Not to be outdone by non-Democrat Sen. Salazar's cynical and dividing Iraq amendment, Sen. Ben Nelson (nonD-D - NE) decided to vote for an amendment to the appropriation bill that restored funding to the Office of the Vice President.  http://govexec.com/...

The amendment was offered by Sen. Brownback. So Nelson chose to support Cheney and Brownback instead of the caucus.

Now that the Vice President's lawlessness has been enabled by Sen. Nelson, it's time to revisit the question of whether a non-Dem Dem is better than a Republican.

My answer is "yes", but I can only urp up this answer in a vomit-scented whisper.

UPDATE: I guess I'm late to this issue. http://www.dailykos.com/...
I'm keeping the diary up due to a discussion on a new measurement called the "Lieberman Unit" or LU. I'd rate Salazar as possessing 60% of all LU's

Earlier this year, bloggers and legal experts were alarmed to discover that Vice President Cheney's office was using a unique legal theory to declare that since "the Vice Presidency is a unique office that is neither a part of the executive branch nor a part of the legislative branch," his office could somehow exempt itself from reporting its staff size and budget, among other things.

Now there are new concerns being raised about the role of such hybrid institutions in our nation's government.

Since the government relies on tax-payer funds to create, publish and manage websites that provide supposedly factual information for teacher's and parents with which to teach their children about the structure of our government, I thought perhaps firing off an email to the webmaster for Ben's Guide, a government website that purports this as it's mission might be a good first step to clarifying this important issue about Cheney's assertion his office "is not an entity within the Executive Branch :

A couple of weeks ago I posted this diary which suggested that the Carol Lam investigation into Wilkes and Foggo was potentially explosive for the Vice President.

RE: Lam, follow the $ ... military budget - Duke - OVP black ops???

This was all inspired by pondering the question, Why did Cheney buy Duke the Duke-stir?

It didn't make sense at first because it's not like he's a defense contractor looking to have contracts steered his way.  But then I realized there was a much more logical reason.  To create a slush fund for his own black ops.

More below the fold

[Originally posted at Corrente.]

UPDATE Meanwhile, Shooter's in Oman, presumably lining up airspace for the attack on Iran.

Our friends, the autocoprophagic neocons, are still working tirelessly towards Clusterfuck-alypse Now in the Middle East. Hersh:  

The Bush Administration, in both its public diplomacy and its covert operations, has significantly shifted its Middle East strategy. The "redirection," as some inside the White House have called the new strategy, has brought the United States closer to an open confrontation with Iran and, in parts of the region, propelled it into a widening sectarian conflict between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.

It's hard to begin to describe the depths of what's wrong here.

Marcy Wheeler continues her brilliant livebloggingof the Libby trial. On the stand today: John Hannah, National Security Advisor to VP Cheney. And the story he is telling, apparently without the slightest shame or even sense of perspective, is one of a government office run completely amok.

Quote- The office of Vice President Dick Cheney routinely reviews pieces of legislation before they reach the president's desk, searching for provisions that Cheney believes would infringe on presidential power, according to former White House and Justice Department officials.



The officials said Cheney's legal adviser and chief of staff, David Addington , is the Bush administration's leading architect of the ``signing statements" the president has appended to more than 750 laws. The statements assert the president's right to ignore the laws because they conflict with his interpretation of the Constitution. -endquote

I've gotta be honest with you. I find this current constitutional crisis over the illegal NSA wiretaps to be exceedingly depressing. And depleting. By now, most of you know that I am a weird breed. I am incredibly cynical, I am a political realist, and I am, none the less, generally optimistic.

People respond to depression in different ways.

Anyone who is a writer, or a musician, or an artist of any kind, knows that most of the time there is a deficit of creative juices. Creative people are constantly searching for their muse. But, sometimes the ideas come in a cascade, and the richness of ideas, the cascade of creativity, overwhelms the ability to do anything productive at all.

In other words, sometimes the ability to create suffers from a lack of inspiration and sometimes it suffers from too much inspiration. With the NSA hearing wearing me down, my reaction, strangely, is a surfeit of ideas.