Bagwell Appreciation

Thanks for the memories, Bagmaster.

Cheney keeps lying even as DoD refutes him

God, I wish I could blog about something besides this asshole:

Vice President Dick Cheney repeated his assertions of al-Qaida links to Saddam Hussein's Iraq on Thursday as the Defense Department released a report citing more evidence that the prewar government did not cooperate with the terrorist group.

How fucking stupid must someone be to believe anything this sorry bastard says any more? Oh, that's right; this was on Rush Limbaugh's radio program.

"He took up residence there before we ever launched into Iraq, organized the al-Qaida operations inside Iraq before we even arrived on the scene and then, of course, led the charge for Iraq until we killed him last June," Cheney told radio host Rush Limbaugh during an interview. "As I say, they were present before we invaded Iraq."

However, a declassified Pentagon report released Thursday said that interrogations of the deposed Iraqi leader and two of his former aides as well as seized Iraqi documents confirmed that the terrorist organization and the Saddam government were not working together before the invasion.

The Sept. 11 Commission's 2004 report also found no evidence of a collaborative relationship between Saddam and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network.

The stupid! It burns!

More batshit nutcake bloviating from these two bleeding rectums here. And while we're on the topic of right wing freaks parading their insanity, watch Bill O'Reilly blow a gasket at Geraldo Rivera.

The more the Right bitches about undocumented workers as seemingly their primary concern, the more shrill and obnoxious they sound. It's not quite as ignorant as the link between Saddam and al-Qaida, but it's still pretty foolish.

Tell the truth

That's what Mos Def (excellent in the recently-viewed 16 Blocks) and Eminem ask Bush to do. I hope they aren't holding their breath:

TIME: An administration's epic collapse

When a conservative lickspittle like Joe Klein takes a dump on Bush, you know that our long national nightmare is almost over:

The first three months of the new Democratic Congress have been neither terrible nor transcendent. A Pew poll had it about right: a substantial majority of the public remains happy the Democrats won in 2006, but neither Nancy Pelosi nor Harry Reid has dominated the public consciousness as Newt Gingrich did when the Republicans came to power in 1995. There is a reason for that. A much bigger story is unfolding: the epic collapse of the Bush Administration.

The three big Bush stories of 2007--the decision to "surge" in Iraq, the scandalous treatment of wounded veterans at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys for tawdry political reasons--precisely illuminate the three qualities that make this Administration one of the worst in American history: arrogance (the surge), incompetence (Walter Reed) and cynicism (the U.S. Attorneys).

No excerpt does this evisceration justice. Go read the whole damning thing.

The media still reeks

The recent Correspondents' Dinner -- where the MSM and government elite meet to eat, drink, and whore themselves out -- was a demonstrable success again this year:



And I had such high hopes for NBC's David Gregory.

Glenn Greenwald (via Vast Left Wing Conspiracy) reminds us again what we have lost:

Even six months after this country invaded Iraq, 70% of Americans continued to believe that Saddam helped personally plan the 9/11 attacks. That heinous fact, by itself, should have provoked a major crisis in political journalism -- a desperate effort to find out what went so fundamentally wrong. Yet it did nothing of the sort. Most of the energies of national journalists are devoted instead to defending how they operate and, most of all, condescendingly disparaging their critics as shrill partisans who don't understand the real role of journalists.

I honestly find it unfathomable that any national journalist[s]... can defend their profession, and deny that there are deep-seated and fundamental flaws in it, when this country started a war with the overwhelming majority of citizens -- 70% -- believing an absolute, complete myth, a known falsehood, one which, more than anything else, caused them to support that war. Leaving aside every other issue of gullible, government-propaganda-based reporting, that fact standing alone is a towering indictment of our country's press corps, and the fact that they continue to believe that the way they operate is proper, that they are sufficiently adversarial to the political powers that be, and that it is their critics who are "ideological" and therefore easily dismissed -- all reveals that they have not changed at all.

They may not know it, but the disaster of the Iraq War and the absolute myths which they allowed to take root -- and which they never investigated, exposed or attacked -- is an inescapable indictment of what they do. That is the foundation on which media criticism rests, and there is nothing "partisan" about it. It is the opposite of "partisan." It is instead a demand that the media fulfill their core responsibility -- to serve as an adversarial check on government -- a responsibility which they have profoundly abdicated.

Really, it's no wonder Karl Rove is still dancing and smiling and laughing.

Sunday Funnies (performance-related edition)

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*.