TresSugar

Dick Cheney: Totally Pro Gay Marriage

TresSugar — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 16:00:00 -0700

Dick Cheney is more progressive than Barack Obama . . . at least when it comes to gay marriage. While Obama supports civil unions for gay couples (while keeping marriage between a man and a woman), Cheney is all for states granting gay couples the right to marry. He said today at the National Press Club:

"I think that freedom means freedom for everyone. As many of you know, one of my daughters is gay and it is something we have lived with for a long time in our family. I think people ought to be free to enter into any kind of union they wish. Any kind of arrangement they wish."

Cheney's position offers evidence that when someone is close to a gay person, he will worry less about defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman and more about everyone having equal access to the same institutional and cultural privileges. Even when there's a presidential election to win with the help of anti-gay-marriage ballot initiatives.

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Bush Sees No Post-Power Legacy Bump - How Do You Feel?

CitizenSugar — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 08:00:10 -0700

President Bush said recently that Barack Obama deserved his silence. But that doesn't mean Bush deserves America's approval. Both George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are viewed unfavorably by 63 percent of Americans, a rate that mirrors their low approval ratings during their final years in power.

In fact, Bush's 35 percent approval rating isn't too far off from his all-time low of 32 percent. Bush hasn't been able to regain positive approval ratings since around July 2005, and his time out of the spotlight hasn't helped. At 30 percent, Cheney's current approval rating is even lower than all those figures.

It looks like not even Will Ferrell's Broadway show about Bush could conjure up some feelings of nostalgia in Bush's critics.

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Briefing Book! Some in GOP Want Cheney to Hide Again

CitizenSugar — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 12:30:28 -0700

Some Republican leaders think Dick Cheney's criticism of Obama isn't helping the GOP cause. - Wonkette
Barney Frank tells Code Pink protesters to act their age. - Salon
David Letterman takes on Obama's critics with his Telepompter vs. No Teleprompter segment. - Huffington Post
Female reporter has tea with the two Taliban members who see opening for talks with US. - GlobalPost
Little and big luxuries everyone is cutting from their budgets. - SavvySugar

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Cheney Warns of Attack - Bring Him Back or Put Him Away?

CitizenSugar — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 03:00:17 -0800

Ignoring accusations of torture, Dick Cheney wants to make sure everyone knows he still supports "enhanced interrogation techniques" because they keep America safe. In an interview with Politico yesterday, Cheney predicted that the Obama administration will either backtrack on their softy views, or put Americans at grave risk. He said:

When we get people who are more concerned about reading the rights to an Al Qaeda terrorist than they are with protecting the United States against people who are absolutely committed to do anything they can to kill Americans, then I worry. . . These are evil people. And we’re not going to win this fight by turning the other cheek.

To imagine how President Obama would respond to Cheney's critique, we only have to look as far as his inauguration speech when he said:

As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our founding fathers faced with perils that we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake.

Whose view of national security do you agree with more?

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Jon Stewart on Biden, Star Wars, and Obama's STFU Face

GiggleSugar — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 11:16:09 -0800

Oh, man. President Obama had better remind Joe Biden that he's vice president now and not doing corny stand-up at Caroline's Comedy Club. Last week while swearing in the senior staff members, VP Biden made a joke about his memory not being as good as Chief Justice John Robert’s. (You remember him, the guy who flubbed the inaugural oath during Obama's swearing-in ceremony.) Whoops. Inappropriate. Jon Stewart, of course, is there to mock Biden, and to introduce us to a face I hope we don't see a lot of: Obama's STFU face. Eek!

Should Charges Be Brought Against US Officials For Torture?

LibertySugar — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 00:01:38 -0800

This week the New York Times editorial board published a piece calling for criminal charges against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, his legal counsel, and perhaps other top officials, for the abuse and torture that occurred at American military prisons.

Citing a bipartisan report coming from the Senate, the editorial says that these officials ignored warnings from lawyers in the armed forces that they were breaking the law, subjecting soldiers to criminal liability, and employing a policy that was counterproductive to American security. The piece states:

These top officials, charged with defending the Constitution and America’s standing in the world, methodically introduced interrogation practices based on illegal tortures devised by Chinese agents during the Korean War. Until the Bush administration, their only use in the United States was to train soldiers to resist what might be done to them if they were captured by a lawless enemy.

It appears the Bush administration doesn't think it has a problem, as Dick Cheney admitted this week that he authorized waterboarding, and the White House has said it doesn't see a need for sweeping pardons.

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Dick Cheney Says Good Morning America!

CitizenSugar — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 11:00:34 -0800

Today on Good Morning America outgoing Vice President Dick Cheney talked flying shoes, Hillary Clinton, and Saddam Hussein. Here are some excerpts.

On Obama's national security team:"I must say, I think it's a pretty good team. I'm not close to Barack Obama, obviously, nor do I identify with him politically. He's a liberal. I'm a conservative. But I think the idea of keeping Gates at Defense is excellent. I think Jim Jones will be very, very effective as the national security adviser. While I would not have hired Sen. Clinton, I think she's tough. She's smart, she works very hard, and she may turn out to be just what President Obama needs."
On waterboarding: "I was aware of the program, certainly, and involved in helping get the process cleared, as the agency in effect came in and wanted to know what they could and couldn't do. And they talked to me, as well as others, to explain what they wanted to do. And I supported it."

