Liz Cheney's Excellent Concession Speech

I have never agreed with Rep. Liz Cheney on the economic issues facing this country, but I do admire her political courage in standing up against Donald Trump.

The following is the concession speech given by Rep. Liz Cheney after she lost her primary race on August 16th in Wyoming:

I want to say, first of all, a special thanks to every member of Team Cheney who is here in the audience, and to tell you our work is far from over. Among the many, many blessings that we have as Americans and as individuals and as human beings, the blessing of family is surely the most important, and so I want to thank all of my family and pay a special tribute to those who are here with us tonight. My mom and dad, Dick and Lynne Cheney. And my husband, Phil. And four of our five kids are here: Katie and Gracie and Phillip and Richard are all here tonight. And Elizabeth is starting law school today, so we'll have another generation carrying on dedication to the Constitution and to our freedom.
 
A little over a year ago, I received a note from a Gold Star father. He said to me, “standing up for truth honors all who gave all.” And I have thought of his words every single day since then. I’ve thought of them because they are a reminder of how we must all conduct ourselves. We must conduct ourselves in a way that is worthy of the men and women who wear the uniform of this nation, and, in particular, of those who have given the ultimate sacrifice. This is not a game. Every one of us must be committed to the internal defense of this miraculous experiment called America. And at the heart of our democratic process are elections. They are the foundational principle of our Constitution.
 
Two years ago, I won this primary with 73% of the vote. I could easily have done the same again. The path was clear. But it would've required that I go along with President Trump's lie about the 2020 election. It would've required that I enable his ongoing efforts to unravel our democratic system and attack the foundations of our republic. That was a path I could not and would not take.
 
No House seat, no office in this land is more important than the principles that we are all sworn to protect. And I well understood the potential political consequences of abiding by my duty. Our Republic relies upon the goodwill of all candidates for office. To accept, honorably, the outcome of elections. And tonight, Harriet Hageman has received the most votes in this primary. She won. I called her to concede the race. This primary election is over. But now the real work begins.
 
The great and original champion of our party, Abraham Lincoln, was defeated in elections for the Senate and the House before he won the most important election of all. Lincoln ultimately prevailed, he saved our union, and he defined our obligation as Americans for all of history. Speaking at Gettysburg of The Great Task remaining before us, Lincoln said, “that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain. That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from this earth.” As we meet here tonight, that remains our greatest and most important task.
 
Most of world history is a story of violent conflict. Of servitude and suffering. Most people in most places have not lived in freedom. Our American freedom is a providential departure from history. We are the exception. We have been giving the gift of freedom by God and our Founding Fathers. It has been said that the long arc of history bends towards justice and freedom. That’s true, but only if we make it bend. Today, our highest duty is to bend the arc of history to preserve our nation and its blessings. To ensure that freedom will not perish. To protect the very foundations of this Constitutional Republic.
 
Never in our nation's 246 years have we seen what we saw on January 6th. Like so many Americans, I assumed that the violence and the chaos of that day would have prompted a united response. A recognition that this was a line that must never be crossed. A tragic chapter in our nation's history to be studied by historians to ensure that it can never happen again. But instead, major elements of my party still vehemently defend those who caused it. At the heart of the attack on January 6th is a willingness to embrace dangerous conspiracies that attack the very core premise of our nation. That lawful elections, reviewed by the courts when necessary and certified by the states and electoral college, determine who serves as president. If we do not condemn the conspiracies and the lies, if we do not hold those responsible to account, we will be excusing this conduct and it will become a feature of all elections. America will never be the same.
 
Today, as we meet here, there are Republican candidates for Governor who deny the outcome of the 2020 election and who may refuse to certify future elections if they oppose the results. We have candidates for Secretary of State who may refuse to report the actual results of the popular vote in future elections. And we have candidates for Congress, including here in Wyoming, who refuse to acknowledge that Joe Biden won the 2020 election and suggest that states decertify their results. Our nation is barreling, once again towards crisis, lawlessness, and violence. No American should support election deniers for any position of genuine responsibility where their refusal to follow the rule of law will corrupt our future.
 
