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If you didn't think the new George W. Bush library and its "Decision Theater" was bad enough already for the history revisionism on the invasion of Iraq, as MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry explained this Thursday evening when filling in for Rachel Maddow, wait until you get a load of how Bush's disastrous handling of Hurricane Katrina is treated.

HARRIS-PERRY: What are you doing this weekend? Got any big plans?

If for some reason you happen to find yourself in or around Dallas, Texas, there is a brand spanking-new attraction that just popped up in your own backyard. Introducing the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum.

Yesterday was the grand opening for the general public and this weekend marks the library`s long-anticipated inaugural weekend.

And if you`re going to be in Dallas over the next few delays, I`m telling you, you just must check it out, if only for the shock value.

Last night on this show, Rachel discussed the main attraction inside the new Bush Library, which is an exhibit called Decision Point Theater. It`s basically an interactive game where you can reenact the biggest
decisions that George W. Bush had to make as president. Decisions like should we invade Iraq.

The problem, as Rachel pointed out last night, when you try to say no, we should not invade! Please let`s do anything but invade Iraq -- President Bush pops up on the screen and starts making the case of all the
overwhelming evidence against Saddam Hussein, evidence that has since been thoroughly discredited 10 years later in what`s supposed to be a library is being taught as fact that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat who must be dealt with unilaterally if necessary?

So there is a certain shock value to the new Bush Library. But if the Iraq war isn`t exactly your thing, if you want to relive the glory of another Bush decision, the George W. Bush Library gives you the opportunity
to do that. [...]

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Former President George W. Bush openly wept while talking about some of the biggest disasters of his tenure at the dedication of the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum on Thursday.

At the conclusion of his speech, Bush mentioned "the people of New Orleans who made homemade boats to rescue their neighbors during the floods" caused by Hurricane Katrina and "the servicemembers who laid down their lives to keep our country safe" during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

"I dedicate this library with an unshakable faith in the future of our country," he said. "It was the honor of a lifetime to lead a country as brave and as noble as the United States."

At that point, the 43rd president began to get choked up.

"Whatever challenges come before us, I will always believe our nation's best days lie ahead," Bush concluded, struggling to add, "God bless."

With a wink and a tear, the former president exited the stage. And then in response to the audience's standing ovation, Bush wiped his eyes, cocked his head to the side, smiled and waved.

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Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) says that if his Imaginary Family were victims of disasters like Hurricane Katrina, they would need to have military-style AR-15 assault rifles to protect themselves against "armed gangs roaming around neighborhoods."

During a hearing Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, the South Carolina Republican pressed Attorney General Eric Holder about his support for a proposed assault weapons ban.

"Can you imagine a circumstance where an AR-15 would be a better defense tool than, say, a double-barrel shotgun?" Graham asked. "Let me give you an example, that you have an lawless environment, where you have an natural disaster or some catastrophic event -- and those things unfortunately do happen, and law and order breaks down because the police can't travel, there's no communication. And there are armed gangs roaming around neighborhoods. Can you imagine a situation where your home happens to be in the crosshairs of this group that a better self-defense weapon may be a semiautomatic AR-15 vs. a double-barrel shotgun?"

Holder pointed out that the senator was "dealing with a hypothetical in a world that doesn't exist."

(Obviously, Eric Holder doesn't get it. That's where all wingnuts live!)

"I'm afraid that world does exist," Graham insisted. "It existed in New Orleans, to some extent up in Long Island [after Hurricane Sandy], it could exist tomorrow if there's a cyber attack against country and the power grid goes down and the dams are released and chemical plants are -- discharges."

(Lindsey really likes to think about --discharges.)

"I don't think that New Orleans would have been better served having people with AR-15s in a post-Katrina environment," Holder replied.

"What I'm saying is if my (imaginary) family was in the crosshairs of gangs that were roaming around neighborhoods in New Orleans or or any other location, the deterrent effect of an AR-15 to protect my family, I think, is greater than a double-barrel shotgun."

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, there were reports of armed vigilantes with assault weapons shooting African-Americans.

"Facing an influx of refugees, the residents of Algiers Point could have pulled together food, water and medical supplies for the flood victims," ProPublica's A.C. Thompson wrote in 2008. "Instead, a group of white residents, convinced that crime would arrive with the human exodus, sought to seal off the area, blocking the roads in and out of the neighborhood by dragging lumber and downed trees into the streets. They stockpiled handguns, assault rifles, shotguns and at least one Uzi and began patrolling the streets in pickup trucks and SUVs. The newly formed militia, a loose band of about 15 to 30 residents, most of them men, all of them white, was looking for thieves, outlaws or, as one member put it, anyone who simply 'didn't belong.'"

