The People vs. Dick Cheney

Karen Greenberg answers the question:

"Will Obama bring the Bushies to account? Will Congress? Some local DA? A judge in Europe? Anyone...?"

Illustration: Roberto Parada (Mother Jones)

Exclusive: Cheney’s admissions to the CIA leak prosecutor and FBI

Murray Waas reports:

"Vice President Dick Cheney, according to a still-highly confidential FBI report, admitted to federal investigators that he rewrote talking points for the press in July 2003 that made it much more likely that the role of then-covert CIA-officer Valerie Plame in sending her husband on a CIA-sponsored mission to Africa would come to light.

Cheney conceded during his interview with federal investigators that in drawing attention to Plame’s role in arranging her husband’s Africa trip reporters might also unmask her role as CIA officer...."

Continue reading.

Technorati tags: Murray Waas, CIA Leak Case, Plamegate, Valerie Plame, Joe Wilson, Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby

������� It’s not about them…it’s about us

�������Why We Must Prosecute Bush And His Administration For War Crimes : Information Clearing House : Mike Ferner:

"...We are complicit in the horrors of this administration. We can claim neither ignorance nor innocence. We are complicit by the very fact that we are citizens of the United States, more so because we paid for the war, and even more so for this reason. Listen to a village sheik I met in Iraq describe it better than I ever could...."

More on this subject from Glen Greenwald:

� Senate report links Bush to detainee homicides; media yawns�������������
: Information Clearing House : Glen Greenwald:

" ...The culpability which the Report assigns for these war crimes is vast in scope and unambiguous....

[...]

...Instead, TV pundits were consumed with righteous anger over the petty, titillating, sleazy Rod Blagojevich scandal, competing with one another over who could spew the most derision and scorn for this pitiful, lowly, broken individual and his brazen though relatively inconsequential crimes...."

And then there is this:

��������������� Cheney Admits Authorizing Detainee's Torture : Information Clearing House:

"Monday, outgoing Vice President Dick Cheney made a startling statement on a nation-wide, televised broadcast.

When asked by ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl whether he approved of interrogation tactics used against a so-called "high value prisoner" at the controversial Guantanamo Bay prison, Mr. Cheney, in a break from his history of being press-shy, admitted to giving official sanctioning of torture...."

Video is from ABC's World News, broadcast Dec. 15, 2008.

Technorati tags: Torture, War Crimes, Cheney, Bush, Bush administration, Glen Greenwald, Mike Ferner, video, youtube

Seal of Approval? Or Kiss of Death?

Sarah Palin Ready For Vice Presidency Says Dick Cheney

Having the Chief of Vice endorse your credentials for office is akin to having Satan himself endorse your character. Vote McCain-Palin for 4 more fun-filled years of Bush-Cheney Corruption, Secrecy, and Disastrous Policies!

Cheney colleague admits bribery in Halliburton oil deals

The Independent reports:

"A former colleague of the US Vice-President, Dick Cheney, has pleaded guilty to funnelling millions of dollars in bribes to win lucrative contracts in Nigeria for Halliburton, during the period in the Nineties when Mr Cheney ran the giant oil and gas services company.

Albert Stanley, who was appointed by Mr Cheney as chief executive of Halliburton's subsidiary KBR, admitted using a north London lawyer to channel payments to Nigerian officials as part of a bribery scheme that landed some $6bn of work in the country over a decade.

The guilty plea, announced yesterday, came after a four-year investigation by US attorneys and threatens to stir up old controversies just as eyes are trained on the Republican party convention. Mr Cheney, who pulled out of an address to the convention because of Hurricane Gustav earlier this week, led Halliburton from 1995 until returning to government in 2000. He had previously been Defence Secretary under the first President George Bush, and the links with Halliburton have been a constant thorn in the side of the current administration as the company has gone on to win billions of dollars of contracts in Iraq and other US military spheres...."

Is There A Secret Presidential Succession Plan?

Does the Bush administration have a secret succession order that bypasses Congress?

Bruce Ackerman (Slate) asks: "Suppose the worst happens, and the next terrorist attack hits Washington hard, taking out the president and the vice president. What happens next?

New Yorker writer Jane Mayer's new book, The Dark Side, opens with a shocker.... "

read more | digg story

MUST WATCH: Zeitgeist - The Movie, 2007

"Zeitgeist" is the one documentary that is "required watching" for all. You can view the entire film by clicking on the Blog Title link or the video below. You can also view the movie in sections by clicking on the links below.



Whichever way you choose to view, WATCH THE ENTIRE FILM. Once you see it, you won't have to ask why.

Watch "Zeitgeist - The Movie" - Part I:

• Zeitgeist: Religion Part 1 Of 3


• Zeitgeist: Religion Part 2 Of 3
  


• Zeitgeist: Religion Part 3 Of 3

Watch "Zeitgeist - The Movie" - Part II:

• Zeitgeist: World Trade Center (Part 1 of 4)


• Zeitgeist: World Trade Center (Part 2 of 4)


• Zeitgeist: World Trade Center (Part 3 of 4)


• Zeitgeist: World Trade Center (Part 4 of 4)

Watch "Zeitgeist - The Movie" - Part III:

• Zeitgeist: Federal Reserve (Part 1 of 5)


• Zeitgeist: Federal Reserve (Part 2 of 5)


• YZeitgeist: Federal Reserve (Part 3 of 5)


• Zeitgeist: Federal Reserve (Part 4 of 5)


• Zeitgeist: Federal Reserve (Part 5 of 5)

RESEARCHERS!!! Interactive transcript with citations at Zeitgeist - The Movie, 2007 Start research there!!

