posted February 18, 2006 06:36 AM            

quote:

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what is so unfortunate about what cheney and his family had to go thru? you mean all the people making fun of him?

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From his friend's perspective, yes...exactly.

quote:

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Is there a hidden message here?

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quote:

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Early Aquarians, like Dick Cheney (Jan 30) should be getting some heat now. Saturn in Leo is opposing Early Aquarius. Could explain why Wayne Gretzky (Jan 26), and here in Canada, former Ontario premier Mike Harris (Jan 23) also seem to be getting into trouble now.

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posted February 18, 2006 10:49 AM              

Yes! I was wondering if there was aa "hidden message" in THAT part of what Mr. Whittington said...

I was thinking like maybe he was trying to tell us....that he was told not to explain; forbidden to explain..by the "cover up" bunch....

Perhaps it's my over active imagination..what with all the conspiracy theories, and all....

There was speculation, that maybe cheney had too much to drink, and that was also the reason for the delay in reporting it...

THAT could put this thing in a whole different light...

*sigh*....who knows, for sure...

posted February 18, 2006 10:56 PM              

Vice President Dick Cheney said he didn't immediately disclose his hunting accident because he wanted the confusing details to come out right. Instead, authorized accounts came out slowly - and often still wrong.

The result: a week of shifting blame, belatedly acknowledged beer consumption (not "zero" drinking after all) and evolving discrepancies in how the shooting happened, its aftermath and the way it was told to the nation.

"There's a reason they call this crisis management," said corporate damage-control specialist Eric Dezenhall, "and that's because it's a mess."

BLAME

In the first days after the vice president wounded attorney Harry Whittington while shooting at quail last Saturday in Texas, blame was placed on the victim for not announcing his presence to fellow hunter Cheney.

"The vice president did everything right," Katharine Armstrong, the ranch owner approved by Cheney to disclose the accident, said Monday. Whittington, 78, should have shouted that he was rejoining the hunting group after drifting off to retrieve a downed bird. "The mistake exposed him to getting shot," she said. "It's incumbent on him. He did not do that."

The White House picked up on that theme the same day in attempting to deflect any responsibility from the vice president. "If I recall," Bush spokesman Scott McClellan said of Armstrong, "she pointed out that the protocol was not followed by Mr. Whittington, when it came to notifying the others that he was there."

The about-face came Wednesday when Cheney made his first public comment on the accident.

"It was not Harry's fault," he said. "You can't blame anybody else. I'm the guy who pulled the trigger and shot my friend."

DRINKING

Although there is no evidence that beer impaired Cheney's judgment, initial denials that he had consumed alcohol were wrong.

"No one was drinking," Armstrong said at the outset. "No, zero, zippo." She said the hunters washed down lunch with Dr Pepper. Later, she qualified her comments and said beer might have been in the cooler but she did not think anyone drank any.

The investigating officer from the Kenedy County sheriff's department, after interviewing Whittington in the hospital, reported that the victim "explained foremost there was no alcohol during the hunt."

Authorities did not investigate the accident until the next day. The Texas Parks and Wildlife accident report, dated two days after the shooting, checked "No" on the question of whether Cheney appeared under the influence of intoxicants. It did not address whether the hunters had been drinking at all. (The report also included a diagram depicting Whittington's wounds on the wrong side of his body.)

Cheney acknowledged Wednesday, "I had a beer at lunch" several hours before the group's afternoon hunt, asserting "nobody was under the influence."

VICTIM'S CONDITION

In the rush to assure everyone Whittington was "just fine," some important details were left out.

Initial reports had him treated at the scene, then taken by ambulance to the hospital, where in no time he was cracking jokes with the nurses. It turned out that after being taken to the emergency room of a local, small hospital, he was flown by helicopter to the intensive care unit of the larger hospital in Corpus Christi.

According to Armstrong's initial account of the accident scene: "He was talking. His eyes were open." Later, Cheney said that when he rushed up to the stricken man and talked to him, Whittington had one eye open and did not respond. He was, however, conscious.

Doctors said Tuesday that Whittington suffered a mild heart attack while in the hospital when one of the pellets migrated to his heart. He was released Friday.

LICENSE

Cheney did not have all his hunting papers in order, as suggested by the White House and initially stated by Texas authorities.

