title: Michael Keaton

text: Michael John Douglas, the youngest of seven children, was born at Ohio Valley Hospital in Kennedy Township, Pennsylvania, on September 5, 1951. He was raised between McKees Rocks, Coraopolis and Robinson Township, Pennsylvania. His father, George A. Douglas (1905–1977), worked as a civil engineer and surveyor, and his mother, Leona Elizabeth (née Loftus; 1909–2002), was a homemaker, and came from McKees Rocks. Keaton was raised in a Catholic family. His mother was of Irish descent, while his father was of Scottish, Scotch-Irish, German and English ancestry, and was originally from a Protestant family. Keaton attended Montour High School in Robinson Township, Pennsylvania. He graduated with the Class of 1969, and studied Speech for two years at Kent State University, where he appeared in plays, and returned to Pennsylvania to pursue his career.


title: Michael Keaton

text: Keaton first appeared on TV in the Pittsburgh public television programs "Where the Heart Is" and "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" (1975). For" Mister Rogers" he played one of the "Flying Zookeeni Brothers" and served as a full-time production assistant. (In 2003, after Fred Rogers' death, Keaton hosted a PBS memorial tribute, ; in 2018, he hosted a 50th anniversary special of the series for PBS, "".) Keaton also worked as an actor in Pittsburgh theatre; he played the role of Rick in the Pittsburgh premiere of David Rabe's "Sticks and Bones" with the Pittsburgh Poor Players. He also performed stand-up comedy during his early years to supplement his income.


title: Michael Keaton

text: Keaton left Pittsburgh and moved to Los Angeles to begin auditioning for various TV parts. He popped up in various popular TV shows including "Maude" and "The Mary Tyler Moore Hour". He decided to use a stage name to satisfy SAG rules, as there were already an actor (Michael Douglas) and daytime host (Mike Douglas) with the same or similar names. In response to questions as to whether he selected his new surname due to an attraction to actress Diane Keaton, or in homage to silent film actor Buster Keaton, he has responded by saying "it had nothing to do with that." Keaton has said in several interviews that he searched a phone book under "K," saw "Keaton" and decided to stop looking. Keaton's film debut came in a small non-speaking role in the Joan Rivers film "Rabbit Test".


title: Michael Keaton

text: His next big break was working alongside Jim Belushi in the short-lived comedy series "Working Stiffs", which showcased his comedic talent and led to a co-starring role in the comedy "Night Shift" directed by Ron Howard. This was his breakout role as the fast-talking schemer Bill "Blaze" Blazejowski and earned Keaton some critical acclaim.


title: Michael Keaton

text: "Night Shift" led to Keaton becoming a leading man in the landmark comedy hit "Mr. Mom", which was met with universal acclaim. Keaton was pigeonholed as a comic lead during this time with films like "Johnny Dangerously", "Gung Ho", "The Squeeze", and "The Dream Team", though Keaton tried to transition to dramatic leads as early as 1984, playing a hockey player in "Touch and Go", which was shelved until 1986. Woody Allen cast Keaton as the lead in "The Purple Rose of Cairo" the following year, but after filming began Allen felt Keaton was "too modern" and reshot his scenes with Jeff Daniels in the final film, further delaying his transition to drama in the public eye. When "Touch and Go" was finally released in 1986 the studio was still unsure of how to market the film, making the poster, trailer and TV spots similar to "Mr. Mom", which resulted in the film not finding its target audience.


title: Michael Keaton

text: 1988 was the seminal year in Keaton's career where he landed two major unconventional roles, forever changing his image to audiences. He played the title character in Tim Burton's horror-comedy "Beetlejuice", earning Keaton widespread acclaim and boosting him to Hollywood's A list. That same year, he also gave an acclaimed dramatic performance as a drug-addicted realtor in Glenn Gordon Caron's "Clean and Sober".


title: Michael Keaton

text: Keaton's career was given another major boost when he was again cast by Tim Burton, this time as the title comic book superhero of the film "Batman" (1989). Warner Bros. received thousands of letters of complaint by fans who believed Keaton was the wrong choice to portray Batman. However, Keaton's performance in the role ultimately earned widespread acclaim from both critics and audiences, and "Batman" became one of the most successful films of 1989.


title: Michael Keaton

text: According to Les Daniels's reference book "Batman: The Complete History", Keaton initially believed the film would be similar in tone to the 1960s TV series starring Adam West but understood the darker, brooding side of Batman the film was going for after he read Frank Miller's comic book miniseries, "The Dark Knight Returns", which he portrayed to much fan approval. Keaton later reprised the role for the sequel "Batman Returns" (1992), which was another critically acclaimed success. He was initially set to reprise the role again for a third Batman film, even going as far as to show up for costume fitting. However, when Burton was dropped as director of the film, Keaton left the franchise as well. He was reportedly dissatisfied with the screenplay approved by the new director, Joel Schumacher. According to the A&E "Biography" episode on Keaton, after he had refused the first time (after meetings with Schumacher), Warner Bros. offered him $15 million, but Keaton steadfastly refused and was replaced by Val Kilmer in "Batman Forever" (1995).


title: Michael Keaton

text: Keaton remained active during the 1990s, appearing in a wide range of films, including "Pacific Heights", "One Good Cop", "My Life" and the star-studded Shakespearean story "Much Ado About Nothing". He starred in "The Paper" and "Multiplicity", and twice in the same role, that of Elmore Leonard character Agent Ray Nicolette, in the films "Jackie Brown" and "Out of Sight". He made the family holiday movie "Jack Frost" and the thriller "Desperate Measures". Keaton starred as a political candidate's speechwriter in 1994's "Speechless".


title: Michael Keaton

text: In the early 2000s, Keaton appeared in several films with mixed success, including "Live From Baghdad" (for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe award), "First Daughter" (playing the President of the United States), "White Noise" and "". While he continued to receive good notices from the critics (particularly for "Jackie Brown"), he was not able to re-approach the box-office success of "Batman" until the release of Disney/Pixar's "Cars" (2006), in which he voiced Chick Hicks, a green race car with a mustache, who frequently loses his patience with losing to his longtime rival, Strip Weathers, a.k.a. The King, voiced by Richard Petty. On New Year's Day of 2004, he hosted the PBS TV special "Mr. Rogers: America's Favorite Neighbor". It was released by Triumph Marketing LLC on DVD September 28, 2004. In 2006, he starred in "Game 6", about the 1986 World Series bid by the Boston Red Sox. He had a cameo in the Tenacious D short film "Time Fixers", an iTunes exclusive. The 9-minute film was released to coincide with "Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny". Keaton reportedly was cast as Jack Shephard in the series "Lost", with the understanding that the role of Jack would be a brief one. Once the role was retooled to be a long-running series regular, Keaton withdrew. The part was then given to actor Matthew Fox. The show ran for six seasons, with the Shephard role continuing throughout.


title: Michael Keaton

text: Keaton starred in the 2007 TV miniseries "The Company", set during the Cold War, in which he portrayed the real-life CIA counterintelligence chief James Jesus Angleton. The role garnered Keaton a 2008 Screen Actors Guild nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries. Keaton provided the voice of Ken in "Toy Story 3" (2010). The film received overwhelmingly positive acclaim and grossed over $1 billion worldwide, making it one of the most financially successful films ever. He announced in June 2010 his interest in returning for a "Beetlejuice" sequel. He played Captain Gene Mauch in the comedy "The Other Guys". In 2014 he played the OmniCorp CEO Raymond Sellars in the "RoboCop" remake as a more active antagonist, taking RoboCop's wife and child hostage, forcing Joel Kinnaman's character to struggle to overcome the 4th directive.


title: Michael Keaton

text: Keaton starred alongside Zach Galifianakis, Edward Norton, Emma Stone, and Naomi Watts in Alejandro González Iñárritu's "Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)" (2014), playing Riggan Thomson, a screen actor, famous for playing the iconic titular superhero, who puts on a Broadway play based on a Raymond Carver short story to regain his former glory. He won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy for his portrayal of Thomson and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. In 2015, Keaton appeared as Walter V. Robinson in Tom McCarthy's Academy Award-winning film "Spotlight", and in 2016, he starred as businessman Ray Kroc in the biopic "The Founder". On July 28, 2016, Keaton was honored with the 2,585th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions to film. The star is located at 6931 Hollywood, Blvd.


title: Michael Keaton

text: In 2017, Keaton played the supervillain The Vulture in ""; while making this film, Keaton was unable to reprise his role as Chick Hicks for Disney/Pixar's "Cars 3" and was replaced by Bob Peterson. Keaton later portrayed Stan Hurley in "American Assassin". In 2019, he played the villain in Disney's live-action adaptation of "Dumbo" directed by Tim Burton, co-starring with Colin Farrell and Eva Green. In 2020, Keaton played U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark in "The Trial of the Chicago 7", a legal drama directed by Aaron Sorkin about seven anti-Vietnam protesters charged with inciting riots in 1968. In 2021, Keaton starred as American lawyer Kenneth Feinberg in the Netflix biographical drama film "Worth".


title: Michael Keaton

text: In 2022, Keaton won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie and Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie for Hulu's "Dopesick". Keaton cites his performance in 1988's "Clean and Sober" as an early preparation for "Dopesick". He also briefly reprised his role as Vulture in the SSU film "Morbius", which released on April 1, 2022.


title: Michael Keaton

text: It has been reported that Keaton will star in "Goodrich", a film about a man whose second wife suddenly leaves him, forcing him to take sole care of their nine-year-old twins. Directed by Hallie Meyers-Shyer, filming was set to commence on October 1, 2019. In June 2020, Keaton entered talks to reprise his role as Batman/Bruce Wayne in the DC Extended Universe's upcoming superhero film, "The Flash", which is scheduled to be released on June 23, 2023, after last playing the role in 1992. In August 2020, it was reported that Keaton would be reprising his role as Bruce Wayne/Batman, though Keaton disputed these claims on October 21 and again on March 22, 2021, stating that it was not confirmed. However, on April 19, 2021, Keaton's talent agency, ICM Partners, officially confirmed his involvement with the film when production had officially begun.


title: Michael Keaton

text: He was set to reprise the character in "Batgirl" starring Leslie Grace, set for a release on HBO Max, taking some inspiration from the acclaimed DC Animated Universe animated series, "Batman Beyond", with Keaton playing the elder Bruce Wayne as the title character's mentor and remote coordinator in the Batcave. The film was cancelled in August 2022. He will also reprise the character in the 2023 scheduled "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom", in a deleted scene. On May 6, 2022, it was reported that Keaton is set to star in and direct the noir thriller, "Knox Goes Away".