Zeitgeist was created as a non-profit filmiac expression to inspire people to start looking at the world from a more critical perspective and to understand that very often things are not what the population at large think they are. The information in Zeitgeist was established over a year long period of research and the current Source page on this site lists the basic sources used/referenced. Soon, an Interactive Transcript will be online with detailed footnotes and links so exact sources and further research can be relayed.

Though many different frauds are addressed in Zeitgeist, at the present time the most important issue is exposing 9/11 and thus exposing government sponsored Terrorism. If we do not, they will erode all of our civil liberties and an oppressive, military style, surveillance based Police State will take firm root.

On Aug. 4th 2007, the Senate passed the Bush backed 'spy bill', which preserves & expands the illegal domestic spying program. I hope people are educated enough by this time to know that such legislations have nothing to do with Terrorism, and everything to do with monitoring and controlling American dissent.

Furthermore, on May 9 2007, Bush signed the National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive, which gives Bush near full dictatorial powers in the event of a "National Emergency". Bush, and the people he works for, will be able to do ANYTHING they want if a "National Emergency" is deemed. All they need is a "New 9/11". The US Constitution will no longer be applicable.

In regards to this Directive, Paul Craig Roberts, a former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during the Reagan administration, has come out and said he feels the White House is preparing to STAGE A NEW 9/11 and the executive order is designed to capitalize on such an attack, specifically to impose Martial Law and Invade Iran.

IN ORDER TO STOP MARTIAL LAW AND THE TOTAL DESTRUCTION OF THE US CONSTITUTION, WE MUST STOP ANOTHER FALSE FLAG ATTACK. THE FIRST STEP IS TO EXPOSE THE 9/11 FRAUD. THIS IS THE EVENT THAT IS BEING USED TO JUSTIFY THE DEVELOPING POLICE STATE, NOT TO MENTION WORLDWIDE OPPRESSION.

It's important to point out that there is a tendency to simply disbelieve things that are counter to our understanding, without the necessary research performed. However, if one takes the time to read the sources provided, they will find that what is being presented is based on documented evidence. Any corrections, clarifications & further points regarding the film are found at Zeitgeist - The Movie, 2007

Technorati tags: NWO, Terror, Terrorism, Bankers, IRS, FRS, Federal Reserve, Rothschild, Rockefeller, Bush, Cheney, 911, video, documentary, YouTube

Rep. Dennis Kucinich: Effort to Impeach Vice President Cheney Still Alive

Democracy Now! 11/09/07:

Despite the best efforts of the Democratic leadership, impeachment was indeed on the table this week in Washington. On Tuesday, Congressmember and presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich nearly forced the full House to vote on his measure to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney. House Resolution 333 accuses Cheney of deliberately manipulating intelligence and deceiving the public to build support for the invasion of Iraq and now towards a possible attack on Iran. Twenty-one House Democrats have supported the bill, but it's met fierce opposition from the Democratic leadership.

Democratic leaders were able to send the bill to the House Judiciary Committee, where they expect it to languish. In a bizarre sequence, Republican lawmakers initially voted against tabling the bill after their leadership apparently decided a House debate would embarrass the Democrats. The bill was eventually sent to committee after a back-and-forth wrangling between Kucinich and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer.

Democratic leaders have famously declared that impeachment is off the table. But their view does not fall in line with recent polling figures. An American Research Group poll in July found that fifty-four percent of Americans support beginning impeachment proceedings against Vice President Cheney. Seventy-four percent of Democrats were also in favor.

Congressmember Dennis Kucinich of Ohio introduced the measure. He joins me now from Washington.

Listen to the interview and/or read a transcript here.

Thanks to Information Clearing House.

Photo Credit: "Double Rainbow" � Kucinich 2008 Action Center

Also See:

• Cheney Tried to Stifle Dissent in Iran NIE by Gareth Porter

Technorati tags: Dennis Kucinich, Impeachment, Dick Cheney, media, Democracy Now!

Democrats Bury Cheney Impeachment

The following is an update on Dennis Kucinich's noble attempt to put impeachment on the table.



Thanks to: The Real News.

Technorati tags: David Swanson, Impeachment, Dennis Kucinich, Dick Cheney

CIA Analyst Discusses Possible Cheney 9/11 Stand-down Order.

Retired CIA Analyst Ray McGovern discusses the possibility of vice president Cheney issuing a stand-down order that allowed the 9/11 attacks to succeed, on a national talk radio program.



Thanks to OpenYourMindsEye for the original post.

Technorati tags: Ray McGovern, CIA, 9/11, Cheney, Conspiracies, news, video

Office Arrests: The Shame of John Conyers

"Heck of a job, Connie."
John Conyers has completely copped out on his supporters. What's worse, he had them arrested.

Dave Lindorff reports:

"If Rosa Parks had lived two years longer, what happened today in the halls of Congress might have killed her. It certainly would have broken her heart...."

