Thank You, Bush and Cheney, for Getting Us Into This Mess

Hats off to Eugene Robinson today for writing this piece in the Washington Post where he points out the obvious: Bush and Cheney are two guys who got us into this mess, and now that they are both talking, Americans have an opportunity to place blame at the feet of the people, and the party, that has sent our country to heck in a hand basket.

He wrote this:

“It was the Bush administration, you will recall, that sent the national debt into the stratosphere and choked off federal revenue to the point of asphyxiation. Bush and Cheney decided to fight two wars without even accounting — let alone paying — for them. Rather than raise taxes to cover the cost of military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, Bush opted to maintain unreasonable and unnecessary tax cuts.”

“So far, the wars and the tax cuts have cost the Treasury between $4 trillion and $5 trillion. If Bush had just left income tax rates alone, nobody except Ron Paul would be talking about the debt.”

There’s more and you should go there and read every word.

Cheney and Palin: Gas Emissions on Mubarak

Those not in power – thankfully – still can’t agree on everything, can they? Take for example the former Veep and the former Veep wannabe, Dead Eye Dick Cheney and former Half Governor Sarah Palin.

Both Cheney and Palin are holding forth on their opinions vis-à-vis the fate of soon-to-be ex President of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, Cheney at the Reagan Centennial in California, and Palin on the radio.

It seems Dick Cheney is again critical of the Obama Administration’s handling of the crisis in Egypt, saying that too much said in public is most certainly a bad thing.

From MSNBC:

“Cheney said the U.S. should take measured steps in public, and suggested that too much pressure could backfire. ‘There is a reason why a lot of diplomacy is conducted in secret. There are good reasons for there to be confidentiality in some of those communications. And I think President Mubarak needs to be treated as he deserved over the years, because he has been a good friend.’”

Not surprisingly, Sarah Palin has a different take on this.

Also from MSNBC (but not the same article):

“Sarah Palin says the Obama administration must tell Americans what it knows about who will be Egypt's next leader. In a Christian Broadcasting Network interview released Saturday, the 2008 vice presidential candidate says the administration should level with the American people on what it knows about the Egyptian crisis.”

You would think then, that these two are so far apart in their opinion on this that I might find myself falling behind one or the other and you would be mistaken if you think that. And that is because unlike these two gasbags, I have an idea that it should be the Egyptians that should have a say in who will be their next president, not Obama, not Cheney and certainly not Sarah Palin.

The Obama Bow: How Low Can You Go?

Dick Cheney, marginalizing himself even further if that is even possible, has criticized his president, Barack Obama, for performing perfect protocol in producing a well-executed traditional bow at the waist to the hereditary potentate of the Empire of Japan – a nonexistent political entity.

Here is the offending photograph.

Notice how the Emperor is completely displeased at how this stupid American president can’t even perform something that a Japanese child can do?

Said Cheney, of this behavior:

“There is no reason for an American president to bow to anyone. Our friends and allies don’t expect it, and our enemies see it as a sign of weakness.”

A weakness, as in, say, starting a war against a bunch of horseback-riding AK-47-wielding primitive Afghan tribesmen and not being able to beat them in 7 years, let alone locating the whereabouts of a 6 foot 4 Saudi diabetic?

A weakness like that?

Oh, but we forget, don’t we at how his former boss, Bush-43 pranced about the White House grounds playing holdy-hands with the a Saudi king?

Or perhaps the same former boss paying obeisance to a foreign Pope? A papist Pope?

Or what about President Nixon’s execution of a bow to a ChiCom?

But then, there we have Barack Obama. He just can’t help it, can he? He even bows to kids from the neighborhood.

But you know who really takes the cake? Woodrow Wilson. Imagine the embarrassment of the American people when they saw their president bowing to an inanimate object?

A golf ball!

Or is this bit of obeisance something that is typically witnessed thousands of times in Texas on any given weekend?

We Americans. We do like to bow from time to time.

Kay Scores One for the Neocons

Every day is another day of amazement and wonder here in turbulent Texas. Today we learn that Kay Bailey Hutchison, who announced that she is running for governor in the Republican primary next March against incumbent Rick Perry, who is a teabagger’s teabagger, has a new ally.

Dead Eye Dick Cheney.

So in the race to garner neoconservative supporters, it is Perry 1 (with Sarah Palin in his corner) and Hutchison 1 (with Cheney).