Our nation is young in the history of mankind. And yet, we are the oldest democracy in the world. Our survival is not guaranteed. History has shown us, over and over again, how poisonous lies destroy free nations. Over the last several months in the January 6th hearings, the American people have watched dozens of Republicans, including the most senior officials. working for President Trump in the White House, the Justice Department, and on his campaign – people who served President Trump loyally – testify that they all told him the election was not stolen or rigged and there was no massive fraud.
 
That’s why President Trump and others invent excuses, pretexts, for people not to watch the hearings at all. But no citizen of this Republic is a bystander. All of us have an obligation to understand what actually happened. We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation. To believe Donald Trump's election lies, you must believe that dozens of federal and state courts who ruled against him – including many judges he appointed – were all corrupted and biased. That all manner of crazy conspiracy theories stole our election from us and that Donald Trump actually remains president today. As of last week, you must also believe that 30 career FBI agents, who have spent their lives working to serve our country, abandoned their honor and their oaths and went to Mar-A-Lago, not to perform a lawful search or address a national security threat, but instead, with a secret plan to plant fake incrementing documents and the boxes they seized. This is yet another insidious lie.
 
Donald Trump knows that voicing these conspiracies will provoke violence and threats of violence. This happened on January 6th and it’s now happening again. It is entirely foreseeable that the violence will escalate further. Yet he and others continue, purposely, to feed the danger. Today, our federal law enforcement is being threatened. A federal judge is being threatened. Fresh threats of violence are rising everywhere. And despite knowing all of this, Donald Trump recently released the names of the FBI agents involved in the search. That was purposeful and malicious. No patriotic American should excuse these threats or be intimidated by them. Our great nation must not be ruled by a mob provoked over social media.
 
Our duty as citizens of this Republic is not only to defend the freedom that has been handed down to us. We also have an obligation to learn from the actions of those who came before. To know the stories of grit and perseverance. Of the brave men and women who built and saved this Union. In the lives of these great Americans we find inspiration and purpose. In May of 1864, after years of war and a string of reluctant Union generals, Ulysses S. Grant met General Lee’s forces at the Battle of the Wilderness. In two days of heavy fighting, the Union suffered over 17,000 casualties. At the end of that battle General Grant faced a choice. Most assumed he would do what previous Union generals had done and retreat. On the evening of May 7th, Grant began to move. As the fires of the battle still smoldered, Grant rode to the head of the column, he rode to the intersection of Brock Road and Orange Plank Road, and there, as the men of his army watched and waited, instead of turning north back towards Washington and safety, Grant turned his horse south towards Richmond and the heart of Lee’s army. Refusing to retreat, he pressed on to victory.
 
Lincoln and Grant and all who fought in our nation's tragic civil war, including my own great-great-grandfathers, saved our union. Their courage saved freedom. And if we listen closely, they are speaking to us down the generations. We must not idly squander what so many have fought and died for. America has meant so much to so many because we are the best hope of freedom on earth. Last week in Laramie, a gentleman came up to me with tears in his eyes. “I am not an American,” he said, “but my children are. I grew up in Brazil. I know how fragile freedom is and we must not lose it here.” A few days ago, here in Jackson, a woman told me that her grandparents had survived Auschwitz. They found refuge in America. She said she was afraid that she had nowhere to go if freedom died here. Ladies and gentlemen, freedom must not, cannot, and will not die here.
 
We must be very clear eyed about the threat we face and about what is required to defeat it. I have said since January 6th that I will do whatever it takes to ensure Donald Trump is never again anywhere near the Oval Office, and I mean it.
 
This is a fight for all of us together. I’m a conservative Republican. I believe deeply in the principles and the ideals on which my party was founded. I love its history and I love what our party has stood for. But I love my country more.
 
So, I ask you tonight to join me. As we leave here, let us resolve that we will stand together - Republicans, Democrats, and Independents - against those who would destroy our Republic. They are angry and they are determined, but they have not seen anything like the power of Americans united in defense of our Constitution and committed to the cause of freedom. There is no greater power on this Earth and with God's help, we will prevail.

Cheney exhibits Political Courage As GOP Ousts Her

I agree with Rep. Liz Cheney on almost nothing. She is a die-hard conservative and I am a proud progressive. The times where we agree on policy are few and very far between.

But I can recognize political courage when I see it. "Political Courage" is doing the right thing even when it could cost you politically.  And it is something Cheney has exhibited recently.