As a result, Cindy Sheehan has kept her promise to her supporters:

I Announce My Candidacy Against Nancy Pelosi in California's 8th. By Cindy Sheehan

"I am committed to challenging a two-party system that has kept us in a state of constant warfare for the last 60 years and has become more and more beholden to special interests and has forgotten the faces of the people whom it represents. I am committed to using our strength as a country to wage peace and to elevate the status of every citizen in our country by converting the enduring war economy to a prosperous one with lasting peace...."

The hard truth is that we can't depend on our elected officials to do ANYTHING unless they are in fear of their jobs. So it is up to each of us to bombard our officials with emails, phone calls, petitions, and protests, stating in no uncertain terms that should they fail to hold the Bush administration accountable for impeachable crimes, we will do everything in our power to vote them out of office.

I've included some recent articles on impeachment to help you make your case. You can also search "impeachment" on my blog for earlier ammunition.

THERE IS NO EXCUSE NOT TO ACT. IF YOU DO NOTHING, YOU DESERVE THE GOVERNMENT YOU GET -- AND IT WON'T BE A DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC.

OUR CHILDREN DESERVE BETTER. IF NOT FOR YOURSELF, DO IT FOR THEM.

Democrats.com provides a solid point of view and one way you can help:

"On Monday, Rep. John Conyers brushed off the heroic impeachment efforts of Cindy Sheehan, Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Ray McGovern, Medea Benjamin, David Swanson, 300 dedicated impeachment marchers, 1 million petition signers, resolutions from dozens of cities and towns, and activists who called his office every 30 seconds.

His reasons? First, he doesn't have the support of a majority of the House (218 votes) to impeach Bush or Cheney. Second, FOX News would attack him.

These are simply not acceptable reasons to allow George Bush and Dick Cheney to commit war crimes and shred the Constitution - and we're not going to accept them. Instead, we're going to fight harder than ever for impeachment.

Conyers doesn't have 218 votes today, but we can change that. Tell your Representatives to join the 14 sponsors of H.Res. 333, Articles of Impeachment for Vice President Cheney:
http://www.democrats.com/peoplesemailnetwork/88
Also call them at 202-224-3121 and demand co-sponsorship of H.Res. 333 now.

Conyers would be attacked by FOX News, but we can change that too. Let's boycott FOX News advertisers:
http://www.democrats.com/boycott-fox-news-advertisers

We must also give Conyers a backbone transplant. Let's flood Conyers and other House Judiciary Democrats with more emails than ever:
http://www.democrats.com/topelosiandjudiciary "

RESOURCES: Why We Must Impeach:

• Jimmy Breslin: Impeach George Bush to stop war lies, deaths


• The Case for Impeachment [VIDEO]

  "Even the man who wrote the articles of impeachment against President Clinton admits Bush has committed impeachable offenses...."

• The Logic of Impeachment By Robert Parry:

  "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has taken impeachment “off the table,” in line with Official Washington’s view that trying to oust George W. Bush and Dick Cheney would be an unpleasant waste of time. But there is emerging a compelling logic that an unprecedented dual impeachment might be vital to the future of the United States....

• The Bush Years: Was Nothing Real? :

  Leonard Pitts, a syndicated columnist based in Washington (McClatchy-Tribune Newspapers) writes,"Richard Nixon was a crook. He was also a liar and an anti-Semite who sought to subvert the Constitution.
  
  I wish he was president again...."

• Former Senate Intel Chairman Graham: The Case For Impeachment 'Is Even More Truthful Today'

  "How many Americans would say that it is a greater dereliction of duty as President of the United States to have a consensual sexual affair or to take the country to war under manipulated, fabricated, and largely untruthful representations which the President knew or should have known. I think the answer to that question is clear...."

• Poll: Much of US Favors Bush/Cheney Impeachment


• Historian Howard Zinn Calls for Activism


• Come on, Obama, and Clinton, and Edwards, and Pelosi: All Aboard the Impeachment Train | The Progressive

Photo Credit: portland.indymedia.org

Technorati tags: John Conyers, Impeachment, Cindy Sheehan, Bush, Cheney, Impeach, news

Cheney's Long-Lost Twin

By Nicholas D. Kristof
The New York Times

Could Dick Cheney and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad be twins separated at birth?

The U.S. vice president and Iranian president, each the No. 2 in his country, certainly seem to be working together to create conflict between the two nations. Theirs may be the oddest and perhaps most dangerous partnership in the world today.

Both men are hawks who defy the international community, scorn the U.N. and are unpopular at home because of incompetence and recklessness — and each finds justification in the extremism of the other.

“Iranians refer to their new political radicals as ‘neoconservatives,’ with multiple layers of deliberate irony,” notes Gary Sick, an Iran specialist at Columbia University, adding: “The hotheads around President Ahmadinejad’s office and the U.S. foreign policy radicals who cluster around Vice President Cheney’s office, listen to each other, cite each others’ statements and goad each other to new excesses on either side.”

So one of the perils in the final 18 months of the Bush administration is that Mr. Cheney and Mr. Ahmadinejad will escalate provocations, ending up with airstrikes by the U.S. against Iranian nuclear sites.

