RIP Darth Cheney

Yes, plenty of others have written already, but here's my few thoughts.

Torture. That's the bottom line, not just being a neocon nut in general.

In the 2008 presidential transition, people like me prodded Dear Leader to name a war crimes special prosecutor. Rahmbo Emanuel nixed that, and O'Bummer wouldn't override him. 

Weaselshit Anthony Romero (he is, for MANY reasons), executive director of the ACLU, was a weaselshit with "prosecute then pardon." 

Judge Napolitano, who perhaps deserved more credit even back in the day, wanted Cheney — and Bush — indicted, then of course prosecuted, without mentioning pardons. 

A year later, Uncle Fester admitted to being a war criminal, after all. 

Of course, today, many BlueAnon, and lamestream media like CNN, are normalizing Darth Cheney cuz he and daddykins' daughter Liz were/are Never Trumpers. (That said, even after Dems regained control of Congress in 2007, Fancy Nancy Pelosi refused to support Kucinich's impeachment push.) Reality? This same Liz, so high and mighty about the power of Congress after Jan. 6, 2021, a dozen years earlier didn't want to talk about her dad hiding secret CIA assassination plans from Congress. More on the hit squads here. 

Speaking of media, there's also the issue of whether or not Shrub Bush was Uncle Fester's puppet, along with the related idea, per the likes of Tim Weiner, of whether or not Bob Woodward was a sucker for a line of Bush bullshit. Woodward's lies regarding both already started in 2005. This brief may get us closer to Bush-Cheney relationship.

That said, give Vlad the Impaler Putin credit for telling Cheney to STFU long ago. 

Forwarding to the Middle East of then and today? Darth only liked democracy when it was pro-Merikkka. Freely elected Hamas? Can't have that. (They were, Ed Buckner, or pretty much so.)

Domestically, meanwhile, there was his sekrut energy task force. Daughterkins never challenged that, did she? Per the link, never did any Gang Green type enviros that sat in. Non-Gang Green, like Center for Biological Diversity, were never invited.

In a combination of domestic and international, Darth had connections to international bribery. 

Speaking of lies and liars, here's Shrub on Darth's death:

"I counted on him for his honest, forthright counsel, and he never failed to give his best. He held to his convictions and prioritized the freedom and security of the American people."

Uhh, sure. Those lies are joined by others from Nuclear Condi Rice and Slick Willie Clinton.

No, MSM, the current GOP deficits are nothing new

Certainly, the GOP attitude toward deficits is nothing new.

That's despite the AP, the Bezos Post and the Houston Chronicle, among other outlets, claiming the GOP acceptance of wall-to-wall deficits is a historic sea change.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Presidentially, with the exception of the brief interlude of Poppy Bush, GOP presidents haven't cared about deficits since Nixon. After all, Veep Dick Cheney said they don't matter.

In Congress, the Senate had its deficit hawks under Reagan, and Shrub Bush, but some had left the Senate and others gone mute by the time of Shrub Bush.

And, the variations of unsubstantiated supply-side economics get new makeup on their lips every couple of years and that's that.

So, MSM?

Just stop trying to normalize the national Republican Party.

'Days of Fire'? Peter Baker's book is barely kindling

Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House by Peter Baker

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Why do I say what I do? Veteran New York Times reporter Peter Baker has too much "mainstreamitis," too much "have-a-beer-itis," in this over-length tome.

Per the first, this book reads exactly like it was written by who it was: not "Peter Baker," but a decade-plus White House correspondent for a major mainstream paper. Take torture, for example. In the index, it links to pages that don't actually use the word, but, euphemisms or softenings.

Per the second? Baker seems to have that stereotypical "guy I'd have a beer with," as it was called in 2000 and again in 2004, man-crush on W.

As a result, other than looking at some details of how Bush wasn't totally Cheney's puppet, and even more details about how, after office, every Bush Administration official, including the Head Cheese and Darth Cheney, who has written a book, or been interviewed for a partisan one, has told at least one lie about one major interaction with other Bushies, there's not much here. On length, it could have been cut 150 pages without much loss.

I was on the 2/3 star border, but, this book is getting too much unworthy praise, so I went down rather than up.



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Obama, health care, Cheney, energy

Or, let's call this post: "Let's make a government transparency deal."

President Obama politely told the Congressional GOP to fuck off when it asked for records from White House staffers' meetings with various interest groups, including drug companies and hospitals, in the run-up to crafting Obamacare.

Yes, Obama is a hypocrite, after saying health care overhaul issues would be discussed in public.

But, this is exactly what Vice President Dick Cheney did with his secret energy task force, and that's exactly the same response he gave to Congressional Democrats.

So, let's not have either "lamestream" political party posturing; let's not have their partisans posturing, either. Call this a schadenfreude alert for both parties.

