Trading views

The Texas Medical Center, looking north, from my old balcony (note the utility wires and the Dumpsters in the foreground).


New view (also the TMC, from the west looking east):



We traded up a little, indeed.

Regular posting to resume in short order.

Sunday Funnies IV (everything else edition)

Sunday Funnies III (Anniversary edition)

Sunday Funnies II (Executive privileges edition)

Sunday Funnies (Gone-zo edition)

Tex-centric postpourri

-- The Harris County sheriff's department will not try to recover the body of a woman murdered and thrown in a Dumpster because it would cost too much to dig her out of the landfill. I'm guessing this is going to be an issue in the coming municipal elections; the Democratic candidate for sheriff will probably be former HPD chief C. O. Bradford, no stranger to controversy himself. Particularly if the racial angle on this case is widened, it will be a problem for the GOP incumbent, Tommy Thompson Thomas.

-- OSHA don't come around here no more (which is probably why the refineries blow up so frequently).

-- The connection between the US attorney purge and the Texas Youth Commission sexual abuse scandal is noted by Czolgosz at DU: the president's appointees in the US attorney's office dropped the indictment in connection with the failure of oversight by the governor's appointees at the Texas Youth Commission, where minors in state custody were raped.

Texas Ranger Brian Burzynski explains:

"... I decided to file the case federally. An assistant US attorney in San Antonio and one from Washington D.C. came down and interviewed the victims. Following that," (the DoJ attorneys) "prepared an indictment but had to pass it up the chain of command for approval to prosecute. In the end, they didn’t get that approval because in essence, they could only be charged with misdemeanors under federal law. Federal law requires ' bodily injury' to make civil rights violations a felony".

Here is the actual email he sent setting out the sickening background. (It's a .pdf file.)

The assistant US attorney for the Western district of Texas, Bill Baumann, further explained that he dropped the indictment because "a felony charge under 18 U.S.C section 242 can also be predicated on the commission of 'aggravated sexual abuse' or the attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse. The offense of aggravated sexual abuse is proven with evidence that the perpetrator knowingly caused his victim to engage in a sexual act... by using force against the victim... Although none of the victims admit that they consented to the sexual contact, none resisted or voiced any objection to the conduct."

Yes, I'm sure that's true. More lurid details of this case here.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott was informed about the sexual abuse, but his men were busy peeking in little old ladies' bathroom windows (.pdf). The governor's office knew about the sexual abuse as early as 2004 2001 but felt "no need to respond" to allegations.

This is truly the worst yet, and it touches all the elements. And all the criminals, in both Washington and Austin.

-- On a lighter note, there is more evidence that Sheila Jackson-Lee just can't stay outside of the camera frame.

-- My soon-to-be-former state representative Borris Miles (only because I'm moving out of his district) threw gasoline on the controversy he started by removing art he deemed objectionable from the Capitol's hallway last week. I called his office and registered my complaint with his active censorship. I found that response more objectionable than the artwork in question, but there are several of my kindred progressive spirits who disagree.

Moving this weekend, so light posting ahead. I'm exchanging representation across the board as a result: trading Cong. Al Green, state Sen. Rodney Ellis, and Miles for John Culberson *puke*, Kyle Janek *meh*, and Ellen Cohen *yay*.

Why Gitmo can't be shut down yet (it's because of Gone-zo and Cheney)

From the "Liberal Bible" (my bold):

In his first weeks as defense secretary, Robert M. Gates repeatedly argued that the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, had become so tainted abroad that legal proceedings at Guantánamo would be viewed as illegitimate, according to senior administration officials. He told President Bush and others that it should be shut down as quickly as possible.

Mr. Gates’s appeal was an effort to turn Mr. Bush’s publicly stated desire to close Guantánamo into a specific plan for action, the officials said. In particular, Mr. Gates urged that trials of terrorism suspects be moved to the United States, both to make them more credible and because Guantánamo’s continued existence hampered the broader war effort, administration officials said.

Mr. Gates’s arguments were rejected after Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and some other government lawyers expressed strong objections to moving detainees to the United States, a stance that was backed by the office of Vice President Dick Cheney, administration officials said.

As Mr. Gates was making his case, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice joined him in urging that the detention facility be shut down, administration officials said. But the high-level discussions about closing Guantánamo came to a halt after Mr. Bush rejected the approach, although officials at the National Security Council, the Pentagon and the State Department continue to analyze options for the detention of terrorism suspects.

The base at Guantánamo holds about 385 prisoners, among them 14 senior leaders of al Qaeda, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who were transferred to it last year from secret prisons run by the Central Intelligence Agency. Under the Pentagon’s current plans, some prisoners, including Mr. Mohammed, will face war crimes charges under military trials that could begin later this year.

