a widdle cat will lead them. just take a black ink pen and black out the ltters you don’t want to see on the stamp :)

Dick Cheney is, front and center, possibly the most cowardly, irresponsible, and non-accountable swine ever to hide behind a blanket claim of government secrecy. Of course he’s been almost gleeful in violating the principle of secrecy in connection with Valerie Plame. That is just the one event that has become public – there’s virtually no doubt that Cheney has fostered leaks of other material that would normally have been considered high-security in the interests of promoting his anti-patriot program. And conversely, it is a certainty that he has invoked National Security as a blanket excuse for a coverup in a multitude of instances where there was absolutely no national security issue involved. The single strongest theme of this administration has obviously been taking care of the rich, let the %)(@$%^#^*(%( rules of law go to hell, and executive office uber alles. Heil Cheney!!

It is quite apparent that Cheney’s only real enthusiasm for secrecy is to cover up the criminal anti-citizen un-American program that he has going to enrich himself and his corporate sponsors and evolve an executive authority that is no longer subject to checks and balances or any semblance of the democracy we thought we inherited.

TeddySanFran @
27

Why doesn’t the Bible burst into flames with that lesbian holding it????

Or was Dick sworn in on Halliburton’s Annual Report?

You crack me up Teddy.

Don’t you wish you could scream to Dick and Lynne ‘The Bible’s smoking, look out!’?

That Bible is obviously Demon-Proof…in fact, I doubt that it actually is a Bible at all. If it was it would send out a massive pulse of EMG to Cheney’s pacemaker. Sort of like the Ark of the Covenant in “Indiana Jones”!

Earlobe @ 58

… One of the notes I wrote in a margin was “Did Cheney’s daughter Elizabeth (Dept of State) send him on a junket?” ..

ROTFLMAO!! :) :)

If he was, he was likely a lot closer to smuggled Nigerien Uranium than Joe Wilson EVER WAS!

Earlobe @ 84

It appears that one enterprising reporter was able to briefly interview the dismissed former curator.

The curator explained that yesterday morning she was at home when she heard her doorbell ring. She answered the door and found herself looking at a middle-aged blond woman with dyed blond hair and dark roots. The blond reached into what appeared to be a very expensive handbook, then pulled out a piece of paper. She handed the paper to the curator, then turned and walked away.

The curator took the paper inside and saw that it was a copy of a column from the Washington Post written by a Victoria somebody. Once the curator realized the column was about Libby, she stopped reading it. But she figured she was dutybound to tell Judge Walton about the incident, so she did. And that got her dismissed.

[Mod Note; please provide a link or the source of this report.]

Where did you hear this? What reporter, what news organization?(oh, just noticed the moderator’s note)

I’m just catching up after being at work all afternoon – I’m feeling the after effects of whiplash from reading all of the speculation many FDLers were engaging in! I am glad to hear Jane got her wallet & phone back. Good news, indeed!

Here’s hoping for a quiet morning at the courthouse tomorrow… and a verdict in the afternoon! I called Tuesday as verdict day, and I still think it might happen, even with all the drama today.

If true, that would be an out-and-out case of JURY TAMPERING!

Tony Snow spent a lot of his press briefing today trying to not explain what Dick Cheney has been doing and saying on his Asian trip. Quagmires, the al Qaeda loving Pelosi, disappearing Brits, Pakistan, Cheney’s psychotic comments made for a hard day for Tony the Suit Snow.

My favorite part was on a topic near and dear to me, the 2002 AUMF against Iraq.

Q Tony, can you explain again how the 2002 congressional authorization for war in Iraq, how is it still operable, as the White House said on Friday, when major portions talk about weapons of mass destruction, and the title of the resolution even says, “War Against Iraq,” and now we’re working with Iraq?

MR. SNOW: Well, as you know, if you go and take a look, there’s also an extended conversation about the global war on terror and the fact that there are terrorist elements that the previous government had supported. As you also know, the United Nations Chapter 7 language on this talks about dealing with the security and stability of Iraq, and that the MNFI, the multi-national force in Iraq, is there to secure the stability and security of Iraq. Therefore, it is certainly still operative, not only within the terms of the original resolution, but also in terms of the enabling legislation, if you will, through the United Nations.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news…..226-1.html

Well, it was nice that the reporter asked the question but it’s clear that neither Snow nor the reporter has actually read the AUMF recently. The operative text says this:

The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to–
(1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and
(2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.

The reporter was essentially correct in pointing out that the Iraq in the AUMF is not the Iraq of today but goes astray with the WMD part. The relevant UN resolutions cited in the AUMF preamble are all from Gulf War I. The main one of these is 687 which orders Iraq to renounce WMD, nuclear weapons, and ballistic missiles. 678 is also important since it authorizes “all means necessary” although the action in question is the expulsion of Iraqi troops from Kuwait. There was no UN resolution sanctioning force for Gulf War II. If the UN resolutions cited in the AUMF were a stretch in 2002, think of what they are now 16 years after they were agreed to.

Snow’s reply is a rambling reference to resolution 1723 from Nov. 2006 or 4 years after the AUMF. I think it is clear that the Administration’s position is to ignore the actual text of the AUMF, hope that nobody goes back and reads it, and conflate the AUMF language with more recent UN resolutions than those which the AUMF references. (1723 btw mandates the multi-national force only to the end of 2007 with a review no later than June 15).

http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/U…..penElement

Basically this is precisely what the wingnuts would scream about (and should) if they weren’t sdo in awe of Bush-Cheney. Basically this interpretation gives any President authority to use troops anytime once the UN has a resolution passed in perpetuity!

Conress certainly did not AUTHORIZE troops under the new UN Resolution that occurred 4 years AFTER the AUMF. Bush needs to return and get extended authority from Congress. The original resolution is defunct. It certainly doesn’t deal with a civil war…and even at it’s broadest can only apply to using US forces to deal with Al Qaida in Iraq…not sectarian violence.

In addition, beware any Resolutions that the UN makes against IRAN, since Bush will likely be able to justify attacking them under the AUMF if it relates in the slightest to the elements HE finds related in the most labyrinthine manner to IRAQ (e.g. contributing to terrorism).

Bill @ 113

The only threads around here that consistently make me scratch my head are the ones that seem to take astrology seriously. Could you please make the funny parts funnier? Or if this isn’t all just horsing around, maybe the mods could add groovy little symbols to the astrology posts with links to elsewhere, so that maybe the conversation will be carried on outside the ‘Lake.

What is your sign?

girl, you are so funny. That was too much!