title: Michael Keaton

text: Keaton was married to Caroline McWilliams from 1982–90. They have a son, Sean, born in 1983. He had a relationship with actress Courteney Cox from 1990–95.


title: Michael Keaton

text: Keaton, a longtime Pittsburgh resident and fan of its sports teams, negotiated a break in his "Batman" movie contract in case the Pittsburgh Pirates made the playoffs that year, although they ultimately did not. He also wrote an ESPN blog on the Pirates during the final months of their 2013 season.


title: Michael Keaton

text: In the 1980s, Keaton bought a ranch near Big Timber, Montana, where he spends much of his time. An avid fisherman, he is often seen on the saltwater fishing series "Buccaneers & Bones" on Outdoor Channel, along with Tom Brokaw, Zach Gilford, Thomas McGuane and Yvon Chouinard, among others.


title: Michael Keaton

text: Keaton endorsed Hillary Clinton for President in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and Joe Biden in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.


title: Michael Keaton

text: In 2019, he appeared in a PETA ad campaign, asking tourists not to visit operations that exploit animals, such as roadside zoos which sometimes offer the opportunity to get selfies with wild animals.


title: Dick Cheney

text: Richard Bruce Cheney ( ; born January 30, 1941) is an American politician and businessman who served as the 46th vice president of the United States from 2001 to 2009 under President George W. Bush. He is currently the oldest living former U.S. vice president, following the death of Walter Mondale in 2021.


title: Dick Cheney

text: Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, Cheney grew up there and in Casper, Wyoming. He attended Yale University before earning a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in political science from the University of Wyoming. He began his political career as an intern for Congressman William A. Steiger, eventually working his way into the White House during the Nixon and Ford administrations. He served as White House chief of staff from 1975 to 1977. In 1978, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, and represented Wyoming's at-large congressional district from 1979 to 1989, briefly serving as House minority whip in 1989. He was selected as Secretary of Defense during the presidency of George H. W. Bush, and held the position for most of Bush's term from 1989 to 1993. During his time there, he oversaw 1991's Operation Desert Storm, among other actions. Out of office during the Clinton administration, he was the chairman and CEO of Halliburton from 1995 to 2000.


title: Dick Cheney

text: In July 2000, Cheney was chosen by presumptive Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush as his running mate in the 2000 presidential election. They defeated their Democratic opponents, incumbent Vice President Al Gore and Senator Joe Lieberman. In 2004, Cheney was reelected to his second term as vice president with Bush as president, defeating their Democratic opponents Senators John Kerry and John Edwards. During Cheney's tenure as vice president, he played a leading behind-the-scenes role in the George W. Bush administration's response to the September 11 attacks and coordination of the Global War on Terrorism. He was an early proponent of invading Iraq, alleging that the Saddam Hussein regime possessed a weapons of mass destruction program and had an operational relationship with Al-Qaeda; however, neither allegation was ever substantiated. He also pressured the intelligence community to provide intelligence consistent with the administration's rationales for invading Iraq. Cheney was often criticized for the Bush Administration's policies regarding the campaign against terrorism, for his support of wiretapping by the National Security Agency (NSA) and for his endorsement of "enhanced interrogation techniques" which several critics have labeled as torture. He publicly disagreed with President Bush's position against same-sex marriage in 2004, but also said it is "appropriately a matter for the states to decide".


title: Dick Cheney

text: Cheney, often cited as the most powerful vice president in American history, ended his tenure as an unpopular figure in American politics with an approval rating of 13 percent. His peak approval rating in the wake of the September 11 attacks was 68 percent.


title: Dick Cheney

text: Cheney was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, the son of Marjorie Lorraine (née Dickey) and Richard Herbert Cheney. He is of predominantly English, as well as Welsh, Irish, and French Huguenot ancestry. His father was a soil conservation agent for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and his mother was a softball star in the 1930s; Cheney was one of three children.


title: Dick Cheney

text: He attended Calvert Elementary School before his family moved to Casper, Wyoming, where he attended Natrona County High School.


title: Dick Cheney

text: He attended Yale University, but by his own account had problems adjusting to the college, and dropped out. Among the influential teachers from his days in New Haven was Professor H. Bradford Westerfield, whom Cheney repeatedly credited with having helped to shape his approach to foreign policy. He later attended the University of Wyoming, where he earned both a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts in political science. He subsequently started, but did not finish, doctoral studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.


title: Dick Cheney

text: In November 1962, at the age of 21, Cheney was convicted of driving while intoxicated (DWI). He was arrested for DWI again the following year. Cheney 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."


title: Dick Cheney

text: When Cheney became eligible for the draft, during the Vietnam War, he applied for and received five draft deferments. In 1989, "The Washington Post" writer George C. Wilson interviewed Cheney as the next Secretary of Defense; when asked about his deferments, Cheney reportedly said, "I had other priorities in the '60s than military service." Cheney testified during his confirmation hearings in 1989 that he received deferments to finish a college career that lasted six years rather than four, owing to sub-par academic performance and the need to work to pay for his education. Upon graduation, Cheney was eligible for the draft, but at the time, the Selective Service System was not inducting married men. On October 6, 1965, the draft was expanded to include married men without children; Cheney's first daughter, Elizabeth, was born 9 months and two days later. Cheney's fifth and final deferment granted him "3-A" status, a "hardship" deferment available to men with dependents. In January 1967, Cheney turned 26 and was no longer eligible for the draft.


title: Dick Cheney

text: In 1966 Cheney dropped out of the doctoral program at the University of Wisconsin to work as staff aide for Gov. Warren Knowles.


title: Dick Cheney

text: In 1968 Cheney was awarded an American Political Science Association congressional fellowship and moved to Washington.


title: Dick Cheney

text: Cheney's political career began in 1969, as an intern for Congressman William A. Steiger during the Richard Nixon Administration. He then joined the staff of Donald Rumsfeld, who was then Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity from 1969 to 1970. He held several positions in the years that followed: White House Staff Assistant in 1971, Assistant Director of the Cost of Living Council from 1971 to 1973, and Deputy Assistant to the president from 1974 to 1975. As deputy assistant, Cheney suggested several options in a memo to Rumsfeld, including use of the US Justice Department, that the Ford administration could use to limit damage from an article, published by "The New York Times", in which investigative reporter Seymour Hersh reported that Navy submarines had tapped into Soviet undersea communications as part of a highly classified program, Operation Ivy Bells.


title: Dick Cheney

text: Cheney was Assistant to the President and White House Deputy Chief of Staff under Gerald Ford from December 1974 to November 1975. When Rumsfeld was named Secretary of Defense, Cheney became White House Chief of Staff, succeeding Rumsfeld. He later was campaign manager for Ford's 1976 presidential campaign.


title: Dick Cheney

text: In 1978, Cheney was elected to represent Wyoming in the U.S. House of Representatives and succeeded retiring Democratic Congressman Teno Roncalio, having defeated his Democratic opponent, Bill Bagley. Cheney was re-elected five times, serving until 1989.


title: Dick Cheney

text: In 1987, he was elected Chairman of the House Republican Conference. The following year, he was elected House Minority Whip. He served for two and a half months before he was appointed Secretary of Defense instead of former U.S. Senator John G. Tower, whose nomination had been rejected by the U.S. Senate in March 1989.


title: Dick Cheney

text: He voted against the creation of the U.S. Department of Education, citing his concern over budget deficits and expansion of the federal government, and claiming that the Department was an encroachment on states' rights. He voted against funding Head Start, but reversed his position in 2000.


title: Dick Cheney

text: Cheney initially voted in 1978 against establishing a national holiday in honor of Martin Luther King Jr., but supported creation of Martin Luther King Jr. Day five years later, in 1983.


title: Dick Cheney

text: Cheney supported Bob Michel's (R-IL) bid to become Republican Minority Leader. In April 1980, Cheney endorsed Governor Ronald Reagan for president, becoming one of Reagan's earliest supporters.


title: Dick Cheney

text: In 1986, after President Ronald Reagan vetoed a bill to impose economic sanctions on South Africa for its policy of apartheid, Cheney was one of 83 Representatives to vote against overriding Reagan's veto. In later years, he articulated his opposition to unilateral sanctions against many different countries, stating "they almost never work" and that in that case they might have ended up hurting the people instead.


title: Dick Cheney

text: In 1986, Cheney, along with 145 Republicans and 31 Democrats, voted against a non-binding Congressional resolution calling on the South African government to release Nelson Mandela from prison, after the Democrats defeated proposed amendments that would have required Mandela to renounce violence sponsored by the African National Congress (ANC) and requiring it to oust the communist faction from its leadership; the resolution was defeated. Appearing on CNN, Cheney addressed criticism for this, saying he opposed the resolution because the ANC "at the time was viewed as a terrorist organization and had a number of interests that were fundamentally inimical to the United States."


title: Dick Cheney

text: Originally declining, U.S. Congressman Barber Conable persuaded Cheney to join the moderate Republican Wednesday Group in order to move up the leadership ranks. He was elected Chairman of the Republican Policy Committee from 1981 to 1987. Cheney was the Ranking Member of the Select Committee to investigate the Iran-Contra Affair.


title: Dick Cheney

text: President George H. W. Bush nominated Cheney for the office of Secretary of Defense immediately after the U.S. Senate failed to confirm John Tower for that position. The senate confirmed Cheney by a vote of 92 to 0 and he served in that office from March 1989 to January 1993. He directed the United States invasion of Panama and Operation Desert Storm in the Middle East. In 1991, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Bush. Later that year, he received the U.S. Senator John Heinz Award for Greatest Public Service by an Elected or Appointed Official, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards.


title: Dick Cheney

text: Cheney has said his time at the Pentagon was the most rewarding period of his public service career, calling it "the one that stands out." In 2014, Cheney recounted that when he met with President George H. W. Bush to accept the offer, he passed a painting in the private residence entitled "The Peacemakers," which depicted President Lincoln, General Grant, and William Tecumseh Sherman. "My great-grandfather had served under William Tecumseh Sherman throughout the war," Cheney said, "and it occurred to me as I was in the room as I walked in to talk to the President about becoming Secretary of Defense, I wondered what he would have thought that his great-grandson would someday be in the White House with the President talking about taking over the reins of the U.S. military."