“The policy remains unchanged,” said Gordon D. Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council.

Even so, one senior administration official who favors the closing of the facility said the battle might be renewed.

“Let’s see what happens to Gonzales,” that official said, referring to speculation that Mr. Gonzales will be forced to step down, or at least is significantly weakened, because of the political uproar over the dismissal of United States attorneys. “I suspect this one isn’t over yet.”

Pressure mounts on another front, but the prezdent will just go for a bike ride while Dick handles it (meaning he's reloading his shotgun). These people are mostly impervious to this sort of thing.

But I don't think Dick has enough birdshot to stave this one off.

Abandoning habeas corpus and torturing "detainees" are war crimes, plainly and simply. And a couple of this administration's vilest criminals understand that. They will be pursued by rogue elements of democratic justice for as long as they live, long after this administration is removed from power.

But like every other roach in the cupboard, they'll run and hide as long as they can.

Or as long as we allow them to.

Nixon's gap was 18 minutes.

Bush's is 18 days.

(T)he emails released by the Justice Department seem to have a gap between November 15th and December 4th of last year. ...

The firing calls went out on December 7th. But the original plan was to start placing the calls on November 15th. So those eighteen days are pretty key ones.

I would say this comparison is priceless, except it's just not funny. To be clear, this controversy is largely of the administration's own device. A Gonzales resignation or firing would have quelled it, and though the AG's base of support has eroded to a single person, it's the only one that counts (The Decider). And the talking points for the VRWC include personal attacks on Charles Schumer, but that's simply a smear that will fail to gain traction any place but FreeRepublic.com.

Even Howard Kurtz, long the sycophant to the Bushies, is getting off:

Some anchors and commentators described Bush at his brief news conference yesterday as "angry," but I thought he was trying to sound reasonable. Of course Karl Rove and Harriet Miers will be happy to chat with Democratic investigators, but no troublesome details like transcripts (so the rest of us can find out what was said) or being under oath (to avoid any Scooter Libby problems). And no "partisan fishing expeditions" (unlike the high-minded approach that congressional Republicans took with Bill Clinton, when Dan Burton fired shots at a pumpkin to test his Vince Foster-was-murdered theory.) And please, no Stalinesque "show trials."

Not angry, not defiant. The president was screechy and unhinged yesterday in his press conference regarding the prosecutor firings. Candidly, it frightens me that this man is making decisions about wars, ongoing and imminent. Bush badly needs a diversion, and I hope it doesn't involves bombs.

Update: Anna succinctly provides the looming constitutional crisis.

Update II: Make that "nasty and bumbling".

Why is the prosecutor purge a scandal?

GONZALES: I would never, ever make a change in a United States attorney position for political reasons or if it would, in any way, jeopardize an ongoing serious investigation. I just would not do it.

When asked on Meet the Press yesterday morning if he "had any evidence that a U.S. attorney was removed and that removal jeopardized an ongoing investigation," Sen. Chuck Schumer said he does and that the evidence is "becoming more and more overwhelming."

This is why the prosecutor purge is a genuine scandal. Former AG John Ashcroft had a standard spiel for new U.S. attorneys: "You have to leave politics at the door to do this job properly." Maintaining that independence without fear of repercussion is the bedrock principle at stake here.

As the top law enforcement official in each of their jurisdictions, these federal prosecutors have the power to destroy reputations, careers and even lives. They're political appointees, but they're supposed to follow the evidence wherever it leads, without fear or favor. Not only is there clear evidence that the firings were unprecedented and purely politically motivated, but Alberto Gonzales lied about it under oath (see the video entry for January 18) and the White House keeps changing its story.

What conclusion can we draw from this other than they have something to hide?

Namely, that these eight prosecutors were selectively fired because they did not sufficiently politicize their offices -- nor did they succumb to pressure to do so -- only later to be fired for "performance-related" reasons despite receiving exemplary evaluations.

Scooter Libby should have thought to remind Gonzales that it's never the offense but the cover-up that gets you. Every. single. time.

Evangelicals against the war

Bush has lost the Christians:

Thousands of Christians prayed for peace at an anti-war service Friday night at the Washington National Cathedral, kicking off a weekend of protests around the country to mark the fourth anniversary of the war in Iraq.

Afterward, participants marched with battery-operated faux candles through snow and wind toward the White House, where police began arresting protesters shortly before midnight. Protest guidelines require demonstrators to continue moving while on the White House sidewalk.

...

John Pattison, 29, said he and his wife flew in from Portland, Ore., to attend his first anti-war rally. He said his opposition to the war had developed over time.