Already we’re seeing a series of leaks about Iran that echo leaks in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. The reports say that Iran is turning a blind eye to Al Qaeda, is using Hezbollah to wage a proxy war against U.S. forces in Iraq, is transferring bomb-making skills to Iraq insurgents and is handing out armor-piercing bullets to fighters in Iran and Afghanistan so as to kill more Americans.

Yet the jingoists aren’t all in our government: These leaks may well all be accurate, for Mr. Ahmadinejad is a perfect match for Mr. Cheney in his hawkishness and contempt for the international community.

It’s worrying that Iran has just recalled its most able diplomat — Javad Zarif, ambassador to the U.N. — and sent him out to pasture as an academic. Hard-liners always hated Mr. Zarif; goons from a mysterious Iranian security agency detained me on my last trip to Tehran and accused me of being a C.I.A. or Mossad spy, apparently because they were trying to get dirt to use against Mr. Zarif (who had given me my visa).

Mr. Zarif’s departure last week suggests that Mr. Ahmadinejad doesn’t plan to solve his nuclear confrontation with the West through diplomacy.

So the danger is that the pragmatists on both sides will be sidelined, while the extremists will embolden and empower each other. The ultimate decision-makers may be President Bush and the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but Mr. Cheney may find a sympathetic ear when he makes an argument to Mr. Bush that goes like this:

How can we leave a nuclear Iran as our legacy? Tehran’s arms program will encourage Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey to seek nuclear weapons as well — and then there’s the worst-case scenario that Iran actually wants to destroy Tel Aviv. We just can’t bet on Iranian restraint.

These are real arguments, but a strike is no solution. For starters, it would delay the Iranian nuclear program by only about three years — and when it came back, the regime might be more likely than ever to use the weapons. And for Mr. Bush to launch a third war against a Muslim country would undermine Islamic moderates and strengthen radicals around the world.

Iran is also more complex and sophisticated than it pretends to be — and the fact is that standard deterrence has constrained it. Iran has a huge stockpile of chemical weapons, and the U.S. intelligence community suspects that it has sleeper agents in the U.S. who could be activated for terrorism. But we have deterred Iran from unleashing terror attacks against our homeland, and the best bet for eliminating the threat altogether is the collapse of Iran’s own neocons under the weight of their incompetence.

A recent opinion poll in Iran found that 70 percent of Iranians want to normalize relations with the U.S., and 61 percent oppose the current Iranian system of government. Any visitor to Iran knows that it is — at a people-to-people level — the most pro-American Muslim country in the region, and the regime is as out of touch and moribund as the shah’s was in the late 1970s.

The ayatollahs’ only hope is that we will rescue them with a military strike, which would cement them in place for many years to come. But look out, because that’s what may happen if bilateral relations are driven by those jingoistic twins, Mr. Cheney and Mr. Ahmadinejad.

Photo Credit: Nicholas Kristof. (Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times)

Click for NYT Reader reactions to above.

Technorati tags: Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times, International Relations, Foreign Policy, Dick Cheney, Mahmoud Ahmadinefad, Military, news, commentary, op ed

Impeach Dick Cheney

SIGN THE PETITION.

That's right, we said the "I" word. And you should be saying it too -- to your family, your friends, your neighbors, your pets and the hearty 26% of Americans who somehow still believe the Bush/Cheney team more worthy of sitting in the Oval Office than an undisclosed location stripped of all authority to further damage the country we love.

You'll want to say it even more after watching our video [below] with the evidence for impeachment right there.



Dick Cheney has been a malevolent force on the checks and balances of American government for over six years. He has
subverted government processes to lead us into this tragedy in Iraq, and is now seeking to do the same with Iran. Two
countries, mind you, he did business with while CEO of Halliburton.

We are at an important moment in American history. For if we don't take action in light of the High Crimes and Misdemeanors committed by one Richard Cheney, we might as well throw the word away. Because there will never be a time when it is more justified.

SIGN THE PETITION.

14 representatives already support H. Res 333, the articles of Impeachment against Dick Cheney. Your signatures will be used to get other House members to to sign on. We are working with a substantial and growing coalition led by Democrats.com and AfterDowningStreet.org.

Let's make this travesty a turning point in our history. Please join us in restoring democratic principles to our government by
IMPEACHING DICK CHENEY.

Sincerely,

Robert, Cliff, Paris, Jim G and the entire
Brave New Films team

For more great Dick Cheney video, visit Brave New Films.org.

Also See:

• Strike the root!


• Why impeachment of Cheney and Bush is imperative:

  "Impeaching, convicting and removing Dick Cheney and George W. Bush from office goes beyond punishing them for their crimes. It goes to sending a message to their successors, assuming there will be successors come January 20, 2009, that no one is above the law and failure to 'preserve, protect and defend' the US Constitution, criminality and corruption will not be tolerated...."

• A place to push impeachment - Los Angeles Times


• Time Is Right for New Pentagon Papers:

  "Sitting next to West and Gravel, Ellsberg repeated the plea that he is making in speeches all over the United States: 'The equivalent of the Pentagon Papers exist in safes all over Washington, not only in the Pentagon, but in the CIA, the State Department and elsewhere. My message is to them: Take the risk, reveal the truth under the lies of your own bosses and your superiors, obey your oath to the Constitution, which every one of those officials took, not to the commander in chief, but to the Constitution of the United States.'..."

