Cheney Keeps His Secrets

(CBS)  The Skinny is Joel Roberts' take on the top news of the day and the best of the Internet.

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For the past four years, Vice President Dick Cheney has refused to comply with an executive order governing the oversight of classified material, using the novel argument that his office is not fully part of the executive branch.

That's according to front-page stories Friday in The New York Times, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times.

Documents released Thursday by a House committee claim that since 2003, Cheney's office has resisted routine oversight of its handling of classified material, blocked mandatory inspections and even tried to have the unit of the National Archives responsible for enforcing the oversight rules abolished.

The L.A. Times points out that "at least one of those inspections would have come at a particularly delicate time — when Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and other aides were under criminal investigation for their suspected roles in leaking the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame."

Cheney's argument is that his office is "not an entity within the executive branch," because it also has a legislative role under the Constitution - an interesting position, the LAT notes, from an official who has claimed executive privilege when refusing to provide information requested by Congress.

In an interview with the New York Times, Rep. Henry Waxman, the Democratic chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said, "I know the vice president wants to operate with unprecedented secrecy. But this is absurd. This order is designed to keep classified information safe."


CIA To Share The "Family Jewels"

The CIA is airing decades of its dirty laundry, declassifying hundreds of pages of long-secret records detailing some of the agency's worst abuses from the 1960s and '70s, the Washington Post and New York Times both report Friday.

The Post says the records document a "quarter-century of overseas assassination attempts, domestic spying, kidnapping and infiltration of leftist groups."

The documents, to be publicly released next week, include accounts of agency break-ins and thefts, opening of private mail, wiretaps of journalists, and drug tests on "unwitting" civilians.

"Most of it is unflattering," said CIA Director Michael Hayden. "But it is CIA's history."

The documents, known around the CIA as the "family jewels," have been unsuccessfully sought for years by journalists and historians under the Freedom of Information Act.


New Orleans Death Rate Surges

The death rate in New Orleans rose dramatically last year, USA Today reports, as the tragic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina continues to linger in the crestfallen city.

The city's death rate surged by 47 percent in 2006, compared with two years before Katrina, according to a new study. Doctors attributed much of that increase to a severe shortage of medical care and personnel – seven of New Orleans' 22 hospitals and half its hospital beds have been lost, and more than 4,000 doctors have been displaced since the hurricane.

The study included deaths of evacuees who left New Orleans following the storm. Kevin Stephens, director of the New Orleans Health Department and the report's lead author, said poor people who fled the city had trouble getting health care wherever they went.

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[victoriarum]

I was taught, "If you have nothing to hide, then you have no secrets. And if you have secrets, then you have lies."

Pray for Peace, God Bless Each of You.

[menofoz]

Transcript of Representative Cynthia McKinney's Exchange with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers, and Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) Tina Jonas, March 11th, 2005

CMK: Let me ask you this, then: who was in charge of managing those wargames?

DH: General, why don't you give the best answer that you can here in a short a period of time and we'll - the gentlelady wants to get a written answer anyway, and then we can move on to other folks.


RM: The important thing to realize is that North American Aerospace Defense Command was responsible. These are command post exercises; what that means is that all the battle positions that are normally not filled are indeed filled; so it was an easy transition from an exercise into a real world situation. It actually enhanced the response; otherwise, it would take somewhere between 30 minutes and a couple of hours to fill those positions, those battle stations, with the right staff officers.

[menofoz]

If Cheney is not part of the Executive Branch, then he cannot claim Executive Privilege on his Energy Task Force.

* Both President Bush and Vice-President Cheney took extraordinary steps to
limit any investigation into the events of 9/11.
* The NTSB never held inquiries into any of the 4 plane crashes, as required by law,
and the FBI is withholding the data from the airliner's flight recorders.
* All of the steel from the Twin Towers was shipped out of the country
before any investigation was held.

On 7/7 Rudy Giuliani was in London nearby the attacks, the consultancy agency,
Visor Consultants with government and police connections
was running an exercise that revolved around the London Underground being bombed
at the exact same times and locations as happened in real life on the morning of July 7th.
Sheirer was former Commissioner of New York City's Mayor's Office of Emergency Management (OEM),
which drilled "building collapses" and "plane crashes" prior to September 11

[cantshutup]

CBS...are you a real news outlet? Put this on the top news story...***??