To find out what Cheney had to say about Guantanamo Bay, the Iraq War, and this weekend's shoe incident, read more.

On closing Guantanamo Bay prison: "If you're going to close Guantanamo, what are you going to do with those prisoners? One suggestion is, well, we bring them to the United States. Well, I don't know very many congressmen, for example, who are eager to have 200 al Qaeda terrorists deposited in their district."
On whether the US would have invaded Iraq with different intelligence: "This was a bad actor, and the country's better off, the world's better off with Saddam gone, and I think we made the right decision, in spite of the fact that the original NIE was off in some of its major judgments."
On his thoughts after seeing shoes flying at the president: "Well, I thought the president handled it rather well. He had some good moves the way he ducked and avoided the shoe and then what was his response? That it was a size 10 and he could see that as it went by. No, I think it's an incident where an Iraqi reporter threw shoes at the president. I don't attribute any special significance to it. "

Do you think the vice president made some valid points in the interview?

Front Page: Texas Grand Jury Indicts Cheney and Gonzales

CitizenSugar — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 08:00:37 -0800

Vice President Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will be arraigned on Friday in Texas, after a grand jury indicted them for prisoner abuse in a federal detention center. Cheney and Gonzales will not attend the arraignment. - AP
Barack Obama tapped Janet Napolitano, the Democratic governor of Arizona, to be the Secretary of Homeland Security. Napolitano has a well-received record on immigration, and served as Arizona's first female US attorney, and state attorney general. - CNN
California's Supreme Court has agreed to decide the legality of Proposition 8, which undid the court's previous ruling that legalized same-sex marriage. The court refused to let same-sex marriages resume in the meantime. - San Francisco Chronicle
Fears of a more serious recession have taken a toll on the global stock market. Yesterday the Dow Jones fell five percent, dipping bellow 8,000 mark. - BBC News

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Front Page: Cheney Gives Palin Nod, Fannie and Freddie Takeover, Cairo Rockslide Death Toll

CitizenSugar — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 07:00:01 -0700

Cheney Gives Palin Nod:
From the man who may know best, Cheney says Sarah Palin has no restrictions from being a great vice president. In Italy today, Cheney told reporters that he ''loved'' Palin's speech to the convention, especially tickled by her joke about the difference between hockey moms and pit bulls being a coat of lipstick. He said, ''I thought her appearance at the convention was superb." He went on to add, ''There's no reason why Sarah Palin can't be a successful vice president in a McCain administration.''

Fannie and Freddie Takeover:
The US government takeover of mortgage giants Frannie Mae and Freddie Mac caused stocks to rally in Europe and Asia. A provision in the bailout plan where the Treasury buys Fannie and Freddie securities in the open market has economists optimistic saying, "it means the US is serious about fixing the problems in the market.”

Cairo Rockslide Death Toll:
With reports saying hundreds more could still be buried and 47 left dead, a rock slide has decimated a Cairo shanty town. Eight boulders barreled down from high in the Muquattam hills and rescuers are criticizing authorities for delays in sending heavy machinery. Some are using their bare hands to search for survivors. One survivor says, "We saw a boulder coming down on us, on our houses, on the children, our belongings, and our neighbours and they pulled them out dead. Just as you see, no one has done anything to help since yesterday."

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Georgian Conflict Created by Cheney to Make Obama Lose?

CitizenSugar — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 08:00:57 -0700

Russians were told yesterday morning that the true nature of the conflict in South Ossetia is this: it's a plot hatched by Vice President Dick Cheney to make sure Barack Obama isn't elected president. Is Cheney creating a Cold War 2.0?

This revelation, that the conflict is orchestrated to wing Obama, was first announced on the radio and has been getting wide play. A senior political analyst close to Putin and Medvedev says, “George Bush's Administration is promoting interests of candidate John McCain. Defeated by Barak Obama on all fronts, McCain has one last card to play yet - the creation of a virtual Cold War with Russia . . . Bush himself did not want a war in South Ossetia but his Republican Party did not leave him any choice.”

The notion has reinvigorated Cold War-era talk like this from a former ambassador to the EU:

The West has spent a lot of time, energy and money to teach Georgia the tricks of the trade . . . to make the country look like a democracy. We and many other nations see through this deceit. We understand that the seditious tactics of the so-called color revolutions are a real threat to international law and the source of global legal nihilism.

To see where this idea came from, read more.

Russia's Cold War conclusion comes in no small part from what they perceive to be a compliant US media. One woman from Moscow says, “In the old days under Soviet rule we didn't believe a word of our own propaganda but we thought that information was free in the West and we longed for it. But we have learnt since that the West has its own propaganda and in some ways it is more powerful because people believe it.”

Is there a big US propaganda machine in full effect? Is Cheney pushing the US toward another Cold War just so Obama won't win - or is this just a ridiculous conspriacy theory?

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