Tongue-in-cheek of the subhead aside, I'd love a political deal where all of Obama's wheeling-dealings were released AND all of Cheney's. But, as a matter of political reality, this not be done until after November 2012.

This day in indictments - Cheney ... and Assange??

Darth Vader himself has been indicted, charged that is, in relation to an allegedly $180 billion of bribery by Halliburton in Nigeria.

What would be a fitting punishment?

Ahh, yes ... boiling him in a barrel of Nigerian oil heated over a flame built on paper copies of old Halliburton stock options that Cheney has.

Or, having somebody "accidentally" shoot him with a shotgun.

Or ... the best of all ... waterboard him with hot Nigerian crude oil!

Meanwhile, the Monitor speculates as to the possibility that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has perhaps been indicted under seal by the United States.

Given George Barack Obama outdoing his predecessor on gutting civil liberties, this wouldn't surprise me. And, I don't know about Sweden, but, I'm betting British Prime Minister David Cameron (with Assange in the UK right now) on an issue like this would be about as much Obama's lapdog as Tony Blair was for George W. Bush.

Who kidnapped Andrew Napolitano's brain?

Faux News' legal expert says Bush and Cheney should be indicted for torture.

Dick Cheney: I am a war criminal

On ABC's This Week yesterday, Uncle Fester confessed to being a big supporter of waterboarding.

As Andrew Sullivan notes, it's not only a war crime, but one with no statute of limitations. And, either the death penalty or life in prison as a sentence.

Of course, Obama has the balls of a two-week-old mouse, so nothing will happen here.

That said, Glenn Greenwald notes that Cheney is performing a bitch-slap of Obama, to put it bluntly.

But, the precedent of Pinochet in mind, or that of Henry Kissinger, if I were Dick Cheney, I wouldn't travel abroad. That said, if I knew he'd get arrested elsewhere, I'd pack his bags for him.

Blair worse than Bush-Cheney on Iraq WMD claims

We "just" believed a mentally ill physicist.

The British apparently actually believed an Iraqi taxi driver, among others, about WMD.

Yoikes.

If that was not bad enough, at other times, Prime Minister Tony Blair was just making up Dick Cheney-type bullshit about Iraq.

The ‘war industry’

Gene Lyons is right. Misguided dunderheads of David Broder ilk aside, the increased privatization of the U.S. military means that, far beyond Ike’s famous “military-industrial complex” line, there is a “war industry” sounding the tocsin of battle all in the name of the almighty dollar — even as more and more of that dollar migrates to Beijing in the first place.

So, fuck you, Dick Cheney. Go talk to Chinese President Hu Jintao if you really think Afghanistan is such a problem.

Oh, and take Tim Geithner, Hank Paulson and some other Goldman Sachs alums, or current brass, with you.

Better yet, since the Army now accepts people until age 42, tell Liz and Mary to support the war industry by driving down to the nearest Army recruiting station.

Cheney pissed about second-term Bush

And, he’s apparently going to do a lot of dissing in his memoir. Interestingly, that’s not slated for print until 2011. Is Che Ney trying to influence the 2012 presidential election?

Liz Cheney now doesn’t want to talk about daddy Dick

Specifically, she doesn’t want to talk about Uncle Fester Che Ney’s being the Mafia hitman mastermind of a CIA assassination program.

"This is a classified program and he doesn't talk about classified programs.”

Uhh, Ms. GOP Junior Lawbreaker, it’s the law for him to talk to at least the “Gang of Eight” about even such programs. Nice try, biatch.

Assassination why Cheney hid CIA secret program?

The Guardian claims that one big of the top secret CIA program former Vice President Dick Cheney kept hidden from Congress was not new, controversial means of gathering intelligence, but was assassinating al-Qaeda operatives in friendly countries.

The CIA apparently did not put the plan in to operation but the US military did, carrying out several assassinations including one in Kenya that proved to be a severe embarrassment and helped lead to the quashing of the programme.

But, as several commenters note, it has to be more than that, as far as what Cheney wanted hidden. Although, the cooperation with Mossad – if the U.S. ever had a hit on, say, Saudi soil with Mossad cooperation, THAT would be hugely controversial.

Oh, and whether it’s that bad or not, the assassination program has raised a ruckus on the Hill.

And now, Liz Cheney now doesn’t want to talk about her hitman Daddy.

Specifically, she doesn’t want to talk about Uncle Fester Che Ney’s being the Mafia hitman mastermind of a CIA assassination program.

"This is a classified program and he doesn't talk about classified programs.”

Uhh, Ms. GOP Junior Lawbreaker, it’s the law for him to talk to at least the “Gang of Eight” about even such programs. Nice try, biatch.

Two strikes and you’re out for Liz Cheney

First, she raises the nutbar “Obama is selling out America” line. Then, she says anybody who wants to investigate her dad’s role in torture hates America, adding in the same article that she is open to a run for elective office in the future.

