Dick Cheney Defends Tenure, Schools Joe Biden on Role of Vice President

Well, I just fundamentally disagree with him. He also said the--that all the powers and responsibilities of the executive branch are laid out in Article 1 of the Constitution. Well they're not. Article 1 of the Constitution is the one on the legislative branch.


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cheney's legislative responsibilities and more importantly, the express limitations of the vice president's power in legislative matters is expressly indicated in Article I, just as Biden says. We have 200 years of constitutional government and the prima facie iteration of those powers without any transgression or even question on one side,

....and then there's maude.

Valid points Clif, Iampomeni won't listen though he's still apologizing or ignoring the last 8 years and the BS bush has brought.

"But Cheney couldn't care less about popularity. He cares about the country first, last, and always."

That's fair in a vacuum. What if his care is wholly misguided and arguably unconstitutional and perhaps criminal? Basically, what if he used unjust, secretive, criminal, and immoral means to achieve that which he subjectively thought was best for the country when in fact his reasoning was objectively wrong?

Clif Kuplen : According to Article I, the Vice-President, when he/she gets up in the morning, checks to see if the President is alive and/or in good health. If so, the Vice-President goes and presides over the Senate.

However, as travel conditions improved, the Vice-President was given additional duties by the President - attending state funerals and other international events on behalf of the President and people.

When Eisenhower became President, he treated Nixon as if he was a military deputy commander. Vice-President Nixon was given executive responsibilities and attended all cabinet meetings. Since Eisenhower's time, the role of Vice-President as a working member of the executive has expanded.

We cannot, in these times, afford to go back to treating Vice-Presidents as President Roosevelt and his staff treated Harry S Truman - keeping him "out of the loop" and almost totally ignorant of Roosevelt's plans and policies.

When he assumed the office of the President, Truman had no knowledge of the most important issues that he would have to face.

It apears that President-Elect Barrack Obama intends to return to the old time use of the Vice-President.

Joe Biden will preside over the Senate, attend state funerals and other international ceremonies as the representative of the President and people and, otherwise, will "keep his mouth shut." However, I assume that he will be kept "in the loop" by President Obama and receive regular briefings on Executive matters.

I sincerely doubt that Joe Biden will exercise any "executive authority" in the forthcoming Obama administration.

Considering the Vice-President-Elects reputation as a "loose cannon," I even doubt that he will be given much opportunity to preside over the Senate.

He will keep a couple of suitcases packed with appropriate clothing for representing the country at international gatherings and realy rack up those "frequent flyer" miles.

"Cheney, for better or worse, has been a consequential vice-president, and his personal popularity has paid the price for it. But Cheney couldn't care less about popularity. He cares about the country first, last, and always. He was not about to change that in his last interview as Vice-President."

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As they say, History will tell ...................

That is, of course, if enough documents have escaped the paper shredder ...............

As president, George W. Bush has pardoned or commuted sentences for
32 drug dealers, 12 thieves, seven embezzlers, an arsonist, an armed
bank robber and eight Thanksgiving turkeys, among others – but U.S.
Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean remain in prison
this Christmas, praying for their release.

As the holiday season commences, it’s worth taking stock of the
last gift that President George W. Bush and the 110th Congress have
left for U.S. taxpayers.

It’s a package of about $8.7 trillion dollars’ worth of potential
taxpayer commitments for loans, guarantees and other bailout goodies
for businesses and distressed homeowners.

Amid the tissue paper:

• More than $1.5 trillion in Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. loan
guarantees, including a $139 billion assist to the lending arm of
General Electric Corp.

• $1.8 trillion in cash, tax breaks and loan guarantees doled out
from the Treasury Department to taxpayers, financial institutions and
credit companies.

• $300 billion for homeowners from the Federal Housing Authority.

• $25 billion in assistance for auto companies from a program
overseen by the Energy Department, which is separate from the bailout
proposal that tanked last week in the Senate.

• And $5 trillion worth of new money, loan guarantees and loosened
lending requirements from the Federal Reserve Bank.

According to Bianco Research President James Bianco, who crunched
these numbers, that amounts to more government aid and assistance
than nine other historic bailouts and big government outlays
combined.

The New Deal, for instance, cost an estimated $32 billion in its day,
which would be about $500 billion in today’s dollars. The Marshall
Plan cost about $12.7 billion, which is the equivalent of a paltry
$115.3 billion. The Louisiana Purchase? The French got $15 million,
which would be worth about $217 billion today.

If you take those three items, add in the adjusted costs of the Race
to the Moon, the savings and loan crisis, the Korean War, the Iraq
war, the Vietnam War and assistance for NASA, you still get to just
$3.92 trillion — not even half of the taxpayers’ exposure today,
according to Bianco.

