Neo-Conservative Bill Kristol Suggests Dick Cheney Runs For President

During a Sunday panel discussion on ABC, host George Stephanopolous had asked guests to name “the most promising Republican candidate not in the race yet,” according to Raw Story.

Vehement Neo-Con, co-sponsor of the Iraq war, and Editor of the right-wing publication The Weekly Standard Bill Kristol said, “If they get to nominate Hillary Clinton, why don’t we get to nominate Dick Cheney?” as other panelists laughed. “I mean, he has a much… he has a much better record.”

On Tuesday, Newsmax host Steve Malzberg asked Kristol if Cheney could defeat Clinton in a 2016 race.

Kristol tried to explain his suggestion that Dick Cheney should run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 and argued that the former vice president was just an “everyday American.”

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Does Dick Cheney Regret The Iraq Invasion?

Secular Talk

In an upcoming book, Former Vice President Dick Cheney ignores Barack Obama’s significant increase of drone strikes and continued bombings of ISIS and accuses the president of allowing American power to become “diminished.”

Huffington Post:

“Cheney renews his criticism of Obama in ‘Exceptional: Why The World Needs a Powerful America,’ a book co-authored with his eldest daughter, Liz Cheney, due to be published on Sept. 1 by Threshold Editions, which has backed books by conservative authors. Threshold is part of publishing house Simon & Schuster, which is owned by CBS Corp.”

Dick Morris Prediction Should Make Hillary Clinton Smile

“Richard S. ‘Dick’ Morris is an American political author and commentator who previously worked as a pollster, political campaign consultant, and general political consultant,” states Wikipedia.

Recently, Morris commented on Hillary Clinton’s assumed entrance into the race for president.  Morris is known for making inaccurate predictions for the 2012 elections.

CNN states:

“The long and winding prelude to (Hillary Clinton’s) announcement is nearly over, according to aides, and the start of her second bid for the White House is likely only days away. Top Democratic activists in the early-voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire privately say they have been placed on alert that Clinton will soon be on her way.”

Secular Talk

Sean Penn Discusses Dick Cheney

What does actor Sean Penn have to say about former Vice President Dick Cheney?  On March 18th, he discussed it with talk show host Conan O’Brien.  They also discussed Cuba and ISIS.

Video by Team Coco

Venezuelan President Bans Visas for George W. Bush, Dick Cheney

According to Ring of Fire radio and RT, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro also announced in a speech on Saturday that former president George W. Bush and former vice president Richard “Dick” Cheney would not be allowed visas to enter Venezuela.

There will also be new mandatory visa requirements in general for all U.S. nationals travelling to Venezuela.

The new visa requirements were changed on March 3rd, according to TeleSUR.

Along with former president Bush and vice-president Cheney, Maduro also said that Congressional Republicans Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL), Marco Rubio (FL), and Democrat Robert Menendez (NJ), and former CIA chief George Tenet would be banned from entering Venezuela as well.

Maduro also called them “terrorists,” in an interview with teleSUR Saturday.

In the interview, Venezuela’s Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez also said that the U.S. Embassy in Caracas will be ordered to reduce its diplomatic staff.

The Venezuelan government says the embassy has over 100 workers.

Rodriguez added that current United States diplomats in Venezuela will have to re-apply for visas.

Maduro said that these new visa bans target those who “violated human rights and bombed villages in Iraq, Syria, and Vietnam,” and that from now on, US diplomats “will be required to seek approval from the Foreign Ministry for meetings they conduct in Venezuela,” according to RT.

For Americans traveling to Venezuela in general, a new tourist visa fee will be implemented at a rate equal to that which “a Venezuelan pays to travel to the US,” Maduro said.

In other news, the United States declared Venezuela a national security threat on Monday and ordered sanctions against seven Venezuelan officials in the worst bilateral diplomatic dispute since socialist President Nicolas Maduro took office in 2013, says Reuters.

U.S. President Barack Obama signed and issued an executive order, which senior administration officials said did not target Venezuela’s energy sector or broader economy.

But the move stokes tensions between Washington and Caracas just as U.S. relations with Cuba, a longtime U.S. foe in Latin America and key ally to Venezuela, are set to be normalized.

More here

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New York Times Calls For Dick Cheney Torture Investigation

According to Yahoo News, in response to the Senate Intelligence Committee’s blistering report on the CIA’s brutal handling of prisoners after 9/11, the New York Times is calling for a criminal investigation of former Vice President Dick Cheney and other members of the Bush administration for conspiring to commit torture and other crimes prohibited by federal and international laws.

“Americans have known about many of these acts for years,” the Times editorial board stated on Monday.

“But the 524-page executive summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report erases any lingering doubt about their depravity and illegality.”

In an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Cheney refused to call some of the CIA’s actions with prisoners – including involuntary rectal feeding – torture.

In its editorial, the Times said the “sadistic” techniques outlined in the committee’s report “are, simply, crimes. They are prohibited by federal law, which defines torture as the intentional infliction of ‘severe physical or mental pain or suffering.’

“They are also banned by the Convention Against Torture, the international treaty that the United States ratified in 1994 and that requires prosecution of any acts of torture.”

“It is no wonder that today’s blinkered apologists are desperate to call these acts anything but torture, which they clearly were,” the Times continued. “As the report reveals, these claims fail for a simple reason: C.I.A. officials admitted at the time that what they intended to do was illegal.”

The paper criticized the president for failing “to bring to justice anyone responsible for the torture of terrorism suspects.”

The Times: “No amount of legal pretzel logic can justify the behavior detailed in the report. Indeed, it is impossible to read it and conclude that no one can be held accountable. At the very least, Mr. Obama needs to authorize a full and independent criminal investigation.”

The Times’ editorial board is calling for a special prosecutor to investigate Cheney, David Addington, Cheney’s former chief of staff, former CIA Director George Tenet, as well as John Yoo and Jay Bybee, the lawyers “who drafted what became known as the torture memos”; Jose Rodriguez Jr., the CIA official “who ordered the destruction of the videotapes”, the psychologists who devised the torture regimen, and any CIA employees who carried it out.

How Responsible Is Bush For Torture?

Former President George W. Bush knew about and authorized the CIA’s use of harsh interrogation techniques, such as water-boarding and rectal rehydration, according to Karl Rove, a former political adviser, and former Vice President Dick Cheney.

The recently-released Senate Intelligence Committee report asserted that Bush was kept in the dark about the agency’s rough treatment of detainees until 2006. Rove and Cheney disputed that claim.

TYT Network video.

MSNBC: CIA Torture Report Will Be Damaging Overseas

“Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd joins Morning Joe to discuss John Brennan’s news conference on the Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA and his upcoming interview with former VP Dick Cheney.

Morning Joe video.