WHAT DRUGS IS THIS GUY TAKING?
Those pictures are from the hilarious "Psychedelic Republicans" trading card set. Do I have a set of my own? Well, I sure do!
I want to know what kind of drugs Dick Cheney is taking, besides his heart medication. My guess is that he must be taking some pretty good blotter acid, or maybe at least some good quality psilocybin. Something hallucinogenic, at any rate:
WASHINGTON (AP) - Vice President Dick Cheney repeated his assertions of al-Qaida links to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq on Thursday as the Defense Department released a report citing more evidence that the prewar government did not cooperate with the terrorist group.
Cheney contended that al-Qaida was operating in Iraq before the March 2003 invasion led by U.S. forces and that terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was leading the Iraqi branch of al-Qaida. Others in al-Qaida planned the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
“He took up residence there before we ever launched into Iraq, organized the al-Qaida operations inside Iraq before we even arrived on the scene and then, of course, led the charge for Iraq until we killed him last June,” Cheney told radio host Rush Limbaugh during an interview. “As I say, they were present before we invaded Iraq.”
However, a declassified Pentagon report released Thursday said that interrogations of the deposed Iraqi leader and two of his former aides as well as seized Iraqi documents confirmed that the terrorist organization and the Saddam government were not working together before the invasion.
The Sept. 11 Commission’s 2004 report also found no evidence of a collaborative relationship between Saddam and Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network during that period.
The rest of the article is at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17975678/
ALSO: Lizzy, I apologize for stealing this article excerpt from your blog and posting it here, but this is just the kind of stuff that makes my blood boil:
From the NY Times:
Cheney: Bush Administration May Challenge 22nd Amendment in 2008 Election.
By PHILIP MCKRACK
Published: April 1, 2007
JACKSONVILLE, North Carolina. April 1 — Vice President Cheney delivered a speech early Sunday morning before a formation of soldiers at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. The speech was not publicized and the prepared remarks were intended to boost troop morale. The comments were fairly unremarkable except for one short comment near the end of the speech in which Mr. Cheney suggested that the Bush Administration may seek to challenge the 22nd amendment in the 2008 presidential election in an effort to ensure that the war in Iraq is successful.
Mr. Cheney again cited the war in Iraq as a key component in the effort to combat terrorism, saying "The war in Iraq is such a crucial part of the greater war on terror that we currently have our legal advisors looking into the possibility that the 22nd Amendment may not apply in 2008."
SNAVE'S NOTE: I have to notice the date of the article is April Fool's Day, but I seriously doubt Cheney was joking. He would probably prefer to just suspend the entire Consititution... it would be so much more convenient.
21 Comments:
Yeah, when I saw the date of the NY Times article, I thought it might be a joke too, but unforunately, it's not.
They say that the true measure of hatred of someone is if you wish they would drop dead. I truly hate Dick Cheney.
(You can steal from my blog posts anytime, Snave-aroo)
There's a bill to repeal this amendment that has been sitting in the House Subcommittee on the Constitution for two years. It was introduced by Steny Hoyer, of all people, joined by three other Democrats and one Republican.
What floors me about Cheney's comments is that he doesn't say they're looking into repealing the amendment (which would require two-thirds approval by the full Congress), but that it "wouldn't apply" in 2008. Why? On what grounds?
It makes me wonder if they're going to try to apply some kind of "Armaggedon Rule" to keep the current Administration in place because by 2008, we'll be in the middle of, say, a nuclear holocaust?
Cheney is a delight. Forget the 22nd Amendment. I'm ready to see him run. Run Dick, run!
I wouldn't put it past them. They want to stay in office until the whole world is one, big pile of ashes.
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Fill up m'crack? I think that the article is a joke.
But who's to say what conditions maybe caused by Cheney's heart medicine? I think we need a FOIA list of what medications he takes, as well as listed side effects.
Do they want domestic insurrection?
Because they'll get it.
Even the suggestion that they might suspend or otherwise violate the proper order of succession (again) is enough to make my blood boil.
I'll rise up against any such attempt and I suspect many other veterans sworn to defend the Constitution would as well.
It's way past time to put impeachment in motion and Cheney's statement is all that is needed to remove him from office.
Cute cards. :-)
I can't believe Cheney (or anyone else) could still be spouting that same old shit about a Hussein/bin Laden connection. Talk about "stuck on stupid."
Who Hijacked Our Country
I really don't see a repeal of the 22nd Amendment being likely, especially at this time. Can you see the requisite number of Senators and Congresspersons signing off on it, and can you see 38 states ratifying it in time for Bush to run for a 3rd term, or at all? Gotta love how difficult it is to change the Constitution, and that is probably what Cheney meant when he said it "wouldn't apply" in 2008. I think he may actually be one of the few members of this administration who can do math.