title: Dick Cheney

text: Cheney worked closely with Pete Williams, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, and Paul Wolfowitz, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, from the beginning of his tenure. He focused primarily on external matters, and left most of the internal DoD management to Deputy Secretary of Defense Donald Atwood.


title: Dick Cheney

text: Cheney's most immediate issue as Secretary of Defense was the Department of Defense budget. Cheney deemed it appropriate to cut the budget and downsize the military, following the Reagan Administration's peacetime defense buildup at the height of the Cold War. As part of the fiscal year 1990 budget, Cheney assessed the requests from each of the branches of the armed services for such expensive programs as the Avenger II Naval attack aircraft, the B-2 stealth bomber, the V-22 Osprey tilt-wing helicopter, the Aegis destroyer and the MX missile, totaling approximately $4.5 billion in light of changed world politics. Cheney opposed the V-22 program, which Congress had already appropriated funds for, and initially refused to issue contracts for it before relenting.


title: Dick Cheney

text: When the 1990 Budget came before Congress in the summer of 1989, it settled on a figure between the Administration's request and the House Armed Services Committee's recommendation.


title: Dick Cheney

text: In subsequent years under Cheney, the proposed and adopted budgets followed patterns similar to that of 1990. Early in 1991, he unveiled a plan to reduce military strength by the mid-1990s to 1.6 million, compared with 2.2 million when he entered office. Cheney's 1993 defense budget was reduced from 1992, omitting programs that Congress had directed the Department of Defense to buy weapons that it did not want, and omitting unrequested reserve forces.


title: Dick Cheney

text: Over his four years as Secretary of Defense, Cheney downsized the military and his budgets showed negative real growth, despite pressures to acquire weapon systems advocated by Congress. The Department of Defense's total obligational authority in current dollars declined from $291 billion to $270 billion. Total military personnel strength decreased by 19 percent, from about 2.2 million in 1989 to about 1.8 million in 1993. Notwithstanding the overall reduction in military spending, Cheney directed the development of a Pentagon plan to ensure U.S. military dominance in the post-Cold War era.


title: Dick Cheney

text: Cheney publicly expressed concern that nations such as Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, could acquire nuclear components after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The end of the Cold War, the fall of the Soviet Union, and the disintegration of the Warsaw Pact obliged the first Bush Administration to reevaluate the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO's) purpose and makeup. Cheney believed that NATO should remain the foundation of European security relationships and that it would remain important to the United States in the long term; he urged the alliance to lend more assistance to the new democracies in Eastern Europe.


title: Dick Cheney

text: Cheney's views on NATO reflected his skepticism about prospects for peaceful social development in the former Eastern Bloc countries, where he saw a high potential for political uncertainty and instability. He felt that the Bush Administration was too optimistic in supporting General Secretary of the CPSU Mikhail Gorbachev and his successor, Russian President Boris Yeltsin. Cheney worked to maintain strong ties between the United States and its European allies.


title: Dick Cheney

text: Cheney persuaded the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to allow bases for U.S. ground troops and war planes in the nation. This was an important element of the success of the Gulf War, as well as a lightning-rod for Islamists, such as Osama bin Laden, who opposed having non-Muslim armies near their holy sites.


title: Dick Cheney

text: Using economic sanctions and political pressure, the United States mounted a campaign to drive Panamanian ruler General Manuel Antonio Noriega from power after he fell from favor. In May 1989, after Guillermo Endara had been duly elected President of Panama, Noriega nullified the election outcome, drawing intensified pressure. In October, Noriega suppressed a military coup, but in December, after soldiers of the Panamanian army killed a U.S. serviceman, the United States invasion of Panama began under Cheney's direction. The stated reason for the invasion was to seize Noriega to face drug charges in the United States, protect U.S. lives and property, and restore Panamanian civil liberties. Although the mission was controversial, U.S. forces achieved control of Panama and Endara assumed the presidency; Noriega was convicted and imprisoned on racketeering and drug trafficking charges in April 1992.


title: Dick Cheney

text: In 1991, the Somali Civil War drew the world's attention. In August 1992, the United States began to provide humanitarian assistance, primarily food, through a military airlift. At President Bush's direction, Cheney dispatched the first of 26,000 U.S. troops to Somalia as part of the Unified Task Force (UNITAF), designed to provide security and food relief. Cheney's successors as Secretary of Defense, Les Aspin and William J. Perry, had to contend with both the Bosnian and Somali issues.


title: Dick Cheney

text: On August 1, 1990, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein sent the invading Iraqi forces into neighboring Kuwait, a small petroleum-rich state long claimed by Iraq as part of its territory. This invasion sparked the initiation of the Persian Gulf War and it brought worldwide condemnation. An estimated 140,000 Iraqi troops quickly took control of Kuwait City and moved on to the Saudi Arabia/Kuwait border. The United States had already begun to develop contingency plans for the defense of Saudi Arabia by the U.S. Central Command, headed by General Norman Schwarzkopf, because of its important petroleum reserves.


title: Dick Cheney

text: Cheney and Schwarzkopf oversaw planning for what would become a full-scale U.S. military operation. According to General Colin Powell, Cheney "had become a glutton for information, with an appetite we could barely satisfy. He spent hours in the National Military Command Center peppering my staff with questions."


title: Dick Cheney

text: Shortly after the Iraqi invasion, Cheney made the first of several visits to Saudi Arabia where King Fahd requested U.S. military assistance. The United Nations took action as well, passing a series of resolutions condemning Iraq's invasion of Kuwait; the UN Security Council authorized "all means necessary" to eject Iraq from Kuwait, and demanded that the country withdraw its forces by January 15, 1991. By then, the United States had a force of about 500,000 stationed in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf. Other nations, including Britain, Canada, France, Italy, Syria, and Egypt, contributed troops, and other allies, most notably Germany and Japan, agreed to provide financial support for the coalition effort, named Operation Desert Shield.


title: Dick Cheney

text: On January 12, 1991, Congress authorized Bush to use military force to enforce Iraq's compliance with UN resolutions on Kuwait.


title: Dick Cheney

text: The first phase of Operation Desert Storm, which began on January 17, 1991, was an air offensive to secure air superiority and attack Iraqi forces, targeting key Iraqi command and control centers, including the cities of Baghdad and Basra. Cheney turned most other Department of Defense matters over to Deputy Secretary Atwood and briefed Congress during the air and ground phases of the war. He flew with Powell to the region to review and finalize the ground war plans.


title: Dick Cheney

text: After an air offensive of more than five weeks, Coalition forces launched the ground war on February 24. Within 100 hours, Iraqi forces had been routed from Kuwait and Schwarzkopf reported that the basic objectiveexpelling Iraqi forces from Kuwaithad been met on February 27. After consultation with Cheney and other members of his national security team, Bush declared a suspension of hostilities. On working with this national security team, Cheney has said, "there have been five Republican presidents since


title: Dick Cheney

text: Eisenhower. I worked for four of them and worked closely with a fifththe Reagan years when I was part of the House leadership. The best national security team I ever saw was that one. The least friction, the most cooperation, the highest degree of trust among the principals, especially."


title: Dick Cheney

text: A total of 147 U.S. military personnel died in combat, and another 236 died as a result of accidents or other causes. Iraq agreed to a formal truce on March 3, and a permanent cease-fire on April 6. There was subsequent debate about whether Coalition forces should have driven as far as Baghdad to oust Saddam Hussein from power. Bush agreed that the decision to end the ground war when they did was correct, but the debate persisted as Hussein remained in power and rebuilt his military forces. Arguably the most significant debate concerned whether U.S. and Coalition forces had left Iraq too soon. In an April 15, 1994 interview with C-SPAN, Cheney was asked if the U.S.-led Coalition forces should have moved into Baghdad. Cheney replied that occupying and attempting to take over the country would have been a "bad idea" and would have led to a "quagmire", explaining that:


title: Dick Cheney

text: [If] we'd gone to Baghdad we would have been all alone. There wouldn't have been anybody else with us. There would have been a U.S. occupation of Iraq. None of the Arab forces that were willing to fight with us in Kuwait were willing to invade Iraq. Once you got to Iraq and took it over, took down Saddam Hussein's government, then what are you going to put in its place? That's a very volatile part of the world, and if you take down the central government of Iraq, you could very easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off: part of it, the Syrians would like to have to the west, part of iteastern Iraqthe Iranians would like to claim, they fought over it for eight years. In the north you've got the Kurds, and if the Kurds spin loose and join with the Kurds in Turkey, then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey. It's a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq. The other thing was casualties. Everyone was impressed with the fact we were able to do our job with as few casualties as we had. But for the 146 Americans killed in action, and for their familiesit wasn't a cheap war. And the question for the president, in terms of whether or not we went on to Baghdad, took additional casualties in an effort to get Saddam Hussein, was how many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth? Our judgment was, not very many, and I think we got it right.


title: Dick Cheney

text: Cheney regarded the Gulf War as an example of the kind of regional problem the United States was likely to continue to face in the future.


title: Dick Cheney

text: We're always going to have to be involved [in the Middle East]. Maybe it's part of our national character, you know we like to have these problems nice and neatly wrapped up, put a ribbon around it. You deploy a force, you win the war and the problem goes away. But it doesn't work that way in the Middle East. It never has, and isn't likely to in my lifetime.


title: Dick Cheney

text: Between 1987 and 1989, during his last term in Congress, Cheney served on the board of the Council on Foreign Relations foreign policy organization.


title: Dick Cheney

text: With the inauguration of the new Democratic administration under President Bill Clinton in January 1993, Cheney joined the American Enterprise Institute. He also served a second term as a Council on Foreign Relations director from 1993 to 1995.


title: Dick Cheney

text: From October 1, 1995 to July 25, 2000, he served as chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Halliburton, a Fortune 500 company. Cheney resigned as CEO on the same day he was announced as George Bush's vice presidential pick in the 2000 election.


title: Dick Cheney

text: Cheney's record as CEO was subject to some dispute among Wall Street analysts. A 1998 merger between Halliburton and Dresser Industries attracted the criticism of some Dresser executives for Halliburton's lack of accounting transparency. Halliburton shareholders pursued a class-action lawsuit alleging that the corporation artificially inflated its stock price during this period, though Cheney was not named as an individual defendant in the suit. In June 2011, the United States Supreme Court reversed a lower court ruling and allowed the case to continue in litigation. Cheney was named in a December 2010 corruption complaint filed by the Nigerian government against Halliburton, which the company settled for $250 million.