She has been vocal in opposing Donald Trump -- believing he has been bad for her party. She derided him for instigating the January 6th attack on the Capitol Building, and she has been vocal in fighting Trump's "big lie" (that he won the 2020 election and was ousted by massive voter fraud). 

But those things are a sin in the current Republican Party. They no longer value truth, the rule of law, or the Constitution. They sacrifice those beliefs to pay homage to Donald Trump, and whatever Trump does or says is OK with them.

They defended him when he violated the Constitution and was impeached. They went along with his thousands of lies, including the big lie about the election.

And to prove their loyalty to Trump, they have now ousted Cheney from her leadership position among House Republicans.

But Cheney is not backing down. She continues to tel the truth they don't want to hear. That's because she is trying to rescue her party from the clutches of a demagogue. It will be a long road for her, and could even result in her losing her House seat in 2022. But I wish her luck, and I hope she succeeds in her quest.

While I don't agree with her policy positions, I do believe the country needs at least two political parties for democracy to work. That allows debate, negotiation, and compromise for the good of the country. That has worked well for the U.S. for a couple of centuries now.

Cheney has called the Constitution and rule of law to be conservative principles. She is right, but they are also principles embraced by progressives and moderates. They are the bedrock principles that nourish our democracy. The country needs for the Republican Party to return to a belief in those principles.

GOP Needs More Than To Dump Trump - It Needs Principles

If you've been paying attention to politics, then you'll know that House Republicans are probably going to vote to remove Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming) from her party leadership post this week. They are doing it because she refuses to accept the big lie that Trump won the election and was robbed because of massive voter fraud -- and she has been very vocal about that.

Cheney understands that clinging to Trump and accepting his lies is hurting the party. She is trying to save the party, and make it once again a mainstream party that could appeal to most voters. That's going to be a monumental task, since most GOP voters believe Trump's "big lie" about the 2020 election. But even if she were to succeed in getting the party to dump Trump, that would only be the beginning of her battle to save the party.

That's because the party seems to have abandoned its principles. This was evident in the 2020 party platform. In that document, they didn't even bother to lay out any principles or beliefs, but instead wrote that the party supported whatever Trump wanted to do. The problem with that is that Trump has no beliefs -- except to do whatever would make him and his family richer.

Jennifer Rubin describes this problem in The Washington Post. Here is part of what she wrote:

The MAGA cult, however, is not Cheney’s only problem. As became evident during the past administration, Republicans don’t believe in much of anything other than retaining power. Are they pro- or anti-Big Business? Protectionist of free-traders? Do they want to rebuild international alliances or go it alone? Are they climate-change deniers? Do they care about deficits (or only if they aren’t caused by tax cuts)? If you have not got a clue, you are in good company. 

If Cheney is to slay the MAGA dragon, it will be essential to not only explain what she is against — historical revisionism, lying, coziness with Vladimir Putin, white supremacists — but also what she is for. The agenda of the GOP in which she spent most of her adult life is badly out of date and, frankly, unappealing in the 21st century. Tax cuts for the wealthy and for corporations may excite the donor class, but actual voters — especially those non-college-educated, White voters the GOP has been courting — would just as soon sock it to the rich. Repeal of Obamacare excites the public about as much as cutting Social Security and Medicare (that is, not at all). Even Republican voters applauded massive government intervention to battle the pandemic and recession, shrugging their shoulders about deficits. Be it good or bad policy, withdrawal from Afghanistan wins something akin to 70 percent approval among voters.

The Western conservatism of Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush — as well as Cheney’s father, Richard — tilting toward libertarian especially on social issues and pro-immigration — is wholly at odds with a party dominated by White evangelicals playing on their congregants’ grievances and fears of replacement. On social policy, a third of Republicans are pro-choice and a majority support LBGTQ rights.

As a political matter, the GOP has cast its lot with a shrinking demographic (White, evangelical, older and rural voters) while alienating college-educated voters, women and younger adults. The base is too narrow to be sustainable, yet inching away from it risks losing whatever support Republicans can count on.

It would be much easier for Cheney and breakaway Republicans had the Democrats nominated Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) or Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) last year. However, much as Republicans would like to convince Americans that Joe Biden is a raving socialist, his policies do not strike a majority of Americans as extreme or exotic. They like the idea of subsidized child care, access to broadband and free community college.