So, Candace, others, there are no black helicopters.
Oh please tell me where I can get a set of those cards Snave, I'm with Lizzy on Uncle Dick, if he keels over tommorrow I'm cracking open my best champagne, French of course!
MBC what Cheney said was they are trying to find a way to set aside the 22nd amendment, not get a new amendment removing it.
The administration lawyers are looking for loophole, like national disaster and martial law.
Yes candace, you read it correctly please explain it to mandelbrot again.
The fact that this administration is looking into finding a way around the law (again) should anger/worry/concern/outrage every American.
There were stories that before the last Presidential election the same Whitehouse think mill was looking for ways to set aside the election were Bush unable to steal it.
This administration has looked for loopholes in the rules ever since they used one to get around Cheney and Bush both being residents of the same state and getting him on the ballot.
And the Democrats have laid down and taken it from the start.
This iteration of the Republican party are not "gentlemen" and if the Democrats ever wake up and stop taking "the high road" and the "statesmanly" response to their outrages then maybe there's hope for this country and the world - to date, they haven't.
"Thank you Sir! May I please have another?" --- Animal House
"there are no black helicopters."
Don't tell me that crap, I've seen them.
Mandelbrot, if you look at what Cheney said in context, he wasn't talking about the difficulty of repealing an amendment at all. As 1138 pointed out, Cheney was saying their legal dept. was looking for ways *around* it.
Tomcat (my hubster) and I were talking about this last night. He said, back before the 2004 election, that it wouldn't surprise him if Bu$hCo tried to pull some kind of state-of-emergency crap to set aside the (need for) elections.
They didn't have to do that because they had a Republican Congress. But now?
We were talking about Executive Orders. By E.O., all commercial flights were grounded, for example - which was a good thing, don't get me wrong - but the point is that the Executive Branch has awesome power at its disposal.
1138, I sincerely hope you're right that there would be domestic insurrection. I sure as hell will be out there on the streets if they try to go around this!!
I seem to remember Clinton making similar rumblings towards the end of his final term. Nothing much surprises me about anything either the current president or his immediate predecessor did, but there are a hell of a lot of members of the National Guard and full-time armed services, and given what I've read about troop morale, I don't think he wants to risk this.
Furthermore, anyone who went against that and was a military serviceperson may be protected from the restrictions of Articles 92 and 94 of the UCMJ based on the Nuremberg and My Lai precedents. I think you're looking for trouble where there is none. Some people may call that the product of a diseased mind. I'm not trained properly enough to say one way or the other.
I don't see the White House's attempts to set aside the 22nd amendment being as crazy as made out to be.
Such is the nature of law, and given that the Iraq occuptation could be construed as a war approved by both houses of congress, there could well be a legal loophole somewhere to set this amendment aside.
We must assume that White House lawyers think there may be such a loophole, otherwise Cheney wouldn't have said what he said.
So, from the point of view of the Bush White House, attempting to overturn the 22nd amendment is well worth the try.
Assuming the attempt is successful, and Bush runs in 2008, I would give him a more than even chance of winning.
Consider that in 2004 he got a bigger percentage share of the popular vote than in 2000, despite it being obvious even then, that the Iraq adventure was turning out to be the disaster it now obviously is.
If opposition to the Iraq occupation is as widespread as supposed, why are the Democrats so skittish about stopping the occupation's funding?
Obviously they are hesitating because they suspect that the American public wouldn't approve this. Which means that most Americans still wish the troops to remain in Iraq, which means that most Americans still support the war in Iraq , despite what they tell the pollsters.
If something, no matter how untrue, is repeated often enough, most people will eventually believe it, as Dick Cheney and George Bush know too well.
If George Bush, with Dick Cheney at his side, was to make as his re-election mantra that the 9/11 attacks were planned out of Iraq, and that the Iraq invasion and current occupation is the appropriate reponse to this attack from Iraq, who's to say this wouldn't be enough to ensure a third Bush/Cheney administration?
Forget that Bush has currently only a 30% approval rating. The 2008 elections are over a year-and-a-half away - plenty of time for Bush and Cheney to turn their fortunes around.
Christopher, I disagree. That Amendment is pretty tightly worded, and there's no loophole for a President to run for a third term. During war, military commanders change, even the top generals from time to time.
What you said about Bush's poll numbers might have merit if this were just one poll, just one blip on the radar. However, what we've seen is a consistent decline in his approval ratings, and this type of trending hasn't been seen since the waning days of the Nixon presidency. They've been staying at or near the 30s for over a year now, and his DISAPPROVAL rating is almost at 60%. Say what you will about Clinton, and I certainly have, but he never angered or disgusted the American public to that degree.
