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Dick Cheney

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Dick Cheney Richard Bruce "Dick" Cheney (born January 30, 1941) is an American politician and businessman affiliated with the U.S. Republican Party. He is currently serving as the 46th Vice President of the United States under George W. Bush. Early life and family Cheney was born in Lincoln, Nebraska to Richard H. and Marjorie Cheney. He grew up in Casper, Wyoming and first met his high school sweetheart and future wife, Lynne Vincent, at the age 14. Cheney excelled both academically and athletically in high school. He was elected the Natrona County High School senior class president and represented the school at Boys State and played halfback on the football team. [1] (http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?tl=1&display=rednews/2004/07/19/build/wyoming/20-cheney-reunion.inc) [2] (http://wyoshpo.state.wy.us/nacohs.htm)[3] (http://ncsdweb.ncsd.k12.wy.us/schools/nchs/) Beginning the summer after high school graudation in 1959 and during the next six years, Cheney worked on power lines and was a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union. Following high school, Cheney earned an academic scholarship and attended Yale University in 1959. He decided after three semesters to take some time off from Yale. He saved up enough money and returned to Yale only to leave again the following semester partly due to poor grades. [4] (http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=12444)[5] (http://www.facts.com/worldalmanac/election2000/wa-election-003.htm) After moving back to Wyoming and refocusing on academics, Cheney first matriculated to Casper Community College in 1963 and thereafter to the University of Wyoming where he began earning straight A's. He received his bachelor's degree in 1965 and master's degree in political science in 1966 both from the University of Wyoming. During the Viet Nam War from 1959 through 1966, Cheney received a total of five military service draft deferments. Four were S-2 student deferments granted because of his university student status, and one 3-A deferment was granted in 1966 because of his wife's pregnancy. In 1964, he married his high-school sweetheart Lynne Vincent. Lynne was elected Mustang Queen, the equivalent of most popular girl, and was a state-champion baton twirler. Under president George H. W. Bush, she was Chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities, from 1986-1993. She now also calls for abolition of the agency and discontinuance of the National Endowment for the Arts, claiming that both agencies foster cultural corruption. She is now an author and college teacher. [6] (http://www.upenn.edu/pnc/ptkoch.html) In 1962, when he was 21, he plead guilty to two DWIs in Wyoming. [7] (http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/cheneydwi1.html) [8] (http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/cheneydwi2.html) He was reputedly dissatisfied with his work at the time, and in an May 7, 1991 New Yorker interview said that he found himself "working, building power lines, having been in a couple of scrapes with the law." He said that the arrests made him "think about where I was and where I was headed. I was headed down a bad road, if I continued on that course." Cheney has two adult daughters, Elizabeth and Mary, and four grandchildren. Elizabeth was born in 1966 and is married with four children. She graduated from the University of Chicago Law School in 1996 and has worked as an international law attorney, consultant, and now for the State Department's Near East Affairs Bureau. Mary is one of her father's top campaign aides and closest confidantes and lives in Denver, Colorado. Mary is a lesbian and her sexual orientation occasionally becomes the focus of public attention. Political career Dick Cheney's public service career began under the Nixon administration in 1969. He served in a number of positions at the Cost of Living Council, at the United States Office of Economic Opportunity (as a special assistant to Donald Rumsfeld), and within the White House. Under President Gerald Ford, Cheney became Assistant to the President and White House Chief of Staff. He was campaign manager for Ford's 1976 presidential campaign, while James Baker served as campaign chairman. In 1977 he was elected to represent Wyoming in the House of Representatives. Cheney was re-elected five times, serving until 1989. He was Chairman of the Republican Policy Committee from 1981 to 1987. He was elected Chairman of the House Republican Conference in 1987 and elected House Minority Whip in 1988. Cheney served as the Secretary of Defense from March 1989 to January 1993 under President George H. W. Bush and directed Operation Just Cause in Panama and Operation Desert Storm in the Middle East. In 1991 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for "preserving America's defenses at a time