"Quite literally on the night that shock and awe commenced, my friend and I toasted the military might of the United States," Pattison said. "We were quite proud and thought we were doing the right thing."

He said the way the war had progressed and U.S. foreign policy since then had forced him to question his beliefs.

"A lot of the rhetoric that we hear coming from Christians has been dominated by the religious right and has been strong advocacy for the war," Pattison said. "That's just not the way I read my Gospel."

The ecumenical coalition that organized the event, Christian Peace Witness for Iraq, distributed 3,200 tickets for the service in the cathedral, with two smaller churches hosting overflow crowds. The cathedral appeared to be packed, although sleet and snow prevented some from attending.

"This war, from a Christian point of view, is morally wrong — and was from the beginning," the Rev. Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners/Call to Renewal, one of the event's sponsors, said toward the end of the service to cheers and applause. "This war is ... an offense against God."

In his speech, the Rev. Raphael G. Warnock, senior pastor at Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist Church, lashed out at Congress for being "too morally inept to intervene" to stop the war, but even more harshly against President Bush.

"Mr. Bush, my Christian brother, we do need a surge in troops. We need a surge in the nonviolent army of the Lord," he said. "We need a surge in conscience and a surge in activism and a surge in truth-telling."

This week there are vigils all across Texas to peacefully protest the continuation of the war in Iraq.

W's consigliere

Or monster. Whichever it is, Abu Gonzales is a creation entirely of Bush's making:

At the lowest moment in the highest law enforcement office, with criticism pouring in from all sides, including from the president who appointed him, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales made a rare reference last week to his difficult past, speaking defiantly of his determination to weather the controversy over the firing of eight federal prosecutors.

“Let me just say one thing,” Gonzales said. “I’ve overcome a lot of obstacles in my life to become attorney general. I am here not because I give up. I am here because I’ve learned from my mistakes, because I accept responsibility, and because I’m committed to doing my job.”

Gonzales has rarely spoken of the turmoil that has shadowed his family, emphasizing instead an inspirational biography that takes him from a boyhood in a cramped house that lacked hot water all the way to the elbow of a president.

The story is indeed impressive. Gonzales’ parents, Pablo and Maria, met as migrant farmworkers in Texas and settled in Humble, a town north of Houston. Pablo Gonzales worked in construction and later as a maintenance man. He was a hard drinker but a good provider, the story goes, who, with two brothers, built a twobedroom house in which he raised Alberto and seven other children.

The reality, however, as reflected in public records and interviews, is grittier and more tragic. Gonzales’ family members have repeatedly stumbled, creating a bleak counterpoint to his dazzling rise to become the nation’s first Hispanic attorney general.

Gonzales’ father was arrested for drunken driving five times in 17 years, covering much of Gonzales’ childhood and adolescence. Pablo Gonzales died in an industrial accident in 1982 when Gonzales was at Harvard Law School.

A younger brother, Rene Gonzales, died under mysterious circumstances in 1980. In 1991, the same year Alberto Gonzales became one of the first Hispanic partners at the white shoe Houston law firm of Vinson & Elkins, his younger sister Theresa pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine with intent to deliver. Nine years later, while Gonzales was on the Texas Supreme Court, his mother and another brother signed over their houses to a bail bondsman to raise bail for Theresa after she was charged with the same offense.

Most of these details did not arise in his Senate confirmation hearings, even though they might reasonably have been thought to affect his views about crime, drug and alcohol policy, and sentencing — all issues overseen or influenced by an attorney general.

Their omissions illustrate the remarkable extent to which Gonzales, 51, has managed to control the telling of his life story and the impenetrability of his outwardly mild and friendly manner.

They are also a function of Gonzales’ peculiar rise to power, an official whose career in government, first in Texas and then in Washington, has been under the protective wing of a single man. Since 1995, Gonzales has worked exclusively in jobs given to him by George W. Bush.

Sort of clarifies why the Constitution has become so shreddable, doesn't it? The ulitmate lapdog in the penultimate position of protecting his master.

Bush made him, and he can break him just as easily. So far though, the prezdent is acting "pugnacious":

Republicans close to the White House tell CBS News that President Bush is in "his usual posture: pugnacious, that no one is going to tell him who to fire." But sources also said Gonzales' firing is just a matter of time.

The White House is bracing for a weekend of criticism and more calls for Gonzales to go. One source (says) he's never seen the administration in such deep denial, and Republicans are growing increasingly restless for the president to take action.

If Gonzales is not fired, then he should be impeached. Forthwith.

Along with Dr. Frankenstein.

Sunday Funnies

The first toon to fete ZZ Top, which closes the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo this afternoon: