OK so the joke's on us, Cheney's right. But no matter how you slice it, you can't compete with "America's Got Talent" for the attention of our collective psyche. People remain nonplussed.

What TF?

Freshman Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) zeroed in on a little-noted memorandum signed by Mr. Gonzales in May of 2006. [...]

"'What - on earth - business does the Office of the Vice President have in the internal workings of the Department of Justice with respect to criminal investigations, civil investigations, and ongoing matters?' the Senator asked.

Gonzales was stumped, 'As a general matter, I would say that's a good question.' [...] "'On its face - I must say - sitting here, I'm troubled by this,' Gonzales added."

What TF??

Because this is contrary to statutory law, common law, and constitutional guidance regarding the status of the Vice President, at this point it stands as a de facto Executive directive establishing a new capacity—essentially, a new portfolio—for the Vice President.

It's not legal, but it's ... legal??

WTF???

Excuse me. I gotta go pay homage to the porcelain god. ... er ... err ...rrrrrrralph.

Actually, Moody Blue, it's probably legal because it's not illegal.

Failing that, it's not unlawful because no one can stop it.

The Dark Wraith share Mr. Gonzales' sense of being "troubled."

Wraith, how can this be? How can anyone just create a new "branch" of government?

Whitehouse then pointed out that in the same memo, the Chief of Staff and Counsel of the Vice President were also explicitly granted the same authority.

From the memo at Raw Story:

Notwithstanding any procedures or limitations set forth above, the Attorney General can communicate directly with the President, Vice President, their Chiefs of Staff, Council to the President or Vice President, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, Assistant to the President and Homeland Security Advisor or the head of any office within the EOP regarding any matter within the jurisdiction of the Department of Justice.

I'm trying really, really hard not to scream.

Good afternoon, once again, Moody Blue.

The practical effect of the paragraph you quoted is thus: the United States Attorney General recognized not just a Prime Minister, but also his Cabinet.

The Dark Wraith does enjoy a good revolution when he sees one (albeit after the fact).

I do like your change for the quote thingy. I was watching, and saw it was changing! You tweaker, you!

Wraith, I've got a feeling that there's gonna be more than one Friday night this week, possibly starting now.

I'd been meaning to do that for a long time, but I just never got around to stuffing the styling elements into the cascading style sheets. I had to do a different setup for each of the three color themes, but now that it's done, I'll probably do no more for at least a while.

The Dark Wraith never likes to push his luck when one of his runs at the style sheets doesn't end in total disaster.

Good afternoon, Lynn.

I really have to visit your site more often, as I find your comments here, enlightening and 'on the money'. The only reason I post here so much is that DW was kind enough to rent one of the efficiency apartments upstairs of this site. (I'm supposed to be painting the kitchen in lieu of cash, but heck, he knew I was a lazy no-good bum when he offered the place to me; At least I keep the stereo down!)

I've just finished reading the Bill Moyer's Journal interview with Bruce Fein and John Nichols. Bruce Fein was the person who drafted(wrote) the Articles of Impeachment against President Bill Clinton. Mr. Nichols writes for The Nation and, umm...sounded just as smart as Fein! They both pointed out some of the reasons WHY the people remain nonplussed. The first being that Congress has decided to treat the American people like children; When it was suggested to Tip O'Neill that Impeachment proceedings needed to continue against Nixon because he denied any wrongdoing to the end, stating that "if the president does it, it's legal", the response was an emphatic "No...the country has suffered too much." As if the people couldn't handle the rule of law being preserved, the overreach of executive power pulled back.

Another reason for the general apathy being exhibited is the media, according to the two men. They said the Founding Fathers knew that congress may not do it''s duty, and may not provide any real statesmen, anyone honest enough to put the country before their party. The Fourth Estate's part in all this was supposed to be frustrating secretives, and shaming those who would put politics before the people. As DW has eloquently described elsewhere, we are sorely lacking in that department.

DW, as usual, you are painting with pastels and oils, while most others, merely broken crayons. So, having this information, when do you predict Ms. Pelosi will admit error, and order impeachment proceedings to start? No need to answer, you'll just make me start crying again.

