On Tuesday, Senator Dick Durbin stripped the funding for the operations of the Vice Presidents office and staff from an appropriations bill for the coming fiscal year. Until the vice resident complies with the parts of an executive order that covers the handling of classified information.
The issue at hand involves a requirement that offices of the executive branch provide information to the Information Security Oversight Office at The National Archives, an oversight office on data that is classified or declassified within those offices.
Cheney has absurdly asserted that he is not a part of the executive branch, and therefore exempt from an order he complied with for at least two years, then suddenly stopped.
Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, said Cheney's office was flouting requirements that it comply with the reporting requirements on classified information.
"Neither Mr. Cheney or his staff is above the law or the Constitution," Durbin said. "For the vice president to believe that he has no responsibility to meet this requirement of the law is a dereliction of duty."
Frankly, there is only one reason I can think of for this unprecedented action on behalf of the vice resident – something got away from him, or from one of his lackeys. Something big. Something that could have a devastating effect on national security. Something they don’t want anyone to know.
There is simply not other explanation for the patently absurd notion that the vice-executive is exempt from rules covering the executive branch.
Durbin’s decision to strip the vice presidents office out of the executive office budget was part of an appropriations bill that funds the White House, the Treasury Department, and several smaller agencies.
I am heartened to see that the Democrats in Congress are starting to stand up to these fools. I can’t be sure just yet – but I think what we are seeing is a “rope-a-dope” strategy on behalf of the Dems – and the loyalists might have punched themselves out, and now the pummeling is about to start.
For the sake of the nation I love, I hope so.