Actually I think Perry has the edge on getting more neocons to sign on, not to mention teabaggers. Hutchison however, who is a moderate, scored a coup in garnering the support of uber-neoconservative Dick Cheney.

This little tempest in a Texas teapot does have some interesting bedfellows, doesn’t it?

Rick Perry has an unlikely set of supporters who, if put in the same room, would likely want to tear each others’ throats out. Neocons, who form Perry’s base, are the tax and spend like a drunken sailors who got America in the deep, deep debt that it is in. Teabaggers, on the other hand, are simply shocked, shocked I tell you, at how conservatives have dug America a hole of debt halfway to China.

But they both just love Sarah Palin. She is the glue that binds these two disparate groups together. So oddly, Perry gathers supporters from both of these groups.

But now Kay Bailey has a neocon all of her own. One to draw the War-loving Muslim-hating Cheneyites right out of the Perry camp.

Dick Cheney is the neocon’s neocon that will give Kay Bailey the credentials to pass as a borrow and spend, fear mongering, anti-Hispanic, neoconservative in her own right.

And how does Rick Perry spin the seeming desertion of his cause by a fellow neocon? He goes back to page one in his anti-Hutchison diatribe, the one that has so offended his fellow Republicans taking up space in Washington DC: it’s just a beltway cabal.

Said Mark Miner of Perry’s campaign:

“The Washington establishment likes to stick together.”

Yes and not to mention that Cheney knew both Kay and her millionaire lawyer husband Ray back in the good old days in Dallas, and that both Cheney sidekick Karl Rove and Bush fundraiser Jim Francis often serve as sous chefs in Kay’s Kitchen:

“Other connections between Hutchison and Cheney include former presidential adviser Karl Rove and Dallas fundraiser Jim Francis. Both are kitchen cabinet advisers to Hutchison’s campaign.”

So while this is not all that surprising, it does make for some fun popcorn-passing Neocon/Teabagger-watching good times here.

Making me wonder what the Texas moderates and Independents must be thinking right now as the two main Republican gubernatorial candidates scuffle in the dust in their continued competition to split the rightwing between themselves.

Maybe something like they have finally had enough of all of this.

Put Cheney in Chains

I’m getting tired of all of the hand-wringing going on about whether or not to investigate and prosecute Dick Cheney for his war crimes. Not to act is a sure sign that America could lose all of the moral authority that it regained last January 20^th.

Not to act endangers our soldiers. Endangers everyone, really, who visits the Middle East for any reason.

All you have to do is look at what the law says. The things that Dick Cheney may be responsible for are by definition war crimes.

Here are the operative lines from 18 U.S.C. §2441:

(c) Definition. As used in this section the term "war crime" means any conduct--

(1) defined as a grave breach in any of the international conventions signed at Geneva 12 August 1949, or any protocol to such convention to which the United States is a party;

This isn’t something to mull over. Someone committed serious crimes and the world community is watching us and will ultimately judge us on what we do about it.

So I got an email from TrueMajority.org today. They have an online petition to Attorney General Eric Holder urging him to take action and select a special prosecutor. I signed it.

You could, too. The petition is here.

John Cornyn and I Finally Agree On Something

I have to hand it to my US Senator from Texas, Junior Senator John Cornyn. He doesn’t let a day go by when he doesn’t say something impossibly idiotic. It has been almost comical.

Comical except for the fact that when he votes in the Senate he now usually votes No as many times as he voted Aye when the Republicans had majorities and a president in the White House.

But today he was quoted saying something that I can really get behind.

Dick Cheney should campaign for Republican candidates.

From Politico:

“I think it depends on the circumstance on the race [but] I’d be proud to appear with the vice president anywhere, anytime.”

I couldn’t agree more. I would love to see John Cornyn share the stage with Dick Cheney. Heck, I’d be thrilled if Cheney started doing this with all manner of Republican candidates, starting as soon as in the primaries next year.

Sharing the stage, a laugh or two, maybe a pitcher of iced tea, with REAL Republicans.

Because what we really want to do is stir up Cheney’s base and get them out to the voting booths and nominate Real Republicans to run against Democrats in the fall. Republicans that are as scary as Dick Cheney is.

Or as dumb as John Cornyn.