Thompson found that at least 11 African-American men ended up being shot near the Algiers Point neighborhood by a militia of men who were apparently all white.

(h/t: Think Progress)

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After watching the better part of a couple of days of coverage on this tragic school shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in CT, I was glad to see at least one show on television where there was a discussion about the fact that what happened there, and the trauma that those children and their families are going through right now, is an all but too common occurrence which is sadly all too familiar to Americans living in our inner cities across the country.

Whether it's Chicago, or New Orleans or the other big cities across the country facing high crime rates, far too often the violence has been glossed over and ignored to the point by our national media, that it's just considered acceptable or something we're expected to live with.

As Melissa noted, to date Chicago has suffered at least 425 gun-related homicides in 2012 as of Dec. 14. The Huffington Post has more on that story here: Chicago Homicides Reach 400 This Year, City Turns To Twitter For Ideas To End Violence. And 117 of those victims this year alone were under the age of 21.

And in her home town of New Orleans, we've had 174 murders, most of which are gunshot deaths and in Los Angeles, there have been 512 homicides recorded for the year, and 75 percent of those deaths resulted from gunshot wounds.

HARRIS-PERRY: These are the gun related homicides that get treated as routine -- tragic, but expected. And yet, they need to be included when we talk about Newtown, CT, because their victims are just as real.

The Nation's Ari Melber followed with this:

MELBER: So while we understand exactly how terrible this is and why the story of it and the way it happened is so dramatic and we're rushing to it and the President's speaking to it, it's also true as a policy matter that if 27 people dying is something that connotes the President's attention or our attention and action, well then every day is this day, as you were saying and all around the country.

As Michael Eric Dyson noted, President Obama did bring up those in Chicago during his statement following this most recent shooting and made this important point:

DYSON: The reality is, we've become accustomed to believing that little black and brown kids and poor white kids in various spots across our landscape are doomed to this kind of violence by this... we are surprised it happened here. It's not supposed to happen here.

Which means by implication, that it's supposed to happen there, in Detroit, or Oakland, or California, in LA and the like. And I think that's the tragedy here.

As Harris-Perry rightfully noted a bit later in the segment, she just wants the same level of outrage when you're seeing these kids in our inner cities having their childhoods taken away from them with the violence that they are growing up around as a part of their daily lives as we've seen from these mass shootings that garner so much national attention in the media.

I hope if there is an ounce of good that comes out of this shooting, it's that conversations like this one are more common where we're talking about what we can do to put a stop to gun violence along with a host of other topics that are all interwoven with the same subject and those are not just gun control and gun violence, but mental health, providing adequate health care for all of our citizens, education, poverty, our social safety nets and just what kind of country we're allowing way too many of our children to grow up in.

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A fundamentalist Christian minister has become the first to link Hurricane Sandy to marriage equality and the "homosexual agenda."

Gay Star News first reported on Monday that Defend and Proclaim the Faith ministries founder John McTernan had posted on his blog that Hurricane Sandy is proof that "God is systematically destroying America."

"If you add the area of the drought and now the hurricane together, it would be about 80 percent of the country!" the preacher wrote. "As I said, the Holy God of Israel is systematically destroying America right before our eyes."

He continued: "Just last August, Hurricane Isaac hit New Orleans seven years later, on the exact day of Hurricane Katrina. Both hit during the week of the homosexual event called Southern Decadence in New Orleans!"

McTernan noted that "God's judgement" began 21 years ago, on October 20, 1991 when President H.W. Bush initiated the Madrid Conference to negotiate peace between Israel and Palestine.

"Twenty-one years breaks down to 7 x 3, which is a significant number with God. Three is perfection as the Godhead is three in one while seven is perfection," he explained. "It appears that God gave America 21 years to repent of interfering with His prophetic plan for Israel; however, it has gotten worse under all the presidents and especially Obama. Obama is 100 percent behind the Muslim Brotherhood which has vowed to destroy Israel and take Jerusalem."

The Christian leader warned that even electing Mitt Romney might not save the country from God's wrath because both President Barack Obama and Republican presidential nominee supported LGBT rights.

"Both candidates are pro-homosexual and are behind the homosexual agenda," McTernan insisted. "America is under political judgment and the church does not know it!"

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If anyone thought it was not possible for Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson to make even bigger buffoons of themselves than they have been for years already, well, you were wrong. I've seen some pathetic stuff from both of them, but this has to take the cake if for nothing else, just the sheer desperation of pulling a stunt like this for Mitt Romney the night before the first presidential debate.

Breaking news!!! everyone... the President of the United States was caught on film talking like he's black. And saying what anyone in their right mind agreed with at the time, which is that the people of New Orleans were treated horribly in the aftermath of the hurricane damage. And oh my god... he said something nice about Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Break out the pearls and the fainting couch.

