More Sunday Funnies

Sunday Funnies

Good Puppy Academy, Class of 2007

The little black puppy (photo here) has given way to a tan adolescent. When Teddi gets her next grooming, her winter coat and baby fuzz will be gone, revealing a lanky dog; a German Shepard's body and a Chow-Chow's head.

She graduated from obedience school yesterday. Good thing it was a pass/fail course, because I would have graded her out C-minus on a curve.

Bush's "soiled and blood-soaked underwear" and additional bloggerrhea

-- Sean Penn defeated pretend-Fascist Stephen Colbert in last night's Metaphor-Off. This classic debate is one of the most hilarious things ever shown on television. No video I can yet find, but will add it here later. Here we go:



-- Freeper responses to yesterday's Gonzo-palooza:

"I am hoping against hope AG Gonzalez slaps these jerks down... Clinton’s firing of over 90 US attorneys... Gonzales needs to check his tongue the door... the AG is rambling... This is bad... AG is stuttering... Yikes... AG has nothing to loose by starting to kick some serious butt... He’s doing a little better now... I take it back. I’ll have a hub cap full of Marguerita’s please... Poor AG is simply not ready for the bigs... Pathetic... the Clintons... I keep wanting to tell Gonzo to stop talking... I’ll take 3 Rum Runners... This is not his best hearing... Gonzales is obviously a boob... Clinton and Reno... Its like watching someone eat themselves to death... I can’t take any more of this. Gonzales is pathetic... wounded deer in the clutches of wild beasts... GONZALES is getting reamed... this is like a tooth extraction without anaesthesia... Sadly, Shumer’s remarks seem to be correct... Make John Bolton the new AG in a recess appointment, or Ann Coulter... this worse than the a Friday the 13th movie. It is a bloodbath... Clinton... Clinton... Clinton... Is this guy retarded?... Gonzales is doing an awful job... Clinton... W needs to cut his loses... can anybody who is watching this really say that this is the guy we want as AG?... It’s embarrassing. Lights are on but nobody’s home... He is like Miers or Brown... After watching this I wouldn’t want him to handle a traffic ticket for me... Janet Reno... Clinton..."

Will Pitt, after watching the hearings:

I am sometimes motivated to distrust my own internal Outrage-O-Meter whenever the needle pins deep in the red zone. Am I just too involved? Too biased? Is my bottle so filled with this nonsense that small pours into it become flooding slop-overs?

I watched every second of those hearings.

I think that was among the most embarrassing things I've ever seen. I'm ashamed for my country after that. This man is in the line of succession? Egads and gad zooks.

Was it really as spoon-bendingly bad as it seemed to me?

-- Jimmie "JJ from Good Times" Walker and Annthrax Coulter draw the paparazzi like they usually draw flies. I'm so old I remember when JJ was as emaciated as Coulter.

-- "Internet Argument" is another great toon from August J. Pollack that couldn't wait for the Sunday Funnies.

-- Tom DeLay compares himself to the Duke lacrosse players who were falsely accused of rape, and repeats his double-negative: "I haven’t been found guilty of nothing."

Must stop here, because I'm still laughing so hard it's difficult to breathe.

Richardson outpolls "Other" and "No F'ing Clue"

Edwards stretches his lead over Obama to 43-25 in April's survey of Kossacks. Hillary finally pulls ahead of Kucinich, 3-2.

Update (4/18): Jerome has more polls and more analysis.

In other non-shooting-rampage related news ...

-- Go see a movie tonight with filmmaker and Houston native Richard Linklater at the MFAH. He's picked Some Came Running, Vincente Minnelli's 1958 film starring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and a very young Shirley MacLaine.

-- When the focus shifted from trying to catch drug traffickers to people crossing the border, then sure enough, drug prosecutions went down. Which of these is the real crime? (I realize you libertarians should answer 'neither'...)

-- My old state rep, the art censor, is building a large house in the district. A very large house.