Well, I better get back to painting those walls. Wait'll DW finds out I'm colorblind! HAHA!

"no more at least for a while."

Uh-huh. ;-)

If it turns out your wall painting is valuable to abstract art collectors,trog, you can have a month's rent free next year. Heck, make it two months.

The Dark Wraith should probably invite some art appraisers over for dinner some night.

If the abstract art collectors get really, really smart, via the method suggested previously, we'll be rich!

Here's an idea, we just all act like Trog's an artistic genius and that will make it so. We'll create a buzz by talking about how despite offering thousands, we could not secure his work for the satellite office conference room. We'll lament and decry the fact that you have to "kind of know somebody" to touch Trog.
This part:
"No...the country has suffered too much." reminds me of the arguments against impeachment, even on the left. It would be costly, a distraction, it would put America through hell...and so on. I love this warm and fuzzy regard for our mental comfort! Lest we all be irked by some "upholding of law" crap.

I like the comments here, and know this is one place I can come to vent and not get agitated. Dark Wraith Forums- saltines for the perpetually nauseous. You guys are cool.

Hope she doesn't find out about the dog licking all the salt off the crackers.

That's no dog; that's Peter of Lone Tree doing that.

I'm just replacing the salt I sweat out trying to keep up with everything that's going on (or off).
"People remain nonplussed."
Lynn and y'all, I recommend the article What the Hell is Going On? and be sure to read the "comments". Lotsa theories about why we're numbed and dumbed, including cell phone towers, "bread & circuses", fluoride, etc., etc.
I harbor the opinion that, at least on a subconscious level, Americans are just plain scared. Or else they think that some movie hero-type will come along and save the day.
One broad that ain't takin' shit offa nobody is Mom. Check out the
"Living Planet" section at Signs-of-the-Times.

1.Supposin' some of us like 'em like that?

2. Some of us worry about a hypertension induced stupor.

3. Oops, too late.

And..."some movie hero-type" ?

It hasn't escaped my notice that there are folks here that are prone to donning costumes and red tights, scaling buildings and that sort of thing.

Let's just say I'VE HEARD about you, Peter.

Lynn:Some of us worry about a hypertension induced stupor.

Once you start hitting the sludge towards the bottom of the coffee urn, stupor will be the least of your worries.

You say that like it's a bad thing, trog.

The Dark Wraith uses a spatula for the high viscosity stuff.

He applies the sludge with mason-like precision with a trowel on aforementioned saltless crackers. Sure, the locals complain. But there's no zoning to forbid the practice.

Rumor has it that he aims to challenge the strawbalers to a build-off.

With apologies to Omar Khayyam:
"A saltless cracker, a jug of sludge, and thou beside me, and pretty soon I'll be fat, stoned, and in trouble".

I don't spend anywhere near enough time here.

Keep your powder dry and your blades honed!

Dare I ask, Rubaiyat?

"See, I had this dream last night, and he was wearing a towel, but it was like this really weird towel, made of like, Saltines, and it kept crumbling." -Angela, "My So Called Life"

Phydeaux Speaks:Keep your powder dry and your blades honed!

You forgot, our gentle host has forbidden weapons at these little coffee clashes, after what happened last week. Bad Phydeaux; no no!

/should I rub his nose in them?

That's no dog; that's Peter of Lone Tree doing that.

Thank you Mr. Wraith, for being able to tell the difference between the two of us.

Failing that, it's not unlawful because no one can stop it.

Hey, just wait a min there, Just because we cannot stop it doesn't mean it's not illegal!!!

sheesh!

If that were true, then all the deaths in Iraq would not mean a thing, noone in this administration will ever be held responsible for their crimes, our government would spy on us and put all the data in leveraged databases that they would then share with their corporate masters, people would be arrested off the streets for no reason and be thrown in jail and kept there incognito and be tortured......

*Oh Well*

Good mornong, DW.

