Where’s Jon Stewart when you need him — groan!
Jude
Pat Oliphant ‘toon
Fire on White House grounds
Smoke pours from Old Executive Office Building
TERENCE HUNT, Capital Hill Blue
December 19, 2007 - 11:14am.
Thick smoke billowed from a fire Wednesday in Vice President Dick Cheney’s suite of offices in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the White House.
Cheney’s office, known for its historical furnishings and ornate decorations, was damaged by smoke and water from fire hoses, officials said. There was concern about water damage to the floor, made of mahogany, white maple and cherry and considered to be very delicate.
The adjacent office of the vice president’s political director, Amy Whitelaw, was heavily damaged by fire, said Cheney spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride.
The vice president was not in the building at the time; he was in the West Wing of the White House with President Bush.
More than 1,000 people who work in the building were evacuated as the second through the fifth floor of the building filled with smoke. The fire broke out on the second floor of the building about 9:15 a.m. and was under control within a half hour, District of Columbia fire department spokesman Alan Etter said.
White House press secretary Dana Perino said the blaze appeared to have started in an electrical closet or a telephone bank.
The building was reopened Wednesday afternoon and Cheney walked through to see the damage.
The set of offices contains the vice president’s ceremonial office, used for meetings and press interviews, and the offices of his staff. His primary office is across West Executive Avenue in the West Wing.
Earlier, Bush and Cheney appeared on West Executive Avenue, between the White House and the damaged building, to thank District of Columbia firefighters. A fire tanker nearby still had its ladder extended to a window on the blackened second floor.
District of Columbia firefighters poured water on the blaze, broke windows and moved furniture onto a balcony.
There were no reports of serious injuries, Etter said. A U.S. Marine stationed at the building smashed a fifth-floor window to escape from the smoke and had to be rescued from the ledge, he said. The man suffered a minor cut to his hand.
The extent of water, fire and smoke damage was unclear.
Investigators were working to determine the cause of the blaze, Etter said.
Since 1960, Cheney’s office has been occupied by every vice president from Lyndon B. Johnson, with the exception of Hubert Humphrey, who used a room on the floor below. Since its restoration in the 1980s, it has been considered a “ceremonial” office.
It contains a desk first used by Theodore Roosevelt in 1902 and later by Presidents Taft, Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, Truman and Eisenhower. The inside of the top drawer has been signed by the various users since the 1940s.
The Executive Office Building, a commanding structure with a granite, slate and cast iron exterior at the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 17th Street, houses the Office of Management and Budget and staff of the National Security Council and other agencies. ++
Is Washington burning?
What did Cheney know and when did he burn the evidence?
DOUG THOMPSON, Capital Hill Blue
December 20, 2007
The mysterious fire in the Old Executive Office Building on the White House grounds sent conspiracy theorists into overdrive Thursday. What, they wondered, went up in smoke in Vice President Dick Cheney’s suite of offices in the OEOB?
Hey, we love a good conspiracy theory here at Capitol Hill Blue and we learned long ago that anything is possible from the Bush boys and girls at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue so we’re happy to join in the latest guessing game of what did they know and when did they burn it?
Since the fire erupted in Cheney’s offices, speculation deepens. Cheney is, after all, the Darth Vader of BushCo, the Black Knight most often accused of being behind all the nefarious actions of what many consider to be the most corrupt Presidential administration in American history.
So what did the fire reduce to ashes just as federal judges, Congress and even Bush’s own Attorney General launches probes into the various high crimes and misdemeanors ?
If evidence was destroyed, the most obvious would be any memos relating to that meeting of White House lawyers, Cheney and God-knows-who-else to discuss what to do about those pesky CIA tapes that showed torture of detainees.
Or maybe, as some have speculated, those White House visitor logs that show just which holy rollers came to Chateau Bush to help the Prez commune with God and seek new justifications for killing people in Iraq.
But this could be just the tip of the ash pile: So much wrongdoing, so little opportunity to burn.
