New branch of Gov't...Cheney Branch

diesel96

Well-Known Member
So he doesn't have to comply with executive secrecy rules;
cut executive-branch funding for the VP's office
On the other hand, let's not be hasty about this. After all, if Cheney's not in the Executive Branch he can't claim executive privilege.

Surely you remember that infamous energy task force, the one where Mr. Cheney let his oil industry pals and their lobbyists come in and literally write their own rules? Cheney argued that the public had no right to information about the workings of that task force - because of executive privilege.

Rahm Emanuel To Cheney: Please Get The Heck Out Of The White House
"Today, we discovered that everything we learned in U.S. government class was wrong. Evidently, the Vice President does not consider himself a part of the executive branch, and therefore believes he can obstruct meaningful oversight and avoid being held accountable. If the Vice President truly believes he is not a part of the executive branch, he should return the salary the American taxpayers have been paying him since January 2001, and move out of the home for which they are footing the bill."

A Vice President who's not in the Executive Branch can't withhold information from legislators under the separation of powers doctrine.
In fact, here's an even better idea: Since he says he's fundamentally a member of the Senate, why not bring him up on Senatorial ethics charges? Let the investigations commence!
 

wkmac

Well-Known Member
The other question is, what would Cheney say if Pelosi, Reid or Kennedy claimed to be a part of the executive branch and therefore in position to have direct access to many of the things that he doesn't want them to have. Or could they turn his argument to gain and make a strong case that his admission now does grants them direct access that he can't deny?

WAKE UP YOU DUMBIES IN WASHINGTON!

It's obvious Cheney never attended the same civics class I did nor has he read the Federalist Papers, Documents Illustrative of the Formation of the American States (sadly taken out of print by the US gov't but I got my copy) and the personal writtings of many of the founders and those who have served in gov't since then. For someone who preaches the "Originalist doctrine" he sure as hell doesn't follow it! He's as far from an Originalist as Mussolini, Hilter, Stalin, Castro and Chairman Mao IMO. Maybe further as he should know better.
 

SeniorGeek

Below the Line
I think Cheney lives with self-contradiction. (All of us do it, but few so blatantly.)

The Executive-Privilege vs. Not-Subject-To-Rules-Of-The-Executive-Branch, as diesel96 points out, is one example.

A less obvious example (that I perceive) is his attempt to support both of his powerful cohorts, The Neo-Cons and Big Oil. The Neo-Cons want to push a political/economic ideology, while Big Oil has no political agenda beyond maximizing profit.

Those two are at odds over Iraq. The Neo-Cons want to use Iraq to bust OPEC. Big Oil prefers the status quo, including OPEC controls on production/price. (The rise in oil prices has done wonders for oil company profits, as we have all heard. What we have not heard so much about is what the rise in oil prices has done to increase the wealth of the oil companies - since all the oil they hold in reserves has increased in value, too. That value increase is equivalent to about 20 years worth of record profits!)

This must be tough for Cheney. I do not know how he reconciles his friends from Saudi Arabia, the oil companies, the Neo-Con movement and others on both sides of the oil-price issue. He probably wants to keep his dealings secret so each side does not know it has been betrayed.

In 1973, when OPEC cranked down oil production, my Economics instructors kept pointing out that market forces will eventually bust any cartel.... But it turns out that Saudi Arabia has the cash reserves to enforce OPEC quotas. If any OPEC country grossly overproduces oil, the Saudis dump lots of oil on the market to take the profit out of it. The offending country ends up worse off by pumping more oil.

Back on topic: We need to be careful about claiming there is a "Cheney Branch" of government, because he might use that to promote himself to the equal of the other three branches....:no:
 

Sammie

Well-Known Member
I’m confused…..

The executive branch is the President.

The Vice President is an advisor to the president, a Cabinet Member and the President of the Senate, otherwise known as the legislative branch. He also leads commissions and manages projects created by the President.

And, oddly enough, the members of the Cabinet are referred to as the most senior appointed officers of the “executive branch”.

To make this even clearer, an executive order was issued in 1995 by President Clinton, which excludes the office of Vice Presidency from the executive branch. He did this to create a system that would protect classified information. Which makes Cheney exempt from executive orders regarding classified documents.

But if the responsibilities of the Vice Presidency are at all executive, which I believe they are, then his position should be bound by executive rules. Being legislative doesn’t mean following executive rules just as being executive doesn’t mean following legislative rules, otherwise all branches of the government could perform each other's jobs without being held accountable to any rules at all. If anything, the Vice Presidency should be held to an even higher level of accountability than either branch because he works within so many sets of circumstances.

Somehow, I don’t believe Cheney’s the one who deserves the heat on this one…
 
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