Texas Senator John Cornyn Thinks US Trades With Iran

I don’t know, this isn’t exactly a non-mainstream bit of news, but if the United States has had a trade embargo with Iran for 20 years, why then, was our United States Senator (Texas), junior senator John Cornyn moved to declare that the new Gas Price Reduction Act would reduce, by 3 million barrels of oil per day, the amount of oil that the United States would buy from “Iran and (Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad”?

Oh yes he did.

He is quoted in today’s issue of the Tyler Morning Telegram . . . right here.

Iran has not sold the United States a drop of oil, or anything else since Ronald Reagan imposed a trade embargo on them. At least not legally. So it would make no sense for John Cornyn to include Iran in his short list of undesirable nations that we wouldn’t have to buy oil from if his “Oil drillin’” bill passes.

But that didn’t prevent him from saying it anyway.

Here is the Rick Noriega campaign response to John Cornyn’s latest brain fart:

“‘It's clear from his latest comments that when it comes to dealing with the energy crisis John Cornyn is running on empty. Texas families and folks across the nation are in an energy crisis and they are relying on the leaders in Washington for solutions. It's a worrisome state of affairs when a United States Senator can't even get the basic facts straight,’ said Holly Shulman, spokeswoman for the Rick Noriega for Senate campaign. ‘Texas families deserve better.’”

Despite his pile of fluffy silvery gray hair, Cornyn is only 56 years old so we can’t blame incipient Alzheimer’s as we begin to suspect a certain presidential candidate may have.

56 is too young for senility to set in.

I think it is a genuine Republican mis-read of the facts, based on past and present business practices. Fact is, Halliburton has maintained a business relationship with Iran despite the embargo. Surely, if Dick Cheney’s old company can do it through its foreign subsidiaries, and has done it with impunity, then why not be under the assumption that the US is buying Iranian oil?

Clearly this is not a miscomprehension of the facts. It is, rather, a revelation in the Republicans view of the world: if Dick Cheney can do it, then it must be OK.

Is That A Naked Lady In Your Sunglasses, Dick?

The blogosphere is anything but a sane place to be usually, and this past week’s absurdity doesn’t give lie to that fact. Imagine that. In a discussion on DemocraticUnderground, individuals and bloggers took a good close look at a close-up photo of Dick Cheney, a photo taken on a fishing trip several years ago, and posited that the reflection in Dick Cheney’s sunglasses was in fact the reflection of a naked lady.

That when Dick Cheney goes fly fishing, he takes with him his rod, his reel, his creel, his tackle box . . . and a naked lady.

If only that were true.

If that were true it would at long last disprove the lie that Dick Cheney has ice water in his veins. That the architect of this morass called the Iraq War, a debacle that has only served to line the pockets of his company and those of his cronies, is in fact a real human being with real human desires.

But I guess not. The LA Times is showing an improbable, and I am guessing, photoshopped version of the same photograph, that clearly shows, far more clearly than the original, I might point out, that the image was simply of his own hand holding his rod. His fishing rod.

What then, explains the huge smile on this man? The man whose smile muscles were thought to be in an atrophied state from nonuse? What but a naked lady would bring a smile to the man? This is what must have been running through the minds of people posting on DU.

Preposterous.

In my attempt to get to the truth I took the original photo and extracted the pixels that represented the speculative naked lady, seen at right. Then applying a sophisticated computer algorithm of my own device, one that includes an advanced Fourier analysis, I came up with this result.

Far more probable.

Far more believable.

A result that does not require one to make too many leaps of logic.

Monday’s Political Potpourri

It’s Monday and that usually means that I post the best of the Texas Progressive Alliance in the traditional Monday Round-Up. Usually. But hey, I was busy so I have to do this the old fashioned way and write something brilliant today all by myself.

Except I can’t focus on any one thing today, so today it is going to be a "Political Potpourri".

Potpourri, for the few of you who don’t know, is a fancy word for mishmash. It’s French. So if you want to see what my brain looks like today, read on.

Today we learned that Dick Cheney has atrial fibrillation. It’s an irregularity in the heartbeat that needs to be corrected using “an electrical impulse to the heart”. I know, this is not really news because we have all heard of Cheney’s history of heart problems. But I mention this because it still comes as a shock to some that Cheney actually has one . . . a heart that is.

