"Rifting" apart- don't they ever get embarrassed?

So now we learn (via) that there is a "rift" between W and AG. "Serious estrangement." Gee, I wonder when that started to develop? Maybe when everyone who is not a wholly owned subsidiary started saying Abu should resign?

Wouldn't you be embarrassed to put out such transparent spin to stage AG's exit and distance the prez from it? Basically, he's a liability they're about to cut loose.

I guess it's all theatre.

Charges against Gonzales

Resignation isn't good enough. Perjury charges, impeachment, contempt of Congress... something.

The whole US attorney thing is maybe the clearest, simplest, best documented example yet of how this crew does business (for now; I'm sure much muddying of the water is already started). There is no value in building up the political strength on this to force serious action, then letting them do "the honorable thing" and be done with it.

Dammit! I like New Orleans!

"Corps placed faulty pumps in New Orleans"

A politically connected firm with a record of corruption endangers a gem of American history and culture. Why am I not surprised?

The drainage-canal pumps were custom-designed and built under a $26.6 million contract awarded after competitive bidding to Moving Water Industries Corp. of Deerfield Beach, Fla. It was founded in 1926 and supplies flood-control and irrigation pumps all over the world.

MWI is owned by J. David Eller and his sons. Eller was once a business partner of former Florida Gov.
Jeb Bush in a venture called Bush-El that marketed MWI pumps. And Eller has donated about $128,000 to politicians, the vast majority of it to the Republican Party, since 1996, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

MWI has run into trouble before. The U.S. Justice Department sued the company in 2002, accusing it of fraudulently helping Nigeria obtain $74 million in taxpayer-backed loans for overpriced and unnecessary water-pump equipment. The case has yet to be resolved.

Maybe the worst-case interpretation isn't warranted- they say it was competitively awarded, and an unprecedented technical challenge on short notice.

But, given all the other sh*ttiness in how NO has been handled, and given the political connections involved, and given that the Republicans running this country never fail to do the worst possible job, "benefit of the doubt" has no relevance here. There is no doubt left that they are unrestrained in their corruption and incompetence.

Oh, wow!

A link from Avedon! Man! To me she is top-tier; "A-list," you might say.

I better freshen the place up.

I kind of see this as mostly a venting outlet so far. I think stuff thru about current events, but when I write about it, it comes out kind of as a spew. I think Tom Tomorrow did his Outrage Overload strip like two years ago (wait, it was Feb 2003!), and stuff has only gotten more extreme and surreal since then.

Anyway, looking back on my couple entries and a draft post that couldn't keep up with current events, I find my writing really hard to follow, so it is probably more-so for others. Thanks, Avedon, for reading enough to find a quote.

Holy. Effing. Sh*t.

Are they blithering idiots, or shameless slimeballs?

So, at Digby there is this analysis of some Sunday political banter. David Brooks says of Nancy Pelosi:

But I think her main drawback is that she is -- and her main drawback and success, their flip sides -- is that she is a Democrat to the bone. And she is a very partisan figure. She's grown up with a tremendous loyalty to the Democratic Party and tremendous partisanship.

And so, whatever her talents are, spanning the partisan divide is not one of them. I think she'll reinforce the partisan divide, which is not to say that Tom DeLay was not a hyper-partisan before her. But she is a hyper-partisan.

And to me, one of the problems with Washington now is loyalty to team takes precedence over loyalty to the truth. And I don't think that's going to change with her there.

And then later, Mark Shields:

Probably not. I mean, she can be speaker of the House. She can certainly start a healing process.

You know, I think, if Gerald Ford were the speaker of the House, he probably wouldn't preside over a House where only he'd bring legislation that had a majority of his own party before he brought it. He would seek across the aisle.

I think that's the test of healing, in the process and the good faith ... I think how well she does perform -- I mean, she presided over a Democratic Party, it was the most united -- according to Congressional Quarterly, which keeps tracks of these things -- of any party in the Congress in the past 25 years, but that was in opposition to George W. Bush.

There's this brain-bendingly self-serving ratchet that works in supposed standards of governance. Republicans do egregiously wrong things, finally get thrown out, and then start braying about how the new majority Dems have an obligation to make up for the sins of the past (never recognizing/admitting that the sins are theirs; this is where the idiot/slimeball question comes in) and play nice with them.

Presidents can never have the lack of oversight that Nixon did (not that he was so bad or anything); therefore assign a special prosecutor to Clinton as soon as he comes in office. Presidents can never suffer the witch hunt Clinton did (not that it was a witch hunt, or that it was a GOP witch hunt); therefore no one is allowed to second-guess W.

Amazing.

Evidence is the first resort of the Reality Based Community

Back from the war on the war on Xmas. Bloody Wingnuts! We gained ground on them this year, I think.

I just want to point to this little web tool (via- Boing Boing, you can thank me later for teh traffic).

God Damn It!

The top brass of the military had come out in opposition to escalating in Iraq. Now they have yielded to the desires of the White House and gotten on board with troop increases. This despite having no ideas on what to do with an increased force. So it's headed towards continuing to do the same as what we have been doing, only more so.

Again, the psychopaths' motives are transparent: it's a delaying tactic, to not have to throw in the towel. They will drag things out until the next president takes office. That person will inherit the hugest, deepest mess facing a new POTUS since the Depression. (A bonus aspect of this stalling, from the psychopaths' point of view, is that given the phenomenally bad record of the Repubs the last six years, that lucky person will probably be a Democrat.)

However, what I don't understand is why the military are going along with this. They had good reason to come out against it, and no good reason stated for changing their minds. Just that a new SecDef came in, and met with them, and then they got religion regarding the urge to surge. So the psychopaths tightened some kind of screws on the generals, and got the appearance of credibility their plan needed. If in January, Congress called in the Joint Chiefs to testify, and they said that escalation wouldn't help, it wouldn't happen. Then the psychopaths would be completely isolated and in no position to keep investing the lives of servicemembers and their families in delaying the inevitable.

So, this is cowardly. The core values of the Marines and Navy are Honor, Courage, and Commitment. Likewise, the Army's are Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity, and Personal Courage; the Air Force's are Integrity, Service and Excellence. Are the top officers in the armed services upholding these values?