From deep in his lair private residence, former Vice President Dick Cheney has surfaced to endorse Meg Whitman for California Governor. And he did it in the OC Register, giving the typical endorsement pablum:
Meg is a leader who will not shy away from confronting the public employee unions. She has put pension reform at the center of her agenda. She is a firm believer in the power of tax cuts to strengthen small businesses and create jobs. She knows that welfare must be a temporary hand-up and not a way of life. She is committed to local control of education, and she has a strong and practical approach to securing the border and addressing the problems associated with illegal immigration.
But Darth Cheney is never quite so simple, he's going to make this endorsement something noteworthy. How so? By making it about Whitman's support for the Iraq War, which Poizner opposed in 2004.
While I am always mindful of President Reagan's 11th Commandment, there are issues of judgment that voters should consider before they cast their ballots in the Republican primary. ... But I have concerns about whether he truly adheres to the conservative principles of our party. ... In 2004, during the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign, Mr. Poizner, who was then a candidate for the state Assembly, opposed the tax cuts that were the centerpiece of our economic recovery plan.
He also broke ranks with our party on national security and the "war on terror." Mr. Poizner opposed the war in Iraq. To amplify his opposition to the national security policies of the Bush administration, he invited Richard Clarke to campaign for him in California.
I'm sure Cheney vetted this one with Whitman's camp. That being said, this is one risky move for somebody who considers herself a lock for the GOP nomination. Cheney is not popular in California. The Iraq War is certainly not popular in California.
Credit where credit is due. Poizner did speak against the Iraq War in 2004. And he was right. But, that won't help in the GOP nomination battle royale. This race is far from over folks.
It's expected for a lawmaker in the beginning of a new election cycle to get a little more active, with high-profile articulations of positions on key issues. So it is for Sen. Barbara Boxer. In the past week, she has released a report on the statewide recession, featuring interviews with local officials from all 58 counties; demanding that Attorney General Mukasey intervene to reverse a "blatantly illegal" memo by EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson claiming that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant (the Supreme Court has already ruled that it is); and most interesting to me, wrote a letter to incoming Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair John Kerry calling for hearings on the Bush Administration's use of torture, as well as an outside commission to investigate it:
I write today to raise an issue of the utmost significance -- the Administration's use of torture against detainees held in U.S. custody. Despite widespread condemnation from Members of Congress, policy experts, and human rights advocates, Vice President Richard Cheney stated in a recent interview with ABC News that the torture policies used against detainees were appropriate and admitted that he played a role in their authorization. In fact, when asked if any of the tactics -- including waterboarding -- went too far, he responded with a curt "I don't."
I find Vice President Cheney's response deplorable, particularly in light of a recent report released by the Senate Armed Services Committee following an eighteen-month investigation. In sum, the bipartisan report found that "senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees." The report, led by Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin, concluded that "those efforts damaged our ability to collect accurate intelligence that could save lives, strengthened the hand of our enemies, and compromised our moral authority." I fully support Chairman Levin's proposal for an outside Commission with subpoena power to investigate this matter further.
The whole letter is here. This is one step away from the needed call for an independent prosecutor to investigate Bush's war crimes, but it's as close as any Senator has been willing to go. This suggests that Boxer considers an investigation of this nature to not only be the right thing to do in a democracy, but not electorally damaging whatsoever. She should be supported in this belief and encouraged to go even further. I know that Senator Boxer has begun asking for contributions to her re-election campaign. Maybe a series of contributions of $9.12, signaling support for a "9/12" torture commission and an independent prosecutor, along with emails and letters explaining this, would relay the message?
Recently, on Aug 10, Tom McClintock(R, Thousand Oaks) trying to carpetbag his way up into federal level congressional office by using our Northern CA district, released his version of an "energy" policy. http://blog.tommcclintock.com/... I looked at it, and I thought, this is seriously so bad, somebody must have been smoking crack when they composed it.
That bad. The entire thing, start to finish, is riddled with factual errors. This is what happens when Republicans running around here want something. They just make stuff up.
When you make stuff up, and then base your decisions on fantasy or deceit, the outcome is not good. If you try to do this in engineering, the results are failure. Let's learn about shale.
Since he doesn't have any ideas of his own, and he can barely locate California's 4th District on a map, Tom McClintock has decided to pick up on the "Drill Now" movement coming from the deepest bastions of economic royalist and faux populist conservatism. His first ad of the 2008 election is a radio spot which shakes his finger at Congress for ignoring all that delicious oil under everyone's house that must be delivered immediately to Exxon.
"Liberals like Nancy Pelosi and Charlie Brown want to continue supporting federal laws that prevents us from tapping America's vast oil resources. That's how we got into this mess - and why gasoline prices are now breaking our family budgets," McClintock says at the beginning of the one-minute spot.
"America has nearly a trillion barrels of recoverable oil-more than three times that of Saudi Arabia-that Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and Charlie Brown won't even let us touch. In fact, more than 94 percent of our territory remains off-limits because of this foolish prohibition. If we want to change this policy, we've got to change this Congress," McClintock says.
94%! For instance, that park by your house doesn't have ONE oil derrick in it. And who knows what's under the floorboards in your den? 94%, sucka MC's!
"Meanwhile, the vast oil fields off the coast of Florida that American law prevents Americans from developing are now being drained by the Chinese government drilling in Cuban waters," McClintock wrote in a column for the Auburn Journal, pointed out to us by the campaign of his Dem opponent Charlie Brown.
