Dick for Me, But Not For Thee

Apparently only thought leaders are allowed to hear the word "dick."

Thursday morning, Halperin appeared to be encouraged to some degree to be off-color by the hosts of “Morning Joe,” Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski.

“Are we on the seven-second delay today?” Halperin asked. “I wanted to characterize how I thought the president behaved.”

“We have it we can use it,” Brzezinski said. “Go for it.”

“Take a chance,” Scarborough said.

“I thought he was kind of a ... yesterday,” Halperin said.

“Delay that. Delay that. What are you doing?” Scarborough said. “I can’t believe you! I was joking. Don’t do that! Did we delay that?”

Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski practically begged Mark Halperin to whisper sweet dicks into their ears, but didn't want the great unwashed (those without media-industrial complex connections and advanced degrees in conventional ignorance) to hear dick. If Moron Joe encouraged the dickish behavior, as his employer admits in the article above, why isn't he being dicked around by his employer? (Rhetorical question.)

Don't worry, Republicans. Halperin will be back in the circle jerk soon enough. It's not like he said "blow job," even though it's in his job description.

Dick Rules Mark Halperin's World

A Lie Becomes The Truth

At the Corner, Andrew McCarthy (star of the 1987 movie I.Q. Less Than Zero) writes that Michele Bachmann:

said that a number of America’s founders had opposed slavery and worked to end it.

He then claims the Bachmann was right when she said that, and critics of Bachmann(specifically, Geo. Stephanopolous) are wrong.

What Bachmann actually said was:

we also know that the very founders that wrote those documents worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States.

Not "some" founders, but "the very founders" who wrote the founding documents. And those founders lived to see the abolition of slavery!

So Andy lies about what Bachmann said to prove Bachmann was "right." He has to, because he can't defend what Bachmann acually said. If he wasn't a dishonest hack, he'd admit he was wrong and Bachmann is wrong.

This Calls For A Vitter's Rights Amendment

Wingnuts are soiling themselves imagining that this story involves TSA thuggery:

[A woman accompanying her 95 year-old mother, who was in the final stages of lukemia, on a flight to Michigan] said security personnel then came out and told her they would need for her mother to remove her Depends diaper because it was soiled and was impeding their search.

Weber wheeled her mother into a bathroom, removed her diaper and returned. Her mother did not have another clean diaper with her, Weber said.

Weber said she wished there were less invasive search methods for an elderly person who is unable to walk through security gates.

“I don’t understand why they have to put them through that kind of procedure,” she said.

Koshetz said the procedures are the same for everyone to ensure national security.

“TSA cannot exempt any group from screening because we know from intelligence that there are terrorists out there that would then exploit that vulnerability,” she said.

Weber filed a complaint through Northwest Florida Regional’s website. She said she received a response from a Homeland Security representative at the airport on Tuesday and spoke to that person on the phone Wednesday.

The representative told her that personnel had followed procedures during the search, Weber said.

“Then I thought, if you’re just following rules and regulations, then the rules and regulations need to be changed,” she said.

Weber said she plans to file additional complaints next week.

“I’m not one to make waves, but dadgummit, this is wrong. People need to know. Next time it could be you.”

Well, dagnabit, but the way this goldurn story is reported, I can't feign any rackinfrackin outrage.

The story isn't "federal agents ordered [woman's] elderly mother to remove her adult diaper," as one incontinent wingnut would have it. (No link to the nut.) The elderly woman had a soiled adult diaper, the TSA alerted the woman's mother to the problem, and the woman didn't have a spare diaper for her mother to use. Were TSA agents supposed to allow the woman to remain in her own waste? I'm not saying the daughter was negligent in not preparing for her mother's travel, because there may be more to the story. (I'm also not commenting on why the mother's family members would make their wheelchair bound, incontinent, dying 95-year-old relative fly to Michigan, rather than getting their own asses on a flight to Florida. Maybe they were older and sicker.)

But the story is not that the TSA agents searched the diaper, or ordered the mother to remove the diaper so they could search underneath the diaper. It's not to hard to imagine that the agents were simply discreetly advising the daughter of her mother's problem, which the daughter was unaware of.