In 2004, while his approval rating was sub-50%, it was only barely so, and he was facing a very unpopular opponent. I don't know what the Democratic Party was drinking when they nominated Senator Lurch. With his current poll numbers, I doubt he could win the primary, let alone a general election.
The Democratic Party is doing what they can. They don't want to appear anti-troop, so instead, they're attempting to accomplish troop withdrawal by putting serious conditions, including an exit date, on any funding bills. In essence, they're showing that they're serious and thoughtful, and the latter trait has been seen only rarely from this administration on the topic of the war.
So, in short, while I respect your opinion, I just don't buy it.
Hey everyone, looks like some of us have been taken in by an April Fool's joke, according to Lizzy.
Sorry about the confusion, but hey, it was a good discussion generator! I guess this just shows that when it comes to the Bush administration, my thoughts run like "guilty until proven innocent"!
No sooner had I written up the following comments in reply to those by Mandelbrot's Chaos, and clicked on to this site to paste them, I learn that what sparked them was an April Fool's joke.
But I'll post my comments anyway because they include other stuff that might be worthy of thought. This is what I wrote:
"I agree that the probability of the 22nd amendment being set aside would be extremely remote, given the tight wording of the amendment. But in times of “war”, amendments can be set aside, like the first amendment, where the freedom of expression it guarantees, clashes with “sedition”. Besides, the US Supreme Court has a conservative majority which might be disposed to regard representations by the Bush administration to set aside the 22nd amendment more favourably than is justified.
And I agree that a decision by the Democrats in the Congress to cut off funding for the troops in Iraq is not a simple black-and-white issue. But perhaps the Democrats might articulate better to Americans why cutting off funding is the best means to bring the troops home and end the war. I do have sympathy for the Bush position that setting a deadline a year or so ahead to bring the troops home would seriously compromise their military effectiveness, for the “insurgents” would simply lie low until the troops were gone, and would emerge again from their hiding places.
If a war is worth fighting, it makes sense to fight it until it’s won. But if it isn’t worth fighting, it only makes sense to stop immediately and bring the soldiers home. The Democrats are in a no-man’s-land, saying, in effect, that the war no longer makes sense, but it should nonetheless continue to be fought for the next year or so. This not only doesn’t make sense, it is also immoral.
It seems clear that all hell will break out in Iraq when the American troops leave, whether now, or in March 2008. The only difference is that more American soldiers will die if they leave in March 2008 than if they leave now. So why not leave now? This is the message the Democrats should be articulating.
Even allowing that the chances of Bush running for a third term are extremely remote, if, by chance, he were allowed to run, I would still give him a good chance of winning, given the real possibility of the Democrats fielding another ineffectual candidate, and that the percentage margins of victory or defeat in presidential elections are historically low – usually no more than 4 or 5 percent. Even Jimmy Carter, an incumbent president, with very low approval ratings for a long time (I think under 25%), came within 2 or 3 percentage points of beating Gerald Ford, the challenger.
George Bush would have the advantage of his incumbency, and, very importantly, that he is a “war” president with the power to frighten the people into voting for him. Even allowing that most of American people don’t like him very much, they might like his Democratic challenger even less, and Bush would be re-elected.
Stranger things have happened."
Yes, but Carter didn't have a disapproval rating over 50%. He merely had a huge swath of apathy which is far easier to overcome than the antipathy the President currently "enjoys".
There's a difference between inciting rebellion and providing aid and comfort to the enemy and free speech. For example, questioning the decisions of top leaders is protected speech under the First Amendment, but providing troop positions or advocating action against the government may not be. The First Amendment was not suspended, and were that to ever happen, this nation will have truly fallen.
At this point, we could be there until 2018 and still leave a nightmare when we left. At this point, I feel that the sooner we leave, the sooner they can figure out their own problems. We need to train up their troops, provide what aid we can to their infrastructure, and call it a day. This war was winnable at one point, but that day has long since passed. At this point, we're merely throwing good money after bad and putting people in harm's way who really don't need to be there, all while drastically reducing our actual national security. Ever since the Clinton years, I have been immensely grateful for the 22nd Amendment, and this administration has only intensified that sentiment.
MC, I am in complete agreement. What you said!
"At this point, we could be there until 2018 and still leave a nightmare when we left. At this point, I feel that the sooner we leave, the sooner they can figure out their own problems. We need to train up their troops, provide what aid we can to their infrastructure, and call it a day. This war was winnable at one point, but that day has long since passed."
I could never have said it better myself.
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