Imagine that. The Republicans fighting against science, again. Clearly those whinging whales need to toughen up and learn how to survive in today's world. The world isn't going to stop just because the whales can't move aside from the steam engine of progress. They probably all drive Cadillacs and receive welfare too. Why can't they be like business and survive on their own with the help of thousands of laws giving them special privileges as well as billions in corporate welfare and tax code assistance? Those whales are such freeloading bastards.
Every year around three right whales are either injured or killed in collisions with ocean-going vessels like containerized cargo ships even though they are protected under the Endangered Species Act. Right whales frequently wash up on shore bearing deep scars from being struck by ships propellers.
To reduce ship strikes the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) decided that ships should restrict their speed to 10 knots or less near whale feeding and calving grounds during parts of the year.
But Mr Cheney's office, which tends to operate in secrecy, sent letters repeatedly questioning whether the rule was needed according to leaked documents. Flatly contradicting the scientific research Mr Cheney's staff argued, "that we have no evidence that lowering the speeds of 'large ships' will actually make a difference."
Too little, too late. Why is he only raising this subject now that oil is above $100? Even with the drop, it's still outrageously high but his kind and the Bush blue blood types never notice how much the chauffeur puts in the limo. Is it so difficult to give a damn about anyone outside of the boardrooms of Wall Street? I know, I know...of course the answer is "no" with the Republicans.
The office of Vice President Dick Cheney is seeking to block the release of videotaped depositions given by two aides who witnessed a physical encounter between an Iraq war opponent and Cheney.
In a motion filed Saturday, Cheney's office contended that the videotapes could be used to invade the privacy and embarrass two aides called to testify about the encounter in a civil lawsuit.
The motion for a protective order expressed particular concern that both aides' faces could wind up on YouTube.com.
"As courts have recognized, using digital technology, a video recording can easily be 'cut and spliced,' so as to embarrass and even humiliate a witness," Cheney's lawyers wrote in a U.S. District Court filing.
"That much can readily be seen from a visit to YouTube. . . . A simple query using the search term 'deposition' yields over 400 video clips, in which many of the deponents are made to look boorish, mendacious, or unintelligent."
The longer the oil prices stay high, the better it is for extremists such as Ahmadinejad and his supporters. Why does Big Oil and Dick Cheney want to help Iran? Why do they hate America?
Even the grandson of Ayatollah Khomeini has been barred from running in the elections because he may not be conservative enough.
Despite those problems, the government feels confident about excluding candidates because of plentiful oil revenue, said Saeed Laylaz, an independent political analyst in Tehran.
"It is a sign that the government, supported by lavish oil revenue, does not need anybody, except an obedient parliament," Laylaz said. "They not only barred Khomeini's close allies but also his grandson."
Rudy Giuliani just said, again, that it was Bill Clinton who cut the military in the 1990s. Wrong, it was Dick Cheney, and the proof is on the Department of Defense's own Web site, in Dick Cheney's official bio:
In subsequent years under Cheney the budgets proposed and the final outcomes followed patterns similar to the FY 1990 budget experience. Early in 1991 the secretary unveiled a plan to reduce military strength by the mid-1990s to 1.6 million, compared to 2.2 million when he entered office....
Over Cheney's four years as secretary of defense, encompassing budgets for fiscal years 1990-93, DoD's total obligational authority in current dollars declined from $291.3 billion to $269.9 billion. Except for FY 1991, when the TOA budget increased by 1.7 percent, the Cheney budgets showed negative real growth: -2.9 percent in 1990, -9.8 percent in 1992, and -8.1 percent in 1993. During this same period total military personnel declined by 19.4 percent, from 2.202 million in FY 1989 to 1.776 million in FY 1993. The Army took the largest cut, from 770,000 to 572,000-25.8 percent of its strength. The Air Force declined by 22.3 percent, the Navy by 14 percent, and the Marines by 9.7 percent.
That means Cheney wanted to cut the number of US servicemembers by 27% but ended up settling for 20%. He cut the Army by 25%. The Air Force by 22%. Dick Cheney decimated our military in the 1990s. Why is nobody talking about this? Oh that's right, because we suck.