"And still Nancy Pelosi and her supporters in Congress continue to block the development of these vast American oil reserves."
Don't you idiots see it? The Chinese are stealing our purity of essence and draining our precious bodily fluids!
None of this is true, by the way. Even the Prince of Darkness Dick Cheney, who's in Southern California today in case you were wondering why you heard that death rattle this morning, had to acknowledge that the Cina-Cuba drilling myth was a lie.
But without lies, where would McClintock be? (um, running for the Board of Equalization?)
Warning: If you intend to click on the link to Calvert's site you might want to start the shower.
Are you afraid? You should be. But brace yourself - Dick Cheney is coming to do a high-dollar fundraiser for Calvert today in San Clemente. There will be a protest but I have no word of a citizen arrest.
Where else but Venice, California, would you go to hear an outraged crank argue for indicting the sitting president of the United States for murder in a gymnasium packed to the gills with wild-eyed radicals cheering his every charge?
Which is exactly what we did this past Wednesday, except the crank was no crank, but rather the world-famous former district attorney and best-selling author Vincent Bugliosi, and more than a few radicals in the audience looked to have day jobs and mortgages to pay.
The board of directors of the ACLU of Southern California has passed a resolution calling for the impeachment of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for their abuses of basic civil liberties.
The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday signaled it is prepared to comply with a congressional request for all documents - including communications with the White House - concerning its decision to block California from imposing limits on greenhouse gases.
The EPA's general counsel directed agency employees in a memo to preserve and produce all documents related to the decision including any opposing views and communications between senior EPA officials and the White House, including Vice President Dick Cheney's office.
The documents should include "any records presenting options, recommendations, pros and cons, legal issues or risks, (or) political implications," said the all-hands memo from EPA General Counsel Roger Martella Jr.
They're saying that now, of course, but David Addington hasn't gotten his hands on the memo to use his red pen.
The presiding committee in the Congress on this one is Henry Waxman's House Oversight Committee.
Happy New Year, Fourthbranch. We got you Henry Waxman.
"California met every criteria . . . on the merits. The same criteria we have used for the last 40 years on all the other waivers," said an EPA staffer. "We told him that. All the briefings we have given him laid out the facts."
I wonder how the EPA Administrator could have been swayed to go against science, the moral imperative of mitigating the effects of global warming, the duties outlined in his job description... Fourthbranch!
On multiple occasions in October and November, Cheney and White House staff members met with industry executives, including the CEOs of Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler. At the meetings, the executives objected to California's proposed fuel economy standards:
In meetings in October with Mr. Cheney and sessions with White House staff members, auto executives made clear that they were concerned not just about the fuel economy measures in the bill but also about the California proposal for stricter emissions standards.
The Federal Energy Bill ended up being a bait and switch. In exchange for the increase in fuel efficiency, the automakers got their pound of flesh, the denial of that waiver.
One more irony about the healthcare crisis: the politicians in charge of fixing it...are guaranteed healthcare through a system that is not just "single-payer" (in terms of being financed by the government instead of insurance companies), but beyond is actually government-run.
Nurses are running ads today in 10 Iowa newspapers pointing out that this means that Dick Cheney, with his heart trouble, would probably be dead now if he were an ordinary American forced to search for cardiac care in a thicket of mercenary insurers and heartless HMOs. Cheney gets guaranteed healthcare; we get squat.
Dennis Kucinich will introduce privileged resolution to force a vote on V.P. Cheney's impeachment resolution this week, probably Tuesday. It is critical that we voice our support and contact our Representatives ASAP to let them know how we feel.
However, he is reaching out to us, the American people, to do our part and claim responsibility to reclaim our constitutional democracy. Dennis understands that real change and meaningful reform can't happen without the active support of the people, and so he will be holding a live, national conference call Monday evening, November 5th, to explain how everything will work and what we can do to help. From the Kucinich campaign website:
he will go before the U.S. House of Representatives on a point of personal privilege to move the impeachment of Dick Cheney. Mr. Kucinich stated he will bring the impeachment forward before Thanksgiving.
Fourthbranch Cheney is not all that interested in fires he didn't actually cause with bombs.
During a cabinet meeting yesterday, Vice President Cheney fell asleep on camera while President Bush was discussing wildfires in California. A Cheney spokeswoman "laughed it off," telling CNN that the vice president was "practicing meditation." CNN's chyron reported that Cheney was seen "meditating" - rather than sleeping - during the cabinet meeting.
In the comments, please write the mantra that Cheney was chanting over and over during this meditation session.
In a shining example of the heights to which fair and balanced journalism aspires, Chris Reed yesterday reacted to the Libby Verdict by reminding us Libby may be a convicted felon, but that doesn't make Joe Wilson a hero. He does at least have the decency not to "blame administration critics for crowing over Libby's trial at all." He just feels as though lost in the midst of lying to federal investigators, perjury, obstructing justice, the premeditated release of secret government information, the falsification of intelligence reports to justify an optional war, torture scandals, thousands of dead American soldiers and marines, tens of thousands of dead Iraqis, increased terrorist activity and Middle Eastern instability, and the complete collapse of American credibility around the world, is the fact that Joe Wilson is, in fact, not a candidate for sainthood. Once again, Chris Reed has missed the point.
