It looks like at least the President is still in the executive branch. How do we know? Because he is hiding behind executive privilege again.

With their traditional candor they say:

“With respect, it is with much regret that we are forced down this unfortunate path which we sought to avoid by finding grounds for mutual accommodation,” White House counsel Fred Fielding said in a letter to the chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees. “We had hoped this matter could conclude with your committees receiving information in lieu of having to invoke executive privilege. Instead, we are at this conclusion.”

Got that? Let me paraphrase:

We were hoping to evade public scrutiny and hide our blood-thirsty political agenda through other means but, because the Congress is being so thorough and professional in its investigation, we have no other choice but to be fall back on the same childish, untrue and retarded excuse we’ve used in the past.

Cast in the best light, this administration is incompetent. Cast in the most realistic light, they are liars who consider themselves above the law and above accountability to the American people.

I’m not sure how any rational person could think Dick Cheney is anything other than a complete scumbag.

I’m sure you’ve all heard the latest:

The Office of the Vice President has asserted that it is not an “entity within the executive branch” and hence is not subject to presidential executive orders. Waxman writes, “To my knowledge, this was the first time in the nearly 30-year history of the Information Security Oversight Office that a request for access to conduct a security inspection was denied by a White House office.”

C’mon. All you Right-wing bastards can shut the hell up about Clinton and how he parsed language and got blowjobs. Cheney is trying to destroy America.

I don’t think anyone would accuse Ted Nugent of being particularly intelligent. I mean, this is the guy who wrote “Wang Dang Sweet Poon Tang”. He also lives, by choice, in Texas, the most backwards-ass hellhole of anti-intellectualism in the world.

But I like opinionated people, even when they are wrong. Ted has a little editorial for us called “‘Live and let live’ foreign idea to left“. And, yup, he’s wrong. Or at least mostly wrong.

First of all, he’s mad at Paul McCartney for firing someone for eating hamburger. I don’t know anything about that story but I suspect that Mr. Nugent and I pretty much agree on that subject. How about we all have whatever diet we choose? Seems reasonable to me.

Second, he’s mad because some of us want there to be places that are “gun free”. A major proponent of this is churches. Many of us would also rather not have to worry about being shot by drunks arguing in bars (something that happens a lot).

Third, he doesn’t like the estate tax. He falls back on the same old incorrect rhetoric that rich people use to protect their gross collection of assets:

The unfair, un-American, unconstitutional death tax literally destroys mom-and-pop businesses across the land. Think about it.

No, it doesn’t destroy mom-and-pop businesses. The exemption for the estate tax is millions of dollars. As I wrote elsewhere:

Make no question about it — the estate tax still leaves plenty of room for rich cry babies to remain rich cry babies. If you are worth a shit load of money when you die, your children will still have a shit load of money. What we are saying with the estate tax is that your wealth was not created in a vacuum and you have a responsibility to share some portion of your wealth with the country that made it possible after you are dead and don’t need it anymore.

The estate tax is fair, it effects very few people, it helps support the very society that makes extreme wealth possible, it is consistent with a philosophy of a meritocracy, it can be tweaked to protect farmers and small business owners, and we absolutely need it.

And finally Nugent thinks that conservatives stand for “live and let live”:

While conservatives “live and let live,” the left arrogantly thinks it knows better than we do and will burden “we the people” with more government control until we are taxed to death.

Hmm, let’s see. Conservatives want to put the police in the doctor’s office with women who may be pregnant. They want to make sure gay people can’t give each other blow jobs. In Texas you can’t buy a dildo. Conservatives want to do away with the separation of church and state. They don’t want to teach children sex education. They want to deny useful medications to the terminally ill. They want the largest military on earth but they don’t want to pay the taxes that support it. They want to teach Biblical creation myths is scientific fact.

No, Ted just likes his meat, his guns and his money. He doesn’t understand shit about politics or policy.