"The U.S. economy is resilient and diverse," he said. "It's been remarkably robust and it will be again."
Just like Cheney back in October who had lots of big talk about the economy that he helped trash. I'm not convinced that mirroring the man who has been wrong about, well, everything, is the proper path during such sensitive times. Now that Apple is trimming its outlook, we need to do better than channeling Cheney. So what's this now...two recessions under Bush? Considering that our last recession was in the early '90s, Bush is really doing a heckuva job, in a Bush-heckuva-job kind of way. What a record the GOP owns.
If it wasn't so serious, it might just be funny how many times Dick Cheney has been wrong. What will he use as an excuse for being so wrong, this time? The hard truth is that high oil prices have negatively impacted the US economy. December sales with US retailers took a beating because of the a combination of the housing bubble crash and high gas prices. I know neither issue impacts Bush or Cheney, but for everyone, it matters.
I would disagree with Markos about one point. Hillary isn't channeling Rudy. She and Rudy are channeling Cheney: "Vice President Cheney warned on Tuesday that if John F. Kerry is elected, 'the danger is that we'll get hit again' by terrorists."
Perhaps the operative question is "should they." I really have no confidence that our criminal justice system will hold any Bush official responsible for any crime, no matter how grave. But our man Froomkin makes a good case for why they should, starting with Cheney.
Earlier this week, in an interview with the Politico, Dick Cheney basically declared victory in Iraq -- again. In that coded way in which he speaks, Cheney made it sound like it's all over but the clean up.
Yet, the commander on the ground in Iraq, who, as we know is venerated by the Bush administration, threw cold water on Cheney's puffery:
“There’s nobody in uniform who is doing victory dances in the end zone,” Gen Petraeus said at Camp Victory, Baghdad, before meeting Robert Gates, US defence secretary.
Petraeus also sang the praises of Al-Sadr according to the Washington Post. Al Sadr has cloes ties to Cheney's sworn enemy Iran. And, earlier this year, Cheney told Chris Wallace that the U.S. was prepared to go into Sadr City after Al-Sadr:
WALLACE: Let me ask you a specific question about that. If U.S. forces want to go into Sadr City and take on Muqtada al-Sadr, can you pledge to the American people we'll do that regardless of what Maliki says?
CHENEY: I believe we'll be able to do whatever we need to do in order to get a handle on the security situation there, and Prime Minister Maliki will be directly involved in it.
This is just as much his program as it is ours. He's the one, ultimately, who has to perform, in terms of the capabilities of Iraqi forces.
So I think we do have the right understanding. Time will tell. We'll have to wait and see what happens here.
Why is Petraeus openly challenging Cheney? And, what are the ramifications for the General?
Atrial Fibrillation is the diagnosis according to MSNBC. But, who knows? The Bush/Cheney staff lie about everything else, why not Cheney's health? Like we're supposed to believe the guy even has a heart.
Sounds like a damning new book by the former Bush press secretary:
"The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq," writes McClellan. "So I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby."
But his press performances weren't based on the facts, McClellan continues.
"There was one problem. It was not true," he writes. "I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice President, the President's chief of staff, and the president himself."
The Vice President does another round of canned hunting at a private club that is proud to display the stars and bars. Instead of shooting someone in the face, this year, he decides to slap Americans in the face. Normal people would be embarrassed to support a club that thinks that it's OK to display the Confederate flag but then again, most people would also find it pretty pathetic to shoot farm raised birds. What a sad little man.
The Bush administration has long held that President Bush’s expanded executive power is justified due to 9/11. “I believe in a strong, robust executive authority and I think that the world we live in demands it,” claimed Vice President Cheney in 2005.
But in his new book, Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy, Boston Globe reporter Charlie Savage reveals that Cheney has been on a thirty-year quest to implement his views of unfettered executive power....
I'm just trying to understand why Dick Cheney feels that it's appropriate to invoke General Petraeus' name at a GOP fundraiser. Or is that what Petraeus is really about, helping the GOP raise money for elections? Also, check out this quote from Cheney at the fundraiser:
"No one in politics, regardless of party, should hesitate to object when an American soldier at war is mocked and insulted."