title: Dick Cheney

text: During Cheney's term, Halliburton changed its accounting practices regarding revenue realization of disputed costs on major construction projects. Cheney resigned as CEO of Halliburton on July 25, 2000. As vice president, he argued that this step, along with establishing a trust and other actions, removed any conflict of interest. Cheney's net worth, estimated to be between $19 million and $86 million,


title: Dick Cheney

text: He was also a member of the board of advisors of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) before becoming vice president.


title: Dick Cheney

text: In early 2000, while serving as the CEO of Halliburton, Cheney headed then-Governor of Texas George W. Bush's vice-presidential search committee. On July 25, after reviewing Cheney's findings, Bush surprised some pundits by asking Cheney himself to join the Republican ticket. Halliburton reportedly reached agreement on July 20 to allow Cheney to retire, with a package estimated at $20 million.


title: Dick Cheney

text: A few months before the election Cheney put his home in Dallas up for sale and changed his drivers' license and voter registration back to Wyoming. This change was necessary to allow Texas' presidential electors to vote for both Bush and Cheney without contravening the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which forbids electors from voting for "an inhabitant of the same state with themselves" for both president and vice president.


title: Dick Cheney

text: Cheney campaigned against Al Gore's running mate, Joseph Lieberman, in the 2000 presidential election. While the election was undecided, the Bush-Cheney team was not eligible for public funding to plan a transition to a new administration, prompting Cheney to open a privately funded transition office in Washington. This office worked to identify candidates for all important positions in the cabinet. According to Craig Unger, Cheney advocated Donald Rumsfeld for the post of Secretary of Defense to counter the influence of Colin Powell at the State Department, and tried unsuccessfully to have Paul Wolfowitz named to replace George Tenet as director of the Central Intelligence Agency.


title: Dick Cheney

text: Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, Cheney remained physically apart from Bush for security reasons. For a period, Cheney stayed at a variety of undisclosed locations, out of public view. Cheney later revealed in his memoir "In My Time" that these "undisclosed locations" included his official vice presidential residence, his home in Wyoming, and Camp David. He also utilized a heavy security detail, employing a motorcade of 12 to 18 government vehicles for his daily commute from the vice presidential residence at the U.S. Naval Observatory to the White House.


title: Dick Cheney

text: On the morning of June 29, 2002, Cheney served as acting president from 7:09a.m. to 9:24a.m., under the terms of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, while Bush underwent a colonoscopy.


title: Dick Cheney

text: Following 9/11, Cheney was instrumental in providing a primary justification for a renewed war against Iraq. Cheney helped shape Bush's approach to the "War on Terror", making numerous public statements alleging Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, and making several personal visits to CIA headquarters, where he questioned mid-level agency analysts on their conclusions. Cheney continued to allege links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda, even though President Bush received a classified President's Daily Brief on September 21, 2001, indicating the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the September 11 attacks and that "there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda." Furthermore, in 2004, the 9/11 Commission concluded that there was no "collaborative relationship" between Iraq and al-Qaeda. By 2014, Cheney continued to misleadingly claim that Saddam "had a 10-year relationship with al Qaeda."


title: Dick Cheney

text: Following the US invasion of Iraq, Cheney remained steadfast in his support of the war, stating that it would be an "enormous success story", and made many visits to the country. He often criticized war critics, calling them "opportunists" who were peddling "cynical and pernicious falsehoods" to gain political advantage while US soldiers died in Iraq. In response, Senator John Kerry asserted, "It is hard to name a government official with less credibility on Iraq [than Cheney]."


title: Dick Cheney

text: In a March 24, 2008, extended interview conducted in Ankara, Turkey, with ABC News correspondent Martha Raddatz on the fifth anniversary of the original U.S. military assault on Iraq, Cheney responded to a question about public opinion polls showing that Americans had lost confidence in the war by simply replying "So?" This remark prompted widespread criticism, including from former Oklahoma Republican Congressman Mickey Edwards, a long-time personal friend of Cheney.


title: Dick Cheney

text: Bush and Cheney were re-elected in the 2004 presidential election, running against John Kerry and his running mate, John Edwards. During the election, the pregnancy of his daughter Mary and her sexual orientation as a lesbian became a source of public attention for Cheney in light of the same-sex marriage debate. Cheney has since stated that he is in favor of gay marriages personally, but that each individual U.S. state should decide whether to permit it or not.


title: Dick Cheney

text: Cheney's former chief legal counsel, David Addington, became his chief of staff and remained in that office until Cheney's departure from office. John P. Hannah served as Cheney's national security adviser.


title: Dick Cheney

text: On the morning of July 21, 2007, Cheney once again served as acting president, from 7:16 am to 9:21 am. Bush transferred the power of the presidency prior to undergoing a medical procedure, requiring sedation, and later resumed his powers and duties that same day.


title: Dick Cheney

text: After his term began in 2001, Cheney was occasionally asked if he was interested in the Republican nomination for the 2008 elections. However, he always maintained that he wished to retire upon the expiration of his term and he did not run in the 2008 presidential primaries. The Republicans nominated Arizona Senator John McCain.


title: Dick Cheney

text: Cheney was a prominent member of the National Energy Policy Development Group (NEPDG), commonly known as the Energy Task Force, composed of energy industry representatives, including several Enron executives. After the Enron scandal, the Bush administration was accused of improper political and business ties. In July 2003, the Supreme Court ruled that the US Department of Commerce must disclose NEPDG documents, containing references to companies that had made agreements with the previous Iraqi government to extract Iraq's petroleum.


title: Dick Cheney

text: Beginning in 2003, Cheney's staff opted not to file required reports with the National Archives and Records Administration office charged with assuring that the executive branch protects classified information, nor did it allow inspection of its record keeping.


title: Dick Cheney

text: Cheney refused to release the documents, citing his executive privilege to deny congressional information requests. Media outlets such as "Time" magazine and CBS News questioned whether Cheney had created a "fourth branch of government" that was not subject to any laws. A group of historians and open-government advocates filed a lawsuit in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, asking the court to declare that Cheney's vice-presidential records are covered by the Presidential Records Act of 1978 and cannot be destroyed, taken or withheld from the public without proper review.


title: Dick Cheney

text: On October 18, 2005, "The Washington Post" reported that the vice president's office was central to the investigation of the Valerie Plame CIA leak scandal, for Cheney's former chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was one of the figures under investigation. Libby resigned his positions as Cheney's chief of staff and assistant on national security affairs later in the month after he was indicted.


title: Dick Cheney

text: In February 2006, "The National Journal" reported that Libby had stated before a grand jury that his superiors, including Cheney, had authorized him to disclose classified information to the press regarding intelligence on Iraq's weapons. That September, Richard Armitage, former Deputy Secretary of State, publicly announced that he was the source of the revelation of Plame's status. Armitage said he was not a part of a conspiracy to reveal Plame's identity and did not know whether one existed.


title: Dick Cheney

text: On March 6, 2007, Libby was convicted on four felony counts for obstruction of justice, perjury, and making false statements to federal investigators. In his closing arguments, independent prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said that there was "a cloud over the vice president", an apparent reference to Cheney's interview with FBI agents investigating the case, which was made public in 2009. Cheney lobbied President George W. Bush vigorously and unsuccessfully to grant Libby a full presidential pardon up to the day of Barack Obama's inauguration, likening Libby to a "soldier on the battlefield". Libby was subsequently pardoned by President Donald Trump in April 2018.


title: Dick Cheney

text: On February 27, 2007, at about 10 am, a suicide bomber killed 23 people and wounded 20 more outside Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan during a visit by Cheney. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack and declared that Cheney was its intended target. They also claimed that Osama bin Laden supervised the operation. The bomb went off outside the front gate while Cheney was inside the base and half a mile away. He reported hearing the blast, saying "I heard a loud boom... The Secret Service came in and told me there had been an attack on the main gate." The purpose of Cheney's visit to the region had been to press Pakistan for a united front against the Taliban.


title: Dick Cheney

text: Both supporters and critics of Cheney regard him as a shrewd and knowledgeable politician who knows the functions and intricacies of the federal government. A sign of Cheney's active policy-making role was then-House Speaker Dennis Hastert's provision of an office near the House floor for Cheney in addition to his office in the West Wing, his ceremonial office in the Old Executive Office Building, and his Senate offices (one in the Dirksen Senate Office Building and another off the floor of the Senate).


title: Dick Cheney

text: Cheney has actively promoted an expansion of the powers of the presidency, saying that the Bush administration's challenges to the laws which Congress passed after Vietnam and Watergate to contain and oversee the executive branchthe Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the Presidential Records Act, the Freedom of Information Act and the War Powers Resolutionare, in Cheney's words, "a restoration, if you will, of the power and authority of the president".


title: Dick Cheney

text: four-part series, based in part on interviews with former administration officials. The articles characterized Cheney not as a "shadow" president, but as someone who usually has the last words of counsel to the president on policies, which in many cases would reshape the powers of the presidency. When former Vice President Dan Quayle suggested to Cheney that the office was largely ceremonial, Cheney reportedly replied, "I have a different understanding with the president." The articles described Cheney as having a secretive approach to the tools of government, indicated by the use of his own security classification and three man-sized safes in his offices.


title: Dick Cheney

text: The articles described Cheney's influence on decisions pertaining to detention of suspected terrorists and the legal limits that apply to their questioning, especially what constitutes torture. U.S. Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as Colin Powell's chief of staff when he was both Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the same time Cheney was Secretary of Defense, and then later when Powell was Secretary of State, stated in an in-depth interview that Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld established an alternative program to interrogate post-9/11 detainees because of their mutual distrust of CIA.


title: Dick Cheney

text: "The Washington Post" articles, principally written by Barton Gellman, further characterized Cheney as having the strongest influence within the administration in shaping budget and tax policy in a manner that assures "conservative orthodoxy." They also highlighted Cheney's behind-the-scenes influence on the Bush administration's environmental policy to ease pollution controls for power plants, facilitate the disposal of nuclear waste, open access to federal timber resources, and avoid federal constraints on greenhouse gas emissions, among other issues. The articles characterized his approach to policy formulation as favoring business over the environment.


title: Dick Cheney

text: In June 2008, Cheney allegedly attempted to block efforts by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to strike a controversial US compromise deal with North Korea over the communist state's nuclear program.


