Archive for the ‘Dick Cheney’ Category

Updated on Monday: Although a staffer said he didn’t plan to show, U.S. Rep. John Lewis was present for President Barack Obama’s visit to Atlanta, we’re told.

President Barack Obama’s second visit to Georgia this year may be one of those parties best remembered for the guests who failed to show.

The president will spend the better part of Monday in Atlanta — first speaking to a convention of disabled veterans. Then the president will be the featured guest at a Democratic National Committee luncheon and fundraiser.

President Barack Obama last week addressed the National Urban League. Associated Press

Many Democrats will flock to the downtown events. Michael Thurmond, the labor commissioner and U.S. Senate candidate, will be there. U.S. Rep. David Scott of Atlanta will greet Obama as he steps off Air Force One, as will Gov. Sonny Perdue — a Republican.

Mayor Kasim Reed will give the first African-American president an effusive introduction at the DNC fundraiser. A spokesman …

Continue reading Guess who won’t be coming to lunch with Obama? »

Lost in Sunday’s back-and-forth with Vice President Joe Biden over the prosecution of terrorists was this, captured by Politico.com:

Former Vice President Dick Cheney, who served as defense secretary under President George H.W. Bush, expressed support for the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, which President Barack Obama has asked Congress to work on this year.

Cheney told ABC’s “This Week” that 20 years ago when he was secretary of defense, the military was a strong advocate of the policy that bans gays from openly serving in the military, but that “things have changed significantly since then” and he anticipates that ultimately “the policy will be changed.”

“I think society has moved on,” Cheney said the policy shift is partly “a generational question.”

Cheney cited support for repeal from Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as reason that he believes it’s time to “reconsider” the policy, and he disagreed …

Continue reading Dick Cheney backs repeal of ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ »

In a weekly column he writes for Georgia newspapers, attorney and Republican strategist Randy Evans points to the tough choice many of the 2010 candidates for governor — Republican and Democrat — will face as the new year approaches.

Fund-raising pressures, he says, will force some of them to quit the race — or quit the state office that gives them a prominent platform from which to speak.

Georgia has a law that prohibits any elected statewide officeholder or member of the Georgia General Assembly from asking for or receiving a campaign contribution while the Georgia General Assembly is in session. The General Assembly convenes on January 11, 2010 and will probably extend into April 2010.

As a result, current statewide elected officials and members of the General Assembly can not raise any money during this time.

What does this mean? Well, in the Republican Primary, Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine, Secretary of State Karen Handel, state
Sen. Eric Johnson, and …

Continue reading Your morning jolt: The four-month fund-raising desert »

The 2008 refinery explosion near Savannah still has a few aftershocks left.

In today’s Savannah Morning News, reporter Larry Peterson has this:

Imperial Sugar Co. prepped U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss to rebut testimony by a whistle-blower witness at a Senate hearing last year, a lobbyist’s memo indicates.

In addition to Chambliss being given hundreds of pages of documents, the senator, Imperial’s CEO and its lobbyist discussed the July 29 hearing in advance of the session itself, a Chambliss spokeswoman confirms.

The hearing focused on the causes of the explosions and fires that ultimately killed 14 at the Port Wentworth refinery. One of the key witnesses was former Imperial executive Graham Graham, who testified that Imperial Sugar hindered his efforts to make the plants safer, a claim the company denies.

Peterson writes that Chambliss received a package of documents from Imperial lobbyist George Baker. In a cover memo:

Baker wrote that Imperial disputed what Graham was going …

Continue reading Your morning jolt: Chambliss coached for refinery witness »

Former Vice President Dick Cheney speaks at the Gerald R. Ford Foundation Journalism Awards luncheon at the National Press Club in Washington/Associated Press

At the National Press Club in Washington this afternoon, former Vice President Dick Cheney appeared to endorse the concept of gay marriage.

This from the Chicago Tribune’s The Swamp:

“I think that freedom means freedom for everyone,” Cheney replied. “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 said. “The question of whether or not there ought to be a federal statute to protect this, I don’t support. I do believe that, historically, the way marriage has been regulated is at the state level. It has always been a state issue, and I think that is the way it ought to be handled, on a state-by-state basis…

“But I don’t have any …

Continue reading Dick Cheney: Gays ‘ought to get a shot’ at marriage »

President Barack Obama and former Vice President Dick Cheney today gave back-to-back speeches on terrorism, national security and the fate of the Guantanamo detention facility.

You can read Obama’s speech here, and Cheney’s here. But below is a section from each. And I’m wondering: which of these two worlds do you live in?

From Obama:

And we will be ill-served by some of the fear-mongering that emerges whenever we discuss this issue. Listening to the recent debate, I’ve heard words that, frankly, are calculated to scare people rather than educate them; words that have more to do with politics than protecting our country.

Whose world do you live in?

• I live in Dick “No Middle Ground” Cheney’s world
• I live in Barack “No Fear-Mongering” Obama’s world

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So I want to take this opportunity to lay out what we are doing, and how we intend to resolve these outstanding issues. I will explain how each action that we are taking will help …

Continue reading America and terror: Whose world do you live in? »

A different kind of political analysis on the torture, from the usually staid Congressional Quarterly:

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Continue reading The Cheney-Obama death match: Checkers versus chess »