For indispensable reporting on the coronavirus crisis, the election, and more, subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily newsletter.





Liz Cheney is running for Senate. On Tuesday, the former State Department official and daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney kicked off her primary challenge to Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) with a YouTube video warning that, among other things, President Obama is “working to preemptively disarm America”:

Cheney has never run for elected office, but she’s no stranger to national politics. Here’s a quick primer:

1. She moved to Wyoming last year.

2. She is Darth Vader Dick Cheney’s daughter. (Did we mention that?)

3. She thinks the president isn’t serious about disarming Al Qaeda. It’s a good thing he waited until after he killed Osama bin Laden.

4. Not only that, but she’s convinced he’s doing this because he actually wants to make America weaker: “The president has so effectively diminished American strength abroad that there is no longer a question of whether this was his intent. He is working to pre-emptively disarm the United States.”

5. She thinks it’s “libelous” to call waterboarding “torture.”

6. Her organization, Keep America Safe, referred to lawyers who advocated for the rights of Guantanamo detainees as the “Al Qaeda Seven” and suggested they sympathized with terrorists:

7.

8. She fought the construction of the Park 51 Islamic center in Lower Manhattan, arguing that it would be a victory for terrorists:

9. She defended birthers by explaining that “people are fundamentally uncomfortable and fundamentally I think increasingly uncomfortable with an American president who seems to be afraid to defend America, stand up for what we believe in.”

10. She supported the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. No really.

Wyoming, a state with two working escalators, has two senators in Washington due to the infallibility of the Founding Fathers. The official state dinosaur is the triceratops. In February 2012, legislators in Cheyenne briefly considered building an aircraft carrier to prepare for a societal collapse.