There is no magic policy formula for breakaway Republicans, but they might start with three fundamental principles: Every legal voter should have easy access to a secure electoral system; America is not defined by race, religion or place of birth; and objective reality — be it in counting votes, measuring climate change or addressing a pandemic — is worth defending. That’s not much, but that is enough for starters.

Cheney Responds To Cult Of Trump's Effort To Oust Her

As a progressive, I disagree with almost everything Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming) supports -- especially her economic views. She is an old-school conservative.

While I don't agree with her views, I do think it's important to have those views represented in our Congress. Our democracy needs conservatives and liberals to debate and negotiate on proposed law. This prevents either side from going too far, and has worked well for this nation in the past, resulting in compromise that was good for the country.

But that puts her at odds with today's Republican Party. That party has abandoned its conservative principles, and really, has no principles anymore. They have devolved into a cult of personality, and whatever lie Trump wants to tell (especially the "big lie" about election fraud being responsible for his loss) is what they support. Clinging to conservative philosophy instead of drinking the cult kool-aid has put Cheney in opposition to other GOP members of Congress, and they don't like it. They will soon vote to oust her from her leadership position in the party.

Cheney is not backing down though. And she has published her response to the proposed ouster in a column in The Washington Post. Here is part of what she wrote: 

I am a conservative Republican, and the most conservative of conservative values is reverence for the rule of law. Each of us swears an oath before God to uphold our Constitution. The electoral college has spoken. More than 60 state and federal courts, including multiple Trump-appointed judges, have rejected the former president’s arguments, and refused to overturn election results. That is the rule of law; that is our constitutional system for resolving claims of election fraud. 

The question before us now is whether we will join Trump’s crusade to delegitimize and undo the legal outcome of the 2020 election, with all the consequences that might have. I have worked overseas in nations where changes in leadership come only with violence, where democracy takes hold only until the next violent upheaval. America is exceptional because our constitutional system guards against that. At the heart of our republic is a commitment to the peaceful transfer of power among political rivals in accordance with law. President Ronald Reagan described this as our American “miracle.”

While embracing or ignoring Trump’s statements might seem attractive to some for fundraising and political purposes, that approach will do profound long-term damage to our party and our country. Trump has never expressed remorse or regret for the attack of Jan. 6 and now suggests that our elections, and our legal and constitutional system, cannot be trusted to do the will of the people. This is immensely harmful, especially as we now compete on the world stage against Communist China and its claims that democracy is a failed system. . . .

We Republicans need to stand for genuinely conservative principles, and steer away from the dangerous and anti-democratic Trump cult of personality. In our hearts, we are devoted to the American miracle. We believe in the rule of law, in limited government, in a strong national defense, and in prosperity and opportunity brought by low taxes and fiscally conservative policies. . . .

History is watching. Our children are watching. We must be brave enough to defend the basic principles that underpin and protect our freedom and our democratic process. I am committed to doing that, no matter what the short-term political consequences might be.

War Criminals

These two men have not been indicted, and probably never will be (because of their powerful political connections), but they are war criminals. They lied to get this nation into two totally unnecessary wars -- Iraq had no WMDs (and we never had any credible information that they did), and Afghanistan was willing to turn Osama bin Laden over to the World Court for a fair trial (which the American public was never told about).

Their was no reason at all to start either war -- but that didn't stop Bush and Cheney. They had political and financial reasons for those wars (both personal), and they were willing to sacrifice many thousands of innocent lives to accomplish them. Neither of those wars were started to defend this country -- and that makes these two men the worst kind of war criminals.

A Dying Soldier's Letter To Bush/Cheney

The open letter below was written by Tomas Young. Mr. Young is a patriotic American who joined the U.S. Army two days after the 9/11 tragedy. He is now a paralyzed veteran living out the final days of his life in hospice care. I am reposting his open letter (found at truthdig) to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney because I think it deserves as wide a readership as possible. It is a searing indictment of the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

To: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
From: Tomas Young

I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care.

I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries. I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. I write this letter on behalf of the some 1 million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all—the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief.

I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.

Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.

I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens. I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States. I did not join the Army to “liberate” Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called “democracy” in Baghdad and the Middle East. I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues. Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion. I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international law. And as a soldier in Iraq I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes. The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region. On every level—moral, strategic, military and economic—Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.