title: Dick Cheney

text: In July 2008, a former Environmental Protection Agency official stated publicly that Cheney's office had pushed significantly for large-scale deletions from a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report on the health effects of global warming "fearing the presentation by a leading health official might make it harder to avoid regulating greenhouse gases." In October, when the report appeared with six pages cut from the testimony, the White House stated that the changes were made due to concerns regarding the accuracy of the science. However, according to the former senior adviser on climate change to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson, Cheney's office was directly responsible for nearly half of the original testimony being deleted.


title: Dick Cheney

text: In his role as President of the U.S. Senate, Cheney broke with the Bush Administration Department of Justice, and signed an amicus brief to the United States Supreme Court in the case of "Heller v. District of Columbia" that successfully challenged gun laws in the nation's capital on Second Amendment grounds.


title: Dick Cheney

text: On February 14, 2010, in an appearance on ABC's "This Week", Cheney reiterated his support of waterboarding and for the torture of captured terrorist suspects, saying, "I was and remain a strong proponent of our enhanced interrogation program."


title: Dick Cheney

text: "The Washington Post" reported in 2008 that Cheney purchased a home in McLean, Virginia, part of the Washington suburbs, which he was to tear down for a replacement structure. He also maintains homes in Wyoming and on Maryland's Eastern Shore.


title: Dick Cheney

text: In July 2012, Cheney used his Wyoming home to host a private fund-raiser for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, which netted over $4 million in contributions from attendees for Romney's campaign.


title: Dick Cheney

text: Cheney is the subject of the documentary film "The World According to Dick Cheney", which premiered March 15, 2013, on the Showtime television channel. Cheney was also reported to be the subject of an HBO television mini-series based on Barton Gellman's 2008 book "" and the 2006 documentary "The Dark Side", produced by the Public Broadcasting Service.


title: Dick Cheney

text: Cheney maintained a visible public profile after leaving office, being especially critical of Obama administration policies on national security. In May 2009, Cheney spoke of his support for same-sex marriage, becoming one of the most prominent Republican politicians to do so. Speaking to the National Press Club, Cheney stated: "People ought to be free to enter into any kind of union they wish, any kind of arrangement they wish. I do believe, historically, the way marriage has been regulated is at a state level. It's always been a state issue, and I think that's the way it ought to be handled today." In 2012, Cheney reportedly encouraged several Maryland state legislators to vote to legalize same-sex marriage in that state.


title: Dick Cheney

text: Although, by custom, a former vice president unofficially receives six months of protection from the United States Secret Service, President Obama reportedly extended the protection period for Cheney.


title: Dick Cheney

text: On July 11, 2009, CIA Director Leon Panetta told the Senate and House intelligence committees that the CIA withheld information about a secret counter-terrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from Cheney. Intelligence and Congressional officials have said the unidentified program did not involve the CIA interrogation program and did not involve domestic intelligence activities. They have said the program was started by the counter-terrorism center at the CIA shortly after the attacks of September 11, 2001, but never became fully operational, involving planning and some training that took place off and on from 2001 until this year. "The Wall Street Journal" reported, citing former intelligence officials familiar with the matter, that the program was an attempt to carry out a 2001 presidential authorization to capture or kill al Qaeda operatives.


title: Dick Cheney

text: Cheney has said that the Tea Party Movement is a "positive influence on the Republican Party" and that "I think it's much better to have that kind of turmoil and change in the Republican Party than it would be to have it outside."


title: Dick Cheney

text: In May 2016, Cheney endorsed Donald Trump as the Republican nominee in the 2016 presidential election. That November, his daughter Liz won election to the House of Representatives (to his former congressional seat). When she was sworn into office in January 2017, Cheney said he believed she would do well in the position and that he would only offer advice if requested.


title: Dick Cheney

text: That March, Cheney said that Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections could be considered "an act of war".


title: Dick Cheney

text: On December 29, 2009, four days after the attempted bombing of an international passenger flight from the Netherlands to United States, Cheney criticized President Barack Obama: "[We] are at war and when President Obama pretends we aren't, it makes us less safe. ... Why doesn't he want to admit we're at war? It doesn't fit with the view of the world he brought with him to the Oval Office. It doesn't fit with what seems to be the goal of his presidencysocial transformationthe restructuring of American society." In response, White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer wrote on the official White House blog the following day, "[I]t is telling that Vice President Cheney and others seem to be more focused on criticizing the Administration than condemning the attackers. Unfortunately too many are engaged in the typical Washington game of pointing fingers and making political hay, instead of working together to find solutions to make our country safer."


title: Dick Cheney

text: During a February 14, 2010 appearance on ABC's "This Week", Cheney reiterated his criticism of the Obama administration's policies for handling suspected terrorists, criticizing the "mindset" of treating "terror attacks against the United States as criminal acts as opposed to acts of war".


title: Dick Cheney

text: In a May 2, 2011, interview with ABC News, Cheney praised the Obama administration for the covert military operation in Pakistan that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden.


title: Dick Cheney

text: In 2014, during an interview with Sean Hannity, he called Obama a "weak President" after Obama announced his plans to pull forces out of Afghanistan.


title: Dick Cheney

text: In August 2011, Cheney published his memoir, "", written with Liz Cheney. The book outlines Cheney's recollections of 9/11, the War on Terrorism, the 2001 War in Afghanistan, the run-up to the 2003 Iraq War, so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" and other events. According to Barton Gellman, the author of "", Cheney's book differs from publicly available records on details surrounding the NSA surveillance program.


title: Dick Cheney

text: In 2015, Cheney published another book, "", again co-authored with his daughter Liz. The book traces the history of U.S. foreign policy and military successes and failures from Franklin Roosevelt's administration through the Obama administration. The authors tell the story of what they describe as the unique role the United States has played as a defender of freedom throughout the world since World War II. Drawing upon the notion of American exceptionalism, the co-authors criticize Barack Obama's and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's foreign policies, and offer what they see as the solutions needed to restore American greatness and power on the world stage in defense of freedom.


title: Dick Cheney

text: In May 2016, Cheney said he would support Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election. In May 2018, Cheney supported President Trump's decision to withdraw from the Iran Nuclear Deal.


title: Dick Cheney

text: He criticized the Trump administration during a forum at the American Enterprise Institute alongside Vice President Mike Pence in March 2019. Questioning his successor on Trump's commitment to NATO and tendency to announce policy decisions on Twitter before consulting senior staff members, Cheney went on to opine, "It seems, at times, as though your administration’s approach has more in common with Obama’s foreign policy than traditional Republican foreign policy."


title: Dick Cheney

text: On the one year anniversary of the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack, Cheney joined his daughter Liz Cheney at the Capitol and participated in the remembrance events. He later appeared in a 2022 primary campaign ad for Liz in which he called Trump a "coward" and “threat to our republic” due to his attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election. That year, Liz ran for her Wyoming congressional seat against Trump-backed primary challenger Harriet Hageman, who ultimately won.


title: Dick Cheney

text: Cheney's early public opinion polls were more favorable than unfavorable, reaching his peak approval rating in the wake of the September 11 attacks at 68 percent. However, polling numbers for both him and the president gradually declined in their second terms, with Cheney reaching his lowest point shortly before leaving office at 13 percent. Cheney's Gallup poll figures are mostly consistent with those from other polls:


title: Dick Cheney

text: In April 2007, Cheney was awarded an honorary doctorate of public service by Brigham Young University, where he delivered the commencement address. His selection as commencement speaker was controversial. The college board of trustees issued a statement explaining that the invitation should be viewed "as one extended to someone holding the high office of vice president of the United States rather than to a partisan political figure". BYU permitted a protest to occur so long as it did not "make personal attacks against Cheney, attack (the) BYU administration, the church or the First Presidency".


title: Dick Cheney

text: Cheney has been compared to Darth Vader, a characterization originated by his critics, but which was later adopted humorously by Cheney himself as well as by members of his family and staff.


title: Dick Cheney

text: As a result of Cheney having admitted that he "signed off" on the so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" program, some public officials, as well as several media outlets and advocacy groups, have called for his prosecution under various anti-torture and war crimes statutes.


title: Dick Cheney

text: In Jon Meacham's book "Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush", published in November 2015, the 41st president, although also laudatory of Cheney, is in part critical of the former vice president, whom Bush describes as "having his own empire" and "very hard-line."


title: Dick Cheney

text: Cheney is a member of the United Methodist Church and was the first Methodist vice president to serve under a Methodist president.


title: Dick Cheney

text: His wife, Lynne, was chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities from 1986 to 1996. She is now a public speaker, author, and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.


title: Dick Cheney

text: The couple have two daughters, Elizabeth ("Liz") and Mary Cheney, and seven grandchildren. Liz, congresswoman from Wyoming since 2017, is married to Philip J. Perry, a former General Counsel of the Department of Homeland Security. Mary, a former employee of the Colorado Rockies baseball team and the Coors Brewing Company, was a campaign aide to the Bush re-election campaign; she lives in Great Falls, Virginia, with her wife Heather Poe. Cheney has publicly supported gay marriage since leaving the vice presidency.


title: Dick Cheney

text: Cheney's long histories of cardiovascular disease and periodic need for urgent health care raised questions of whether he was medically fit to serve in public office. Having smoked approximately 3 packs of cigarettes per day for nearly 20 years, Cheney had his first of five heart attacks on 18 June 1978, at age 37. Subsequent heart attacks in 1984, 1988, on 22 November 2000, and on 22 February 2010 resulted in moderate contractile dysfunction of his left ventricle. He underwent four-vessel coronary artery bypass grafting in 1988, coronary artery stenting in November 2000, urgent coronary balloon angioplasty in March 2001, and the implantation of a cardioverter-defibrillator in June 2001.


title: Dick Cheney

text: On September 24, 2005, Cheney underwent a six-hour endo-vascular procedure to repair popliteal artery aneurysms bilaterally, a catheter treatment technique used in the artery behind each knee. The condition was discovered at a regular physical in July, and was not life-threatening. Cheney was hospitalized for tests after experiencing shortness of breath five months later. In late April 2006, an ultrasound revealed that the clot was smaller.


title: Dick Cheney

text: On March 5, 2007, Cheney was treated for deep-vein thrombosis in his left leg at George Washington University Hospital after experiencing pain in his left calf. Doctors prescribed blood-thinning medication and allowed him to return to work. CBS News reported that during the morning of November 26, 2007, Cheney was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation and underwent treatment that afternoon.


