Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of the Left podcast. I'm Amanda sitting in today for Jay, who's still recovering from a nasty virus and currently feels slightly better than he sounds, though he sounds really awful, and so I'm doing both him and you a favor today by recording for the show. You should know Jay is very sad to be missing

our Dick Cheney episode, and since he's been waiting for it for 20 years. Cheney was thought of

as Darth Vader back in the Bush years, after all. But like Darth Vader, Cheney's death came

with some slight near-death ethical awakenings. And also like Darth Vader, they both still

killed all those children.

For those looking for a quick overview, the sources providing our top takes in about 45 minutes

today include colonial outcasts, This Is Hell, the Young Turks, Blowback, and the Empire Files.

Then in the additional deeper dives half the show, there'll be more in four sections.

Section A, Legacy, followed by Section B, Iraq.

Section C, using 9-11 for power and profit.

And section D, no accountability.

And now, on to the show.

POS, Dick Chaney finally died.

And he's dead, which is tight.

And while he died far too old and far too free,

it couldn't have come at a more symbolic time

to be an indictment of this great American civilization. Not only did

millions die so as Halliburton's stock portfolio could go up during the global war on terror,

but on the eve of the Trump administration trying desperately to manufacture a regime-change war in Venezuela

over rational ideology and resources, oil, big surprise,

the American people have clearly learned nothing.

Well, that might be a little unfair, but it's just kind of frustrated because there's no

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