Just some who are slightly more professional in their kleptocracy:
It's largely forgotten, but a reminder that Halliburton, the company of which then VP Dick Cheney had been CEO for 5 years, and which he left only to join the 2000 ticket, was awarded the lucrative contract to provide food, housing, fuel & other support for the wars he launched. https://t.co/DgdARlP2U9
— Peter Lettre (@plettre) October 18, 2019
There seems to be a shift among the Permanent GOPers to act as though the Oval Office Squatter is some kind of aberrancy that slipped past their time-tested barriers to such vulgar criminality.
Good for them, if they’re finally moving away from protecting their deplorables’ god-emperor. But the truth is, the only difference between this maladministration and the ‘usual’ Repub stint in the WH is that Trump insists, gleefully, on saying the quiet parts out loud.
Martin
When you’ve convinced yourself that government is evil, it’s easy to justify stealing from it.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Martin:
This is true.
Steeplejack (phone)
I’m going to bed late but feel the best I have felt in a while. I think I calmed myself looking at flannel sheets at L.L Bean. I need some. That is all.
J Mark Batchelor
Timely post as I just watched ‘Vice’ for the first time. Same as it ever was….
prostratedragon
Act now!
prostratedragon
How the British do it (Two volumes on how to wean vultures …)
Major Major Major Major
Let’s not forget that Cheney also awarded himself the vice-presidency.
hervevillechaizelounge
Whenever anyone mentions Cheney I always remember Joan Didion’s brutal assessment:
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major: In fairness, ol’ Dick just determined himself the best of all the candidates that he compiled.
NotMax
Based on some of the stuff included in these late night thread posts, one might think you hold a special animus toward those who live in more sensible time zones.
;)
?BillinGlendaleCA
@NotMax: I think it’s jealousy.
Tony Jay
Never mind. Moved.
Sublime33
The press also refused to report that Dick Cheney still had active stock options with Halliburton while VP. Virtually ecery executive who leaves a company with stock options has to exercise them within 180 days even if they retire to Myrtle Beach. Not so with Dick Cheney.
Snarki, child of Loki
There ARE No ‘Better’ Republicans Than Trump
SURE there are. Eisenhower. Reagan. Even Goldwater.
What’s the difference? They’re DEAD.
The only GOOD Republican is a DEAD Republican.
I, for one, look forward to the 100% improvement of the GOP.
Make it so.
artem1s
@Martin:
When you’ve conspired to keep people from picking their elected officials and convinced them they aren’t part of The Government, it’s easy to justify stealing from Those People.
artem1s
@Major Major Major Major:
And he conspired with W to keep secret all the crimes of Poppy’s administration. Lizzie is now positioned to keep the family tradition of coverup going
janesays
I think Hayes response was pretty spot-on:
It’s not a defense of Cheney – it’s acknowledging that what Cheney did was absolutely impeachable, but also pointing out that it created a baseline for Trump, who decided the Halliburton contract wasn’t nearly flagrant and egregious enough a case of self-dealing, so he ramped it up by several degrees of corruptness. Or, as the kids like to say, he decided to say the quiet parts out loud. Above and beyond awarding a lucrative contract to a company with which he was formerly associated, he straight up tried to give the contract directly to himself.
No doubt, the unpunished, less overtly corrupt malevolence of the 43rd president’s administration set the stage for the more blatant, in your face corrupt malevolence of the 45th’s administration.