• A President Besieged and Isolated, Yet at Ease - washingtonpost.com


• The Subcommittee on the Constitution | AfterDowningStreet.org:

  "Dennis Kucinich did an end run around Nancy Pelosi, introducing a bill to impeach Cheney in April (HRes 333). It is aquiring cosponsors and has now been referred to the subcommitte on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties. Here is a link to the subcommitte's web page...."

• Editor & Publisher | Editorials Hit Libby's Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Card:

  "The bloggers, politicians, and TV pundits weighed in quickly Monday after President Bush took the surprisingly sudden step of commuting Lewis "Scooter" Libby's 30-month prison sentence for perjury and obstruction of justice in the CIA leak case. Now newspaper editorials are appearing, and nearly all of them have condemned the Bush act...."

• The Historical Origins of Impeachment | The Intentions of the Framers

  The following is from a report written and released by the Judiciary Committee in 1974 in the aftermath of the Watergate crisis: “In the [Virgina] convention George Mason argued that the President might use his pardoning power to ‘pardon crimes which were advised by himself’ or, before indictment or conviction, ‘to stop inquiry and prevent detection.’ James Madison responded: ‘[I]f the President be connected, in any suspicious manner, with any person, and there be grounds tp believe he will shelter him, the House of Representatives can impeach him; they can remove him if found guilty.’”

• David Sirota: Why Washington's Pundits Are Scared of You:

  "...at some point in the last few years, things changed. The people - those sheep that the Heroic Herders like Krauthammer and Will bravely corralled, those unwashed masses that the Courageous Cleansers like Klein and Friedman valiantly scrubbed down - the people found their own power through the Internet, through thousands of blogs like this one, through newsletters, through alternative media and - gasp! - through actual organizing. The pundits have lost their ability to order the people's representatives around. They have lost their ability to rule. In short, they have been stripped of their 'ocracy' - and we are led to believe that means we are experiencing a national or even global crisis...."

• Tom Paine Would Impeach Them | John Nichols, The Nation:

  Paine and his contemporaries were brave in facing a tyrant named George. We must follow in their footsteps.

Technorati tags: Robert Greenwald, Impeachment, Impeach, Dick Cheney, video, activism, petition

Bush And Cheney: Resign Now

Thanks to Crooks and Liars for posting tonight's Special Comment by Keith Olbermann: "You Ceased to be the President of the United States." Tonight's comment is not only one of Olbermann's most powerful and timely; it is literally the only thing that kept me from chartering a plane to anywhere but the USA after watching Snow-Job's press conference and Bush's "statement" about his commutation of Scooter Libby's sentence. (I don't know about the rest of you, but It was blatantly obvious to me that there was a voice (Karl Rove?) in Bushie's ear feeding him every carefully-selected-to-protect-him-legally-and-politically-word; it was as maddening as it was pitiful.

Then along comes Olbermann, and immediately I am reassured that I am not the only person on earth that realizes that we are allowing criminals to reside in OUR WHITE HOUSE.

Watch Keith for yourself. There is also a transcript available at the same link.

Then please, act. Demonstrate, protest, demand Bush/Cheney resign, demand they be impeached, whatever you have to do to rid this country of the vermin who have sabotaged it.

Technorati tags: Keith Olbermann, MSNBC, Bush, Cheney, Politics, Scooter Libby, Justice, news, video, commentary

When the Vice President Does It, That Means It's Not Illegal

By Frank Rich
The New York Times

WHO knew that mocking the Constitution could be nearly as funny as shooting a hunting buddy in the face? Among other comic dividends, Dick Cheney's legal theory that the vice president is not part of the executive branch yielded a priceless weeklong series on "The Daily Show" and an online "Doonesbury Poll," conducted at Slate, to name Mr. Cheney's indeterminate branch of government.

The ridicule was so widespread that finally even this White House had to blink. By midweek, it had abandoned that particularly ludicrous argument, if not its spurious larger claim that Mr. Cheney gets a free pass to ignore rules regulating federal officials' handling of government secrets.

That retreat might allow us to mark the end of this installment of the Bush-Cheney Follies but for one nagging problem: Not for the first time in the history of this administration — or the hundredth — has the real story been lost amid the Washington kerfuffle. Once the laughter subsides and you look deeper into the narrative leading up to the punch line, you can unearth a buried White House plot that is more damning than the official scandal. This plot once again snakes back to the sinister origins of the Iraq war, to the Valerie Wilson leak case and to the press failures that enabled the administration to abuse truth and the law for too long.

One journalist who hasn't failed is Mark Silva of The Chicago Tribune. He first reported more than a year ago, in May 2006, the essentials of the "news" at the heart of the recent Cheney ruckus. Mr. Silva found that the vice president was not filing required reports on his office's use of classified documents because he asserted that his role in the legislative branch, as president of the Senate, gave him an exemption.

This scoop went unnoticed by nearly everybody. It would still be forgotten today had not Henry Waxman, the dogged House inquisitor, called out Mr. Cheney 10 days ago, detailing still more egregious examples of the vice president's flouting of the law, including his effort to shut down an oversight agency in charge of policing him. The congressman's brief set off the firestorm that launched a thousand late-night gags.