On Sunday, a spokesman for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department said Cheney was legally hunting with a license he bought in November. While that was true, the department's accident report the next day stated that he was in violation of a law requiring him to have an upland game bird stamp.

DISCLOSURE

The accident raised questions about the flow of information into and out of the White House communications apparatus.

Asked why no one released news of the shooting on Saturday night, McClellan said "the vice president's office was working to make sure information got out" but that details were slow to reach Washington that evening.

Armstrong, for her part, said no one at the ranch even discussed releasing the news on Saturday.

She said her family realized Sunday morning that it would be a story and decided to call the local newspaper, the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. She said she then discussed news coverage with Cheney for the first time.

"I said, 'Mr. Vice President, this is going to be public, and I'm comfortable going to the hometown newspaper,'" she told The Associated Press. "And he said, 'You go ahead and do whatever you are comfortable doing.'"

TELLING WASHINGTON

McClellan said President Bush was told shortly before 8 p.m. EST Saturday that Cheney had shot Whittington, less than half an hour after Bush first heard there had a been an accident of some sort involving Cheney's hunting party. Confirmation that Cheney was the shooter was obtained when deputy chief of staff Karl Rove called Armstrong, McClellan said.

However, McClellan said he didn't personally know Cheney was the shooter until the next morning, about 6 a.m. EST Sunday, when he was awakened with the news.

He said he only knew the previous evening that someone in Cheney's party had been involved in a hunting accident.

By Calvin Woodward and Nancy Benac
2/18/06
Associated Press

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posted February 19, 2006 02:02 PM              

If that were the limit of his atrocious behavior, it would still make him look like a boy scout, as compared to other things that he may be guilty of.....

Check out the thread WELCOME TO CONNECTICUT...

posted February 22, 2006 09:26 PM              

ACCIDENT...

Posted By: CARE
Date: Tuesday, 21 February 2006, 5:19 p.m.

Let's take a look at some of the things that have more or less washed over us recently. Once we do it quickly becomes clear that if ever the government needed a pointless distraction, it has been over the past ten days.

FAKE TERROR PLOT

The major story just as the Cheney shooting broke was the fact that the latest NeoCon war on terror justification evidence was being declared as total lies by expert after expert.

Bush had announced that four Southeast Asians who met with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan in October 2001 were foiled in their attempts to use shoe bombs to blow open a cockpit door and steer a plane into the Library Tower in LA. Fox news immediately began to air footage of the same building being blown up by aliens in the film Independence Day.

The mainstream media was picking up on this (after everyone else as per usual) and running with it. Suddenly CHENEY SHOOTS MAN IN FACE.

ARMY BEATING UP IRAQI CHILDREN

On the same day as the shooting story broke, Details emerged of a shocking video revealed scores of British soldiers brutally beating and kicking defenceless Iraqi teenagers in an army compound.

The video dated back to 2004 and documented how the children had been throwing stones at the soldiers and were then chased down by scores of British troops, rounded up and beaten to a pulp. Outrage ensued and the front pages were uniform in their cries for action on the matter. Suddenly CHENEY SHOOTS MAN IN FACE.

UN REPORT CALLS FOR IMMEDIATE CLOSURE OF GITMO

On the 13th, a United Nations inquiry called for the immediate closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention centre and the prosecution of officers and politicians "up to the highest level" who are accused of torturing detainees.

The report demanded that the Bush administration ensure that all allegations of torture are investigated by US criminal courts, and that "all perpetrators up to the highest level of military and political command are brought to justice".

This was kept off the front pages as CHENEY SHOOTS MAN IN FACE.

MORE ABU GHRAIB TORTURE PHOTOS LEAKED

On the 15th of Feb, an Australian network broadcast about 60 previously unpublished photographs that the US Government had been fighting to keep secret in a court case with the American Civil Liberties Union.

A leaked report from the US army's internal investigation into the scandal quickly followed and revealed the full extent of the horrific torture policies in place there. It said the material, gathered by the army's criminal investigation division, included 1,325 photographs and 93 video clips of suspected abuse of detainees, 546 photographs of suspected dead Iraqi detainees, as well as 660 images of adult pornography, and 29 pictures of US troops engaged in simulated sex acts.

This was kept off the front pages due to the fact that CHENEY SHOOTS MAN IN FACE.