I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still be miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death, but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend the country I love. I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire.

I have, like many other disabled veterans, suffered from the inadequate and often inept care provided by the Veterans Administration. I have, like many other disabled veterans, come to realize that our mental and physical wounds are of no interest to you, perhaps of no interest to any politician. We were used. We were betrayed. And we have been abandoned. You, Mr. Bush, make much pretense of being a Christian. But isn’t lying a sin? Isn’t murder a sin? Aren’t theft and selfish ambition sins? I am not a Christian. But I believe in the Christian ideal. I believe that what you do to the least of your brothers you finally do to yourself, to your own soul.

My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness. 

American War Criminals Convicted

(This image is from the website of The Diplomat.)

You may have already heard about the nation of Kuala Lumpur convicting Bush, Cheney, and several of their cohorts of war crimes. I believe the conviction was justified -- they are war criminals. I have been considering writing about this, but Justin Rosario over at Addicting Info has beat me to it, and has probably done a better job than I could have. So I bring you his excellent post:

In the first verdict of its kind since former President George W. Bush left office, he and several members of his administration have been successfully convicted in absentia of war crimes in Malaysia.


Yes, this is a BFD.


This past Friday, a five panel tribunal delivered a unanimous guilty verdict after a week long trial that, unsurprisingly, was not covered by American media. The witnesses included several ex-Guantanamo detainees that gave testimony on the conditions and human rights violations that were systematically carried out under orders of the Bush administration.


Former President Bush, Former Vice-President Dick Cheney, Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and the legal advisers Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, William Haynes, Jay Bybee and John Yoo that crafted the legal ‘justification’ for torture that basically said, ‘we can if we want to even if it’s illegal’ were the defendants. None were present, of course, but international war crime trials do not require the presence of the accused. The trial was run according to the standards set by the Nuremberg Trials to convict war criminals after World War II.


The United States is subject to international law which makes this trial significant beyond the borders of Malaysia. Foreign Policy Journal reports:


President Lamin told a packed courtroom: “As a tribunal of conscience, the tribunal is fully aware that its verdict is merely declaratory in nature. The tribunal has no power of enforcement, no power to impose any custodial sentence on any one or more of the 8 convicted persons. What we can do, under Article 31 of Chapter VI of Part 2 of the Charter is to recommend to the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission to submit this finding of conviction by the tribunal, together with a record of these proceedings, to the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, as well as the United Nations and the Security Council.


The Tribunal also recommends to the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission that the names of all the 8 convicted persons be entered and included in the Commission’s Register of War Criminals and be publicized accordingly.


The Tribunal recommends to the War Crimes Commission to give the widest international publicity to this conviction and grant of reparations, as these are universal crimes for which there is a responsibility upon nations to institute prosecutions if any of these Accused persons may enter their jurisdictions.


The hope is that other countries will hold trials of their own and the guilty verdicts will mount up. This is not that outlandish an idea as Bush and Cheney have not only brazenly admitted they authorized torture in direct contravention of the Geneva Convention, but bragged about it. Nothing more helpful than having a criminal do all the heavy lifting for the prosecution. If enough of these verdicts are passed on to the international courts, they will have no choice but to hold a trial of their own. While Bush won’t be arrested on American soil, he’ll have a very difficult time leaving the country. Already he’s canceled a trip to Switzerland, due to possible charges of war crimes.


The best possible outcome is that the world court delivers a guilty verdict that sends a clear message to President Obama and his successors that the United States is not above the law, American Exceptional-ism be damned. It’s a lesson we’ve forgotten and need to relearn.

Why We Should Still Despise Dick Cheney

Former vice-president and noted war criminal Dick Cheney has written a book. He doesn't need the money, so he must be trying to rehabilitate his own image -- a formidable task indeed. Frankly, I think this pathetic excuse for a human being deserves nothing but to be despised by all Americans. He and his puppet (George Bush) caused serious damage to this country in the eight years they were in office -- damage it could take many years to correct.