of great change around the world." Cheney joined the American Enterprise Institute after leaving office in 1993. In 1995 he became Chairman and CEO of Halliburton Company, a worldwide energy services corporation with a long history of service to the government. Some Halliburton subsidiaries serve as private military contractors. He also sat on the board of Procter & Gamble, Union Pacific, and EDS. In 1997, he, along with Donald Rumsfeld and others, founded the non-profit educational organization called the Project for the New American Century whose goal is to "promote American global leadership". Vice Presidency In the spring of 2000, while still serving as Halliburton's CEO, he headed George W. Bush's Vice-Presidential search committee. After reviewing Cheney's findings, Bush surprised pundits by asking Cheney himself to join the Republican ticket. Cheney resigned as CEO on July 25, and put all of his corporate shares and stock options into a charitable trust. However, as of July 2004 Cheney still received severance payments from Halliburton. This raised questions in America about a possible conflict of interest, since Halliburton was granted over $10 billion in no-bid contracts for the rebuilding effort following the war in Iraq. There was some controversy over the fact that Cheney had been living in Texas when he was selected as Bush's running mate. The Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution states that electors shall vote for president and vice president "one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves." Bush was obviously a Texas resident, being that state's governor. As of November 2000, Cheney's vehicles were alleged to be registered in Texas, he allegedly paid taxes on them in Dallas County, he allegedly had filed federal income tax returns listing himself as a Texas resident, and he had lived in a Highland Park, Texas home for the last five years. On July 21st Cheney had changed his voting registration to Teton County, Wyoming, where he had long maintained a residence. Critics charged that this actions was insufficient to switch Cheney's residency to Wyoming. A lawsuit was brought in Jones v. Bush attempting to invalidate electoral votes from Texas, but was rejected by a Texas district court. Cheney quickly earned a reputation as a very "hands-on" Vice President, taking an active role in cabinet meetings and policy formation. He is often described as the most active Vice President in recent years, moving the office out of its traditional figurehead role. Many in fact claim that Cheney has more control in the Bush White House than Bush himself. Cheney directed the National Energy Policy Development Group (http://www.whitehouse.gov/energy/)(N.E.P.D.G.). This group included Enron executives who worked as team members despite the ongoing Enron scandal. In July 2003, the Supreme Court ordered the Department of Commerce to make the N.E.P.D.G.'s documents public. The documents included information on companies that had made agreements with Saddam Hussein to develop Iraq's oil. The documents also included maps of oil deposits in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates. The N.E.P.D.G.'s report contains several chapters, covering topics such as environmental protection, energy efficiency, renewable energy, and energy security. Critics focus on the eighth chapter, "Strengthening Global Alliances," (http://www.whitehouse.gov/energy/Chapter8.pdf) claiming that this chapter urges military actions to remove strategic, political, and economic obstacles to increased U.S. consumption of oil. Others point out that the report contains no such recommendation. Following the uncertainty immediately after the events of September 11, 2001, Cheney and President Bush were kept in physically distant locations for security reasons. For a period Cheney was not seen in public, remaining in an undisclosed location and communicating with the White House via secure video phones. On the morning of June 29 2002, Cheney became only the second man in US history to be Acting President, while President Bush was undergoing a colonoscopy. Cheney acted as President from 7:09 a.m. that day until Bush resumed control at 9:24 a.m. Supporters of Vice President Cheney point to his reputation as a very shrewd, knowledgeable, and hawkish business and political person. Opponents and detractors accuse him of being too closely tied and beholden to the oil industry, and hold that Cheney strongly influenced the decision to use military force in Iraq. Cheney is in the unusual position of having been Secretary of Defense during a war with Iraq, heading a company (Halliburton) which sold equipment through foreign subsidiaries to rebuild the Iraqi oil infrastructure, then serving as Vice President during another war with Iraq. U.S. Office of Government Ethics public financial disclosure sheets stated that Cheney received $162,392 in deferred compensation in 2002 from Halliburton and $205,298 in 