That's all to the public good, but hiding in plain sight was the little-noted content of the Bush executive order that Mr. Cheney is accused of violating. On close examination, this obscure 2003 document, thrust into the light only because the vice president so blatantly defied it, turns out to be yet another piece of self-incriminating evidence illuminating the White House's guilt in ginning up its false case for war.

The tale of the document begins in August 2001, when the Bush administration initiated a review of the previous executive order on classified materials signed by Bill Clinton in 1995. The Clinton order had been acclaimed in its day as a victory for transparency because it mandated the automatic declassification of most government files after 25 years.

It was predictable that the obsessively secretive Bush team would undermine the Clinton order. What was once a measure to make government more open would be redrawn to do the opposite. And sure enough, when the White House finally released its revised version, the scant news coverage focused on how the new rules postponed the Clinton deadline for automatic declassification and tightened secrecy so much that previously declassified documents could be reclassified.

But few noticed another change inserted five times in the revised text: every provision that gave powers to the president over classified documents was amended to give the identical powers to the vice president. This unprecedented increase in vice-presidential clout, though spelled out in black and white, went virtually unremarked in contemporary news accounts.

Given all the other unprecedented prerogatives that President Bush has handed his vice president, this one might seem to be just more of the same. But both the timing of the executive order and the subsequent use Mr. Cheney would make of it reveal its special importance in the games that the White House played with prewar intelligence.

The obvious juncture for Mr. Bush to bestow these new powers on his vice president, you might expect, would have been soon after 9/11, especially since the review process on the Clinton order started a month earlier and could be expedited, as so much other governmental machinery was, to meet the urgent national-security crisis. Yet the new executive order languished for another 18 months, only to be published and signed with no fanfare on March 25, 2003, a week after the invasion of Iraq began.

Why then? It was throughout March, both on the eve of the war and right after "Shock and Awe," that the White House's most urgent case for Iraq's imminent threat began to unravel. That case had been built around the scariest of Saddam's supposed W.M.D., the nuclear weapons that could engulf America in mushroom clouds, and the White House had pushed it relentlessly, despite a lack of evidence. On "Meet the Press" on March 16, Mr. Cheney pressed that doomsday button one more time: "We believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." But even as the vice president spoke, such claims were at last being strenuously challenged in public.

Nine days earlier Mohamed ElBaradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency had announced that documents supposedly attesting to Saddam's attempt to secure uranium in Niger were "not authentic." A then-obscure retired diplomat, Joseph Wilson, piped in on CNN, calling the case "outrageous."

Soon both Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia and Congressman Waxman wrote letters (to the F.B.I. and the president, respectively) questioning whether we were going to war because of what Mr. Waxman labeled "a hoax." And this wasn't the only administration use of intelligence that was under increasing scrutiny. The newly formed 9/11 commission set its first open hearings for March 31 and requested some half-million documents, including those pertaining to what the White House knew about Al Qaeda's threat during the summer of 2001.

The new executive order that Mr. Bush signed on March 25 was ingenious. By giving Mr. Cheney the same classification powers he had, Mr. Bush gave his vice president a free hand to wield a clandestine weapon: he could use leaks to punish administration critics.

That weapon would be employed less than four months later. Under Mr. Bush's direction, Mr. Cheney deputized Scooter Libby to leak highly selective and misleading portions of a 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq to pet reporters as he tried to discredit Mr. Wilson. By then, Mr. Wilson had emerged as the most vocal former government official accusing the White House of not telling the truth before the war.

Because of the Patrick Fitzgerald investigation, we would learn three years later about the offensive conducted by Mr. Libby on behalf of Mr. Cheney and Mr. Bush. That revelation prompted the vice president to acknowledge his enhanced powers in an unguarded moment in a February 2006 interview with Brit Hume of Fox News. Asked by Mr. Hume with some incredulity if "a vice president has the authority to declassify information," Mr. Cheney replied, "There is an executive order to that effect." He was referring to the order of March 2003.

Even now, few have made the connection between this month's Cheney flap and the larger scandal. That larger scandal is to be found in what the vice president did legally under the executive order early on rather than in his more recent rejection of its oversight rules.

Timing really is everything. By March 2003, this White House knew its hype of Saddam's nonexistent nuclear arsenal was in grave danger of being exposed. The order allowed Mr. Bush to keep his own fingerprints off the nitty-gritty of any jihad against whistle-blowers by giving Mr. Cheney the authority to pick his own shots and handle the specifics. The president could have plausible deniability and was free to deliver non-denial denials like "If there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is." Mr. Cheney in turn could delegate the actual dirty work to Mr. Libby, who obstructed justice to help throw a smoke screen over the vice president's own role in the effort to destroy Mr. Wilson.

Last week The Washington Post ran a first-rate investigative series on the entire Cheney vice presidency. Readers posting comments were largely enthusiastic, but a few griped. "Six and a half years too late," said one. "Four years late and billions of dollars short," said another. Such complaints reflect the bitter legacy of much of the Washington press's failure to penetrate the hyping of prewar intelligence and, later, the import of the Fitzgerald investigation.

We're still playing catch-up. In a week in which the C.I.A. belatedly released severely censored secrets about agency scandals dating back a half-century, you have to wonder what else was done behind the shield of an executive order signed just after the Ides of March four years ago. Another half-century could pass before Americans learn the full story of the secrets buried by Mr. Cheney and his boss to cover up their deceitful path to war.