Then we learn that Trent Lott is turning in his senate membership – 5 years early. Having been re-elected in 2006, he was just hitting his stride as he was returned to minority leadership positions after a 2 year probation after he made arguably racist remarks at Strom Thurmond’s 100th birthday bash. Why so now, one would ask? Well, I wonder if it has anything to do with the reform bill that prevents ex-senators from joining a Washington lobby group for two years following their last year in congress? Said reform bill takes effect on January 1st 2008, so anyone who wants to quickly pull in lobby lucre had better get out now. That’s the reason, right? I mean, Larry Flynt did say he had something on a prominent Washington personality, didn’t he?

More close to home, the Dallas Morning News ran a story today about the tenuous alliance of Texas bloggers that, for some reason, tolerates my membership in it. That there is to be a blogger conclave in Austin next year, formerly called “Yearly Kos”, but now called Netroots Nation is no small feat, and as it turns out, no coincidence. It also doesn’t hurt that Kos himself has an interest in what looks to be the Senate race of 2008 in Noriega vs. Cornyn, and what better place to spotlight that race but in the red state’s own capitol?

And finally, what about Iraq? Well it seems that a pair of “terror suspects” were arrested on Monday. An announcement out of the Iraqi Defense Ministry revealed that soldiers at a checkpoint became suspicious of a bridal convoy because it appeared that everyone in the convoy was male – something that, thankfully, is as odd there as it would be in this country. Further suspicion was aroused when the groom refused to take the veil off of his bride. Everyone was ordered out of their cars and the bride was de-veiled, only to disclose that the bride was a guy, Haider al-Bahadli, sporting a five o’clock shadow. See photo at right. Now I have studied and studied his visage, and have come to a final conclusion that al-Bahadli may have arrived at this scheme to disguise himself by some central tendency that something like less than 1% of us have. I think he’s transgender. He just has to admit to his feelings.

Truth and Lies

Watch this YouTube embed of then private citizen Dick Cheney being brutally frank about his participation in the first Gulf War. Everything, and I mean EVERYthing that has occurred in the War in Iraq was predicted by Dick Cheney 13 years ago. He also predicted what will occur when we leave: fragmentation of Iraq. A “quagmire”.

This isn’t an administration that went blindly to war without a clue as to what was going to happen. They knew exactly what would happen.



And then here’s this next one again from earlier this year. I thought it would be good to look at it once again in light of what Cheney said in 1994.



If we don’t have grounds for impeachment now, we never will.

Dick Cheney Tied To DC Madam's List

Susan sent me this link from “Crimes and Corruption of the New World Order News”. It’s about the DC madam’s list of “Johns”.

”I was just told Dick Cheney, while CEO of Halliburton, used her services regularly, they are trying to spin up a message to explain that members of his staff, in his offices, used this service to entertain foreign clients.”

According to the website, it’s a violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act to procure booty for foreign clients.

To hear that Dick Cheney’s name has been tied to the DC Madam’s list is just what I need right now.

Do I think that he personally made use of her the services of her charges as Louisiana Senator Vitter apparently did?

I can’t even imagine it.

Nick Lampson’s Blue Doggish Votes on HR 2829

Now don’t get me wrong, Nick Lampson is probably the best Democrat we can get elected in his crazy, crazy Texas congressional district. I just want to point out that progressive Democrats were not represented very well on Nick’s votes in the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act, 2008 (HR 2829).

This is one set of votes that Shelley Sekula (no hyphen) Gibbs will not be using her next mailer. Nick’s Blue Dog streak is definitely showing.

The bill essentially funds many branches and agencies of the government through September 2008. 37 amendments were filed, 6 passed, and 31 either failed by vote, by point of order, or were withdrawn. The vote for final passage went 240 Aye to 179 Nay.

Nick voted Nay.

But that was just on final passage. Here’s a record of his votes on the amendments

Amendments 1-3 were withdrawn.

Amendment 4: to reduce funding for the General Activites under the General Services Administration by $8 million and increase funding for the Office of Inspector General under the General Services Administration by $6 million.

Nick voted Aye. Amendment passed by a vote of 281-144

Amendment 5: “to reduce funds for Selective Service System by $10,000,000 and increase funds for the Small Business Administration by $10,000,000.”

Nick voted No. Amendment failed by a vote of 95-320.

Yep, we are going to be needing that money for the draft. You know it's coming.

Amendment 13: (you didn’t think I was going to list them ALL did you?): to prohibit the use of funds to be used for the Prevention Works or Whitman-Walker Clinic needle exchange programs.

Nick voted Aye. Amendment failed by a vote of 208-216.