Has everyone forgotten that V.P. elect Biden had not one but two anyurisms! This is a very serious matter, made all the more serious by the fact he refuses to release his medical records. I hope he'll be O.K., but he sure did act strange just befor election time. He was kind of put in mothballs having contradicted Obama on several different measures, as if he thought Obama was an adversary, rather than a cohort. He may really be ill, and in no way ready for any duties in government, let alone no.2 executive! You don't really hear about him to often, you got to admit.

Cube10:23PMDec 21st 2008

"But Cheney couldn't care less about popularity. He cares about the country first, last, and always."

That's fair in a vacuum. What if his care is wholly misguided and arguably
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what if? ? that seams to be the commicrates only argument, "what if" there are innocent terrorist at guantanamo? "what if" they are being tortured? and waterboarding isn't torture (I know I was WBed in training and tazed and OCed and )
how about, what if 911 happened while Monic...er while Billy was in office

http://money.aol.com/news/articles/_a/bbdp/bailed-out-banks-execs-got-16-billion/283923

hey you Cheney lovin' hack...how about writing a story about some of the guys that your Executive lovin' Bush/Cheney sold us out for?

They owe us our money back! This theft is not over yet!

torture lowers us to the level of the the folks we are trying to defeat...torture leaves us to face them alone when we could have had the world stand with us and would have helped us get it done faster and on less of our dime...

you neocons as not smart by half...it is by zero

Clif Kuplen9:27PMDec 21st 2008

Well, I just fundamentally disagree with him. He also said the--that all the powers and responsibilities of the executive branch are laid out in Article 1 of the Constitution. Well they're not. Article 1 of the Constitution is the one on the legislative branch.


xxx

cheney's legislative responsibilities and more importantly, the express limitations of the vice president's power in legislative matters is expressly indicated in Article I, just as Biden says. We have 200 years of constitutional government and the prima facie iteration of those powers without any transgression or even question on one side,

....and then there's maude.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZ6VMLVLWUw

really his only Constitutionally enumerated power is tie breaker in the Legislative body...

great to seek more tasks, but he can't deny what it is...well he is Darth Cheney...i guess he can

uh...that would be Article I Section 3.

The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be equally divided.

The Senate shall choose their other officers, and also a President pro tempore, in the absence of the Vice President, or when he shall exercise the office of President of the United States.


the only place the VP is mentioned in Article II Section 4.

The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.


i think that applies to them...but i am sure that is not where he was headed with his comment

torture leaves us to face them alone when we could have had the world stand with us and would have helped us get it done faster and on less of our dime...
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wrong again rabid breath if you think that any country would give us a dime with out "other" incentives you really are rabid, there is no other country with a higher standard for human rights that the US, even with that mean ol water boarding trick, none. do you think other countries give a shit about your human rights, with out a economic gain to them? ? if you do it is because you still live in your mothers basement in Colorado and the only "other" country you have been to is Canada, who by the way is still here because of OUR military, you know, if you mess with the Canadians you mess with the whole trailer park
your mom called, said she wants you to rake all of your tube socks out from under your bed and wash them

Well VOR if there had been computers and a site like this in l974 we'd be bitching about Nixon, and making fun of Spiro Agnew and his Tax Evasion. Not much has changed has it compadre?

Bush , Cheny 8 yrs. The second amendment is still intact. Ben laudon is still hiding in a cave, he hasnt blown anything else up in U.S..Everybody in my familie who wants a job has one . I have 7 kids 14 grandchildren .Housien is blowin smoke at the Bubbas by saying hes not going to go after the guns and picken Warrin to do the invocation. Unfortunately the waco Inviros have Husein by the balls so the economy and energy will take us down to third world economic status soon.

Cube10:23PMDec 21st 2008

"But Cheney couldn't care less about popularity. He cares about the country first, last, and always."

That's fair in a vacuum. What if his care is wholly misguided and arguably unconstitutional and perhaps criminal? Basically, what if he used unjust, secretive, criminal, and immoral means to achieve that which he subjectively thought was best for the country when in fact his reasoning was objectively wrong?
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A lot of government folly, waste and inefficiency caused by the political posturing with "what if" scenarios.

Hey Hitler, Jesus was a community organizer too, you would also mock him I'm sure.

I am really looking forward to getting the Biden's in the Vice-Presidential mansion, and getting the Cheney's back to Wyoming. Joe Biden's role will be a quiet, strong one. Jill Biden is a really classy lady, and they will both bring some fun to that Vice-Presidential house.

"consequential" ??

Most things have consequences. Too bad he doesn't say if those are good or bad. I'm leaning toward the latter. I believe he has put himself before country, "first, last, and always." The country is us, the American people - if he doesn't care what we think (as he's stated in the past), he doesn't really care about the country.