title: Dick Cheney

text: On July 12, 2008, Cheney underwent a cardiological exam; doctors reported that his heartbeat was normal for a 67-year-old man with a history of heart problems. As part of his annual checkup, he was administered an electrocardiogram and radiological imaging of the stents placed in the arteries behind his knees in 2005. Doctors said that Cheney had not experienced any recurrence of atrial fibrillation and that his special pacemaker had neither detected nor treated any arrhythmia. On October 15, 2008, Cheney returned to the hospital briefly to treat a minor irregularity.


title: Dick Cheney

text: On January 19, 2009, Cheney strained his back "while moving boxes into his new house". As a consequence, he was in a wheelchair for two days, including his attendance at the 2009 United States presidential inauguration.


title: Dick Cheney

text: On February 22, 2010, Cheney was admitted to George Washington University Hospital after experiencing chest pains. A spokesperson later said Cheney had experienced a mild heart attack after doctors had run tests. On June 25, 2010, Cheney was admitted to George Washington University Hospital after reporting discomfort.


title: Dick Cheney

text: In early-July 2010, Cheney was outfitted with a left-ventricular assist device (LVAD) at Inova Fairfax Heart and Vascular Institute to compensate for worsening congestive heart failure. The device pumped blood continuously through his body. He was released from Inova on August 9, 2010, and had to decide whether to seek a full heart transplant.


title: Dick Cheney

text: This pump was centrifugal and as a result he remained alive without a pulse for nearly fifteen months.


title: Dick Cheney

text: On March 24, 2012, Cheney underwent a seven-hour heart transplant procedure at Inova Fairfax Hospital in Woodburn, Virginia. He had been on a waiting list for more than 20 months before receiving the heart from an anonymous donor. Cheney's principal cardiologist, Dr. Jonathan Reiner, advised his patient that "it would not be unreasonable for an otherwise healthy 71-year-old man to expect to live another 10 years" with a transplant, saying in a family-authorized interview that he considered Cheney to be otherwise healthy.


title: Dick Cheney

text: On February 11, 2006, Cheney accidentally shot Harry Whittington, a then-78-year-old Texas attorney, while participating in a quail hunt at Armstrong ranch in Kenedy County, Texas. Secret Service agents and medical aides, who were traveling with Cheney, came to Whittington's assistance and treated his birdshot wounds to his right cheek, neck, and chest. An ambulance standing by for the Vice President took Whittington to nearby Kingsville before he was flown by helicopter to Corpus Christi Memorial Hospital. On February 14, 2006, Whittington had a non-fatal heart attack and atrial fibrillation due to at least one lead-shot pellet lodged in or near his heart. Because of the small size of the birdshot pellets, doctors decided to leave up to 30 pieces of the pellets lodged in his body rather than try to remove them.


title: Dick Cheney

text: The Secret Service stated that they notified the sheriff about one hour after the shooting. Kenedy County Sheriff Ramone Salinas III stated that he first heard of the shooting at about 5:30 pm. The next day, ranch owner Katharine Armstrong informed the "Corpus Christi Caller-Times" of the shooting. Cheney had a televised interview with MSNBC News about the shooting on February 15. Both Cheney and Whittington have called the incident an accident. Early reports indicated that Cheney and Whittington were friends and that the injuries were minor. Whittington has since told "The Washington Post" that he and Cheney were not close friends but acquaintances. When asked if Cheney had apologized, Whittington declined to answer.


title: Dick Cheney

text: The sheriff's office released a report on the shooting on February 16, 2006, and witness statements on February 22, indicating that the shooting occurred on a clear sunny day, and Whittington was shot from 30 or away while searching for a downed bird. Armstrong, the ranch owner, claimed that all in the hunting party were wearing blaze-orange safety gear and none had been drinking. However, Cheney has acknowledged that he had one beer four or five hours prior to the shooting. Although Kenedy County Sheriff's Office documents support the official story by Cheney and his party, re-creations of the incident produced by George Gongora and John Metz of the "Corpus Christi Caller-Times" indicated that the actual shooting distance was closer than the 30 yards claimed.


title: Dick Cheney

text: The incident hurt Cheney's popularity standing in the polls. According to polls on February 27, 2006, two weeks after the accident, Dick Cheney's approval rating had dropped 5 percentage points to 18%. The incident became the subject of a number of jokes and satire.


title: Gangubai Kathiawadi

text: Gangubai Kathiawadi is a 2022 Indian Hindi-language biographical crime drama film directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali and produced by Bhansali and Jayantilal Gada. The film stars Alia Bhatt as the titular character with Ajay Devgn, Shantanu Maheshwari, Vijay Raaz, Indira Tiwari, Seema Pahwa and Varun Kapoor in pivotal roles.


title: Gangubai Kathiawadi

text: The film is loosely based on the true story of Ganga Jagjivandas Kathiawadi, popularly known as Gangubai Kothewali, whose life was documented in the book "Mafia Queens of Mumbai" written by S. Hussain Zaidi. The film depicts the rise of a simple girl from Kathiawad who had no choice but to embrace the ways of destiny and swing it in her favour. "Gangubai Kathiawadi" premiered at the 72nd Berlin International Film Festival on 16 February 2022, and was released in theatres on 25 February 2022.


title: Gangubai Kathiawadi

text: "Gangubai Kathiawadi" received critical acclaim for its production value and performance of Alia Bhatt. In its theatrical run the film grossed 153.69 core at the domestic box office and 209.77 globally emerging as a commercial success. "Gangubai Kathiawadi" is the fifth-highest grossing Hindi film of 2022 so far.


title: Gangubai Kathiawadi

text: A young girl named Madhu is forced into prostitution against her will. She refuses to become a prostitute, so she is tortured by brothel madame Rashmibai. Later, Gangubai is asked to persuade Madhu. She meets Madhu and tells her own story to her.


title: Gangubai Kathiawadi

text: Born into an affluent family in Kathiawad, Ganga Jagjivandas Kathiawadi, a daughter of a barrister, aspired to become a Bollywood actress. At the age of 16, she eloped with her boyfriend Ramnik Lal to Mumbai as he promised Ganga a film career under the tutelage of his aunt Sheela. Her whole life turned upside down as he sold her to a brothel owned by Sheela Masi in Kamathipura for Rs 1000, where she forcefully had to become a prostitute. She later changes her name to Gangu. While there, she befriends a woman named Kamli. A man named Shaukat Abbas Khan visits the brothel and attacks Gangu. She goes to mafia leader Rahim Lala for justice, and he becomes her sworn brother after he hears her plea. Gangu becomes the madame of her brothel after Sheela Masi dies, renames herself Gangubai, and goes on to become a powerful political figure.


title: Gangubai Kathiawadi

text: After listening to Madhu, she frees her from the brothel and sends her home safely. Gangubai later falls in love with a young tailor, Afsaan Razzaq who also reciprocates her feelings. However, she arranges his marriage to Roshni, the daughter of a fellow prostitute named Kusum to save Roshni from being a prostitute, as she can't marry Afsaan herself due to being a sex worker.


title: Gangubai Kathiawadi

text: She runs in the Kamathipura presidential elections against Raziabai and wins after showing movies during Razia's speech to draw people away. In this new role, she advocates for women's rights. While in office, Gangubai calls her family for the first time in 12 years and finds out that her father has died and her mother has not forgiven her for running away.


title: Gangubai Kathiawadi

text: Later, she finds out that a ward secretary intends for everyone in Kamathipura to be vacated during a meeting with Rahim Lala. The secretary wishes to build skyscrapers in the neighbourhood with the support of a school which accuses Kamathipura of being a site of immorality. Rahim Lala rejects the secretary's deal and warns Gangubai to prepare herself to be sued and brought to court.


title: Gangubai Kathiawadi

text: Gangubai walks into a meeting with a journalist and school principal with the children of the brothel. There, she offers five years' fees for all 8 girls and states that children from a brothel deserve an education. The girls are enrolled in front of the journalist, Mr. Faizi. However, the children are hit and thrown out of the school on their first day. At the same time, Kamli falls ill after giving birth and dies. Gangubai takes in Kamli's child, Pammi. Mr. Faizi prepares a speech on education for prostitutes for Gangubai to read at a rally, but she does not follow the script. Instead, she asks the audience why prostitutes are the target of discrimination when they do not discriminate when providing services. She also says that she will fight for prostitutes' children to receive an education and for prostitutes to be given respect in society. After her speech goes viral, Gangubai receives Mr. Faizi and a local politician in her brothel. The politician asks for her votes and informs her that the school which wants her brothel vacated has submitted a petition to the Supreme Court.


title: Gangubai Kathiawadi

text: Gangubai prepares a trip to New Delhi to meet with the Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Gangubai asks the Prime Minister to legalize prostitution, but he refuses. After discussion, the Prime Minister eventually agrees to set up a committee on the matter. He also agrees to block the brothel and Kamathipura from being vacated. While prostitution was not legalized, Kamathipura celebrates its continued existence, thanks to Gangubai Kathiawadi.


title: Gangubai Kathiawadi

text: The news about an adaptation of one of the chapters of Hussain Zaidi's book "Mafia Queens of Mumbai" first came out in June 2017 with Priyanka Chopra attached to star as the leading character. The film's earlier title was "Heera Mandi". In March 2019, Chopra confirmed that she was working on a project with Bhansali, who also confirmed that he was making "Gangubai Kathiawadi" with Chopra. However, in September 2019, media reported that Alia Bhatt, who was supposed to do a different film, titled "Inshallah", by Bhansali was going to replace Chopra after "Inshallah" got shelved. Principal photography begun in Film City,Mumbai on 27 December 2019.


title: Gangubai Kathiawadi

text: The film marks the Bollywood debut of television personality Shantanu Maheshwari, who portrays Gangubai's boyfriend Afsaan. and TV actor Varun Kapoor to debut as the grey role of Ramnik Lala.


title: Gangubai Kathiawadi

text: Production was put on hold in March 2020 due to the lockdown ordered by the Indian government owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, when the film was 70% complete. Bhatt resumed work on 6 October 2020, and Ajay Devgn who is playing a cameo joined sets on 27 February 2021. The film was wrapped up on 26 June 2021.


title: Gangubai Kathiawadi

text: The music of the film is composed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali with lyrics written by A. M. Turaz, Kumaar and Bhojak Ashok "Anjam". The Hindi version of the chours singer includes Tarannum Jain, Dipti Rege, Aditi Pradhudesai, Aditi Paul, Kalpana, Ruchna, Pragti.


title: Gangubai Kathiawadi

text: The Telugu version of the chours singer includes Sahithi Komanduri, P. Sathya Yamini, Harini Ivaturi, Aswhini Chepuri, V. Pavani.