-- Harris County's new judge, Ed Emmett, supports the completion of the Grand Parkway (bad) but sounds like he's opposed to both the TTC -- mostly he thinks it was bad PR -- and rail anywhere except on Richmond (both good, if true). He's not likely to do much about any of this until he faces the voters (and wins).

-- Republican state legislators are playing smoke-and-mirrors with the stem cell bill. Apparently they can only get things like this done when the Democrats aren't paying attention. South Texas Chisme has more on the story, and the Texas Freedom Network has a petition for you to show your support for stem cell research.

Restricting the Vote: HB-626

Tonight the Texas Progressive Alliance conferenced with John Courage and Terri Sperry of True Courage Action Network, Nate Isaacson of PFAW, and other voting rights activists on HB-626, the voter ID bill which would place too onerous a burden on the rights of Texans to cast their ballots.

The bill requires requires voters to provide a certified copy of a passport, birth certificate, or naturalization papers (proving citizenship) at the time of voter registration, and a photo ID at the polling place. Sonia Santana, my friend and the most engaged citizen in the state of Texas on this issue, posted a recent diary detailing the concerns. Vince and Hal posted on the bill's filing in January, and it comes up for a vote this week.

Certified copies -- not the original documents -- are necessary because the copies are retained by the voter registrar, which will no longer be the person you sign up with at the Wal-Mart, or the county fair, or even at the driver's license renewal office. Certified copies aren't inexpensive; costs vary but they're in the range of $20 to $30. That makes this requirement essentially a poll tax, which is precisely what the Republicans sponsoring it want to achieve: suppression of votes by minorities and less-than-wealthy people. But it also will exclude students, seniors, the disabled and many working people by putting too high a price on a person's time and mobility to acquire the proof.

People whose names have changed, through adoption or marriage, will be at an additional disadvantage. People born at home -- a not-so-insignificant number of people in Texas -- don't have a birth certificate, and as such will likewise be inconvenienced at best and disenfranchised at worst.

This is bad legislation with nefarious intent: suppressing the vote under the guise of a concern for a problem which exists only in the imagination of men like Karl Rove.

Contact your state representative and tell them to vote NO. Look up your state rep with this link.

Update (4/17): Paul Burka and I are in complete agreement.

Sunday Funnies

Frost on the postpourri

in April?

-- The guy who got Pipped by Jackie Robinson lives in Houston. (The link is not working at this posting. When the Chron fixes it, I'll note it here.) (Link fixed.) He got shafted by Branch Rickey but doesn't hold a grudge. This is another great story about the old school and baseball.

-- The fried chicken that saved New Orleans. I can't wait to eat it soon.

-- Brian Williams on blogging:

“You’re going to be up against people who have an opinion, a modem, and a bathrobe. All of my life, developing credentials to cover my field of work, and now I’m up against a guy named Vinny in an efficiency apartment in the Bronx who hasn’t left the efficiency apartment in two years.”

That sounds like the Vinny I know. It also sounds like Angie, rachel, Claude, and about a dozen other aliases he/she uses. And if Vinny is providing better information than Williams, what does that say about them? And NBC?

Here's an idea, Brian: do your job so we bloggers don't have to.

And for Jeebus' sake, who actually blogs in a bathrobe? I always go al fresco.

-- The Blogger's Code of Ethics just isn't for me, either.

-- The Price is Right Wing, with Tucker Carlson!

-- A dirty hippie blogs from Baghdad. Here's her blog. Thanks to the Lone Star Iconoclast for making sure the truth gets told, like always.

On slanguage

This conversation is the best result that's coming out of the Imus affair ...

Don Imus' firing Thursday was the result of a collision between mainstream popular culture and hip-hop culture. This generational and cultural debate has been fueled by the concept of "you people," whoever they — or we — are.

Imus testily used those words during his appearance on the Rev. Al Sharpton's radio show Monday. "You people" seemed directed at Sharpton and other activists more than African-Americans as a whole, unlike Ross Perot's use of that phrase during his 1992 presidential run.