The real stink here is coming from the racist wingnuts who, admittedly, have good cause to fear that someone will uncover their own hidden apparel. And its contents.

The One Thing About Peter Falk Not Mentioned By Mickey Kaus

He was a real Democrat.

Back In, Black

From The New York Times:

After nearly a year of fighting to remain free, Conrad M. Black is going back to prison.

Mr. Black, the onetime newspaper baron, received a new jail sentence on Friday from a federal judge in Chicago for his remaining convictions on charges that he defrauded his investors. Judge Amy St. Eve imposed a three-and-a-half-year sentence on Mr. Black, although prosecutors say he will get credit for the more than two years that he has already served in federal prison.

The resentencing of Mr. Black stems from a federal appeals court decision in October that upheld two of Mr. Black’s 2007 convictions, for mail fraud and obstruction of justice, even though it reversed two other convictions for fraud. Mr. Black had been out on bail since last summer pending the appeal.

Mr. Black’s wife, Barbara Amiel Black, appeared to faint in the courtroom after the prison sentence was announced on Friday, according to news reports.

Note to journalists: The last sentence is the essence of good journalism.

Gaypocalypse Now

Maggie Gallagher's not going to take the New York Legislature shoving gay marriage down our throats lying down:

New York Republicans are responsible for passing gay marriage. The party will pay a grave price.

I'm sure she doesn't mean grave as in a-mouldering in. Probably just Tea Party challenges or nude photos of herself.

The Hack's Last Stand

Tommy "Tom Tom" Christopher has penned a defense of his own incompetence and stupidity which reveals hitherto undisclosed evidence of his own incompetence and stupidity. In summary, here are his defenses:

1. I Did For The Children! Tom Tom's first defense is to hide behind the skirts of imaginary children:

Two weeks ago, we ran a story that contained statements from two 16 year-old girls, who we dubbed “Betty” and Veronica” to protect their identities.... Shortly after the story’s publication, however, suspicions arose about the identities that these people had given me. I continued to follow up with these sources, but after several days, they broke off contact with me. At the time, without evidence to the contrary, I continued to investigate, but also acted publicly upon the belief that these were minor children, at risk of harm."

...

Now, it is true that, in my desire to protect these kids, I reacted emotionally to Moulitsas, and at other times since the publication of this story. Is it possible that my bias as a parent played some role? The SPJ Code of Ethics instructs journalists to “minimize harm,” and to show “special sensitivity when dealing with children,” so I would like to think that all journalists would take this as seriously as I do, but if that is not the case, I’ll plead no contest to that charge.

First, to state the obvious, Tom Tom wasn't dealing with children. He was dealing with someone pretending to be children, and he wasn't smart enough to realize it. He wasn't protecting children because there were no children.

More significantly, nothing Tom Tom did was done to "protect children." If he had wanted to protect children, he wouldn't have published anything about people he purportedly believed to be children. He would have left the entire thing alone, in order to avoid drawing attention to the "children." He certainly wouldn't have published a five-page wank-a-thon in which he gave children the names of cartoon characters with adult physiques and prattled on about what a great parent he is. Nothing Tom Tom did protected children, either real or imaginary.

2. I'm Really An Investigative Reporter, So Stop Saying That! Tom Tom's second defense is that he did everything possible to verify the identify of people he never met and the veracity of their story. Not really:

On Friday, we detailed the steps that I took to verify the information these sources gave to me, which included independently verified documentation, telephone conversations with Betty’s mother, extensive email contacts, and photo identification for all three sources, which I checked against available information. The photos of the girls were consistent with, but not identical to, those on available social media profiles, the address on the mother’s driver’s license was not fictitious, and was consistent with the school district listed on the girls’ student IDs.

In other words, "I checked to see that the address I was given was an actual address, and that the photographs of the fake teens someone unknown person sent me were similar to other photographs of the fake teens. If they hadn't made an effort to fool me, I never would have fallen for it! If only they had told me they lived at 123 Mockingbird Lane and sent me photos of the cast of Glee!" Would anyone working for a real news organization have published Christopher's shit based on that level of fact checking? Hell, no.

