"Judges Question Bid to Stop Cheney Suit"

[CADsortaGUY]

Originally posted by: Bowfinger

Originally posted by: Insane3D
If every person who commited adultery was sent to jail and fined, the prison system would be even more overloaded.

Yeah, and there wouldn't be enough politicians left to revoke the law.

HeHe - I hear that

CkG

 

[NightTrain]

Originally posted by: Insane3D
The issue with Clinton was nothing that directly affected US policy, and was a private matter. You are all hot and bothered about the President getting a hummer "on the clock", but the President of the USA is not a normal job.

He was impeached for lying under oath regarding a sexual harrassment lawsuit...not for giving a hummer.

Normally politicians restrict their vices to bilking taxpayers and milking illegal contributions but as Carville said, "Drag a hundred dollars through a trailer park and there's no telling what you'll find". Guess that's how he found his candidate.

 

[dakost]

The way things are with politicians and with the current state of 'democracy' (in the suposedly democratic countries) no wonder that the number of people who vote diminishes in every next election! Maybe in the long term that is actully great, hopefully at some stage say a 30% turnout may create the possibilities and need for constitutional reforms. Until then Cheney, Bush, Blair, Shroeder, Shirac etc will be as secretive and corrupt as they can and we will continue to have a governing system which is more like a 'democraticaly ellected oligarchy' rather than a democracy.

 

[Tiger]

A brief history of executive privilege

A Precedent from the Clinton Years

Finally, no case to this point holds that executive privilege applies to conversations between Executive officials and persons outside the government, such as corporate officers of Enron and other companies.

The closest the courts have come to extending the privilege to such discussions was in the 1993 decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, Inc. v. Hillary Clinton. That case raised the question whether the Federal Advisory Committee Act ("FACA") applied to the health-care-reform panel chaired by then-First Lady Hillary Clinton. And that question, in turn, depended on whether the First Lady is, or is not, an officer or employee of the government.

Under FACA, if a person who is not an officer or employee of the government is a member of a government group, then the group's proceedings must be open to the public. The health-care-reform panel had kept its proceedings private, so if the First Lady was not a government officer or employee, it had broken the law. Fortunately for the Clinton Administration, however, the court held that the First Lady is indeed an officer or employee of the government, and FACA thus did not apply.

The court strained the statutory language in order to reach this conclusion - but why? The answer is that a contrary result--to be precise, a finding that the statute's requirement of public meetings applied to the health-care-reform panel--would have raised a difficult constitutional question. And, under a well-established principle of legal interpretation, courts construe statutes in order to avoid difficult constitutional questions. The D.C. Circuit applied that principle in this case.

According to the D.C. Circuit, the difficult constitutional question was this: Does executive privilege extend to conversations between Executive officials and persons outside the government? If so, then FACA unconstitutionally violates that privilege by requiring those conversations to be disclosed. Had the court ruled that the First Lady was neither a government officer nor a government employee, it would have had to decide the difficult constitutional question--for FACA then would have required disclosure of deliberations between the (non-government) First Lady and the executive branch government officials on the commission.

Why the Hillary Clinton Case Suggests Cheney's Privilege Claim May Prevail

The relevance of this complex case to Cheney's situation is straightforward: The D.C. Circuit thought that executive privilege might extend to conversations between executive officials and persons outside the government. And any appeal in the Comptroller General's case against Vice President Cheney would go to the D.C. Circuit (before possibly going to the U.S. Supreme Court).

Thus, a claim of privilege by the Vice President could succeed - particularly if GAO were to go beyond its current requests and seek not only the names of people with whom Cheney consulted, but also the content of deliberations. The D.C. Circuit's speculation as to the breadth of the executive privilege indicates that even if private industry representatives acted as members of the Energy Group, the Group's deliberations may still be privileged, and thus not subject to FACA disclosure.

Will we soon learn the answer to the question the D.C. Circuit left open and the other puzzles surrounding executive privilege? Probably not. If history is our guide, it seems more likely that at

 

[dakost]

Bottom line is?

Things are fine as long as someone else has done the same wrong things and hasn't been convicted!?

or

Most politicians are corrupt and even the ones who are not have to become corrupt because of the way the 'democratic' governong system in the western world works!?

 

[Bowfinger]

Oh, where to start?

Originally posted by: NightTrain
[Clinton] was impeached for lying under oath regarding a sexual harrassment lawsuit...not for giving a hummer.

Clinton lied about a private sexual matter after being backed into a corner by a $50 million witch hunt. Was he stupid for lying under oath? Oh yeah, big time. Would Bush or Cheney or Rumsfeld fair any better if we focused as much money and zeal and hatred on persecuting them? Not a chance in hell. Everyone is guilty of something, and their checked pasts are well-known.

Normally politicians restrict their vices to bilking taxpayers and milking illegal contributions [ ... ]

I sure hope your're not suggesting this is a good thing. I can see it now, Bush's 2004 campaign slogan will be Four more years of screwing the public, not the help.

but as Carville said, "Drag a hundred dollars through a trailer park and there's no telling what you'll find". Guess that's how he found his candidate.

As opposed to "drag a coke spoon through a posse of Texas cowboys and there's no telling what will crawl out"? Give the cheap shots a rest; Bush sure can't claim the moral high ground.

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Originally posted by: Bowfinger
Oh, where to start?

Originally posted by: NightTrain
[Clinton] was impeached for lying under oath regarding a sexual harrassment lawsuit...not for giving a hummer.

Clinton lied about a private sexual matter after being backed into a corner by a $50 million witch hunt. Was he stupid for lying under oath? Oh yeah, big time. Would Bush or Cheney or Rumsfeld fair any better if we focused as much money and zeal and hatred on persecuting them? Not a chance in hell. Everyone is guilty of something, and their checked pasts are well-known.

Normally politicians restrict their vices to bilking taxpayers and milking illegal contributions [ ... ]

I sure hope your're not suggesting this is a good thing. I can see it now, Bush's 2004 campaign slogan will be Four more years of screwing the public, not the help.

but as Carville said, "Drag a hundred dollars through a trailer park and there's no telling what you'll find". Guess that's how he found his candidate.

As opposed to "drag a coke spoon through a posse of Texas cowboys and there's no telling what will crawl out"? Give the cheap shots a rest; Bush sure can't claim the moral high ground.

Cheapshots? what is this?

I can see it now, Bush's 2004 campaign slogan will be Four more years of screwing the public, not the help

Mr.Pot say hello to Mr.Kettle

CkG

 

[Bowfinger]

Originally posted by: CADkindaGUY
Mr.Pot say hello to Mr.Kettle
CkG

Sorry if I hurt your feelings CkG. Your first reply was funny, but driving it into the ground is kind of pathetic - especially since you edited my quote to distort the context of my comment. I answered one cheap shot with an equal and opposite cheap shot just to make the point.

Give it a rest.

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Buahahahah - Me give it a rest? He He that's funny

I didn't edit your post in the slightest - infact I believe I quoted the whole damn thing I did highlight a piece of it which showed your hypocracy. Would you like me to find other posts of yours to show your hypocracy? I'm sure I could do it

Oh, and yeah Bowfinger - you did hurt my little intraweb feelings

CkG

PS - Just because I can point out your hypocracy doesn't mean that I am free of guilt myself