title: Gangubai Kathiawadi

text: "Gangubai Kathiawadi" had its premiere on 16 February 2022 at 72nd Berlin International Film Festival, at the Berlinale Speciale Gala Section. The film was released in cinemas on 25 February 2022. Earlier, the film was scheduled for release on 30 July 2021 but it was postponed due to the rising cases and second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was then scheduled for worldwide release in theatres on 6 January 2022 but to avoid clash with S. S. Rajamouli's "RRR", the release has been changed to 18 February. Later, the date was pushed back by a week to release on 25 February 2022.


title: Gangubai Kathiawadi

text: The film is now streaming on Netflix from 26 April 2022. In June 2022, the film became the most-watched Indian film on Netflix.


title: Gangubai Kathiawadi

text: "Gangubai Kathiawadi" received critical acclaim with praise directed towards the performances (particularly Bhatt, Raaz, Maheshwari, Devgn and Pahwa), music, production design, cinematography, storyline and Bhansali's direction. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 88% based on 16 reviews and an average rating of 7/10.


title: Gangubai Kathiawadi

text: Sushri Sahu of "Mashable" gave the film a rating of 4.5/5 and wrote "Sanjay Leela Bhansali's 'Gangubai Kathiawadi' starring Alia Bhatt, Ajay Devgn and others is an absolute crowd-puller. Mugdha Kapoor Safaya of "DNA India" gave the film a rating of 4/5 and wrote "The film's narrative is such that you will empathise with Gangu, root for her and cheer for her with every small victory, but never pity her." Jagadish Angadi of "Deccan Herald" gave the film a rating of 4/5 and wrote "Alia Bhat as Gangubai is exceptionally brilliant.The linear storytelling effectively highlights multiple conflicts of Gangubai. Wendy Ide of "The Guardian" gave the film a rating of 4/5 and wrote "The hard-hitting story of a sex worker who rises through the ranks of 60s gangland Mumbai is powered by a magnetic performance from Alia Bhatt".


title: Gangubai Kathiawadi

text: Ronak Kotecha of "The Times of India" gave a rating of 3.5/5 and wrote "With whatever is packed into this drama, there are enough moments that will draw you into this world where nights seem endless and the lights never fade." Saibal Chatterjee of "NDTV" gave the film a rating of 3.5/5 and wrote "The visually sumptuous character study, more baroque than 1950s Bombay, is at once sweeping and intimate". Tushar Joshi of "India Today" gave a rating of 3.5/5 and wrote "Gangubai Kathiawadi's camera work, background score and dialogues are the three pillars that take it from being just another gutsy biopic to a film that creates a massive impact. Gangubai is a solid risk for both Bhansali and Alia. A risk that pays off beautifully for both the director and his muse". Prathap Nair of "Firstpost" gave a rating of 3.5/5 and wrote "Written by Bhansali and Utkarshini Vashishtha, it flips the narrative by handing out extraordinary concessions to the female lead at its heart, not entirely a frequent occurrence in Bollywood". "Bollywood Hungama" gave the film a rating of 3.5/5 and wrote "Alia Bhatt starrer Gangubai Kathiawadi is a powerful saga and is embellished with terrific moments and a career best performance by Alia Bhatt. At the box office, it has bright chances to score with the multiplex and female audiences". Stutee Ghosh of "The Quint" gave the film a rating of 3.5/5 and wrote "Gangubai Kathiawadi is a Sanjay Leela Bhansali canvas and a complete Alia Bhatt show".


title: Gangubai Kathiawadi

text: Sukanya Verma of "Rediff" gave the film a rating of 3.5/5 and wrote "Something in Alia has surely changed after Gangubai.Her entire performance is about proving to herself and not to the world what she can do, feels Sukanya Verma". Sanjana Jadhav of "Pinkvilla" gave the film a rating of 3.5/5 and wrote "Alia Bhatt and the cast performance, Bhansali's visuals and a sneak peek into this brutal world makes it a definite watch". Devesh Sharma of "Filmfare" gave the film a rating of 3.5/5 and wrote " SLB has again given us a film which keeps us glued to our seats for close to three hours". Shubhra Gupta of "The Indian Express" gave the film a rating of 3/5 and wrote "Sanjay Leela Bhansali's latest is the kind of old-fashioned dialogue-heavy, sentiment-on-sleeve film which Bollywood is forgetting how to make". Monika Rawal Kukreja of "Hindustan Times" wrote "Alia Bhatt...has given a superlative performance as Gangubai". Anuj Kumar of "The Hindu" wrote "This is easily Bhansali at his best as he has been able to marry craft with content; here, he attempts a Pakeezah for the millennials and almost succeeds". Sonia Dedhia of "News18" wrote "Alia Bhatt practically disappears into the character of Gangubai Kathiawadi. There's a hard-to-miss intensity in her eyes, and tenacity in her voice".


title: Gangubai Kathiawadi

text: "Gangubai Kathiawadi" earned 10.50 crore at the domestic box office on its opening day. On the second day, the film collected 13.32 crore. On the third day, the film collected 15.30 crore, taking total domestic weekend collection to 39.12 crore.


title: Gangubai Kathiawadi

text: , the film grossed crore in India and crore overseas, for a worldwide gross collection of crore, recovering its budget and emerging as a commercial success. The film grossed over worldwide, becoming the fifth highest grossing Hindi films of 2022. "Bollywood Hungama" and "Box Office India" stated that the film's box-office verdict as "hit."


title: Gangubai Kathiawadi

text: "Gangubai Kathiawadi" is credited as one of the films which has revived the movie business post Covid-19 Pandemic. It is considered as an "ice-breaker" for Bollywood since it was the first Hindi film to pull audiences back to the cinema halls after the pandemic. "Bollywood Hungama" noted that "Gangubai Kathiawadi's" commercial performance has given the much-needed hope to the industry that the box-office in the near future would fire up even more. They also noted Bhatt's ability to shoulder a film on her own and stated, ‘‘Actresses often are not able to do so and need the help of a male actor to get audiences to cinemas. Alia, on the other hand, stands out and she doesn't need any hero's support. Without a male actor, she has managed to deliver a film that's all set to enter the 100 crore club and that speaks volumes’’. Additionally, "Bollywood Hungama" further noted that, there's a belief that the cinema-going audience primarily consists of males. As a result, testosterone-driven films aimed at men would have a high chance of succeeding and fairer sex can't make a film a hit. However, "Gangubai Kathiawadi's" box office performance proves that even women audiences can take the film into the 'hit' or even the 'super-hit' zone. Bhatt's look in "Gangubai Kathiawadi" inspired Malaysia's Northern Haute Couture Fashion Show 2022. "Deadline Hollywood" noted that "Gangubai Kathiawadi" proved to be a ‘‘rare-breakout’’ for a female-led Bollywood feature.


title: Norm Macdonald

text: Norman Gene Macdonald (October 17, 1959September 14, 2021) was a Canadian stand-up comedian, actor, and writer. His stand-up style was characterized by a slow, almost stuttering deadpan delivery and the use of folksy, old-fashioned turns of phrase. He appeared in many films and was a regular guest on late-night talk shows, where he became best known for telling shaggy dog stories.


title: Norm Macdonald

text: Early in his career, Macdonald's first work on television included writing for such comedies as "Roseanne" and "The Dennis Miller Show". In 1993, Macdonald was hired as a writer and cast member on "Saturday Night Live" ("SNL"), spending a total of five seasons on the series, which included anchoring the show's "Weekend Update" segment for three and a half seasons. He was removed as host of "SNL"s "Weekend Update" in 1998, allegedly for relentlessly mocking O. J. Simpson during his murder trial, offending producer Don Ohlmeyer, of whom Simpson was a close friend. After being fired from "SNL", he wrote and starred in the 1998 film "Dirty Work" and headlined his own sitcom "The Norm Show" from 1999 to 2001. Macdonald was also a voice actor, and provided voice acting roles for "Family Guy", "The Fairly OddParents", "Mike Tyson Mysteries", "The Orville", and the "Dr. Dolittle" films.


title: Norm Macdonald

text: Between 2013 and 2018, Macdonald hosted the talk shows "Norm Macdonald Live" (a video podcast) and "Norm Macdonald Has a Show" (a Netflix series), on which he interviewed comedians and other celebrities. In 2016, he authored "Based on a True Story", a novel that presented a heavily fictionalized account of his life. Macdonald died of leukemia in September 2021, a condition he had not publicly disclosed. He was 61 years old at the time.


title: Norm Macdonald

text: Norm Macdonald was born in Quebec City, Quebec. His parents, Ferne (née Mains) and Percy Lloyd Macdonald (1916–1990), were both Anglophone teachers. They worked at CFB Valcartier, a military base north of Quebec City. As a child, his father would not let him learn French. Macdonald's father died in 1990 of heart disease.


title: Norm Macdonald

text: He attended Quebec High School before his family moved to Ottawa, Ontario. In Ottawa, Macdonald attended Gloucester High School, where he graduated two years early. He studied mathematics at Carleton University in Ottawa before dropping out. Macdonald was later also briefly enrolled in Algonquin College's programs for journalism and broadcasting-television, working a variety of manual labor jobs in between periods of school and before starting in comedy. He had an older brother, Neil Macdonald, who is a journalist with CBC News (and is married to Joyce Napier, a journalist with CTV News) and a younger brother named Leslie.


title: Norm Macdonald

text: Macdonald's first performances in comedy were at stand-up clubs in Ottawa, regularly appearing on amateur nights at Yuk Yuk's in 1985. He did not appreciate how well his first performance at the club had gone, and he bolted out, saying he would never do it again. The club's owner, Howard Wagman, had to persuade him to come back for more. Eventually his confidence grew. Six months later he performed at the 1986 Just For Laughs Comedy Festival in Montreal, and he was heralded by the "Montreal Gazette" as "one of this country's hottest comics." By 1990, he would perform as a contestant on "Star Search". He also appeared on "Late Night with David Letterman," and the host became a huge fan, saying: "If we could have, we would have had Norm on every week". He was hired as a writer for television sitcom "Roseanne" for the 1992–93 season before quitting to join "Saturday Night Live".


title: Norm Macdonald

text: Macdonald joined the cast of NBC's "Saturday Night Live" ("SNL") television program in 1993, where he performed impressions of Larry King, Burt Reynolds, David Letterman, Quentin Tarantino, Charles Kuralt, and Bob Dole, among others. The following year, during the show's twentieth season, Macdonald anchored the segment "Weekend Update", a spoof news section.