Oh, doorknob.

Make that three strikes, now.

Liz Cheney now doesn’t want to talk about her hitman Daddy.

Specifically, she doesn’t want to talk about Uncle Fester Che Ney’s being the Mafia hitman mastermind of a CIA assassination program.

"This is a classified program and he doesn't talk about classified programs.”

Uhh, Ms. GOP Junior Lawbreaker, it’s the law for him to talk to at least the “Gang of Eight” about even such programs. Nice try, biatch.

Why is Uncle Fester still getting Secret Service?

And, why is President Obama extending Che Ney’s men in black protection?

New Yorkers tougher than ‘cowboy’ Montanans

At least when it comes to paranoia about incarcerated terrorists. Or, maybe senators Jon Tester and Max Baucus are worried most of all about the real terrorist – Dick Cheney.

Darth Cheney vs. The One –loser? Winner?

First, by apparently deliberately showing up late to the National Archives to make sure he could bump former Vice President Dick Cheney off live TV, President Barack Obama clearly won one part of their dueling speech showdown on the War on Terra. (Yes, we’re attacking Latin earth.)

But, that’s itself part of the problem. The only real winner there was the concept of “presidentialism,” which both support. The loser there?

The American public, as it continues to be.

But, let’s look beyond that at the tale of the actual speech tapes. Here, too, the loser was the public, in part because Obama was too charitable to Bush-Cheney:

“Unfortunately, faced with an uncertain threat, our government made a series of hasty decisions. And I believe that those decisions were motivated by a sincere desire to protect the American people.”

I don’t believe that, and neither do the leaders of the civil liberties groups that were in the White House Wednesday, I’m sure. We believe that, from the top, the decision to “take the gloves off” was:
• Deliberated, rather than hasty:
• Motivated by the desire to establish American hegemony;
• Motivated by doctrinaire neo-con foreign policy beliefs; and
• Motivated by the desire to wipe 9/11 eggs off BushCo’s collective face.

Obama’s charity toward Uncle Fester? That, too, is ultimately part of presidentialism, which won the day by TKO.

Whackjob Cornyn thinks Cheney could help in 2010

Just when you think Texas Sen. John Cornyn can’t be stupider, he ups the ante on all of us.

This time, it’s thinking that Uncle Fester can actually help the GOP win Senate seats next year.

Bring him to Texas next year. I am sure Houston Mayor Bill White will be glad to hang Cheney around his GOP opponent’s neck.

America and Cheney whacked Bhutto?

That is, in essence, the charge of Pakistani paper The Nation. (Not the U.S. opinion mag.)
The paper says that a U.S. created hit squad, specifically one created by Darth Cheney himself, killed Benazir Bhutto. The paper claims the same squad, and NOT pro-Syrian forces, killed Lebanese Prime Minister Rafique Al Hariri. It says Sy Hersh disclosed this on an Arab-world TV interview.

Hersh is firmly denying he ever said such a thing.

And, Pakistan’s Dawn media group has already pulled down a story that apparently was similar to Nation’s.

Weird.

Nation’s story sounds legit, in part because of the Hariri add-on, and the fact that I think Cheney could come up with such an assassination idea, or at least run with it when the hit squad had the idea.

But “could” and “did” are different things. Beyond that, Hersh wouldn’t recant something under government pressure, so where Nation got this info, I have no idea.

Ventura ready to waterboard Cheney

On Larry King Live, Jesse Ventura said that if you give him a waterboarding set-up, and Dick Cheney, an hour later, he’ll have Uncle Fester confessing to the Sharon Tate murder. (The implicit equating of Darth Cheney and Charlie Manson is funny.)

And, Ventura knows. As a Navy SEAL, he pointed out that he was waterboarded as part of SERE training. He also points out that it isn’t “simulated” anything and can in fact kill someone.

Obama torture apologetics logic undercut

Mark Benjamin succinctly makes the case, based on the details of the just-released Senate Armed Services Committee special report (PDF), that the CIA was engaging in at least “torture lite” BEFORE the Department of Justice’s Bybee-Yoo-Bradbury lawyers’ troika issued what is clearly an ex post facto green light in August 2002.

The Justice Department opinion condoning abusive interrogations did not come out until August, eight months after the Bush administration started putting the program together and presumably well after Zubaydah's torture had begun.

In fact, as Mike Madden notes, the Senate report shows in detail what has already been known, that by the end of 2001, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was pushing for at least “torture light” if not more.

Oh, and in yet another tie-back to Obama, let’s not forget that this all started, NOT at Gitmo, NOT at Abu Ghraib, but at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, the place Obama wants to expand.

It’s going to be a long 45 months. Because you and I will not change the Obama Administration. You can sign 500 petitions, and they will not change Barack Obama.

And, I will refuse to sign any more petitions to Obama anybody else asks me to sign until they pledge to support third-party politics.