Our own favorite list of what went into the fire:
Results of Bush’s latest urine test. What did the President snort and when did he snort it? Or maybe he just went back to drinking. If he wasn’t drunk or stoned, some of his actions of late give sobriety a bad name;
Vice President Cheney’s bar tab from that day on the ranch in Texas when he shot his lawyer friend in the face. Dick says he wasn’t drunk but Dick has been known to lie;
Those pictures of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid locked in a “69″ at a cheap motel on U.S. 1 south of Washington. Bush got what he wants from Congress this year. Maybe he doesn’t need them any more;
Plans for the invasion of Iran. Now that the nuke program is shut down over there the White House has to come up with a new set of lies to justify another war;
Photos of First Daughter Barbie Bush dancing topless at that frat party in college. Hustler Publisher Larry Flynt offered a million bucks for them but they never turned up in print. Maybe Bush paid more;
Plans to remain in power in 2009 by declaring a national emergency, declaring martial law and suspending habeas corpus. Lincoln did it and he was a Republican too;
Secret Service photos of Cheney and Idaho Senator Larry Craig together in that men’s room staff at the Minneapolis Airport;
Photos of Ann Coulter giving Bush a lap dance in the Oval Office. Nah, not even Bush is that desperate. ++
Attempting to Destroy CIA Tapes, Cheney Burns Down White House
Andy Borowitz, HuffPo
December 19, 2007
The White House, one of the most historic structures in the nation’s capital, burnt to the ground today after Vice President Dick Cheney attempted to incinerate a cache of CIA interrogation tapes in his office.
According to White House aides, the blaze started shortly after twelve noon, minutes after Mr. Cheney slipped out of a cabinet meeting, saying that he had to “hit the head.”
But rather than using the bathroom as he had stated, the vice president instead went to his office and put a blowtorch to a pile of CIA interrogation tapes which the White House had feared might be subpoenaed in the near future.
“I started burning those things and boom, they went up like a rocket,” an apologetic Mr. Cheney later told reporters.
The accidental blaze quickly spread from the videotapes to a nearby stack of transcripts of phone conversations involving Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and singer Barbra Streisand that Mr. Cheney had obtained via a warrantless wiretap.
“Once those transcripts caught on fire, I knew the building was a goner,” Mr. Cheney said. “There were literally thousands and thousands of pages of that stuff.”
Speaking in front of the charred remains of the historic building, administration spokesperson Dana Perino said that the White House might have been saved had it not been for an unfortunate bureaucratic mix-up: “Instead of calling the fire department, President Bush called FEMA.” ++
White House confirms the following records destroyed in the 3rd floor fire
Reality Bites Back, Daily Kos
Wed Dec 19, 2007
[thanks, Eileen]
This afternoon, the White House confirmed that a quickly contained blaze isolated to a storage room utility closet on the third floor of the Eisenhower Executive Office building destroyed the following records:
all records pertaining to:
All Executive Branch internal correspondence since January, 2001
All RNC computer servers, back-up servers, and archival back-ups
The original Downing Street Memo and associated notes
Valerie Plame and the White House investigation of the leak (W.H. UPDATE: no records of Valerie Plame investigation destroyed as there was no investigation)
Bandar Bush
God’s personal correspondence with President Bush including those related to the invasion of Iraq
No-bid Halliburton contracts
War crimes committed by U.S. contractors in Iraq
Troop body armor tests and procurement orders
Jessica Lynch
The pulling down of the Saddam statue by non-Iraqis
All unaccounted for money in Iraq
The “troops” fault to not guard the weapons stockpile in Iraq
Abu Ghraib
Scuttling of the original Abramoff investigation, by the President
Federal court appointees and their qualifications and records
Extraordinary rendition
Negroponte’s activities in Iraq
Judith Miller’s embedded reporting and using her influence to override generals
Bombing Al-Jazeera television
“Mission Accomplished”
Bribing and threatening of journalists and planting of stories in the U.S and Iraq
Stopping the NY Times from revealing White House secret spying on Americans
Jeff Gannon/Guckert
De-baathification and the breakup of the Iraqi army
Swift Boat vets
Terror alerts
Bumper sticker and T-shirt slogan monitoring
Florida 2000 voter suppression
Florida 2000 election over-votes
Bush v. Gore court papers
Richard Clark’s warnings about abandoning anti-terror and a returning to the military-industrial profiteering of the cold war
Pre 9/11 domestic spying
The Vice Presidents Energy Task Force and all meetings dividing up Iraq’s oil fields pre 9/11
Bush’s vacation records
Enron and all related activities during California’s “energy crisis”
The accompanying Gray Davis recall and Ken Lay meetings
The Congressional records relating to passing legislation with last second changes,
midnight votes, and the minority excluded from committee meetings.
