Impeach the suckers

OK, time for another political rant. I don’t know if I do too many of them or not enough, but putting up photos of E somehow seems much more enjoyable. Today’s rant comes to you courtesy of VG, who for some reason points us to this article on Cheney. Reading that, along with what is going on in the White House now really annoys me.

(or should I talk about Paris getting out of jail?) (is she out yet?)

Our local paper this morning had an editorial on Executive Privilege, there is a question as to whether or not the VP has to comply with a law about secrecy. “Dick Cheney is maintaining that the vice president's office is not an executive branch "agency" as defined by the law and is therefore exempt from the mandate.” This presidency has issued more ‘letters’ when laws are signed that exempt the President from enforcing laws passed by congress, as well as executive orders that are directly contrary to other laws.

This seems to be the most secretive of any of the administrations that I can remember. All kinds of executive actions are kept secret, and information only comes out when journalists with good attorneys use the Freedom of Information act to suck tidbits of data from assorted places, and then pull together many separate pieces to come up with some idea of what is going on. There still has not been an admission or full accounting of those overseas prisons that captured ‘terrorists’ are held in, and there is now discussion going on about closing the Guantanamo prison and transferring everybody back out to the hidden areas of Uzbekistan, or wherever the heck those place are. (well, they are secret prisons) Sounds like something Bush would do; the Supreme Court finally (for the third time) declares actions there illegal, so rather than doing the right thing come up with a way to work around the law, or ignore it altogether. Instead of opening the prison to lawyers just close it and ship everyone off to be tortured someplace else. Oh, sorry ‘we don’t do torture’; easy to say when you are the one making up the definitions.

I wish I could get away with that – defining my own words. Last president got to define ‘sex’, this one gets to define ‘torture’, along with a lot of other things. Somehow I think it’s a lot less painful to redefine sex. For the individuals involved as well as for the rest of the country.

Which somehow is unrelated (or it is) to the current topic, which is back onto our vice president being able to do any darn thing that he wants to do: for some reason I can’t say that I didn’t see this coming. It appears to be fairly standard in recent administrations for the sins of the administration to start becoming publicized in about year six of the eight year term. Since most people are reasonably sick of what has been going on the opposing party, figuring they will be the ones in power next time, start pulling out the knives and hatchets to carve up the people about to be relieved of duty. Of course, it helps when the current administration has a pile of things they want to hide. And the current group in the white house sure seems to have quite a lot of activities they are trying to hide, no matter what the laws say about that.

Now, the office of the vice president declares that it is not a part of the executive branch, and so does not have to comply with laws requiring the release of information? And it is also not an agency, so it is exempt from other laws. So I guess we now have a kind of magical little community living in one wing of the white house that is really its own independent country and can do anything it wants to do?

And this topic – a continuation of the ‘we do not torture’ line that has been the standard of this administration. To wait for the Supreme Court to tell them that enemy combatants have the same rights under our constitution that any citizen has? And that even American citizens are also protected by this same constitution, just by saying someone is a threat to the nation does not mean they can be locked up without access to a lawyer for years. That seems the most disturbing to me – that an American can be hauled off the streets, subject to this treatment that is not torture, and kept locked in solitary confinement for years and years without being able to talk to a lawyer or having any sort of judicial review just be giving them a new classification? And the press and people of this country are not up in arms about this?

I think the positions that both of these guys are taking, and things they have done, would qualify for an impeachment session. Let’s get everything out in the open, show them that they can’t redefine the laws for their own convenience. But it’s never going to happen; too many Republicans still feel they must remain loyal. And too many Americans think they are doing the right thing, heck with the constitution.

Aw, why do I have to keep complaining about stuff like this? Nothing I say changes anything. Those that agree with me keep agreeing, those that don’t keep their opinions.

And now for something completely different: this little elephant should be getting off a plane right about now, and soon be back at my house.


Looking forward to the end of the work day when I can go home and see how she is doing. I understand my sweet little E has become a terrible two and things have changed. The word ‘NO’ is now in semi-continuous use.