Don’t believe the man half the time he opens his mouth. One perk is over: he can’t occupy a guvmint house in DC before he takes office, much to his chagrin. Baldwin House was all booked up. Given what happened last time a Democrat occupied the White House, someone in Obama’s Transition Team probably already sold it.
Rangel’s scandal is starting to hit, too.
Didn’t the Democrats say something about being the party to end sleaze and corruption, too?
I’ve been wanting to cover the antics of the El Paso County Commissioner’s Court beyond my dull link chart of the FBI corruption scandal, but what’s the point when another blogger is wrapping things up nicely? Just go to The Lion Star Blogand keep scrolling. No one in town is doing a better job of both covering Cobos and opining on his actions. Newspaper Tree is running an admirable second, but is constrained by its journalistic standards (read: hinting at reportorial objectivity).
UPDATE: Theresa Caballero weighs in. Over to You, Lion Star and Refuse the Juice.
Loony Tunes cartoon: indeed.
UPDATE: El Paso Fake News continues the theatre with this.
Obama’s first brush with the Blagojevich scandal?
Former National Center for the Employment of the Disabled President Bob Jones was arrested today, along with former NCED employees Ernesto “Ernie” Lopez and Patrick Woods. Woods was an NCED board member. Newspaper Tree is also covering the story.
With that, it’s time to update the corruption link chart. It’s below. I suppose that, based on this incomplete chart, one could say this gets closer to El Paso Mayor John “John” Cook, but that’s a faulty assumption. Links don’t necessarily mean links, if you know what I mean. So far as anyone knows, Cook’s only secret indictment is about his singing and his appearance of being kind of a willing tool. But looks usually deceive when considering politicians of greater or lesser means, talent and motivation (see Joe Wardy).
It’s almost like there are two prosecutorial lines of attack right now. There is NCED, and there are the outliers around the County apparatchiks.
Finally, in these nervous election times, with scandalous election fliers arriving in the mailbox like letters to Harry Potter down the fireplace, one notes that Dee Margo finds a place on the chart (not linked to anything) while Joe “traceofdoubt” Moody is confined to apparently slagging off military members. Can’t remember who can’t remember where he lives, but in the end, whether tainted by corruption or not, both Moody and Margo are tained by being nincompoops of the general sort.
Both of them make shady El Paso roofing contractors look like candidates for sainthood.
So here’s the latest update to the corruption chart. Clicky once to see a larger chart. Clicky twice to super-size your order:
If it’s Saturday, it’s time to crank on one of the ultimate corrupt-o-crats in DC, Democrat Congressman Murtha. He of the Haditha “cold-blooded killers” Marines crap. They’re acquitted, and he’s not charged — tell me the guv’mint isn’t screwy!
So here’s a fun series of Demotivational Posters, created courtesy of the excellent software provided by Political Demotivation. If you’re not making your own from this free software, then what are you doing on a Saturday morning (besides drinking a beer, BBQ’ing and watching East Coast football games??
Click for full-sized printer goodness.
Yeah, your cynical Southwest Border Pundit doesn’t believe that some Dem wonk — or possibly Obama hisself — dreamed this analogy up without reference to Sarah Palin’s too-recent lipstick/moose joke at the Republican National Convention.
Because, you know, rudeness is so derivative these days, especially for a guy who needs to get back at a competitor who so outclassed him in the Talk-Without-a-Teleprompter competition. Here’s the poster* (click for full-sized goodness):
*Don’t like this one? Make your own at Political Demotivation. It’s fun!
No sooner had the Old Prospector driven off in his new Benz than Senator Joseph Biden pulled up to my Upper Valley high-class hacienda in an Indian rickshaw.
Can’t a body get any weeding done around here these days?
Biden walked into my courtyard and planted himself on the plastic-and-wood bench that I haven’t had the heart to toss out. He launched into a 12-minute monologue on his Irish-American roots, Grandpa Finnegan, his son’s application to Princeton, a speech he’d given on the Princeton campus, the fact that he hated giving a speech on the Princeton campus, and then spent much time discussing the vagaries of Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s sunglasses.
I asked if he wanted to help weed.
“Oh, no,” he said, stretching his legs and admiring my beautifully-xeriscaped (i.e., cheap) front yard. “I’m here to talk about the Indians.”
“Mescalero Apache? Tigua?” I asked.
“No, no,” he replied, as if begging off a free Sunday lunch. Instead, he launched into a 12-minute monologue on his Native American roots, Grandpa Son-of-Geronimo, his son’s application to an Indian college, a speech he’d given on the Tohono O’odom reservation, the fact that he hated giving a speech on the Tohono O’odom reservation, and the vagaries of sunglasses sold by Tohono O’odom natives to Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
I asked again if he wanted to help weed.
“No, but I’m here to talk about Indian Americans, not American Indians,” he said. “Seems you can’t walk into a 7-11 or Valero on Doniphan unless you have a slight Indian accent. I’m not joking.”
“Did you plagiarize that, or think it up yourself?”
He shifted his frame about as easily as any long-time politician shifts his positions — just enough to keep the votes and money coming. I felt a few dollars slip out of my wallet, of their own accord. The man was good. But I wasn’t ready to vote for him.
I suggested he help weed.
“Not likely. I’m only here for a minute. Can you give my rickshaw driver some water? Seems he can’t pass a high-class Upper Valley hacienda without asking for water in a slight Indian accent. I’m not joking.”
I took water to the driver. He was from Punjab. His name was Darvesh, and he was a post-doc in medical anthropology.
‘How come you’re with him?” I asked, jerking my head back toward the bench.
“Got caught plagiarizing,” he said.
I nodded.
“Say,” Darvesh said, “is it true about Doniphan? Lots of Indians there?”
“I guess,” I replied. “But be careful of that 7-11 at Redd Road. The night shift guys all voted Democrat, last time around.”
Biden got up and walked to the rickshaw.
“Say, Joe,” I said. “What’s all this about ‘Barack America?’”
That was a mistake. Biden went off on a 30-minute tangent, wandering across the moors of his mind and waxing poetic on such topics as hyperinflation in Hawai’i, the cost of peanuts in Pennsylvania, a new Russia strategy, and the IQ of Barbara Boxer.
I swear I saw the weeds grow another inch before he was done.
Sure wish it had been the Old Prospector in the back of that rickshaw. At least he’d offer to help. He wouldn’t actually help, but he’d make the offer. And that’s the difference between a senator and someone respectable.
Maybe some of it will go to diminish flooding in 79932. DHS owns FEMA, too. Rep. Reyes announces nearly $6 million in security grants for El Paso.