If I Could Reveal My Fake Sources, I Wouldn't Sound So Pathetic! Finally, Tom Tom argues that he wouldn't sound as incredibly dense as he does if only he could reveal information about the people who played him for a fool:

Secondarily, until I had evidence they were lying, I had an ethical duty to my sources to adhere to the attribution and publication guidelines we had agreed to. There are still supporting facts and documents that, for ethical reasons, I’m not at liberty to share. I mention this because some of my loudest critics have demanded that I reveal things (by virtue of off-the-record conversations) that they know I cannot.

"It's a painful coincidence that the evidence might demonstrate the depths of my stupidity is evidence which I cannot share, because that evidence would make me look so good!" Some might say that until he had evidence they were telling the truth, or that they even existed, Tom Tom had an ethical duty to his readers not to publish made-up shit from people he didn't know. But Tom Tom's so friggin' ethical that he's bound to honor his agreements with people who don't exist!

I suspect this is the last we'll hear of this from Tom Tom. He's already back to personally vouching for Andrew Breitbart's heterosexuality (presumably based on personal experience, rather than on reports in e-mails from "underaged girls").

The age-old dilemma: How to get your candidate to suck less, without electing the other candidate, who sucks more.

The answer, of course, is infighting and name-calling.

Dummy

From the New York Times website:

The audience, which was nearly entirely white, watched with befuddlement as the impersonator told them to look into the future to see what the Obamas will look like when they are retired. An image of a feuding husband and wife, from the TV show “Sanford and Son,” was flashed on screens in the ballroom.

From tomorrow's New York Times:

A report yesterday on The Caucus blog, "'Obama' Stuns Crowd at Republican Event," incorrectly identified two individuals from a 1970s situation comedy whose photograph was displayed Saturday during a presentation at the Republican Leadership Conference. The individuals depicted, comedian Redd Foxx and veteran actor LaWanda Page, portrayed a widower and his sister-in-law, Esther, not a married couple. The Times regrets the error.

.

Merdeheategate

Let me break down the Tommy Christopher debacle a bit more clearly, with less sarcasm.

1. The purported point of Christopher's "Betty and Veronica" story was that Andrew Breitbart didn't publish one set of allegations that he could not verify. Somehow this makes Breitbart a paragon of journalistic ethics, despite all the false stories Breitbart has published or promoted, and the fact that journalists and millions of others people who have websites don't publish allegations they can't verify every damn day.

2. Even if Breitbart's non-publication of false information in one instance was noteworthy, it was entirely pointless for Christopher to tell the story of "Betty and Veronica." Christopher could have simply reviewed the information that Breitbart said he didn't publish, confirmed that Brietbart didn't publish that information, and written the story "Breitbart didn't publish a story he couldn't verify." There was no need to talk about or to the persons who provided the story to Breitbart, or even whether the information was true. Because the (non-)story was not Breitbart didn't publish information that was false, it was Breitbart didn't publish information he couldn't verify to be true.

3. In the course of publishing this non-story, Christopher goes to great lengths to castigate Markos Moulitsas for refusing to take down a diary on his website which purportedly contained information about the supposedly underaged girls who contacted Breitbart with the false story. Christopher makes an ass out of himself about how he's so concerned with the fate of the underaged girls, and how he's a better father than Moulitsas, and how Moulitsas is going to get his ass sued by the parents if he doesn't respond to Christopher's hysterical e-mail messages.

4. Comes the revelation that Christopher was dumbfucked by a person or persons who were pretending to be underaged girls and the mother of one of the girls. The extent of Christopher's investigation into the veracity of the story was asking for, and receiving a fax copy of a driver's license and two high school i.d. cards. The "underaged girls" and their "mother" don't exist, and ceased communication with Christopher while he was continuing to spend quality time seek contact with them (a fact not disclosed to Merdeheate's readers until Christopher was exposed as a hack).

5. Caught in the act of being dumbfucked, Christopher simpers, "Even in hindsight, the decision to run the story did not create harm, and did, in fact, prevent harm. As a journalist and a parent, I'm not sure what I would have done differently."

6. The fake story "did not cause harm." Yes. But only because Christopher and Merdeheate had no credibility to harm before the story was published.

7. The fake story "did, in fact, prevent harm." No, it didn't. The high schoolers Christopher claims he was trying to protect don't exist, and thus couldn't have been harmed.