Sidebar: If those Representatives and Senators would just call themselves a giant corporation and contribute money to the Republican National Committee, Bush and Cheney would let them have anything they wanted!

The challenge has been issued; We need to help our elected officials by coming up with a real snappy fresh name for this corporation. Any ideas?

Good Ofternune trog69,

Dick 'n Bush-R-US?

Sons 'o Bush's?

This could get out of hand real fast.

The Dark Wraith needs to get the Articles of Incorporation filed in Delaware before things get ugly around the incorporators' table.

DW, I beat you to that report on the effabeeeye recruiting informants(might be a first.), and it occurs to me that it ties in with this thread about the DOJ info pipeline to the OVP and others, especially as to a response to wingnuts who approve of the Administration's shenanigans.(FBI policies and procedures included.) It's called ESCALATION. As it was pointed out by someone else, the tools used by WH administrations are in a box. More tools are invented/grabbed and placed in this box. None are ever taken out of the box. Presidential hopefuls may malign the use of these tools, but they remain, just in case. Law inforcement is the same game. Unless taken out of their hands, any means of obtaining info on bad guys is on higher ground than the rights to privacy would dictate. When caught, it's the perpetrator that's brought to justice; more likely than not, the tool remains, perhaps with some fine tuning, more often with hand wringing vs balderdashing.

On a slightly different slant, if somehow the SCOTUS were forced to decide on 'Executive Privilege' and it's scope, (something they have been loathe to ponder, thus the preamble of working it out amongst themselves) is there anyone here who thinks that at least one of the rightleaners would vote to take some of the tools out of that box? The scariest thing, to me, about this administration's overreach is for it to be legitimized by the courts.

MVD, Inc,

(Money Votes and Disappearing, Inc.)

HAHA, Disappearing inc.

Good afternoon, trog.

Your exposition on the "toolbox" goes to something I wrote some years back (in another pen name ending with Wraith). At the time, a database in Ohio had been assembled with the names of more than 3,000 men who were supposed to be "molesters." As it turned out, the vast majority of them were not: the list had been compiled largely through cursory surveys of civil court records, where the builders of the database had found a large number of instances of what was at the time an emerging trend in divorce proceedings where attorneys were simply throwing out accusations of inappropriate sexual behavior by fathers to make them quit fighting terms of divorce offered or, more specifically, to quit fighting for custody. It was a highly effective tactic, one that brought in all kinds of ugly side consequences in terms of actions by county agencies, law enforcement, etc. It was to get only worse as time went along, and it's still a problem to this day, although most participants in the legal system are now far more cautious than they were when the tactic first emerge, and divorce attorneys are more cautious in making pleadings that include such charges.

Anyway, the Ohio database was outed for what it was, and a journalistic outcry forced the state to announce that it would get rid of it (and that might have been the result of an actual order to the effect from a court, but I cannot recall that detail). In a conversation on legal matters on an electronic bulletin board service a few years after the incident, I coined this rule:

Wraith's First Law of Databases
A database once established has a high probability of immortality.

I should note that my second and third laws on this matter are no less troubling.

The Dark Wraith likes database management discussions.

This concept of the VP as a Prime Minister may have had its unofficial initiation in the Reagan and Clinton administrations, where Poppy and Al Gore seem to have been quite active compared to previous VPs.

Of course that old control freak spook, Poppy Bu$h, realized the danger of an active VP, which is why he had a more traditional one more like his own idiot son.

Cheney, on the other hand, typifies the shadows he deals in, and so has used the fourth branch of government to subvert control from all others.

Your posts continue to impress, Dark Wraith. It would be interesting to hear all three Laws of Databases.

Good evening, kelley b.

It's funny you should mention the slippery slope upon which we have traveled toward a prime minister. Dan Quayle was probably the last traditional Vice President, and his intellect was well-suited to the job.

Long ago, Spiro Agnew gave an appearance of activism in his office, but all he was doing was playing the role of lightning rod, in a sense laying out controversial–even loathsome–positions just to get a rise out of the media. Beneath that, he was playing to an emergent base that would, some years later, become critical to the success of the "New Right" (as we called it in another generation).