Over at the website of The Atlantic, Conor Friedersdorf has written an excellent article called "Remembering Why Americans Loathe Dick Cheney". It's very good and I recommend you go over and read it all. Here are his eight reasons to loathe Cheney:

THE WAR IN IRAQ
TORTURE
ILLEGALLY SPYING ON INNOCENT AMERICANS
HALLIBURTON
AHMED CHALABI
INSTRUMENTAL IN DETAINING INNOCENTS FOR YEARS ON END
RADICAL VIEW OF EXECUTIVE POWER
UNPRINCIPLED EFFORTS TO MAXIMIZE PERSONAL POWER

Then he gives a great conclusion:

Dick Cheney was a self-aggrandizing criminal who used his knowledge as a Washington insider to subvert both informed public debate about matters of war and peace and to manipulate presidential decisionmaking, sometimes in ways that angered even George W. Bush.

 

After his early years of public service, he capitalized on connections he made while being paid by taxpayers to earn tens of millions of dollars presiding over Halliburton. While there, he did business with corrupt Arab autocrats, including some in countries that were enemies of the United States. Upon returning to government, he advanced a theory of the executive that is at odds with the intentions of the founders, successfully encouraged the federal government to illegally spy on innocent Americans, passed on to the public false information about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and became directly complicit in a regime of torture for which he should be in jail.

Good riddance.

Warrant To Be Issued For Cheney's Arrest

Finally, someone is trying to take legal action against international criminal (and former vice-president) Dick Cheney.   The Nigerian government is in the process of charging Cheney with bribery.   The case stems from the time he was the head of Halliburton (before his election as Bush's vice-president).   They say they will issue a warrant for Cheney's arrest within the next three days and lodge that warrant with Interpol (the international policing agency).

Of course Cheney is in no danger of being arrested in the United States, since this country has a history of ignoring international warrants when the person being accused is a high-ranking official or former official.   The U.S. acts like international laws and the laws of other countries are only to be exercised when the officials are not American.   But this does mean that Cheney could be arrested if he goes abroad in the future.

While Cheney was head of Halliburton, the company and it's affiliate KBR gave $160 million in bribes to Nigerian officials to get a $6 billion pipeline contract.   The bribery has been already traced to a company official who reported directly to Cheney.   Lest anyone think this is a trumped up charge, both Halliburton and KBR have already pled guilty to the bribery (last year) and agreed to pay a $579 million fine.

Of course, this kind of bribery is not only against the law in Nigeria.   It is also a violation of United States law.   But considering the cowardice of the Obama administration Justice Department in failing to hold both Bush and Cheney responsible for ordering torture and other war crimes, I seriously doubt they will attempt to take any action against Cheney for this criminal behavior.

A Right-Winger Condemns Bush & Cheney

There must be a hole in the fence over at Fox News. Or maybe the keepers of Fox News' own weird version of current events just fell asleep as one of their steers jumped the fence and left their propaganda pasture. Either way, it seems like one of their regular pundits has forgotten their rules and is actually speaking the truth -- a truth that right-wingers are sure to be upset over.

Former judge (and I use that term loosely) Andrew Napolitano is a regular pundit and analyst (another term used very loosely) at Fox News. In the past he could always be counted on to back up the talking points Fox News was pushing no matter how insane or ridiculous they were. But Napolitano (pictured) must have been struck with a sudden bolt of honesty because he is suddenly making sense and talking truth.

Last weekend Napolitano did an interview with Ralph Nader on a C-Span program. In that program he expresses consternation that former President George W. Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney haven't yet been brought to justice for the crimes they committed while in office. Here are Napolitano's actual words:

"They should have been indicted. They absolutely should have been indicted for torturing, for spying, for arresting without warrants. I’d like to say they should be indicted for lying but believe it or not, unless you’re under oath, lying is not a crime. At least not an indictable crime. It’s a moral crime.

The evidence . . . is overwhelming when you compare it to the level of evidence required for a normal indictment that George W. Bush as President and Dick Cheney as Vice-President participated in criminal conspiracies to violate the federal law and the guaranteed civil liberties of hundreds, maybe thousands of human beings."

Although it bothers me to say so, I completely agree with Napolitano's sentiments. Both Bush and Cheney should have been wearing orange jumpsuits long ago (or whatever federal prisoners wear these days). What shocks me is to hear these words coming from the mouth of a right-wing pundit.

But I imagine this truth-telling will be short-lived. The folks at Fox News will "re-educate" him and get this maverick steer back in the propaganda pasture very soon. They just don't tolerate a deviance from right-wing talking points on that network.