8. "As a journalist ... I'm not sure what I would have done differently." I'm sure the second part is true. But any other person claiming to be a journalist would not have wasted 10 seconds on this tripe. And, in dealing with a person she or he had never seen or met, would have sought actual proof of identity, not a facsimile copy of a document that could be faked by anyone with an i.q. higher than Christopher's low double digits.

9. If Merdheate was a real journalistic enterprise, Christopher would have been terminated by now for his ineptitude and his shitty, self-aggrandizing writing. But it's run by Dan Abrams.

On The Internet, Everyone Knows You're Stupider Than A Dog

Tom Tom Christopher, self-proclaimed ethicist and defender of "underage girls," has a little trouble distinguishing between fantasy and delusion:

Then, in what seems to be an elaborate ruse, the Twitter user claiming to be Nikki Reid and then a woman claiming to be her mother contacted Tommy Christopher, a correspondent for Mediaite, the media blog. After first communicating online, Mr. Christopher said, the woman dismissed claims of incriminating evidence against Mr. Weiner and accused members of the #bornfreecrew of harassing her daughter and her daughter’s friend. The woman also made a statement, which offered a forceful defense of Mr. Weiner.

She repeated this by phone to Mr. Christopher, who insisted the woman provide documentation confirming her identity. The woman faxed over a copy of a California driver’s license with her name, Patricia Reid, at a Los Angeles address, as well as school identification for the girls. But it turns out that the driver’s license and the school identification were fake, according to California state officials and school district officials.

What a jughead!

Tom Tom needs to spend less time protecting imaginary teens and more time in remedial journalism class. Yes, this is kind of quality journalism that Dan Abrams puts out.

Update: Tom Tom's defense: "'Without concrete proof, though,' Christopher says, 'we had to proceed under the assumption that these people were who they said they were, and that compromising their identities represented a significant risk of harm.'"

We had to protect the fake identities of nonexistent people we identified in the first place, even though there was no reason for our fake story, even if it was true. Fucking funniest thing I've read this year.

Some Kind of Bun

How can anyone boycott the Huffingglue Post when it generates original reporting of this caliber?

Joe Scarborough let loose on Newt Gingrich during Friday's "Morning Joe."

Scarborough was eating a bun of some kind when Mika Brzezinski played a clip of Gingrich saying in a speech that President Obama favored "the opposite of freedom." This was too much for him, and, with food still in his mouth, he went on a sarcastic rant about Gingrich.

"It's not the opposite of freedom," he said. "If you're scoring at home, kids, Barack Obama and his sort of mushy progressive but moderate, extending the Bush tax cuts and tripling the number of troops in Afghanistan, that is not left-wing Marxism or socialism. That is not the opposite of freedom. The opposite of freedom would be, oh, I don't know, Gaddafi."

Brzezinski let out a shriek of laughter.

Now, some may criticize the Huffingglue Post for failing to nail down exactly what kind of bun Scarborough was eating. But the point is the Post took the time and effort to watch a television program and then craft a dramatic narrative that accurately describes the television personality's thoughts and actions.

The website also calls Scarborough's comments an "epic rant," but I suspect that's just puffery to get Arianna a more favorable time slot than Tina Brown.

Loving v. Haters

The National Review finally dumps that loathsome old bigot, Bill Buckley, on the trash heap of history. From The Corner:

Segregation was a profound social evil. Full stop. Marriage as an exclusive heterosexual union is a necessary social good. It is why all cultures since earliest days, regardless of religion, law, or culture, have marriage as only between men and women.


Loving v. Virginia struck down a legal regime, peculiar to certain parts of the nation, that was wholly racist at its core. As the court observed, the Virginia law was about “the absolute prohibition of a ‘white person’ marrying other than another ‘white person’.” It was about nothing more than the racial purity of whites and all the ugliness that implies.

But Bill Buckley thought segregation was a profound social good. Full stop:

The central question that emerges . . . is whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not prevail numerically? The sobering answer is Yes – the White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race. It is not easy, and it is unpleasant, to adduce statistics evidencing the cultural superiority of White over Negro: but it is a fact that obtrudes, one that cannot be hidden by ever-so-busy egalitarians and anthropologists.