And that "exclusive" video they were hyping as never seen before... well, maybe not so much -- Drudge-Hyped Obama Video Turns Out To Be Publicly Covered 2007 Speech:

Sean Hannity, The Daily Caller, and Drudge Report spent hours hyping a racially explosive secret video of President Obama. But the bombshell clip turned out to be a public speech from June 2007 that was covered by the major networks, including FOX News, at the time.

Excerpts of the open press speech to historically black Hampton University were already easily available (and quickly discovered by reporters after Drudge teased the clip on his website hours before the “new” Daily Caller/Hannity clip even aired). But Daily Caller founder Tucker Carlson claimed the video was relevant because it contained additional ad-libbed portions that went off the prepared remarks.

Among the sinister revelations Drudge, Hannity, and Carlson cited: Obama’s use of what they considered an overly African-American cadence to his voice in front of the majority. “This accent is absurd. This is not the way Obama talks,” Carlson said on FOX. Drudge Report teased “THE ACCENT” and “THE ANGER” as scoops.

Hannity, who was a leading figure on the right in promoting Obama’s relationship with Jeremiah Wright as a story in 2008, also pointed to Obama acknowledging Wright as “friend and great leader” at the event. As was widely reported at the time, the two were close until Obama disowned him later that year over his continued inflammatory comments.

The Obama campaign dismissed the video as the work of “Romney’s allies” to distract from his 47 percent comments, although the Romney campaign denied having anything to do with the story and appeared reluctant to discuss it in any capacity.

Despite protestations by Carlson that the media ignored Obama’s speech, CNN’s Peter Hamby pointed out that FOX News aired video of the speech at the time: [...]

Hannity and Carlson accused Obama of injecting race into the much-criticized response to Hurricane Katrina. While Obama never mentioned race while discussing the disaster in his speech, he complained that the federal government was slow to waive a Stafford Act requirement governing disaster relief that required the affected area to pay some of the costs of aid that they waived after 9/11 and Hurricane Andrew. According to Obama, this reluctance “tells me that somehow, the people down in New Orleans they don’t care about as much!”

Obama was hardly the only one complaining about ongoing fights with Congress and the Bush administration over the Stafford Act requirement at the time, however. Then-Congressman Bobby Jindal (R-LA) led a push the same year to revise the law to lessen its funding requirement in circumstances like New Orleans’. On the Senate side, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) pushed hard for more waivers. Sean Reilly, a member of the Louisiana Recovery Authority, echoed Obama’s complaints almost word for word for a PBS Frontline segment on the Stafford Act.

And here's more from Media Matters -- Hannity, Carlson Desperately Attempt To Manufacture "Racially Charged Rhetoric" From Obama Video:

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The religious lifestyle show hosted by televangelist Pat Robertson on Monday suggested that Christians in Florida had convinced God to move soon-to-be Hurricane Isaac away from Tampa, Florida to protect Republicans.

During a segment about how Isaac forced the first day of Republican National Convention to be cancelled, Christian Broadcasting Network's Paul Strand noted that Current TV host Jennifer Granholm sent out a "snarky tweet" saying that "God has ways to shut that whole thing down."

"For anybody who's a liberal who's part of a party that would like to whitewash God out of America, it's amazing that she's acknowledging that God has any part in the storm," conservative radio host Bill Bunkley told CBN.

"But gratitude's been a predominant attitude in Tampa's Christian circles as it looks like the city will escape much of Isaac's wrath," Strand reported, pointing out that the group "Pray Tampa Bay" was leading an effort to "cover the party conventions in prayer."

"We have had lots and lots of people praying around the clock that it would move," Rev. Jesten Peters explained. "And if you watch from the very beginning where they were saying it was coming up and now where they're saying it's going, then it's really moved a lot for us, and we appreciate God doing that and moving it for us."

Tropical Storm Isaac is project to strengthen into a hurricane within a day, sparing Tampa, but making landfall south of New Orleans almost exactly seven years after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city.

At the time, Robertson suggested that then-Supreme Court nominee John Roberts' unwillingness to overturn abortion rights caused the storm.

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I think we just got a preview of what we can expect from Texas Gov. "Good-Hair" Rick Perry if he decides to enter the GOP presidential primary, which he'll be doing soon if this speech at the Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans is any indication.

Perry gave what could be described as a barn burner of a speech with all of the typical Republican, Ayn Rand, freedom-loving, history revisionist talking points that of course the audience there just loved. As Rachel Maddow reported this week, unfortunately for Perry, when reality comes up against his lofty rhetoric, they don't seem to square so well with each other to put it mildly.