Photo Credit: Frank Rich. (Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times)

Technorati tags: Frank Rich, New York Times, Iraq, United States Armament and Defense, Dick Cheney, Politics, Government, news, commentary, op ed

Dems Call White House Out on Subpoenas

The Huffington Post reports:

"Democrats took the first steps Friday in what could be a long march to court in a tug-of-war between the White House and Congress over subpoenas and executive and legislative branch powers.

In a letter to White House counsel Fred Fielding, the heads of the Senate and House Judiciary committees demanded an explanation in 10 days of why the White House claimed executive privilege on subpoenaed documents and vowed to invoke 'the full force of law....'"

Technorati tags: Huffington Post, White House, Cheney, Democrats, Congress, subpoenas, news

Peter Dale Scott: Richard Cheney, Continuity of Government, and 9/11

Trouble viewing this video? Click Here.

Peter Dale Scott presents a condensed version of the two chapters from his forthcoming book, "The Road to 9/11", that deal with the actions of Dick Cheney on the morning of 9/11, and a host of troubling contradictions on that day, in lecture form.

Recorded on February 25, 2007.

A great researcher comes through once again.

This video is posted with the permission of www.911tv.org

Please contact www.911tv.org for DVD copies of the entire 9/11 Accountability Conference.

Please visit www.peterdalescott.net for more on Scott's work.

Note: Since this lecture, a report indicating a much longer intercept time in the Payne Stewart case has been brought to Scott's attention; http://www.ntsb.gov/Publictn/2000/​AAB0001.htm .

Technorati tags: Peter Dale Scott, Dick Cheney, 9/11, Video, news

W. Learns From Students

By Maureen Dowd
The New York Times

A group of high school Presidential Scholars visiting the White House on Monday surprised President Bush by slipping him a handwritten letter pleading with him to not let America become known for torture and urging him to stick to the Geneva Conventions with terror detainees.

The president reassured the teenagers that the United States does not torture. Then the vice president unleashed a pack of large dogs on the kids, running them off the White House lawn, before he shut down the Presidential Scholars program and abolished high schools.

Since it’s rare that Mr. Bush ever sees groups that have not been prescreened to be nice to him, he made the mistake of opening the letter in front of the students and was surprised to learn that he has made many Americans ashamed by subverting values that the country has always held dear, like abiding by the Constitution and respecting human dignity.

Mari Oye from Wellesley, Mass., who is headed to Yale in the fall, handed W. the letter signed by 50 students as they posed for a group picture. She told John Roberts on CNN that her mother had been a Presidential Scholar back in 1968 and always regretted not saying something to Lyndon Johnson about the Vietnam War. She also said her grandparents were Japanese-Americans who were interned during World War II, so she has compassion for those “in a similar situation.”

“We asked him to remove the signing statement attached to the anti-torture bill, which would have allowed presidential power to make exemptions to the ban on torture,” she said. “I really feel strongly about this issue and also about the treatment of some Arab- and Muslim-Americans after September 11th.”

The president was trying to talk to the students about No Child Left Behind. Maybe that program’s working better than we thought if these kids are able to pull off such a knowing note left behind.

The White House got another unpleasant surprise Monday when the ordinarily compliant Dick Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee who has gone along with the Bush administration on every Iraq vote, came to the Senate floor to upbraid the president on his Iraq policy in a 50-minute speech.

“Those who offer constructive criticism of the surge strategy are not defeatists, any more than those who warn against a precipitous withdrawal are militarists,” the 75-year-old senator told the deserted chamber.

Another Republican on the committee, George Voinovich, sent a letter to the president yesterday, suggesting it’s time to start pulling troops out. “My heart has been heavy for a long time,” he told Jeff Zeleny of The Times. “We’re talking $620 billion. We’re talking over 3,500 people killed.” He said he keeps a photo of an Ohio Marine killed in Iraq on his desk “so I don’t forget, O.K.?” Mr. Lugar said the ’08 race is on, so time is scarce for a bipartisan solution.

Dick Cheney, the president of the Senate, immediately expelled Mr. Lugar and appointed himself the new senator from Indiana. It was a busy day of Constitutional shape-shifting for the vice president, who had earlier nominated and confirmed himself to the Supreme Court, so that he could roll back judicial decisions tempering his desire for torture galore, and then morphed back into his executive branch role to bar the door to the Oval Office sandbox and prevent Condi and Bob Gates from giving W. the plan he wanted to close down Gitmo.

Once his BFF Rummy was pushed out, Vice mentally absorbed the role of Defense Secretary into his own portfolio. He allows Mr. Gates — that pragmatic meddler from the skeptical world of Daddy Bush — to keep Rummy’s chair warm, but the new Pentagon chief is certainly not included in the super-secret paper flow Vice created to always get his own way. And Mr. Cheney never acknowledges the power of any secretary of state, be it Colin or Condi. Diplomacy is for wimps.

The Black Adder, David Addington, the Vice’s enforcer of all things evil, sent a snippy reply to a letter from Senator John Kerry yesterday, asking why Vice says his dual role in the legislative and executive branches means he doesn’t have to catalog any classified papers. What could those papers be? Cooked intelligence on invading Iraq? Ill-gotten profits for Halliburton? More chicanery about Scooter Libby? Gitmo and Abu Ghraib torture memos? So many embarrassing options, so little oversight.