title: Norm Macdonald

text: His version of "Weekend Update" often included references to prison rape, crack whores, and the Germans' love of "Baywatch" star David Hasselhoff. He would occasionally deliver a piece of news before taking out his personal compact tape recorder and leave a "note to self" relevant to what he just discussed. He commonly used Frank Stallone as a non-sequitur punchline.


title: Norm Macdonald

text: And finally, in Falls City, Nebraska, John Lotter has been sentenced to death for attempting to kill three people in what prosecutors called a plot to silence a cross-dressing female who had accused him of rape. Now, this might strike some viewers as harsh but I believe everyone involved in this story should die.


title: Norm Macdonald

text: The comments were met with sharp criticism from trans and queer communities and organisations including The Transexual Menace, who threatened to picket "SNL" in the absence of an apology. Upon reviewing the show, NBC agreed the line was inappropriate and should not have aired, and said it would ensure that similar incidents would not happen in the future.


title: Norm Macdonald

text: After the announcement that Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley planned to divorce, Macdonald joked about their irreconcilable differences on "Weekend Update". "According to friends, the two were never a good match. She's more of a stay-at-home type, and he's more of a homosexual pedophile." He followed this up a few episodes later with a report about the singer's collapse and hospitalization. Referring to a report of how Jackson had decorated his hospital room with giant photographs of Shirley Temple, Macdonald added: "But don't get any ideas: Michael Jackson is a "homosexual" pedophile."


title: Norm Macdonald

text: In early 1998, Don Ohlmeyer, president of NBC's West Coast division, had Macdonald removed as "Weekend Update" anchor, citing a decline in ratings and a drop-off in quality. He was replaced by Colin Quinn at the "Weekend Update" desk beginning on the January 10, 1998, episode.


title: Norm Macdonald

text: Macdonald believed at the time that the true reason for his dismissal was his series of O. J. Simpson jokes during and after the trial, frequently calling him a murderer; Ohlmeyer was a good friend of Simpson and supported him during the proceedings. After being removed from the role, Macdonald went on CBS's "Late Show with David Letterman" and Howard Stern's syndicated radio show; in both appearances, the hosts accused Ohlmeyer of firing him for making jokes about Simpson. The jokes were written primarily by Macdonald and longtime "SNL" writer Jim Downey, who was fired from "SNL" at the same time. Downey pointed out in an interview that Ohlmeyer threw a party for the jurors who acquitted Simpson.


title: Norm Macdonald

text: Ohlmeyer claimed that Macdonald was mistaken, pointing out he had not censored Jay Leno's many jokes about Simpson on "The Tonight Show". Ohlmeyer stated he was concerned that ratings research showed people turning away from the program during Macdonald's segment; likewise, network insiders told the New York "Daily News" that Ohlmeyer and other executives had tried several times to get Macdonald to try a different approach on "Update".


title: Norm Macdonald

text: Macdonald remained on "SNL" as a cast member, but he disliked performing in regular sketches. On February 28, 1998, in one of his last appearances on "SNL", he played the host of a fictitious TV series titled "Who's More Grizzled?" who asked questions from "mountain men", played by that night's host Garth Brooks and special guest Robert Duvall. In the sketch, Brooks's character says to Macdonald's character, "I don't much care for you," to which Macdonald replies, "A lot of people don't." He was dismissed shortly thereafter.


title: Norm Macdonald

text: Matters intensified when Ohlmeyer prevented NBC from airing advertisements from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for Macdonald's then-new film "Dirty Work" out of retaliation for what he saw as disparaging "SNL" and NBC with Letterman and Stern. Robert Wright, Ohlmeyer's boss, later overturned the decision not to show ads for the movie on NBC, but did leave in place the ban on playing it during "SNL". Macdonald continued to insist that he did not personally dislike Ohlmeyer but that Ohlmeyer hated him.


title: Norm Macdonald

text: Macdonald complained about NBC's advertising removal for his film to the New York "Daily News", calling Ohlmeyer a "liar and a thug." He said he never badmouthed "SNL" or Michaels, who he said always supported him. Macdonald pointed out that he had only taken issue with Ohlmeyer, whereas the people taking shots at NBC and "SNL" were Letterman, who wanted Macdonald to come to CBS, and Stern, who wanted him to join his show opposite "SNL". Macdonald also asserted that Ohlmeyer's influence resulted in cancellation of promotional appearances for his film on WNBC's "Today in New York", NBC's "Late Night with Conan O'Brien", and the syndicated "Access Hollywood" (a joint venture between 20th Century Television and NBC). The shows that Macdonald named denied being influenced by Ohlmeyer. Macdonald said Ohlmeyer was "about a thousand times more powerful than I am. It's difficult for anybody to take my side in this. This guy should get a life, man."


title: Norm Macdonald

text: Members of the media found irony in the situation, as "Dirty Work" was promoted as a "revenge comedy." When an interviewer pointed this out, Macdonald said: "It would be good revenge if everybody went and saw this movie if they want to get revenge against Don Ohlmeyer for trying to ban my ads." In a "Late Show with David Letterman" interview, Macdonald stated that after being dismissed from anchoring "Weekend Update" and leaving "SNL", he could not "do anything else on any competing show."


title: Norm Macdonald

text: In later years, he came to the conclusion that Ohlmeyer had not removed him from "Update" for his Simpson material; rather, he felt he was removed because he was seen as insubordinate: "I think the whole show was tired of me not taking marching orders. Lorne would hint at things... I'd do Michael Jackson jokes. And Lorne would say, 'do you really want a lawsuit from Michael Jackson?' And I'd say, 'Cool! That'd be fuckin' cool, Michael Jackson suing me!'" Elsewhere, Macdonald would concede, "In all fairness to him, my Update was not an audience[-]pleasing, warm kind of thing. I did jokes that I knew weren't going to get bigger reactions. So I saw [Ohlmeyer's] point. Why would you want some dude who's not trying to please the audience?"


title: Norm Macdonald

text: Macdonald returned to "Saturday Night Live" to host the October 23, 1999, show. In his opening monologue, he expressed resentment at being fired from "Weekend Update", and then he concluded that the only reason he was asked to host was because "the show has gotten really bad" since he left, echoing a perennial criticism of the show.


title: Norm Macdonald

text: Soon after leaving "Saturday Night Live", Macdonald co-wrote and starred in the "revenge comedy" "Dirty Work" (1998), directed by Bob Saget, co-starring Artie Lange, and featuring Chris Farley in his last film; the film was dedicated to his memory. Later that year, Macdonald voiced Lucky in the Eddie Murphy adaptation of "Dr. Dolittle". He reprised the role in both "Dr. Dolittle 2" (2001) and "Dr. Dolittle 3" (2006).


title: Norm Macdonald

text: In 1999, Macdonald starred in "The Norm Show" (later renamed "Norm"), co-starring Laurie Metcalf, Artie Lange, and Ian Gomez. It ran for three seasons on ABC. Earlier in 1999, he made a cameo appearance in the Andy Kaufman biographical drama "Man on the Moon", directed by Miloš Forman. When Michael Richards refused to portray himself in the scene reenacting the famous "Fridays" incident in which Kaufman threw water in his face, Macdonald stepped in to play Richards, although he was not referred to by name. Macdonald also appeared in Forman's previous film "The People vs. Larry Flynt" (1996) as a reporter summoned to Flynt's mansion regarding secret tapes involving automaker John DeLorean.


title: Norm Macdonald

text: In 2000, Macdonald played the starring role for the second time in a motion picture alongside Dave Chappelle, "Screwed", which fared poorly at the box office. He continued to make appearances on television shows and in films. Also in 2000, Macdonald made his first appearance on "Family Guy," as the voice of Death. That role was later recast to Adam Carolla. On November 12, 2000, he appeared on the Celebrity Edition of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?", winning $500,000 for Paul Newman's Hole in the Wall Charity Camp, but could have won the million if he had ignored the advice of host Regis Philbin.


title: Norm Macdonald

text: In 2003, Macdonald played the title character in the Fox sitcom "A Minute with Stan Hooper", which was cancelled after six episodes. In 2005, Macdonald signed a deal with Comedy Central to create the sketch comedy "Back to Norm", which debuted that May. The pilot, whose cold opening parodied the suicide of Budd Dwyer, featured as a cast member Rob Schneider and never turned into a series. Later in 2005, Macdonald voiced a genie named Norm on the Nickelodeon cartoon series "The Fairly OddParents".


title: Norm Macdonald

text: In 2006, Macdonald again performed as a voice actor, this time in a series of commercials for the Canadian mobile-services provider Bell Mobility, as the voice of Frank the Beaver. The campaign was extended through 2008 to promote offerings from other Bell Canada divisions such as the Internet provider Bell Sympatico and the satellite service Bell Satellite TV. In September 2006, Macdonald's sketch comedy album "Ridiculous" was released by Comedy Central Records. It features appearances by Will Ferrell, Jon Lovitz, Tim Meadows, Molly Shannon, and Artie Lange. On the comedy website Super Deluxe, he created an animated series entitled "The Fake News". Macdonald filled in during Dennis Miller's weekly "Miller Time" segment on "O'Reilly Factor", and guest-hosted Miller's radio show, on which he was briefly a weekly contributor.


title: Norm Macdonald

text: Macdonald was a guest character on "My Name Is Earl" in the episode "Two Balls, Two Strikes" (2007) as Lil Chubby, the son of "Chubby" (played by Burt Reynolds), similar to Macdonald's portrayals of Reynolds on "SNL". On June 19, 2008, Macdonald was a celebrity panellist on two episodes of a revived version of the game show "Match Game". On August 17, 2008, Macdonald was a participant in the "Comedy Central Roast of Bob Saget", performing intentionally cheesy and G-rated material that contrasted greatly with the raunchy performances of the other roasters. In AT&T commercials around Christmas 2007 and 2008, Macdonald voiced a gingerbread boy in a commercial for AT&T's GoPhone.


title: Norm Macdonald

text: In 2009, Macdonald and Sam Simon pitched a fake reality show to FX called "The Norm Macdonald Reality Show" where Macdonald would play a fictional, down-on-his-luck version of himself. The show was picked up and Garry Shandling was added to the cast, but it was cancelled halfway through filming. On the May 16, 2009, episode of "Saturday Night Live", Macdonald reappeared as Burt Reynolds on "Celebrity Jeopardy!", and in another sketch. On May 31, 2009, he appeared on "Million Dollar Password".