Hip-hop has enjoyed tremendous crossover success. For better or worse, depending on one's tastes, it's unavoidable. And rap has, for years, been built on its street credibility, reflected in no small part in its slanguage. There are regional shorthands for cars, neighborhoods and other, more unsavory things. Hip-hop's impact explains how the phrase "nappy-headed hos" ever found its way to Imus' microphone.

"How can we ignore the problem that every 12-year-old in the country knows this phrase?" asks comedian-turned-gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman, who also has been accused of being a racist and sexist. "And we're giving Grammys to guys for using the same phrase that gets Imus fired."

Are some words simply the sole property for use only by certain (race-specific) people?

Can words or symbols be "owned" and repurposed? The theory that the rampant use of the n-word in hip-hop has removed its poison is faulty. Ask comedian Michael Richards. Or better yet, ask the black audience members at his comedy show that turned into an epithet-filled meltdown, complete with threats.

Salikoko S. Mufwene, a professor of linguistics at the University of Chicago, says, "It's a matter of who has authority in language. There are certain terms used in the African-American community that are not licensed to other people."

I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes. If you want the conservative talking point go read these comments.

Kurt Vonnegut 1922-2007

The author speaking at a rally against the Persian Gulf war in 1991.

The first book of his that I read was Breakfast of Champions, in 1974. I was a high school sophomore and thought I had just found some key to the universe. Here's what the NYT Book Review wrote when it was published the previous year:

You have to hand it to Kurt Vonnegut Jr. In his eighth novel, "Breakfast of Champions, or Goodbye Blue Monday," he performs considerable complex magic. He makes pornography seem like any old plumbing, violence like lovemaking, innocence like evil, and guilt like child's play. He wheels out all the latest fashionable complaints about America--her racism, her gift for destroying language, her technological greed and selfishness--and makes them seem fresh, funny, outrageous, hateful, and lovable, all at the same time. He draws pictures, for God's sake--simple, rough, yet surprisingly seductive sketches of everything from Volkswagens to electric chairs. He weaves into his plot a dozen or so glorious synopses of Vonnegut stories one almost wishes were fleshed out into whole books. He very nearly levitates.

Vonnegut was the greatest American novelist of our generation. That's only my humble o, but also certainly that of many others. Few writers have really grasped my mind around its figurative throat and shaken it like a dog with a rag as he did.

He was pretty much everything a free-thinking person could aspire to. His essays from In These Times were compiled into a short book called A Man Without a Country in 2005 and they chronicled his path from conservative to liberal, a trail I have similarly walked.

There's a photo of Vonnegut -- probably at an anti-war rally -- holding up a Bartcop sticker. Perhaps we'll see that and some other remembrances of the author today posted by others. I'll collect some and update here later. I'm a bit too distraught at the moment to collect and post all of my own feelings about the passing of this literary titan.

Updates (4/13):

Racy Mind quotes a random passage from Champions.

Tom Kirkendall is uncharacteristically snide.

Norbizness provides the scene from Rodney Dangerfield's epic Back to School.

Katrinacrat feels the loss and has the classic quote from God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater.

My Left Nutmeg has some YouTube of the man.

Monday: Ben Barnes. Tuesday, John Sharp.

Which washed-up conservative Democrat (or DINO) will the TDP power brokers -- who have no actual power to broker -- float today as our 2008 Senate selection?

Take the poll (reg. req.) or cast your vote in the comments.

Lone Star Project reveals Dewhurst can't complete his paper work

Now this is the sort of thing I would like to see Matt Angle do a lot more of:

Millionaire “Lite” Governor berates and belittles uninsured families, yet failed to

complete and file simple business forms.

Texas Lt. Governor David Dewhurst is among the harshest hardliners insisting that families who qualify for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) must reapply every six months or see their children dropped from the program. He recently said,"I don't think most people in Texas have a lot of sympathy for someone that can't fill out a two-page application every six months.'' (Dewhurst, Austin American-Statesman, January 25, 2007)

Public records obtained by the Lone Star Project, however, show that David Dewhurst himself has repeatedly failed to complete and file routine forms needed to do business legally in Texas. At least six times, businesses directed by, or connected to, David Dewhurst failed to fill out required forms in a timely fashion. In fact, David Dewhurst Investment Partnership was issued a Notice of Cancellation by the Texas Secretary of State on December 6, 2006, for failing to file a periodic report that is required only once every four years.