The Missile defense shield
The U.S. national debt and holders of the debt
The Healthy Forest legislation and associated crop yields
The Clear Skies legislation and new acceptable levels of toxic emissions
Able Danger and the post-it notes hiding Mohammad Atta
The “Bin Laden determined to Strike in U.S.” PDB
All copies of “My Pet Goat”
Extrication of Saudis after 9/11, especially Saudis named “Bin Laden”
The 9/11 commission
All confiscated video tapes from 9/11 showing impact with Pentagon
Bush and Cheney’s joint un-sworn “conversation” with the 9/11 commission
Library checkout and Amazon shopping records of every American
Bin Laden’s actual location after he “escaped” from Tora Bora
Yellowcake documents from Niger
Curveball
Colin Powell’s United Nations speech
Ahmad Chalabi
Attempts to dismantle PBS
Using FCC’s fines to quash dissent
The IRS collection of political affiliations
Using American troops as speech props for Presidential speeches
Diebold
Ohio voter suppression
Terri Schiavo and the emergency session of Congress
Questioning the full faith and credit of the United States to scare people into
dismantling Social Security
Payola related to the Medicare bill
Targeting and surveillance of peace lovers as terrorists
Hurricane Katrina
Oil profits and tens of billions of dollars of general fund giveaways to oil companies
Multiple consecutive tours of combat for National Guardsmen
The $200 million bridges to nowhere
New Orleans levies
Harriet Miers nomination to the Supreme Court
Bill Frist and the FEC and insider trading
Alito and the Vanguard Fund
Bob Ney of Ohio and Coingate
Duke Cunningham of San Diego and related bribes and treason
The U.S. Attorney firings of the U.S. Attorney who prosecuted Duke Cunningham and who was pursuing the investigation to the White House.
Tom Delay’s redistricting in TX and using anti-terror assets to track down legislators
Tom Delay’s ethics violations
Jack Abramoff
NSA wiretapping without warrants
The failing grade from the 9/11 commission
Data mining and reading your mail
The 5 million missing emails
also destroyed were all records related to:
Bush’s cocaine use and failure to take the ANG drug test
Bush’s drunk driving
Bush’s Texas Air National Guard service
Bush’s Arbusto stock sale, Saudi bailout, and lack of SEC follow-up
Bush’s insider trading at Harken and Bush 41?s quashing of the investigation
Bush’s stealing of a public stadium from the taxpayers of Texas
Cheney’s Wyoming residency papers
Police response to Cheney shooting a man in the face after drinking
Push-polling smear on John McCain during the 2000 Republican primary
All original video masters of Steven Colbert’s Press Corps dinner roast
Countless other records and computer systems were apparently stored in the 3 foot by 3 foot utility closet, the content of which shall be revealed as destroyed as necessary pending any future investigations.
BREAKING: word that the Constitution of the United States was inexplicably consumed by flames in its nuclear blast-proof storage case by a glowing ember that apparently drifted from the Eisenhower Executive Office Building and into a thermal exhaust port that lead directly to the Constitution. No plans to reconstruct the document are pending.
: : :
UPDATE:
Also confirmed destroyed:
All records of clients of the DC Madame
All IMs and emails between Republican congressmen and underage Congressional staffers
Secret Service records of all people having meetings with the President and Vice President since January 2001
All recorded promises, affirmations, and statements by Democratic Congressional leaders to hold the Administration accountable
UPDATE 2
Continuing reports of records stored in the third floor closet and subsequently destroyed also include all records pertaining to:
Pat Tillman
Free Speech zones
Iranian Nuclear Program National Intelligence Estimate
Guantanamo
FEMA staged news conferences
New Orleans reconstruction contracts
and
Administration banning of U.S. meat companies from inspecting all of their meat
UPDATE 3
Still more records reported completely destroyed include all items relating to:
Alberto Gonzales’ memory (and “meeting” with Ashcroft in hospital)
De-listed superfund toxic waste dump sites
The original Nixon Tapes
“Missing” Weapons of Mass Destruction from Iraq
Bernard Kerik’s Homeland Security application form
and tragically
Joe Lieberman’s Democratic Party membership card
UPDATE 4
Apparently the quantity of records destroyed was a result of a broken water pipe that has been scheduled for repair since 2001. As the sprinkler system was not functioning, the Blackwater employees hired to guard the records could only throw more records onto the flames in an attempt to contain them.
Additional records from a neighboring closet presently unaccounted for that are believed to have been destroyed in the fire now include items related to:
All subpoenas issued by the U.S. Congress to White House employees
Walter Reed facility maintenance
NASA’s evidence of global warming (redacted and sealed by the administration)
Looting of the Native American Trust Fund
Forensic reports from 2001 anthrax attacks against key Democrats and media
Dubai Ports deal
Under-funding of Russian loose nuclear materials security programs
Guidelines for putting American citizens on no-fly and terror watch lists
The Vice President’s red phone that directly connects the Vice-President’s office to the on-air Fox news desk (possibly salvageable)
More details of the devastating fire to come… ++
“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
December 20th, 2007