Amendment 16: to prohibit funds for the Grace Johnstown Area Regional Industries Incubator and Workforce Development program. (submitted by Jeff Flake R-AZ, this specifically targeted projects promoted by Congressman John Murtha).

Nick voted Nay. Amendment failed by a vote of 87-335.

Amendment 19: prohibit the use of funds to be used for the Mitchell County Development Foundation, Inc. for the Home of the Perfect Christmas Tree Project (Another Jeff Flake amendment).

Nick voted Nay. Amendment passed by a vote of 249-174.

Amendment 26: to prohibit use of funds for the Abraham Lincoln National Airport Commission.

Nick voted Nay. Amendment failed by a vote of 107-318.

Amendment 27: to prohibit use of funds in the bill for the Office of the Vice President (This was Rahm Emanuel’s amendment to cut off funding for Dick Cheney).

Nick voted Nay. Amendment failed by a vote of 209-217.

Nick, we could have saved $4.8 million.

Amendment 30: to limit the use of funds to implement section 5112 of title 31 United States Code (this section deals with designing coins and notes for the US Mint).

Nick voted Nay. Amendment passed by a vote of 295-127.

Amendment 35: to require that each amount appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act is hereby reduced by 0.5 percent.

Nick voted Aye. Amendment failed by a vote of 205-220.

Amendment 36: to prohibit funds to be used to implement or enforce the Health Care Benefits Expansion Act of 1992.

Nick voted Aye. Amendment failed by a vote of 224-200.

Amendment 37: to prohibit funds to be used by the Internal Revenue Service to implement a Spanish-language version of the "Where's my Refund?" service.

Nick voted Aye. Amendment failed by a vote of 165-257.

On a motion to recommit the bill to the Appropriations committee, Nick voted Aye. The motion failed by 199-222

On passage, Nick voted Nay. The bill passed by a vote of 240-179.

Now I realize that Nick is a fiscal conservative and that his voting record is being closely watched. On Thursday he did not give the Republicans much ammunition to use against him, and I guess that’s good. I just wish some of those programs that Nick voted not to support were programs that he did support. And really, Dick Cheney doesn’t need the $4.8 million. Now that he is no longer a part of any of the 3 branches of our government, Halliburton can write the check.

It’s chump change to them.

Truth and History, When Rewritten, Never Stay Rewritten

I was thinking about Dick Cheney’s wild claims that his office does not exist within the Executive branch, as I watched Rahm Emmanuel’s bid to withhold a $5 million appropriation from the Vice President’s office

Quoting Jim Abrams AP article:

“The vote, on an amendment to a 2008 spending bill for the Treasury Department and executive branch agencies, was defeated 217-209.”

It concerned me because up until this past week, I was pretty sure that the office of the Vice President was definitely within the scope of the Executive Branch, but now it apparently is not. In a wave of a magic wand, truth changes and lies become fact.

Then I started thinking about the Supreme Court’s recent decision to overturn Brown v. Board, and how Chief Justice Roberts twisted the facts of history in using the very case as justification to overturn the decision.

I was thinking just how fragile the truth actually is.

And then I read an article that makes Cheney’s and Roberts’ shenanigans pale in comparison. These shenanigans occurred 3500 years ago.

Upon her death around 1500 BCE, Pharaoh Queen Hatshepsut had passed away at about the age of 50 and was buried in an elaborate tomb that is built into a cliff. But her successor Pharaoh King Thutmose III, her stepson, sought to erase all evidence of her existence, including having her mummy removed and placed in a humble tomb.

Like Cheney and Roberts, Thutmose tried to remake history in an image that he preferred.

And hopefully, like Thutmose, the scheme will fail one day. Egyptologists are now convinced that an unidentified mummy discovered in 1903 in an obscure tomb is that of Queen Hatshepsut.

I believe that “Truth” is a spirit that can be obscured, but that it’s impossible to repress the truth forever. One day, the truth will re-emerge. Cheney’s and Roberts’ lies and re-writes of history will eventually be revealed as the shenanigans that they really are.

I just hope that it takes less than 3500 years this time.

I Guess It Depends On What the Meaning of the Word “Or” Is

Dick Cheney stepped in a pile of cock-a-doodle when he ignored an executive order to provide information on his office’s classification and declassification activities. News of his failure to comply hit the airwaves late last week. But what became clear to me is that while this is all coming out just now with public revelation of a struggle that has been going on since 2004.

