheney website to mail their newspapers the same form letter.

dr strangelove - dick cheney

specialk420 — Sun, 09 Nov 2003 13:59:31 -0800

the second most powerful man in the world , is the world a more or less safe place with this man (some would argue) in charge?

al gore did a little fundraising at a buddhist temple, this guy on the other hand ...

specialk420 — Mon, 14 Apr 2003 21:56:32 -0800

many of haliburtons subsidiaries pay no taxes as they are ensconsed in offshore tax havens. the vice president is collecting substantial sums in deferred payments, and sizable government contracts are being awared to this company without competition. should we ask our vice-president to encourage his former employer to pay corporate taxes like the most of the rest of americans and american businesses, considering the hefty sums of money being handed them by the american tax payer?

the fire you left me — Wed, 23 Oct 2002 14:22:57 -0800

It's fun to watch your tax dollars put politicians in office. "Cheney has been the White House road warrior this year, hauling in more than $22 million for Republicans in 74 campaign appearances"

skallas — Mon, 05 Nov 2001 14:16:35 -0800

Erudite op-ed piece on current events by Mark Morford of SF Gate. Pro-America does not mean pro-war. Or pro-Bush. Or anti-Afghanistan. Or pro-little-flags-on-SUV-antennas. [via BR]

ParisParamus — Thu, 18 Oct 2001 06:05:22 -0800

Have You Seen This Man? Where is the Vice President of the United States? In the past, the VP was largely a non-actor; waiting in the wings for something bad to happen. However VP RC has hardly been that to President Bush. Is he "hiding," purely for security reasons, or is something else going on?

dogmatic — Thu, 12 Jul 2001 11:43:30 -0800

News You Can Use! IsDickCheneyDeadYet.com has more than three dedicated staffers who surreptitiously check the Veep’s vitals every five minutes, round the clock, 24 hours a day. Just so you can rest a little easier. Check back often and "Be the first to know, when Cheney goes..."