Funny, since Cheney helped host the GOP convention that openly mocked Vietnam Vet John Kerry AND they mocked him for being wounded in action. Then again, you have to remember that Republicans love our troops in principle - like when giving speeches, holding photo ops, or hosting fundraisers - not in practice.
For the past couple months, Dick Cheney has been claiming he's not part of the executive branch. It's a bizarre claim, but Cheney sticks with it. So, why, then, would Cheney's lawyer try to expand the power of the executive branch if Cheney isn't part of the executive branch? That would be expecting consistency when that mattered was power and abusing power:
Vice President Cheney's top lawyer pushed relentlessly to expand the powers of the executive branch and repeatedly derailed efforts to obtain congressional approval for aggressive anti-terrorism policies for fear that even a Republican majority might say no, according to a new book written by a former senior Justice Department official.
David S. Addington, who is now Cheney's chief of staff, viewed both U.S. lawmakers and overseas allies with "hostility" and repeatedly opposed efforts by other administration lawyers to soften counterterrorism policies or seek outside support, according to Jack L. Goldsmith, who frequently clashed with Addington while serving as head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel in 2003 and 2004.
These are some evil people running our government.
Remember that 1994 video of Darth saying what a disaster Iraq would be if we invaded Baghdad ("How many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth?"):
A CBS affiliate called the Dark Lord's office about the matter, and this was the response:
"He was not Vice President at the time, it was after he was Secretary of Defense," a spokesperson told CBS 5 San Francisco. "I don't have any comment."
But then there's this bit of business unearthed by Think Progress that makes it even more difficult for the VP to blow off those remarks - Cheney reiterated his position again in August of 2000 on Meet the Press as Bush's VP nominee:
CHENEY: I don't, Tim. It was–and it's been talked about since then. But the fact of the matter is, the only way you could have done that would be to go to Baghdad and occupy Iraq. If we'd done that, the U.S. would have been all alone. We would not have had the support of the coalition, especially of the Arab nations that fought alongside us in Kuwait. None of them ever set foot inside Iraq. Conversations I had with leaders in the region afterwards -- they all supported the decision that was made not to go to Baghdad.
They were concerned that we not get into a position where we shifted instead of being the leader of an international coalition to roll back Iraqi aggression to one in which we were an imperialist power, willy-nilly moving into capitals in that part of the world taking down governments. So I think we got it right, so suppose it's one of those things that'll be debated for some time. But I thought the decision was sound at the time, and I do today. [Meet the Press, 8/27/00]
The lying out of this White House is non-stop and shameless. But hey -- who's holding them accountable?
Video unearthed by Grand Theft Country - Darth Cheney in 1994, explaining why invading Baghdad and getting rid of Saddam wasn't a great idea -- and how it would create a quagmire.
Because if we'd gone to Baghdad we would have been all alone. There wouldn't have been anybody else with us. There would have been a U.S. occupation of Iraq. None of the Arab forces that were willing to fight with us in Kuwait were willing to invade Iraq.
Once you got to Iraq and took it over, took down Saddam Hussein's government, then what are you going to put in its place? That's a very volatile part of the world, and if you take down the central government of Iraq, you could very easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off: part of it, the Syrians would like to have to the west, part of it -- eastern Iraq -- the Iranians would like to claim, they fought over it for eight years. In the north you've got the Kurds, and if the Kurds spin loose and join with the Kurds in Turkey, then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey.
It's a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq.
Good for her. The man has been playing politics with the lives of our troops for years. It's about time someone called him on it, publicly and in his face. If Cheney or Bush gave a damn about our troops, they wouldn't keep lying to them about this disaster of a war. They wouldn't have sent them with insufficient back-up. They wouldn't have kept denying the generals the additional forces they wanted, and pleaded for. And they wouldn't keep our troops in Iraq, dying by the day, simply because Bush and Cheney are too embarrassed to admit that they screwed up, letting another man and another woman die for their mistakes.