Go read the details. This man wants to be Governor or Senator or Vice President or President one day, just like Hutchison and Cornyn and 39% and Greg Abbott and all the rest of them.

Dewhurst is one of the most benign of our GOP incompetents; he comes across as genial but his statements on CHIP belie his antagonism toward poor people. And now he's demonstrated his hypocrisy as well.

Congratulations Lt. Governor, you're busted.

Sunday Funnies (Happy Easter edition)

To be glued to the tube

The Sopranos wrap things up starting tomorrow evening:

The two episodes that open the final run are, as Sopranos episodes tend to be, masterful examples of the TV art — tense, terrifically acted, carefully observed one-hour plays that delve ever more deeply into the characters while pushing the story slightly forward. They set the concluding mood and the theme, that of family issues coming to a head. But they don't do much to move us toward the conclusion, and that may not sit well with viewers who have clamored, if not for the end, at least for the end to begin.

Still, Tony clearly feels some end approaching, as his oncoming 47th birthday has left him pondering his legacy and his mortality. He has cobbled together a peace agreement with the New York Mob, but it's no more stable than his family — as reflected by a chillingly amusing game of Monopoly that Tony and Carm play with Janice (Aida Turturro) and Bobby (Steven R. Schirripa). These are people, we are continually reminded, who believe in all the rules except the ones that would constrain them.

Looking forward to this almost as much as I am the premeire of the new season of Entourage. More on that:

As it begins the last half of its third season, there's another force to be reckoned with. Amanda, Vince's new agent, plays the Hollywood game as well as any man. She works all hours, knows how to make things happen and takes no guff. She's the type of woman who uses everything at her disposal, including her sexuality.

Carla Gugino plays the part masterfully, as if she knows this person.

Ari knows this person, too, which is why he's as manic as ever but in a way that's spiraling down and out of control. Bottom line: He misses Vince, and he's willing to work at getting him back.

This isn't the Ari with whom we are familiar. Though in charge of his own business now, he's lost his mojo. Worse, he's gone soft. He no longer can take pleasure in firing. He feels the need to protect his gay assistant. He cannot win an argument with his and his wife's marriage counselor.

But if he can win back Vince, he can right his boat. And when even attempting to win him back proves positive, Ari decides to go all-out. Early episodes suggest that will lead to the mother of all smackdowns, with no clear winner.

Piven's performance is a beauty, a step up from his much-heralded, Emmy-winning portrayal of the past. He brings to these episodes a nuanced Ari. He's as conniving and manic as ever, but there's a heightened desperation and a tell-tale sign of heart not often seen in his earlier episodes.

Grenier also steps up his game. In previous years, he played at being cool. In these new episodes, he is cool. Some of E's smartness is rubbing off. Vince still needs E, but you get the impression he might do OK without him.

It's a testament to its makers that the show is growing. As sexy and funny as ever, Entourage is becoming television you don't want to go without.

And I don't.

This aspen has turned

Thank you, Nance:

It started when I heard President Bush’s Saturday radio address, and finally realized what an articulate statesman he is. Suddenly putting food on my family started to make sense, along with the War on Terror, the need for wire-tapping US citizens, and the necessity of doing away with quaint concepts like freedom in the pursuit of spreading democracy.

My transformation into a BushBot escalated quickly –- a kind of surge, if you will. Once I started speaking in talking points, I knew there was no turning back. I realized that facts were the enemy, and I had to fight ‘em over there as well as over here. So I bought a gas-guzzler, slapped a W sticker on the bumper, burned my copy of An Inconvenient Truth, and set out to claim my rightful place in the world as an ill-informed idiot. It was time to adapt to win.