PATRIOT ACT HEADED FOR PERMANENT RENEWAL

"The outcome here is absolutely predetermined," Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said late Wednesday. "It's going to pass with overwhelming support."

The USA Patriot Act is headed toward renewal with most of its onerous individual rights violations intact and broad Senate support for a White House-brokered compromise that adds a few token new civil liberties protections to the terror-fighting law. Wrote Capitol Hill Blue.

The police state control grid is being put in place and everyone is more concerned with the fact that CHENEY SHOOTS MAN IN FACE.

$8.8 MILLION OF IRAQ RECONSTRUCTION FUNDS "MISSING"

Perhaps the most telling story we have been distracted from is this one. ON THE VERY SAME DAY as the Cheney shot Whittington story, CBS's 60 Minutes aired a report in which US expert Steward Bowen, who is auditing funds financing Iraq reconstruction programs announced that around $8.8 million had simply vanished.

Wide spread war profiteering is going on, the main culprit being Halliburton who have have collected half of all the money awarded to contractors in Iraq, and, according to Department of Defense auditors, have over-billed taxpayers more than a billion dollars.

In 2003, the Pentagon set up the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) to govern Iraq under Ambassador Paul Bremer, who hired private companies to secure and rebuild the country. No bid contracts.

Frank Willis, who was the No. 2 man at the Coalition Provisional Authoritys Ministry of Transportation was quoted in the CBS report:

"I think that what they were doing was of the nature of what I understand war-profiteering to be about which is to get into a chaotic situation and milk every penny out of it you can, as fast as you can, before the opportunity goes away,"

Of course, we know that Dick Cheney is deeply involved with Halliburton, once the CEO and still profiting from their "success" with over $40 million in stocks. So wasn't it a coincidence that on the eve of this major report he SHOT A MAN IN THE FACE.

Are these things not vitally more important to focus on than the fact that Dick Cheney got drunk and peppered an elderly man with pellets?

posted February 22, 2006 10:04 PM              

Rainbow continues..... in spite of the fact that she's really sticking her neck out..........(considering this is going to be about that warm and lovable, grandfatherly, really neat Vice-President, whom we all know and love.)

posted February 23, 2006 12:02 AM              

Rainbow steps in (without permission) to continue discussions on the Cheney hunting accident!!!!! (hoping she doesn't need permission and hoping the deadline on this particular incident has not arrived yet! ...if indeed there be one....eeeeee)

......another slant on the accident....

posted February 23, 2006 12:05 AM              

By DOUG THOMPSON
Feb 22, 2006, 07:35

Secret Service agents guarding Vice President Dick Cheney when he shot Texas lawyer Harry Whittington on a hunting outing two weeks ago say Cheney was "clearly inebriated" at the time of the shooting.

Agents observed several members of the hunting party, including the Vice President, consuming alcohol before and during the hunting expedition, the report notes, and Cheney exhibited "visible signs" of impairment, including slurred speech and erratic actions.

According to those who have talked with the agents and others present at the outing, Cheney was drunk when he gunned down his friend and the day-and-a-half delay in allowing Texas law enforcement officials on the ranch where the shooting occurred gave all members of the hunting party time to sober up.

We talked with a number of administration officials who are privy to inside information on the Vice President's shooting "accident" and all admit Secret Service agents and others say they saw Cheney consume far more than the "one beer' he claimed he drank at lunch earlier that day.

This was a South Texas hunt," says one White House aide. "Of course there was drinking. There's always drinking. Lots of it."

One agent at the scene has been placed on administrative leave and another requested reassignment this week. A memo reportedly written by one agent has been destroyed, sources said Wednesday afternoon.

Cheney has a long history of alcohol abuse, including two convictions of driving under the influence when he was younger. Doctors tell me that someone like Cheney, who is taking blood thinners because of his history of heart attacks, could get legally drunk now after consuming just one drink.

If Cheney was legally drunk at the time of the shooting, he could be guilty of a felony under Texas law and the shooting, ruled an accident by a compliant Kenedy County Sheriff, would be a prosecutable offense.

But we will never know for sure because the owners of the Armstrong Ranch, where the shooting occurred, barred the sheriff's department from the property on the day of the shooting and Kenedy County Sheriff Ramon Salinas III agreed to wait until the next day to send deputies in to talk to those involved.