What's obvious to me after watching Perry and some of the other speakers at the event is that Republicans, after wrecking the economy and after enacting their extreme right wing agenda in states with Republican governors across the country, plan on making the economy front and center in their campaign rhetoric, facts and public opinion be damned.

Partial rough transcript of Perry's speech below the fold, and if there's any doubt that Republicans are dying for this guy to get into the presidential race this year, listen to the chants by the crowd at the end yelling "Run, Rick run!" and "Perry 2012!" And question for anyone here, is it just me, or does this guy give anyone else nightmares from sounding like a George W. Bush clone on steroids?

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C-SPAN hosted a panel segment from the New Orleans Literacy Festival - News, Pundits and Politics which included NPR's Amy Dickinson, Fox's Ellis Henican, CNN's Mary Matalin, and Lousianna's Errol Laborde.

Here's the description from C-SPAN's site:

A panel of journalists discussed the future of news and commentary. Among the issues they addressed were the presentation of news, selection of news stories for television broadcast, and political biases in the news. They also responded to questions from the audience.

Now any panel which includes the likes of Lady McCheney Mary Matalin and Fox's resident milquetoast excuse for a liberal Ellis Henican talking about bias in the media is laughable on its face, but what I didn't expect was that the panelist from NPR would turn out to be a huge, flaming wingnut. That didn't stop Mary Matalin from calling NPR a liberal network later on in the segment. Here's some of Dickinson's pearl clutching about being forced to watch MSNBC.

DICKINSON: A lot of us as consumers, we just go the thing that's going to feed us what we already believe. I really, really see this in my own little world where my mom, in the assisted living facility, they're all watching in her town, MSNBC nonstop, so I in many, many very long visits with her, I started watching MSNBC and I was like how can you watch this, and not want to shoot yourself?

Hey what do you know? Maybe I agree with her. Is she talking about Joe Scarborough and the Morning Joe crew? Chris Jansing? Andrea Mitchell?

DICKINSON: It was actually... I tend to watch Fox more often because I've been on Fox and um... MSNBC just blew my mind, it was so awful. I just couldn't, I was surprised honestly, because MSNBC has this, you know, NBC component that I considered to be, sort of one of the founding, you know, broadcast news sources in this country and I had no idea that MSNBC had become, so, so, so um... I don't know... left leaning I guess you'd call it. It's opinionated.

Nope. She's talking about their evening line up. She goes on to say that after she gets off the air on NPR, she listens to Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh every day and praises them for being ahead of the curve with reporting stories that are not covered elsewhere in the media. Talk about listening to something that would make you want to shoot yourself. Good grief.

So much for NPR and their supposed liberal bias that seems to be the conventional wisdom from our politicians and talking heads in the press. Watching this panel segment on C-SPAN reminded me of watching Fox's weekend show Fox News Watch where they discuss the same topic, bias in the media with a bunch of biased talking heads. And Ellis Henican gets to play the faux liberal in both.

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Rachel Maddow reviews the case against six New Orleans police officers who are now finally facing federal charges for shooting unarmed citizens on the Danziger Brige in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. It's really sad that it has taken this long for the Justice Department to finally be doing something with this case. It's long overdue. TPM has more.

DOJ Charges Six NOPD Officers Involved In Danziger Bridge Shooting:

The Justice Department has charged four New Orleans police officers with opening fire on unarmed civilians in the days after Hurricane Katrina, killing two and wounding four. The DOJ has also charged them, and two other officers, with conspiracy relating to the resulting cover-up.

U.S. Attorney Jim Letten and Attorney General Eric Holder announced the charges in an afternoon press conference today, five years after the shootings on the Danziger Bridge in New Orleans.

Four police officers -- Kenneth Bowen, Robert Gisevius, Robert Faulcon and Anthony Villavaso -- are being charged with civil rights violations in connection with the shootings. If convicted, they could face life imprisonment or the death penalty.

The two others, Archie Kaufman and Gerard Dugue, are charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice. Kaufman and Dugue were the investigators in the original case, and are accused of falsifying reports and false prosecution.

Five other police officers and one civilian have already pleaded guilty to charges related to the cover-up. The four accused of the shooting had been charged with murder in connection with the incident, but the case was thrown out in 2008.

On Sept. 4, 2005, seven NOPD officers, including the four charged today in the shootings, rode to the Danziger Bridge after getting reports of officers under fire. There, they encountered a family on their way to the supermarket for supplies. For unknown reasons, the officers allegedly opened fire, killing 17-year-old James Brissette and wounding others.

The officers then allegedly drove to the other side of the bridge, where they found another group of people and again opened fire. Ronald Madison, 40, who was mentally disabled, was shot in the back and killed.

Faulcon is the one who allegedly shot Madison, according to the indictment. Bowen is accused of kicking Madison as he lay on the ground dying.