[toldyouso21]

Cheney hides behind Executive privilege to hide his dealings with enron, outing plame and other stuff--THEN...when he is held to the same standards he has been touting as his 'protection' he claims disassociation. Which is it? Give up the emails or give up the info on Enron, Plame, Halliburton, Dubai,9/11, and everything else he's have been lying about.

[flreason]

How did this story get pushed so far down the page so quickly? Our form of government is at stake. There is no story that should take precedence over this...certainly not the latest blather of the next batch of Presidential candidates 17 months before an election. The story of Cheney's defiance of our laws, along with the other flagrant, totalitarian abuses of power by the current administration, should be on every channel and every web site until the American public understands that blind loyalty to any group is a sure-fire recipe for destruction of our freedoms and of our republic. It is OUR government and it is up to us to hold our elected representatives responsible.

There also needs to be legislation passed that will provide accountability to the Supreme Court. They have lost sight of the fact that Republicans are not the only ones who pay taxes. The partisanship of the current court is a disgrace--another slap in the face to the citizens that expect them to act in the best interest of ALL Americans. Any Congress that would not override a Presidential veto isn't worthy of the sacrifices of our heroes, past and present, to preserve the republic.

[hungry1968]

"When will the pathetic spineless complicit Democrats hold some impeachment hearings on this FASCIST SOB Cheney!
The FACTS are overwhelming that Cheney intentionally LIED us into a needless WAR. The highest of high crimes and misdomeanors. Yet congress does NOTHING!
JAIL the SOB and he can take his little snotty Bush with him."
Posted by mh4cbs1 at 12:16 AM : Jun 23, 2007

The Democrats in Congress are pretty much powerless. They hold the majority with like 51% of the seats, but to have some real teeth behind any legislation, they need a 2/3 majority behind them. Unfortunately, the remaining 49% are still Republicans that are voting right along with George Bush, instead of voting with what the American people want. If the Democrats held an overwhelming majority in Congress and the Senate, both Bush and Cheney, and all of their criminal acts would be under serious investigation. As long as the Republicans in Congress keep supporting these criminals, you'll continue to see no action.

[long_rider]

Why isn't the American news media supporting any efforts about investigating either the chimp, or the Gestapo chief cheney?

Investigative reporting in America is dead, we just like cute and pretty people, to feed us what they want us to know.

IMPEACH the White House thugs now.

[mh4cbs1]

When will the pathetic spineless complicit Democrats hold some impeachment hearings on this FASCIST SOB Cheney!

Cheney is the puppetmaster of G.W. Wasn't it a bit odd when he was 'chosen' by George to be the VP candidate? (or was it the other way around!).

Cheney was the mastermind of the Iraq Invasion, bringing in his old buddy Don Rumsfeld, and setting up the Office of Special Plans in the DoD to end run the CIA. This was the route of the fake intelligence sources that Cheney use as cover when he leaked "information" to Judith Miller of the NY Times. Then he would go the next day on the Sunday News shows to say "according to the NY Times...(lie, lie, lie...)".

Ex haliburton CEO, who got $7 Billion in no-bid contracts...

Why can't Americans connect the dots!????

The FACTS are overwhelming that Cheney intentionally LIED us into a needless WAR. The highest of high crimes and misdomeanors. Yet congress does NOTHING!

JAIL the SOB and he can take his little snotty Bush with him.

[hmmagain]

i think it's funny that the average old man or old lady sleeping at home with guns afraid to leave the house and afraid to stay in it while sending their small fortunes to television personalities out to save them would shoot the average terrorist in the leg if he or she was certain to hit the correct individual ... yet such little old ladies and little old men are not allowed access to microwave and laser and nuclear technologies with which they could build better guns ... don't get me wrong, i kno very few would be sleeping wtih guns if the army was knocking on their doors inviting them to hike and bus and song and dance and skit and kit and dance with jingles and art and craft and knick and knack and prop with accent and on and on ... still tho, the army works to hard to disarm their own mothers and fathers and sons and daughters when they otta be dancing with family