In essence, the bizarre response is that nothing applies to the vice president because the vice president is everything. Because he is everything, he relaunched the Swift Boats against Skipper Kerry.

Photo Credit: Maureen Dowd. (Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times)

Technorati tags: Maureen Dowd, New York Times, Bush, Iraq, Politics, Dick Cheney, Freedom and Human Rights, Geneva Conventions, news, commentary, op ed

Wonders Never Cease

A GOP Plan To Oust Cheney
Sally Quinn of the Washington Post reports:

"The big question right now among Republicans is how to remove Vice President Cheney from office. Even before this week's blockbuster series in The Post, discontent in Republican ranks was rising.

As the reputed architect of the war in Iraq, Cheney is viewed as toxic, and as the administration's leading proponent of an attack on Iran, he is seen as dangerous. As long as he remains vice president, according to this thinking, he has the potential to drag down every member of the party -- including the presidential nominee -- in next year's elections...."

Now if the Yakkety-Yak-No-Act Democrats would get off their rear ends and actually initiate impeachment proceedings, Hell, I might even reconsider voting for one or two of them.

Might reconsider. Then again, at this late date, with virtually no meaningful leadership from the Dems (Kucinich excepted), probably not.

The sad thing is, that the Republicans, yet again, have the ability to take the lead, usurp the Democrats' power, force Cheney out, install a replacement they deem would be politically helpful to them in the coming election, and, essentially, show up the Democrats as ineffectual wimps.

All the Dems have to do to prevent this distasteful scenario is to impeach Bush & Cheney, constitutionally putting Nancy Pelosi in charge (better her than another neo-con). That would empower Pelosi and the Dems to get us out of Iraq and pass meaningful domestic legislation that would otherwise take years to pass (since Bush intends to veto just about anything to do with spending on healthcare, social security, education, or anything else that might benefit non-elite Americans). With the successful passage of popular social legislation under their belts, the Democrats would be optimally positioned for the 2008 election.

So how come the Democratic Party can't figure this out? Obviously, something more sinister is going on in our "Two!-Two!-Two-Parties-in-One!" system of government.

Calling all Independents.....

Also See:

• Michael Winship | Cheney: "Oh, How I Wish He'd Go Away!"

  "The Bush White House man who wasn't there isn't the president," says Michael Winship. "It's Vice President Dick Cheney, who, if you believe in karma, may be returning in the next life as an especially pernicious mildew. Or, if the gods are feeling larky, decorative kale."
  

• I.- I.- I.- I. - Invoke, Impeach, Indict, Imprison - This Patriot's Refrain - The Smirking Chimp


• Democrats to target funding for Cheney

  "House Democrats, responding to Vice President Dick Cheney's assertion that his office is exempt from certain national security disclosure requirements, said Tuesday they will try to strip some of his funding," according to the Associated Press.

• Leaving No Tracks | Part IV | Cheney Backed Business Over Environment:

  Jo Becker and Barton Gellman of the Washington Post conclude their four-part series on Dick Cheney with a look at how Cheney worked to manipulate environmental concerns for the benefit of business.
  

• Waxman Probes Mishandled Data:

  Rachel Van Dongen, writing in Roll Call states: "Diving into yet another high-profile clash with the Bush administration, House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Henry Waxman (D-California) threatened Tuesday to subpoena current and former White House officials over the alleged mishandling of classified data."

• The Banality of Greed:

  "As the Iraq war that Vice President Dick Cheney created continues to shred American - and many more Iraqi - lives, further documentation has emerged proving that, even during failed wars, the merchants of death profit" writes Truthdig's Robert Scheer.

• Crooks and Liars: � Colbert: Cheney's Shadow Branch (VIDEO)


• The Raw Story | Cheney, others served with subpoenas by wiretapping investigators


• The Raw Story | Report: Cheney backs off on claim that he is 'fourth branch of government'


• Official: Cheney Urged Wiretaps:

  "Cheney told Justice Department officials that he disagreed with their objections to a secret surveillance program during a high-level White House meeting in March 2004, former senior Justice official James B. Comey told senators yesterday. Comey's disclosures, made in response to written questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee, indicate that Cheney and his aides were more closely involved than previously known in a fierce internal battle over the legality of the warrantless surveillance program...."

• Comey Implicates Cheney in Wiretapping Reprisal:

  "Former Deputy Attorney General James Comey told the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, in written remarks Wednesday, that Vice President Dick Cheney blocked the promotion of a top Justice Department lawyer after the official called into question the legality of the White House's secret domestic spying program...."

• Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency | washingtonpost.com


• AlterNet: Blogs: PEEK: Cheney Spies On White House Staffers

Technorati tags: Washington Post, Sally Quinn, Dick Cheney, Oust, Impeachment, Republican Party, Democratic Party, news

Last Plamegate Worry for Bush-Cheney

Robert Parry for Consortiumnews.com:

"It's a well-worn talking point for George W. Bush's supporters to say there was no underlying crime beneath former White House aide I. Lewis Libby's conviction for obstructing justice, a debatable point itself. But the evidence is clear there was a larger cover-up conspiracy -- and it could still unravel...."

Technorati tags: Plamegate, Bush, Cheney, Scooter Libby, news