2001, which raised some eyebrows when Halliburton received over $2 billion in no-bid, no-ceiling contracts in Iraq. This contract was an extension of an earlier, competitively bid contract. Kellogg, Brown and Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton, has a contract to control oil fires in Iraq if the well heads are set on fire. This apparent conflict of interest, however, was mitigated by Cheney's purchase of an insurance policy to guarantee the payment of the deferred salary regardless of how Halliburton performed. The policy was taken when he became a nominee for Vice President. Cheney sold his Halliburton shares when he left the company to join Bush's ticket, but retained 433,333 stock options worth about $8 million. Cheney arranged for profits from the sale of these options to be donated to charity, placed the options in a charitable trust, and relinquished control over them. On June 22, 2004, while participating in the U.S. Senate class photo, Cheney and Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy from Vermont had a personal exchange that garnered headlines in the U.S. After Leahy had had greeted Cheney in a lighthearted way, the vice president criticized Leahy for Democrats' attacks on himself regarding ethics matters, such as alleged improprieties in Iraq military contracts awarded to Halliburton. Leahy responded by objecting to Republican accusations that Democrats were anti-Catholic because they opposed a Bush judicial nominee who was Roman Catholic. Cheney then told Leahy to "...go fuck yourself," which was later characterized by Kevin Kellums, a Cheney spokesman, as "a frank exchange of views." In response, Leahy said that he thought Cheney "...was having a bad day. I was kind of shocked to hear that kind of language on the floor." Others have pointed to this incident and the events that led up to it as evidence of a culture of extreme partisanship that has developed in Washington. Senate rules prohibit profanity while the Senate is in session, but Cheney did not violate the rules because the Senate was not in session at the time. Later on Neil Cavuto's show on Fox News Cheney said of the incident, "I expressed myself rather forcefully, (and) felt better after I had done it. I think that a lot of my colleagues felt that what I had said badly needed to be said - that it was long overdue." [9] (http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20040626-075122-9083r.htm) Books about John Nichols, Dick: The Man Who is President 2004 (ISBN 1565848403) Elaine Andrews, Dick Cheney: A Life Of Public Service 2001 (ISBN 0761323066) Books by Professional Military Education: An Asset for Peace and Progress : A Report of the Csis Study Group on Professional Military Education (Csis Report) 1997 (ISBN 0892062975) Kings of the Hill: How Nine Powerful Men Changed the Course of American History 1996 (ISBN 0756758645) Cheney Speeches and Interviews Cheney speech given to the Federalist Society in 2001 (http://www.fed-soc.org/Publications/Transcripts/cheney.htm) Cheney speech given to the Veterans of Foreign Wars 103rd convention in 2003 (http://www.nationalreview.com/document/document082702.asp) Video of Cheney speech to The Heritage Foundation in 2003 (http://www.townhall.com/audio/CONTENT/Allison/Lehrman-092403a.ram)(requires RealPlayer (http://www.realnetworks.com/info/freeplayer/)) Cheney interview transcript on Fox News in 2004 (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,123794,00.html) September 1, 2004: Cheney's Republican National Convention speech - video and text (http://www.gopconvention.com/rewind/wed.shtml) Anti-Cheney Opinions The Radical: What Dick Cheney Really Believes (http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?pt=xGmMghBV8jodL8t7x2Vig2%3D%3D) The fall of a "statesman" (http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2004/07/01/cheney/index.html) The United States of Texas (http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2004/06/24/halliburton/index.html) - Two new books document the hold that Bush, Cheney and their corporate allies have on America Creepier than Nixon (http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/03/31/dean/index.html) - The man who brought down Richard Nixon says Bush and "co-president" Cheney are an even greater threat to the country The Cheney Connection (http://www.laweekly.com/ink/04/30/news-ireland.php) - Tracing the Halliburton money trail to Nigeria Playing Contractopoly with Halliburton (http://www.alternet.org/story/18957/) - Allegations about Cheney's involvement in granting contracts in Iraq to his former employer, Halliburton The Curse of Dick Cheney (http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story?id=6450422&pageid=rs.Home&pageregion=single7&rnd=1094003520950&has-player=true) - A cynical look at Dick Cheney's political career --------------------- - BACK TO INDEX - REPLY - QUOTE - EDIT - DELETE -

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