…Former A.G. Gonzales and former V.P. Cheney, both indicted on charges involving Texas Federal Prisons. Well, here we are again. One more time we get to ask ourselves why did this man get elected…and then re-elected? In the past, I have been criticized for the numerous shots I’ve taken at the former VP. And I will confess, I haven’t given Mr. Cheney much benefit of the doubt. But there are numerous reasons for my current behavior.

Mainly there’s the fact that I believe that even though most politicians are prone to tell the occasional “untruth”, Mr. Richard Bruce Cheney has instead proven over the past decade to be a regular and very verbose, “fat-assed liar”. His list of past untruths have assisted in everything from rewarding his past cronies and his previous employer, Halliburton with billions of tax-payer dollars in no-bid contracts, to helping take the US into an unnecessary war that continues to kill scores of Americans and innocent Muslims. In addition, he has performed many other questionable activities that have allowed him to personally (and probably illegally) become a multi-millionaire.

Let’s look at just a few of Dick Cheney’s questionable involvements that have has caused my negative attitude: Today - 2009: It is now understandable why the former vice president “did not” want to have the documents released on his comments when being interviewed for the illegal outing of the covert CIA agent, Valerie Plame. This is the case that caused the VP’s Chief of Staff (CoS), Scooter Libby to eventually be convicted on four felony counts for obstruction of justice, perjury, and making false statements to federal investigators. Unfortunately for Mr. Cheney, those interview documents have now been released. And as it turns out, during this interview, as had occurred with the under-oath, previous Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, VP Cheney also pleaded total amnesia.

Mr. Cheney gave an “I don’t recall” type of response to 72 questions when asked about his past discussions with his CoS and with others about the outed agent Plame. In other words, Mr. Cheney had been trying to keep classified the documents that showed that even though he is known for his great ability to remember minor details of past discussions, his testimony had no resemblance for matching the “under-oath” comments from Mr. Libby’s testimony. This was also Mr. Cheney’s “under-oath” responses to questions about his discussions with a number of other individuals regarding Ms. Plame and her illegal outing. Per Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, said: "Mr. Cheney's near total amnesia regarding his role in this monumental Washington scandal -- resulting in the conviction of his top aide -- shows why [he was able so far, to be let-off the hook]." In 2001: In 2001 The Wall Street Journal reported that a subsidiary of Halliburton Energy Services called Halliburton Products and Services Ltd. (HPS) opened an office in Tehran, Iran. The company, HPS, operated on the ninth floor of a new north Tehran tower block. Although HPS was incorporated in the Cayman Islands in 1975 and is "non-American", it shares both the logo and name of Halliburton Energy Services and, according to Dow Jones Newswires offers services from Halliburton units world-wide through its Tehran office. Such behavior was undertaken while Dick Cheney was CEO of Halliburton. This business has violated the US Trading with the Enemy Act. In July 2004, a US Federal Grand Jury empanelled in the Southern District of Texas issued a subpoena to the Halliburton Company for the production of documents related to potentially criminal activity by current and former executives who may have violated U.S. terrorist sanctions law At issue is this foreign subsidiary of Halliburton that has only one source of revenue: business with the Iranian government and its national oil company. If indictments are filed against current or former Halliburton executives, the criminal charges carry a penalty of up to ten years in prison. Needless to say this issue is not settled, and Mr. Cheney’s is one of the possible indictments as stated above.

In 2003: Cheney was a prominent member of the National Energy Policy Development Group (NEPDG), commonly known as the Energy Task Force, which was comprised of US energy industry representatives, including several Enron executives. After the Enron scandal, the Bush administration was accused of improper political and business ties. In July 2003, the US Supreme Court ruled that the US Department of Commerce must disclose NEPDG documents, containing references to companies that had made agreements with the previous Iraqi government to extract Iraq's petroleum. Beginning in 2003, Cheney's staff opted not to file required reports with the National Archives and Records Administration office charged with assuring that the executive branch protects classified information, nor did it allow inspection of its record keeping. Cheney refused to release the documents, citing his executive privilege to deny congressional information requests. Media outlets such as Time Magazine and CBS News questioned whether Cheney had created a "fourth branch of government" that was not subject to any laws.

A group of historians and open-government advocates filed a lawsuit in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, asking the court to declare that Cheney's vice-presidential records are covered by the Presidential Records Act of 1978 and cannot be destroyed, taken or withheld from the public without proper review. This issue still remains open. It is not known what was discussed within those energy task force meetings, or who specifically attended them. It is also not known how many meetings there were or where they were held. And this was all done on the tax-payer’s dime. There are serious questions today as to what really did take the world to the previous high petroleum prices that have since settled to still being approximately double what they were at the beginning of Bush II’s first term. Just what did the leaders of the petroleum industry discuss at those meetings……? And just what actually allowed the energy companies to be able to earn the highest profits ever in history of any corporations in the world…?

In 2006: Former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and the former Vice President Dick Cheney have been indicted on state charges involving federal prisons in a South Texas county that has been a source of bizarre legal and political battles under the outgoing prosecutor. Cheney is charged with engaging in an organized criminal activity related to the vice president's investment in the Vanguard Group, which holds financial interests in the private prison companies running the federal detention centers. It accuses Cheney of a conflict of interest and "at least misdemeanor assaults" on detainees because of his link to the prison companies. Megan Mitchell, a spokeswoman for Cheney, declined to comment saying that the vice president had not yet received a copy of the indictment. The indictment also accuses Gonzales of using his position while in office to stop an investigation in 2006 into abuses at one of the privately-run prisons. Gonzales' attorney, George Terwilliger III, said in a written statement, "This is obviously a bogus charge on its face, as any good prosecutor can recognize." Willacy County has become a prison hub with county, state and federal lockups. The District Attorney has gone after the prison-politician nexus before, extracting guilty pleas from three former Willacy and Webb County commissioners after investigating bribery related to federal prison contacts. Last month, a Willacy County Grand Jury indicted The GEO Group, a Florida private prison company, on a murder charge in the death of a prisoner just days before his release. The three-count indictment alleged The GEO Group allowed other inmates to beat Gregorio de la Rosa Jr. to death with padlocks stuffed into socks. A jury ordered the company to pay de la Rosa's family $47.5 million in a civil judgment. The Cheney-Gonzales indictment makes reference to the de la Rosa case. Also in 2006: Cheney accidentally shot Harry Whittington, a 78-year-old Texas attorney, in the face, neck, and upper torso with birdshot pellets when he turned to shoot a quail while hunting on a southern Texas ranch. Whittington suffered a mild heart attack, and a trial fibrillation due to a pellet that embedded in the outer layers of his heart. The Kennedy County Sheriff's Office cleared Cheney of any criminal wrongdoing in the matter, and in an interview with Fox, Cheney accepted full responsibility for the incident. Whittington was discharged from the hospital on February 17, 2006. And Prior to Becoming the US Vice President: For such a war monger as is Mr. Cheney, I have serious doubts regarding the courage of an individual that used a string of 5 separate deferments in order to avoid the draft in the 1960’s. 

It’s interesting that his final Vietnam deferment was given for being a married man with a pregnant wife. As a side note, it is also interesting that his wife at the time, was pregnant with his daughter, the current political war-hawk, Elizabeth Cheney. (Is being a war monger genetic?) And this is only a small selection of the examples for my current attitude toward our former vice president. So is this the type of individual that we should want as the #2 man in charge of the most powerful nation on the planet. I think not!

Copyright G.Ater 2009

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