Tuesday, 12/16/14, Public Square

Friday, 10/17/14, Public Square

Friday, 3/29/13, Public Square

Thursday, 9/1/11, Public Square

Dick Cheney’s memoir In My Time has reawakened the controversies surrounding the Iraq war and rankled many of his former colleagues.  What does he think he has to gain from his ‘spreading lies’ book tour?  Has he  finally just lost any sense he may have had?

The Most Influential Person of the Decade???

The Washington Post has offered up this group of names for nomination of the most influential person of the decade.  Who among these nominees had the greatest influence on shaping the decade? – is the criteria… The WashPo  will announce their results today.  The Choices:

George W. Bush, Timothy Giethner, Lance Armstrong, Paris Hilton, Dick Cheney, Ben Bernanke, L. Page & S. Brin, Hillary Clinton, Osama bin Laden, Barack Obama, Steve Jobs, J.K. Rowling, Hu Jintao, Jon Stewart, Mark Zuckerman, or Al Gore.

Prairie Pops, who wins your vote and why?  Is anyone else embarrassed to confess they don’t recognize all of the names on the list?  Do you have someone else to nominate – tell us who and why?

Dick Cheney — Will save Republican Party

In a Newsweek article Jon Meacham states his case for “WHY DICK CHENEY SHOULD RUN IN 2012.”

He says, “A campaign would also give us an occasion that history denied us in 2008: an opportunity to adjudicate the George W. Bush years in a direct way. As John McCain pointed out in the fall of 2008, he is not Bush. Nor is Cheney, but the former vice president would make the case for the harder-line elements of the Bush world view. Far from fading away, Cheney has been the voice of the opposition since the inauguration. Wouldn’t it be more productive and even illuminating if he took his arguments out of the realm of punditry and into the arena of electoral politics? Are we more or less secure because of the conduct of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? Does the former vice president still believe in a connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda? Did the counterterror measures adopted in the aftermath of the attacks go too far? Let’s have the fight and see what the country thinks.”

Other questions we might be able to settle —

• Would his war criminal record be a selling point with today’s new anti-war right?
• Since he embodies the America of old white men, could that myth be dispelled?
• Can Cheney prove he is actually alive?  It’s rumored he died of his last heart attack and some are saying they’ve seen his long-form death certificate — complete with the seal!
• Is he truly devoid of knowledge of recent U.S. history, history over which he himself presided?  He led the charge into Iraq in 2003 even after having warned in 1991 that such a strategy would lead to a quagmire.  The U.S. wars of the last six decades (including the four for which Cheney shares responsibility) have all been marred by mishap, bad intelligence, flawed geopolitical analysis—and lack of necessity.
• Is it true he supported the McCain / Palin ticket because he knew only that keystone cops duo could have made the tragic incompetence of the previous fools look good in the history books?

What would be his campaign promises and slogans, would he emphasize his lack of civility, his well-known health problems, would he continue to loudly defend torture?

fnord

Torture and Dick Cheney’s Moral Calculations…

I just purchased Michael J. Sandel’s Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?  On an NPR program today, Sandel had some interesting comments on  Dick Cheney’s moral calculations on torture and the limits of the same.  Before discussing those comments, let me first set the stage for them.

Sandel is a philosphy professor at Harvard University.  He specializes in Moral Philosphy AKA Ethics.  Dick Cheney is a policitian.

In Dick Cheney’s moral calculation if torture “saves lives” torture is not just permissible, it is a moral imperitive.  Like really good teachers, Sandel asks questions that helps one understand the limitations of one’s argument.  His question was, “if torture is good and the only way to get our Arab captive to tell us where the bombs are, it is necessary to torture his 12 year daughter – be aware, she has no idea where the bombs are located, but torturing her will have an impact on our captive – in this case, is torture permissible?”  Sandel believes that even Cheney might blanch at that thought (I’m not so sure, however).

This link is to a lecture series done by Sandel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBdfcR-8hEY .  An interesting detail:  supposedly some of the writers for The Simpsons took Sandel’s class – Sandel is the model for the character Mr. Burns.  I am assuming that Mr. Burns is Sandel’s evil twin – they do look, at least a little, alike.

If anyone ever needed protection, this guy does

Vice presidents typically are cut off from their security detail once their stint in office ends, so extensions must be approved by the president.  President Obama granted continued Secret Service protection to the former vice president for an undisclosed length of time.  Read more here.

fnord

Torture In Order to Invade Iraq, or Were There Other Reasons?

  

 It is becoming increasingly clear that we did not torture detainees to protect America, but rather to provide political justification for invading Iraq.

Time to indict Cheney.

iggy donnelly

Secrecy is More Patriotic?

From CNN:

“Liz Cheney is picking up where her father left off when it comes to taking aim at the Obama administration, saying Tuesday the new commander-in-chief appears to be siding with terrorists.”

Later in the piece:

“‘I have heard from families of service members from families of 9/11 victims this question about when did it become so fashionable for us to side, really, with the terrorists,’ she continued. ‘You know, President Obama has a lot of rhetoric about support for American military families, support for our men and women who are fighting for us overseas. But if he really cares about them, then he wouldn’t be making such an effort to release photos that show them in a negative light.'”

What is it with those Cheney’s?  Now Liz Cheney is saying that the Obama administration are terrorist sympathizers.

Are these some sort of orchestrated acts of desperation designed to keep dad out of prison?  I think our main stream media is at fault for even acknowledging the psycho-ramblings of this family.  Enough already.  I don’t care what Dick Cheney or any of his enablers think about anything.  Thank you very much..

iggy donnelly

Dick Cheney and Deep-Sixing Torture Memos

Dick Cheney: ” Torture?  It never happened.”

“Care to join me for a work out?!”

David Addington:  “Torture?  I don’t remember, but  what does that word mean???”

Phillip Zelikow, serving as counsel to Condi Rice, suggests that his memos questioning the legal arguments for enhanced interrogations disappeared and he is blaming Cheney for the cover up.

Read more here for the Mother Jones report.

iggy donnelly