Sheriff's Captain Charles Kirk says he went to the Armstrong Ranch immediately after the shooting was reported on Saturday, February 11 but both he and a game warden were not allowed on the 50,000-acre property. He called Salinas who told him to forget about it and return to the station.

"I told him don't worry about it. I'll make a call," Salinas said. The sheriff claims he called another deputy who moonlights at the Armstrong ranch, said he was told it was "just an accident" and made the decision to wait until Sunday to investigate.

"We've known these people for years. They are honest and wouldn't call us, telling us a lie," Salinas said.

Like all elected officials in Kenedy County, Salinas owes his job to the backing and financial support of Katherine Armstrong, owner of the ranch and the county's largest employer.

"The Armstrongs rule Kenedy County like a fiefdom," says a former employee.

Secret Service officials also took possession of all tests on Whittington's blood at the hospitals where he was treated for his wounds. When asked if a blood alcohol test had been performed on Whittington, the doctors who treated him at Christus Spohn Hospital Memorial in Corpus Christi or the hospital in Kingsville refused to answer. One admits privately he was ordered by the Secret Service to "never discuss the case with the press."

posted February 23, 2006 10:53 AM            

I totally agree with you... This story is SILLY....and it is even sillier that there are three pages of BS conspiracy littering this forum LMAO...

At least it is one way for people to exercise their imaginations. God knows I would hate for the conspiracy theorists to let their brains rot.

How about concentrating on the Thug idiots like Entwhistle that stabbed his infant son TO DEATH along with his wife - then fled to England.

That made a lot of news. DO you think the Right Wing Conspiracy put him up to it in order to deflect certain news stories?

posted February 23, 2006 11:12 AM              

that pointing fingers at others..
and judginh them..gets US nowhere
we've been doing that how long..
hmmm, it was the serpent's fault?

when will humaity want to up the vibration with Love..ignore these idiot's..we as a spirit group..is far stronger..out thought energies are stronger..send some waves of Love to all these stupid people, who refuse to wake-up..
feeding all this negativity is not helping anything, I hate reading all this stuff, I already know what's going on in my MInd
I have acceptance..it starts with each individual finding themself and God within

pointing fingers
judging
blaming

it's History repeating itself again again again

Good God!
Good Grief!
Goodness. ...

we are all so worried about the other guy, that we have forgotten about ourSelves..

And I'm not saying to take a stand, But when all it is is bashing, what's the point..we all know the stories..will we ever know which one is true..NO
for some YES..

when you can make a difference DO, do it with Love and compassion, otherwise we are no better than them, lower higher frequency, I like the higher one, it makes me feel high, naturally..
when I fall to the lower one, it hurts my Mind and Body..

posted February 24, 2006 05:29 PM              

Here's a hug from (is that a commie/liberal?)

Anyway, I wouldn't

HUNT WITH DICK

or

RIDE WITH TEDDY

posted February 24, 2006 06:13 PM            

I've enjoyed reading all the commentary about Dick Cheney's murder attempt. But I'm afraid it's all hopelessly off...target

Of course, it served it's purpose and took public debate in a different and intended direction. It seems that just when the left is beginning to get some traction, just when they think they're zeroed in, just when they are getting too close to the truth...Whammo!

No, Cheney wasn't drunk and didn't shoot Wittington....."accidentally".
Good cover story but off.....target!

Cheney was sending a message. A message to Scooter who knows where all the bodies are buried in the Bush Administration AND to all those air traffic controllers, Generals, Colonels, Majors, NORAD personnel, family and friends of (and) the alleged "passengers", corporate executives at the airlines, Congress and staff and the 9/11 Commission and staff who know the truth about who really bombed the WTC on 9/11.

I would think that's at least 50,000 people in the US and Canada. I would also think they got Cheney's message. If Cheney would shoot his long time friend just to send a message, what would he do to those who don't keep their traps shut about the 9/11 conspiracy?

posted February 24, 2006 08:59 PM              

quote:

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Cheney was sending a message. A message to Scooter who knows where all the bodies are buried in the Bush Administration AND to all those air traffic controllers, Generals, Colonels, Majors, NORAD personnel, family and friends of (and) the alleged "passengers", corporate executives at the airlines, Congress and staff and the 9/11 Commission and staff who know the truth about who really bombed the WTC on 9/11.

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Thanks jwhop.....that makes perfect sense....