Free Republic

Sen. Rand Paul claimed in 2009 that former Vice President Dick Cheney exploited the 9/11 attacks in order to lead the United States into war in Iraq to benefit military contractor Halliburton, where Cheney had been CEO before heading to Washington, a video unveiled by blog Mother Jones' writer David Corn shows. In the video unearthed of a speech given at Western Kentucky University, Paul argues that Cheney opposed the first Bush administration's plans but changed his mind over Halliburton, Corn reports. "He's being interviewed (in 1995), I think, by the American Enterprise Institute, and he says it would be...

<p>David Corn over at Mother Jones unearths a 2009 video of Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), in which Paul suggests that former vice president Dick Cheney wanted to invade Iraq in order to benefit his former employer, Halliburton.</p> <p>In the video, shot at Western Kentucky University, Paul argues that Cheney thought the invasion was a bad idea in the first Bush administration but changed his tune after working for Halliburton.</p>

Nostalgia, The Good Old Days – Who Needs Them? America needs a visionary for the future! During the past, and recent presidential election we hear the all too familiar suggestion of “returning to the good old days.” Every candidate talk about returning America to a sense of values. I don’t know about you but each time I hear, or heard that suggestion I get a little queasy in the stomach accompanied by a little bewilderment, confusion, and absolute disgust! Whenever I hear the suggestion I often wonder exactly what period in time they want to take us back to! Could...

Buried in the New Yorker and yet uncovered by Paul Joseph Watson is an item by George Packer about "instructions" handed-down from on-high by Cheney's office -- call it Neocon Central -- to sell the attack of Iran to the American people. Packer quotes Barnett Rubin, described as having "connections to someone at a neoconservative institution in Washington," and this institution, likely the American Enterprise Institute, has instructed the complaisant corporate media to sell the attack. "They [the source's institution] have "instructions" from the Office of the Vice-President to roll out a campaign for war with Iran in the week...

U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney speaks during his keynote address to the U.S. Labor Department's 2006 National Summit on Retirement Savings at the Willard Hotel in Washington March 2, 2006. REUTERS/Larry Downing

Events of the past week reminded me of the wisdom of the late Bill Crane, one of my political science professors. Crane wrote a popular textbook on Texas politics. Needless to say, he understood political corruption, and divided it into two types. It wasn't Democrat and Republican. This was before Texas Republicans had enough power to be corrupt. Crane's distinction was between Catholic corruption and Protestant corruption. He wasn't talking theology, but sociology. His use of the term "Catholic" was shorthand for immigrant groups that arrived relatively recently: Irish, Italians, Mexicans, and so on. The "Protestants" were the moneyed and...

The White House's Halliburton Honeymoon is already history. Only two days after President Bush declared victory in his quest for a second term, the company once run by Vice President Cheney dropped a political bomb. In a filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday, the oil services company said that the Justice Department expanded its investigation into Halliburton, that government probes have found that bribes may have been made in Nigeria and that A. Jack Stanley, a former senior executive, may have been involved. The latest news about alleged shenanigans at Halliburton, some of which may have occurred...

he doctor who regularly vouched for Vice President Dick Cheney's good health had a secret debilitation of his own — a grievous addiction to prescription drugs that has recently been thoroughly aired in public. Unfortunately, we now know a lot about the medical history of Dr. Gary Malakoff but very little about that of his patient, the vice president. Skimpy, upbeat generalizations have always been offered about Mr. Cheney, who has a history of heart ailments and complex ongoing treatment. In contrast, President Bush, by all accounts a picture of health, has released full details about his own checkups. In...

[***snippage***] THE MEMO, obtained by NEWSWEEK, suggests that the INC last year was directly feeding intelligence reports about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and purported ties to terrorism to one of Cheney’s top foreign- policy aides. Cheney staffers later pushed INC info—including defectors’ claims about WMD and terror ties—to bolster the case that Saddam’s government posed a direct threat to America. [***snip***] a June 2002 memo written by INC lobbyist Entifadh Qunbar to a U.S. Senate committee lists John Hannah, a senior national-security aide on Cheney’s staff, as one of two “U.S. governmental recipients” for reports generated by an intelligence...

The (executive privledege review) transcripts may also shed light on the military's repsonse to President Bush's unprecedented order to shoot down any hijacked civilian airplane. Pentagon sources say Bush communicated the order to Vice President Dick Cheney almost immediately after Flight 77 hit the Pentagon and the Federal Aviation Administration, for the first time ever, ordered all domestic flights grounded.'There are unanswered questions,' said Richard Ben-Veniste, a comission member and former federal prosecutor, as to whether the shoot down order had been rehearsed for, whether it had been prepared for, and what measures were in place to protect the Capitol,'...