Our first-ever fill in the blank day here at DV. Not amazingly, surprisingly or even in the realm of the unexpected, the Preznit of Vice is not gonna tell us about his travel expenses, even though he has to by law. Fuck laws, those are for the rest of America, not the ruling 1600 Crew Klaven...

Open-government advocates say that Vice President Cheney is to executive branch secrecy what darkness is to the night.
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More recently, a government watchdog group has called attention to less noticed records that Cheney has sought to keep private: travel costs.

In a report this month, the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity said Cheney and his staff have sidestepped regulations that require annual reporting of travel expenses of more than $250 received from outside groups. The center, which focuses on ethics and public service issues, said previous vice presidents routinely disclosed such payments for lodging, travel and food when the veep and his staff made appearances at colleges, think tanks and trade associations.
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Cheney's office says nothing is amiss. In three letters since 2002 to the Office of Government Ethics, which collects the travel reports, David S. Addington, then Cheney's general counsel, noted that the reporting requirement applies to the "head of each agency of the executive branch."

"The Office of the Vice President is not an 'agency of the executive branch,' and hence the reporting requirement does not apply," wrote Addington, who this month replaced I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby as Cheney's chief of staff.
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Yet, according to the center's research, Cheney has given 23 speeches to think tanks and trade organizations and 16 at academic institutions since 2001 -- apparently all at taxpayers' expense.

"[I]t appears that his office labels them 'official travel,' " the center said. "As a result . . . the public is kept largely unaware of where he and his staff are traveling, with whom they are meeting and how much it costs, even though tax dollars are covering the bill."

You know, it's never the big things that bring 'em down...it's the smallest details that sometimes get'em. The problem with a government-by-stealth is that the hide all the details, and it's not until years later we find out the extent of their criminality.

You would think someone so fired up about "honesty" in government would behave differently. Well five years of raw power have proven only one thing to The Dick...he thinks he can get away with anything. Maybe not for much longer.

In the years after Watergate Congress could not pass legislation to prevent this crap from happening fast enough. Over successive years and administrations and congresses, they were stripped away as "cumbersome", "unnessecary" yadda yadda...maybe the only good thing about the 1600 Crew criminals from Delay to Preznit My Guts Their Blood will be a recognition that not all legislation has to only benefit special interests and big money. Some can benefit Americans as well.