Rahm Emanuel Figuratively Shoots Dick Cheney Down

It seems as though the so-called, “most powerful” Vice President Dick Cheney is not all powerful as he would like. He flip-flopped on his assertion that he is “not an ‘entity within the executive branch’ and hence is not subject to presidential executive orders.”

Dick Cheney’s office is abandoning a justification for keeping the Vice-President’s secret papers out of the hands of the National Archives.

Officials working for Cheney had tried to claim he is separate from the executive branch, but they will no longer pursue that defense, senior administration officials tell The Politico.

The decision follows a threat by Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), the No. 3 House Democrat, to try to cut off the office’s $4.8 million in executive-branch funding.

(read more…)

The dispute came about after House Oversight Committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) posted an eight-page letter he had written to Cheney taking issue with Cheney statement that he is not part of the Executive Branch.

I found this very amusing that Cheney and his people would try to use a constitutional loophole (if you were to read the document, the only powers it give the VP is to be the President of the Senate and assume the Office of President in the event it is vacant.) However, it is clear that Mr. Cheney has something to hide, after all, why else would you not want National Archives handling your files and records. In positions that I have personally held, a group has collected and archived my files, but I never objected, that is also because I do not need to hide anything. But then again, I have never held the Office of Vice President and my name is not Dick Cheney, so maybe those two things together offer special privileges that are only eligible to His Royal Highness.

Supreme Court Limits First Amendment

The Highest Court in the Land with a 6-3 decision has limit the first amendment for high school students.

The Supreme Court ruled against a former high school student Monday in the “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” banner case — a split decision that limits students’ free speech rights.Joseph Frederick was 18 when he unveiled the 14-foot paper sign on a public sidewalk outside his Juneau, Alaska, high school in 2002.

Principal Deborah Morse confiscated it and suspended Frederick. He sued, taking his case all the way to the nation’s highest court.

(Read the full article)

I thought 10 days was a bit much for holding up a sign, this is what I found:

“She suspended me for five days and I couldn’t believe I was being suspended for a free-speech experiment,” Frederick told KTUU-TV. “And furthermore, after quoting Thomas Jefferson, ‘Speech limited is speech lost,’ Ms. Morse (the principal) responded, ‘You’ve just earned another five-day suspension.’ ”

I do not agree with what was on the banner, in fact he has admitted that his intent was to get on TV as the camera for the Olympics, he saw the phrase on a skateboard and thought it would get a reaction. I believe the fact that the rights of students have been limited is despicable; we want young people to vote and grow up and be great, contributing members of our society, yet when tell them that they really do not have the same rights as adults because you are in high school.

I will leave end with a quote from the dissent written by, Justice John Paul Stevens:

“This case began with a silly nonsensical banner, (and) ends with the court inventing out of whole cloth a special First Amendment rule permitting the censorship of any student speech that mentions drugs, so long as someone could perceive that speech to contain a latent pro-drug message.”

French Gov’t Bans Blackberry Due to Fear of US Spying

I found this article…

French government security experts have reportedly banned — with mixed success — the use of BlackBerries in ministries and in the presidential palace — for fear that they are vulnerable to snooping by U.S. intelligence.

“The risks of interception are real. It is economic war,” daily Le Monde quoted Alain Juillet, in charge of economic intelligence for the government, as saying. With BlackBerries, there is “a problem with the protection of information,” he said.

Le Monde said information sent from BlackBerries goes through servers in the United States and Britain, and that France fears that the U.S. National Security Agency can snoop.

I am curious to see what Blackberry will release something in response to this. Maybe, I am speaking from a lack of knowledge about France; but what kind of government secrets could the US be in search of? Please someone enlighten me?

Hillary Spoofs “The Sopranos” Finale

Hillary Clinton is getting better and better by the day. Whether you love her or hate her you have to concede that she has become a stronger and more formidable candidate by the day. She comes out as the best candidate in the debates.

But I have to give Hillary much deserved praise, this Soprano’s spoof is a brilliant. One because she took a pop culture item and it’s helping her to get her name out there even more. The fact that she let people vote on her campaign song is ingenious. During a lunch meeting at my office day, this came up and one of my co-workers made the common that that was so dumb and was pointless.

I had to jump on the opportunity, I articulated the point that what the song is not the point. It is the fact that that she had people vote on it. That the fact that people went to her site and voted on a song, gives those people a tie to her campaign and sense of belonging. I know that sounds a bit cheesy but the sense to belong to something is inherit in the lives of humans.

Let’s Add One More Candidate… maybe?

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has left the Republican Party and switched to unaffiliated. This could be a move to gear up an independent presidential bid that would shake up the 2008 race.

Although my plans for the future haven’t changed, I believe this brings my affiliation into alignment with how I have led and will continue to lead our city,” Bloomberg said

Read the rest of his announcement…

Although he has not made public plans to run for President (yet), it is a bit odd why someone who do now. However, now Bloomberg will have the opportunity to see his name in all of the polls and how he will shape up against a three way race.

The ‘lover of politics’ in me, brings me to the idea – the more people we have in the race the better; because they we have find the best person for the job. However, the ‘follower of this race’ in me thinks – enough is enough, I can barely list all of the candidates in the race now. Plus I think we already have some good, great, and amazing candidates already. Let’s hope Bloomberg does not get into to this. Who knows what will happen if he does and who he will take votes from…

Iraq Comes in #2 Among World’s Failed States

According the NY Times article, Iraq is now ranked the second among the world’s failed states, Iraq was #4 last year. The 2007 Failed States Index, produced by Foreign Policy magazine and the Fund for Peace. The index is generated by a multitude of a range of social, economic, political and military indicators. Iraq ranked fourth last year.

The NYT wend on to stated, “The index said Sudan, the world’s worst failed state, appears to be dragging down its neighbors Central African Republic and Chad, with violence in the Darfur region responsible for at least 200,000 deaths and the displacement of 2 million to 3 million.”

I thought that President Bush’s aim was to help the world and bring peace and stability to the region and the vehicle for that was suppose to be removing Saddam Hussein and making it a democracy.

The problem with Mr. Bush’s aim is that a democracy must come from the people of the country and they crave that change it must be a social revolution not a military move by a foreign country. Which is apparent since the Iraqi Government is falling behind on the benchmarks that they help create. I never supported the War in Iraq; however, I believe that not all of the failure should fall upon President Bush, the Iraqi Government must take action. I think it was not justified to go in, but we are here now so we must do the best we can and Iraq must be a cooperative effort. If the Iraqi Government is failing act and work to bring stability to their country.