That struggle came to the public’s attention in a June 21, 2007 letter from Congressman Henry Waxman (D-California). The letter describes a 2004 incident when Cheney turned away onsite inspectors from the Information Security Oversight Office who notified him that they were coming by to conduct the executive order-mandated inspection.

Waxman brought to light a 2006 letter sent to the national archives in which Cheney insists that his office does not fall under the Executive Branch of government:

“According to a letter that the National Archives sent to your staff in June 2006, you asserted that the Office of the Vice President is not an ‘entity within the executive ranch’and hence is not subject to presidential executive orders.”

There’s all sorts of other good stuff in the letter, but I want to get to my point.

It all depends on what the meaning of “or” is.

Here is the entire 2003 Executive Order, I excepted a bit of it below.

“Sec. 5.1. Program Direction. (a) The Director of the Information Security Oversight Office, under the direction of the Archivist and in consultation with the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, shall issue such directives as are necessary to implement this order.”

Cheney’s claim is that his office is not an agency of the Executive Branch. However his power of classification of the nation’s secrets are specifically given to him in this same executive order.

“(cc) ‘Original classification authority’ means an individual authorized in writing, either by the President, the Vice President in the performance of executive duties, or by agency heads or other officials designated by the President, to classify information in the first instance.”

“the Vice President . . . or by agency heads . . .”

“Or” is meant here as a term of inclusion.

Actually I like this definition from Dictionary.com:

OR /ɔr/ Pronunciation Key
–noun
a Boolean operator that returns a positive result when either or both operands are positive.

In other words, "agency" and "Vice President" are on an equal footing here in terms of assigning classification authority.

So Cheney must choose whether he has classification authority or not because you can’t have it both ways. You can’t have classification authority without oversight. No can do.

Actually from what I am hearing today, in response to Cheney's denial that his office does not fall under the Executive Branch, there is a movement afoot to delete Vice President Cheney’s office from the General Government Appropriations Bill to be introduced this coming week. From The Raw Story:

“Following Vice President Dick Cheney's assertion that his office is not a part of the executive branch of the US government, Democratic Caucus Chairman Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) plans to introduce an amendment to the the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations bill to cut funding for Cheney's office.”

Chiding the VP, Rahm Emmanuel’s office sent over a reconfiguration of the federal government structure: The Government According to Cheney

In response to this, Cheney was heard to say “Neererng-neerng, #!&*@% you!”

Kucinich: Impeach Cheney First

Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D – OH-10) is, just at this writing, announcing the introduction of House Resolution 333 on the impeachment of Dick Cheney. He put off the announcement earlier in the day because of rumors that Cheney was having trouble with blood clots in his leg.

Prompting my amazement at the news that blood runs through the Vice President’s veins, and not ice water pumped by a cold, cold heart.

Text of the resolution is here.

Asked why he is going after Cheney and not Bush, Kucinich responded “’if we started with Bush’ and he actually got impeached, ‘Mr. Cheney would then become president.’”

Well gee, why didn’t I think of that?

That’s why you order up a twofer. Impeach both Bush and Cheney. I guess that’s too tall an order for people, but as this activist writes, if you impeach Cheney first, not only do you go after the greater of two evils, Cheney doesn’t elevate to the Presidency, and facts from the investigation of Cheney will clearly implicate Bush in Cheney’s many crimes.

Kucinich offered three articles of impeachment.

Cheney “has purposely manipulated the intelligence process to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States by fabricating a threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to justify the use of the United States Armed Forces against the nation of Iraq in a manner damaging to our national security interests”

Cheney “purposely manipulated the intelligence process to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States about an alleged relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda in order to justify the use of the United States Armed Forces against the nation of Iraq in a manner damaging to our national security interests.”

And finally,

Cheney “has openly threatened aggression against the Republic of Iran absent any real threat to the United States, and done so with the United States proven capability to carry out such threats, thus undermining the national security of the United States.”

Concluding:

“In all of this, Vice President Richard B. Cheney has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as Vice President, and subversive of constitutional government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice and the manifest injury of the people of the United States.

Wherefore Richard B. Cheney, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.

”’I'm pretty sure Kucinich is tilting at windmills here. But I am gratified that someone finally went through the motions to get this thing filed. Now that it is out on the shelf for all to see, Americans who are righteously outraged with this man finally have something to focus on.