Instahoglets Sunday Edition

By Cernig

- Only in wingnut-land: Cheney Calls Iraq “Significant Success, Masterfully Done”; Blames Lengthy, Bloody Occupation On Lack Of Iraqi “Get Up And Go” Did you notice both Bush Senior and Cheney were on the TV bobblehead shows this Sunday? The Legacy Revisionism Express is chuffin' and puffin' towards Jan 20th.

- Richardson Fallout: OK, so Bill Richardson is out as Commerce Secretary, and the Obama transition team will no doubt have to scramble to quickly find a capable replacement. Steve B thinks in the long term that Richardson's troubles won't matter for Obama and he's right on that, but I still think there's a problem when two Dem presidential candidates originally favored by progressives fall to allegations of "moral turpitude". It's not just Team Obama that needs to do better vetting, it's the progressive movement.

- The Jewish community debates the Gaza strikes.

- Shocked, I tell you! "The Maryland State Police surveillance of advocacy groups was far more extensive than previously acknowledged, with records showing that troopers monitored — and labeled as terrorists — activists devoted to such wide-ranging causes as promoting human rights and establishing bike lanes."

- Just wait till till the neocons manage to get asylum for some of their favorite real terrorists - the utterly nutterly MeK being kicked out of Iraq.

- Global warming is a military and national security problem, not just an environmental one. One day, this rather than Iraq will be seen as the US Republican's greatest national security failure. By denying and foot-dragging all these years they've left the US and the whole world in clear danger. (H/t Kat)

- More welfare for really rich guys who aren't really broke. "Just in case anybody's keeping track, the government has now appropriated $9 billion in bailout funds to some of the richest folks in America. This would be Cerberus Capital Management, the private equity fund that owns majority stakes in GMAC and Chrysler and whose chairman is John Snow  - the last Treasury Secretary before the current one, Henry Paulson." (H/T Kat)

- An update on the Tennessee enrironmental disaster.

- "The Culture War cannot be compared to the Civil War, Falujah is not Fort Sumter, the circumstances under which the 16th president led were unique in American history, and the fact that President-elect Obama is another skinny guy from Illinois is hardly reason enough to endlessly invoke Honest Abe's name over the next four (or eight) years, although that is sure to happen." Shaun Mullen hosts a Lincoln retrospective.