Darth Cheney Declares He Is A "Fourth Branch" Of Government

[DeSwiss]

I'd seen allusions to the story about the OVP refusing to submit information about who works for Chenelink (dumb as a fence), but I hadn't seen in print what his office's rationale for not doing it was.

The man is certifiable.

Cheney’s independent operation — Part II

The Carpetbagger
Posted February 9, 2007 4:35 pm

On Monday, we talked about the Office of the Vice President refusing to cooperate with a government directory known as the “Plum Book,” 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 any of the three branches. At the risk of sounding overdramatic, it's one of those horrifying arguments that makes me worry about the integrity of our constitutional system.

<snip>

The Information Security Oversight Office, 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.

<snip>

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.”

<snip>

At the risk of sounding intemperate, this is insane. Cheney’s office seems to have declared itself some kind of fourth branch of the government. It’s legislative, it’s executive, it’s accountable to no one .. it’s the super branch.

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9888.html

This seems simple enough to resolve. Just go to the annual federal budget and see under which branch the OVP is funded. If its funded under the executive branch, well....

Hey! I know what it is! Ghost employees!! Cheney's apparently got loads of ghost employees that he doesn't want us finding out about! I bet he has all his relatives getting no-show payroll checks. That's it -- IMPEACH!!!!
:grr:

[EndElectoral]

1. The Hubris is unbeleivable!!!!!

[jimshoes]

2. Here's a similar thread from

a couple of days ago. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x171287
You know they've secretly made themselves emperors or some similar phony baloney title and are daring us to do something about it. I'm aghast as to what is really going on in the USA these days. Suppose Al Gore tried that shit as VP, then again Al Gore didn't pop a cap on his buddy's face. I doubt he'd have gotten very far with that.

[DeSwiss]

4. Welllll..........

“...the Vice Presidency is a unique office that is neither a part of the executive branch nor a part of the legislative branch.”

I always thought that Speaker Garner from Texas defined the OVP back in Franklin Roosevelt's days. Before FDR chose Truman he'd offered the job to Garner. But Garner said that the office of the Vice-Presidency "wasn't worth a warm bucket of spit." Well, he got that much right anyway. Cheney = Spit. Cause he's defintely one big loogie.

On the otherhand, since he really works for Halliburton, I suppose those records could be considered private property. The Cheney Vice-Presidency Office™, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Halibuton....

:sarcasm:

[Vickers]

3. There's probably some plausible explanation for this...I'm guessing

it's along the lines of "But I've never *READ* the Constitution!"

[Morgana LaFey]

5. Legislative??????

The only "legislative" function is as President of the Senate and that only when there's a tie that needs breaking. Unbelievable.

[BlueIris]

6. EW.

I wanna cry.

[stellanoir]

7. The pressssssssssssssssssssss

gives them a passsssssssssssssssssss when they dismissively say "we don't pay attention to polls," or "I'm the decider," "we don't care about the congressional legislation."

TRANSLATION: they don't give a flying flop about the will of the people who happen to be their constituents.

Unelected leaders tend to be like that.

sheesh

[A Simple Game]

8. No problem.

“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.”

No, you have this wrong, you need to report twice, once for each branch you claim to be in.

We fund three branches of our government, if you don't belong to any of them, no funds! Not hard to understand.

[DeSwiss]

12. Dick Cheney sez.....

...."badges? Badges? We don't need no stinkin' badges!!!!"

"I DON'T REPORT TO NOBODY!!!!

[texpatriot2004]

9. Dick is delusional! Funny line from article, "...it's legislative, it's

executive, it's accountable to no one, it's the super branch."

ROFLMAO

[DeSwiss]

14. texpatriot2004, I hear ya. Why I remember.....

More powerful than a locomotive.... faster than a speeding bullet.... able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.

"Look up in the sky, ...it's legislative, it's executive, it's accountable to no one, it's the SUPER BRANCH!!!!."

I don't think he's from Krypton though. At least there's nothing about it in his bio:
http://www.whitehouse.org/administration/dick.asp

:shrug:

[texpatriot2004]

16. Impeach the Veep eh! nm

[starroute]

10. Here's a quantum mechanics explanation

http://yorkshire-ranter.blogspot.com/2007/02/schrdingers-veep.html

Apparently, Dick Cheney's lawyers are actually trying to invoke in court this batshit insane doctrine they seem to have cooked up, that claims that Cheney is both part of the Executive and the Legislature, and that therefore he answers to neither.

That's just head-spinningly weird. They are arguing, in a sense, that a sort of legal version of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle applies to the Vice-Presidency. As in a particular kind of diode, where the quantum uncertainty whether an electron is at one end of the component or the other means that it appears to travel faster than light, Cheney could either be President of the Senate or Vice-President of the United States at any one moment, and no-one can say which he is. Or rather, observing him would cause the implied wave function to collapse into one state or the other, which would obviously force any judge in the case to recuse themselves on conflict-of-interest grounds. Therefore, neither branch can call him to account. It's brilliant - Schrödinger's cat applied to politics!

That implies a further layer of weirdness-if this is true, then the Vice-President has far greater powers than the President! But I think I see a flaw. If Cheney can be either part of the executive or the legislature, and this cannot be determined by empirical observation, we are entitled to ask the question: how can we be sure that Dick Cheney exists? In fact, we could go further, and take action: why not just assume he doesn't?

[DeSwiss]

15. Hmmmm.... starroute

"If Cheney can be either part of the executive or the legislature, and this cannot be determined by empirical observation, we are entitled to ask the question: how can we be sure that Dick Cheney exists? In fact, we could go further, and take action: why not just assume he doesn't?}

I like this theory best. Let's go with this one.
:think:

[Vidar]

11. Lord Cheney's Shadow Government.

[DeSwiss]

13. Hey thanks everybody for the k&r's....

[Kurovski]

17. Oh, that's just Cheney's way of saying he's the tenth circle of Hell.

[Trillo]

18. Aha! The Privatized Corporatist Branch is found!

The head that isn't Department head at all, it's the "Vice Head".