All of that having been noted, Agnew was nothing but a mouthpiece. Stronger VPs wouldn't come along for a while, and Gore was, fortunately, in his strengthened role a very intelligent man with military experience as well.

Cheney jumped in and pushed the envelope massively and rapidly; but unlike Gore, he was his entire adult life essentially a coward and something of a nut, and a rather dull-witted one at that. (One old-time semi-insider I used to know called Cheney a "fat Barney Fife without the twitch." To this day, my perception of Cheney is slightly different from that of others because of that description.)

The eventual nominee of the Democrats might very well determine the extent to which the "prime ministerialization" of the Vice Presidency continues. Hillary Clinton is far too powerful of mind and personality to allow her VP to have any role she would not want him to have. On the other hand, neither Obama nor Edwards would be like that: either one of them as President would, if the choice of VP were of a sufficiently strong will and mind, be able to hold onto the power Cheney had commandeered and possibly even expand it.

Time will tell, but it will be an interesting side story to speculate on how far this process will proceed over the course of the next President's term in office.

If there is a next President, that is.

The Dark Wraith should not be so certain in talking about that which is only speculative in this new American century.

From a comment at Americablog:
"New information reveals that Doctors who examined Pat Tillman's body raised serious questions, from the start, about the claims about how he had died. They found three bullet holes close together in his forehead, from an M16, and they said that those shots must have been fired at him from no more than ten yards away."

DW, from what I recall, and I may be incorrect, the M16 in the Vietnam era had 3 firing "positions": single shot, full auto, and a setting for a 3-shot burst. Is this still the same for the "modern" version?

Good evening, Peter.

Three head shots at 10 yards?! Are you friggin' kidding?!

Okay, okay. First things first. I'd want to know the cranial entry pattern. If it was linear, that's probably Tillman sticking his head up at exactly the wrong second, the one where some moron was doing slow-sweep on auto. If, on the other hand, the wound pattern is clustered, that's more likely a hose job.

Three-shot burst (which is purely speculative, here) is a command setting, anyway. At an average 10-yard engagement, it's a deliberative setting: you're not laying down suppressive fire; you're after something, but you are deficient in either close range, targeting accuracy, and/or certainty that the target can be brought down one-round style.

That's my take. If Minstrel Boy is reading this, I would invite him to offer an alternative.

Now, to the best of my knowledge, three-shot burst capability was not introduced until the M16A2, and that wasn't until the 1980s. The A1–a cheap-feeling piece of crap–I had before that time sure didn't have it. From what I hear, the A2 is still widespread, but there's a model called the A4 that's out there, too; but I don't know much about it, although I get the impression that, like the A2, it's a meatier-feeling weapon than I ever saw in the M16A1.

One last thing is that the A2 is not exactly an "automatic" in the ordinary sense: if I understand how the weapon discharges, it actually fires three-round bursts repeatedly instead of just flipping the clip.

Nevertheless, at 10 yards, even if you see just the top of a guy's head sticking up above some rocks, it's not that hard to assess the situation without having to kill the son-of-a-bitch first.

The whole thing stinks like Hell to me; but I am most decidedly not going to rush to judgment and declare that the guy was "obviously" fragged. I'll leave that to others who want a live scalp to go along with the dead soldier's.

You'll have to forgive me that way, Peter. I've been a little touchy ever since some hillbillies doing their crap at Abu Ghraib went to the slammer while a whole wad of their well-connected superiors and "investigators" (like Patraeus) are still respectable bitches.

The Dark Wraith gets a little fragile when it comes to hanging the grunts for public entertainment and soul-cleansing.

"The Dark Wraith gets a little fragile when it comes to hanging the grunts for public entertainment and soul-cleansing."

There are old stories....

Indeed, there are.

And we're going to add plenty more before this war is over.

Hanging our own is a great way to prove to ourselves that we are "civilized" in the presence of inconvenient evidence to the contrary.

The Dark Wraith just wishes the noose could be fitted for brass and suits as well as it is for helmets and fatigues.