The memory loss set in quickly; I no longer remember that Bush once claimed Iraq had WMDs or tried to purchase yellowcake from Niger. It dawned on me that Abu Ghraib was just a fraternity hazing incident, and that the insurgency is indeed in its last throes. I could now understand why Halliburton had every right to pack up and leave the US, no doubt disgusted by being ignored once again by those intellectual snobs who nominate Nobel Peace Prize contenders.

As for the predictions of the PNAC boys –- like being greeted as liberators with sweets and flowers, or a square in downtown Baghdad being named in honor of one G.W. Bush –- I realize now that they were merely misquoted by the Liberal media, which has been unrelenting in its biased reportage of successes we achieve in Iraq and Afghanistan on a daily basis.

I started wishing that everyone would get off Gonzo’s back. I also started wishing that Karl Rove was single, and I was his type. I started having an irresistible urge to buy all of Ann Coulter’s and Dinesh D’Souza’s books – but my ability to read is already faltering, along with my comprehension skills. And the constant whining of wounded vets complaining about Walter Reed, the red tape nightmare of accessing rehabilitation care and disability funds –- blahdey, blah, blah –- went from plucking on my heartstrings to clawing at my last nerve.

Not completely convinced that I had truly turned, I set out to see my doctor. Along the way, I passed a homeless man –- and my usual instinct to reach into my pocket for some money was simply gone! Instead, I yelled, “Get a job, moran!” I kicked him, and his mangy little mutt, and actually felt good about it –- kinda like I was doing the Lord’s work.

As I waited in the reception area, I got into a political discussion with several other patients. I would not allow any of them to get a word in edgewise, and spouted baseless facts in as loud and shrill a voice as possible, until it was my turn to see the doctor –- well, not really my turn, as I selfishly insisted on pushing ahead of others, even though they had actual medical emergencies to be tended to. As a burgeoning RepubliCon, I knew that my needs transcended all others.

After a quick examination, my doctor confirmed what I had already suspected: my IQ had dropped seventy-five points, I was deaf to any statement that did not accord with mein fuhrer’s –- I mean my esteemed leader’s –- ideology, and was utterly blind to the truth. In short, I had become a GOPer!

Because I live in Canada, there was no bill for my check-up –- but I insisted that as an American citizen, I had a right to be charged an exorbitant fee for medical care, and left a $15,000 check with the startled receptionist after lecturing her on the fact that health care should only be available to those who can afford it. (Of course, I can’t afford it either –- but now that I am a Republican, once I get in on the crony network, I should be able to land a cushy, well-paying job with the US government. With my non-qualifications, I’ll be a shoe-in.)

Homeward bound with a new sense of patriotism, i.e. anyone who disagrees with this administration is a traitor, I saw the world in a different light. Finally the veil of truth no longer obscured my vision, and I noticed things I hadn’t been cognizant of before –- like the fact that my Muslim neighbors, heretofore kind and friendly people, are actually terrorists planning the downfall of my country; like the fact that the lesbian couple next door pose a threat to my marriage; like the fact that facts are open to interpretation.

Once I could see, but now –- praise the Lord! –- I am blind. It was a moment I once would never forget. But being as I’m one of them now, I will not recall it in the morning, any more than I would recall outing a CIA agent, or firing an attorney who doesn’t see eye-to-eye with my Beloved President. The only thing I do remember now is that everything that is wrong with my country is Bill Clinton’s fault –- ah, life as it should be.

Even Bush's sycophants have sycophants

Monica Goodling's sudden Friday-afternoon resignation letter was three sentences long. This was the last one:

"May God bless you richly as you continue your service to America."

Allow me to revise that, on this glorious Christian holiday -- between Good Friday and Easter Sunday -- to ...

"May God punish you severely for for allowing torture at Guantanemo Bay and elsewhere across the globe, where suspected terrorists were extraordinarily rendered specifically for that purpose. And may you continue your service to America in a dark, damp jail cell that is slightly worse than the conditions at Walter Reed Hospital."

Alberto Gonzales deserves to to be the very first Bush administration official brought to trial at The Hague for his war crimes. Ahead of Bush, ahead of Cheney, even ahead of Rumsfeld.

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*.

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.