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The
Constitution divided the government of the Republic into three branches -
the executive, the legislative and the courts. Cheney, it appears, has
designed his own separate branch of the Junta, which so far still has no
name: no doubt it's all SECRET, private, and known only to his own shadow
branch of government!
Here's the rough outline, from www.wonkette.com/
and why he's been able to do
this "on his own" so-to-speak. ". . .the Vice President is
refusing to cooperate with a government directory known as the "Plum
Book," www.gpoaccess.gov/
which lists government employees. Federal agencies have to comply by
listing staffers in the directory, but Dick Cheney's office claimed an
exemption for itself, arguing that the "Vice Presidency is a unique
office that is neither a part of the executive branch nor a part of the
legislative branch.
In other words, employees of the
three branches of the federal government have to give staff lists for the
Plum Book, but the OVP apparently believes it's not part of any of the
three branches. At the risk of sounding overly dramatic, it's one of those
horrifying arguments that makes one worry about the integrity of our
constitutional system. An
important legal ruling is pending over Vice President Cheney's refusal to
disclose statistics on document classification and
declassification activity. The Information Security Oversight Office, www.archives.gov/
which is responsible for the policy and oversight of the government's
security classification system, has asked Attorney General Alberto
Gonzales to direct Cheney's office to disclose these statistics.
Cheney's office provided the
information until 2002 but then stopped doing so, J. William Leonard, the
director of ISOO, told U.S. News. At issue is whether the office of the
vice president is an executive branch entity when it comes to supporting
the activities of the president and the vice president. The reporting
requirements for disclosing classification and declassification activity
fall under a presidential
executive order. Possibly: (www.whitehouse.gov/)
"Basically the definition
says that any entity of the executive branch that comes into possession of
classified information is covered by
the reporting requirements," says Leonard. "I have my
understanding of what the executive order requires, and I'm going to the
attorney general to ascertain if my reading of the executive order is
correct."
However, Megan McGinn, Cheney's
deputy press secretary, says the vice president's office is exempt.
"This matter has been thoroughly reviewed, " McGinn told U.S.
News, "and it has been determined that reporting requirements do not
apply to the office of the vice president, which has both legislative and
executive functions."... (1)
Cheney's office seems to have
declared itself some kind of fourth branch of the government. It's legislative,
its executive, (and) it's accountable to no one... It's the super branch. In
this particular case, the executive branch is required to disclose
statistics on document classification
and declassification activity to the Information Security Oversight Office
www.archives.gov/
- It's about accountability and oversight, two words that seem to send
shivers down Cheney's spine. The OVP's creative constitutional
interpretation leads it to a convenient conclusion, keeping secret their
efforts to keep things secret. Or, more accurately, how much stuff they
keep secret.
"No secrets would be
revealed, only statistics," says Steven Aftergood of the Federation
of American Scientists, who
urged ISOO to obtain the compliance of the vice president's office last
May. "But the office of the vice president is resisting even that
minimal level of accountability."
If the attorney general
determines that Cheney's interpretation of the executive order is right,
Leonard says it would be the final
answer. "That's it for me," says Leonard. ISOO is a component of
the National Archives and oversees the security classification programs
both for the government and the
security industry. Leonard reports to the archivist of the United States
and is required at least
annually to submit a report to the president about the government's
classification programs and significant
classification and declassification activities.
ISOO is a fairly obscure agency,
it's late on a Friday afternoon, and this may seem like trivia, but
it's a serious constitutional
question, which could have key political consequences. Cheney is basically
taking a "it depends on what the meaning of 'executive branch'
is" approach to federal law."
The consequences of this
outrageous denial, by Cheney, of any higher authority in his capacity as
the indirect-director of the Commander-in-Chief-are in violation of the
constitutional laws of the Republic. This may work under the Democracy
(majority rules) that Cheney wants to establish, but this has no standing
under the US Constitution. In this day and time, with so much criminality
coming directly from the Junta that now rules this nation - it seems
incredible that even Dead-eye Dick Cheney could not be this extreme, when
it comes to the restrictions placed upon the major officers of what's left
of this government!
Isn't it enough that The White
House waited until three months after the elections to announce that
despite the voters clearly stated concerns over the war - "the
self-appointed decider" remains determined to "Stay the Course"
and just add more new blood to the blood-bath, rather than heed the wishes
of the American public. Then to have that slap-in-the-face compounded by
the supposedly "new congress" that has now waited an additional
month and a half to decide that they cannot decide to even allow a debate
about the war - much less actually pass "a non-binding
resolution" that in effect would censor the president's intentions in
the on-going and completely failed war on Iraq! This little trick has
allowed the "decider's" policy to already begin - because
congress simply could not get its collective act together in time to even
hold a vote to forestall the action, which their vote was supposedly
intended to effect.
So the Congress willingly ignored
the voters, and spit on the sacrifices being made by the troops while
failing to grasp the enormity of the criminal endeavor that the War on
Iraq has become. Now on top of that-there is the possibility that Cheney
has decided that he is in charge of a 4th Branch of America-incorporated,
a government that has no room in it anywhere, for the people who are being
forced to pay for it. What's next? The North American Union, another
"act" wherein the public will not even be consulted-and this
time it involves the total destruction of the borders of the USA as a
nation state, in favor of some weird kind of trade-agreement that lives
only in the black-granite hearts of the global bankers, together with that
collection of Pirates that are the New World Order and who are beginning
to become seriously criminal in their lust for all that is not yet theirs! (2)
Maybe it's too much to ask of our
overpaid and seriously compromised congress to get to the bottom of this
garbage. Someone needs to remind the remaining 493 members of the former 535 Club,
that if they do not soon begin to act against the WAR and against
Cheney-then the fires they may have to react to will soon be focused on
them. The smokescreen of all the little candidates being trotted out as if
they were serious contenders, two years before the contest, will never
obscure the blood already spilled or the CRIMES that are already part of
history. Have a look at some of what's become of this nation, after the
imposition of our new "Empire." (3)
It's time to bring an end to
these charades. Here's a map of what happened to another country that has
been under this kind of attack, especially when the people who lived there
were denied the right to contest the occupation of those lands that have
been theirs for many centuries! This takeover was supposedly overseen by
The United States of America acting as "an honest broker" in the
region-for low these many years. Think about this: then ask yourself if
you have done all that you can to keep the United States in the hands of
the people who built this country and made it prosperous! We have seen how
corrupt the US government can be once all the restrictions prohibiting
government from abusing its people are removed. The maps below recount
what happened over the last 62 years, to a people that were powerless to
stop yet another illegal government from doing whatever it wanted with
their people and their lands
"A Fourth Branch of
government"? - what we need is to use the three branches we have to
see to it that the Cheney's & the Bush's of this world are never again
allowed within a thousand miles of anything remotely like a government.
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