[...]

National Review believes that the South's premises are correct. It is more important for the community, anywhere in the world, to affirm and live by civilized standards, than to bow to the demands of the numerical majority. Sometimes it becomes impossible to assert the will of a minority, in which case it must give way, and the society will regress; sometimes the numerical minority cannot prevail except by violence: then it must determine whether the prevalence of its will is worth the terrible price of violence.

In 50 years, National Review may acknowledge that Glenn Stanton's bigotry is the same as Bill Buckley's. I suspect a condemnation of Glenn Stanton's criticism of Buckley is more likely.

Frivolous Motion Denied

The least meritorious argument ever crafted by a lawyer not representing Conrad Black has been rejected by the Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California:

"It is not reasonable to presume that a judge is incapable of making an impartial decision about the constitutionality of a law, solely because, as a citizen, the judge could be affected by the proceedings," Ware wrote in his ruling.

The chief judge said all Californians share an interest in having the the Constitution enforced. The "single interest" Walker shared with the same-sex couples who challenged Proposition 8 "gave him no greater interest in a proper decision on the merits that would exist for any other judge or citizen," Ware wrote.

Of course, the losers plan to appeal, citing the devastating destruction of marriage already caused by the ruling.

I wouldn't be surprised if Rick Santorum leaves his wife for a Doberman by week's end.

There's no joke so unfunny that National Review online can't mistell it:

He mixed policy talk with light chatter. Talking to one of the diner employees, Romney warned her that he was about to make a "terrible joke." Noting that the diner served eggs benedict with hollandaise sauce, he suggested that they start serving the dish in "hubcaps because there's no place like chrome for the holidays."

Even though I missed the Republican debate, I can tell you who won.

Would It Kill You To Ask For Directions?

The term "mastermind" is not used literally here:

NAIROBI, Kenya — Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, Al Qaeda's leader in East Africa and the mastermind of the American Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, was killed in a late-night shootout at a security checkpoint in Mogadishu, Somalia's capital, Somali and American officials said Saturday.

...

"Fazul’s death is a significant blow to Al Qaeda, its extremist allies and its operations in East Africa," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said. "It is a just end for a terrorist who brought so much death and pain to so many innocents in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam and elsewhere — Tanzanians, Kenyans, Somalis and our own embassy personnel."

Mr. Mohammed, who was one of the most wanted men in Africa and had a $5 million bounty on his head from the United States government, was shot to death before midnight on Tuesday after he and another militant mistakenly drove up to a checkpoint manned by Somali government soldiers.

When the two men tried to escape, the Somali forces fired on their black Toyota four-by-four and killed them during a short gunfight. Somali intelligence officials said that DNA tests carried out in Kenya "by our friends" — suggesting the Central Intelligence Agency, which has been working covertly in Somalia for years — confirmed Mr. Mohammed’s identity.

"This was lucky," a Somali security official said Saturday night. "It wasn't like Fazul was killed during an operation to get him. He was essentially driving around Mogadishu and got lost."

Rats Deserting A Sinking Shit

There go Newt Gingrich's seven votes:

Newt Gingrich's campaign manager and a half-dozen senior advisers resigned on Thursday, two aides said, dealing a significant setback to his bid to seek the Republican presidential nomination and severely complicating his plan to make a political comeback.

The campaign manager, Rob Johnson, along with advisers in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, joined together to step down after a period of deep internal disagreements about the direction of the campaign.

...

The defections included several veteran Gingrich political advisers, along with new aides who were recently hired. The list, according to two aides, included: Rick Tyler, his longtime spokesman, David Carney, a New Hampshire-based political strategist, Sam Dawson, a strategist, Katon Dawson, a South Carolina consultant and Craig Schoenfeld, an Iowa consultant.

Maybe Newt's streamlining his campaign, like John McCain did.

CNN Reports:

If confirmed, [the death of Al Qaeda leader Ilyas Kashmirihis] would be the first major kill or capture since Osama Bin Laden, and the highest profile drone target since Beitullah Mehsud in 2009.

Jesus, what took you so long? It's been over a month! And now back to the Tot Mom trial, already in progress.

Ten Days That Shook The Weiner

As we enter week two of The Mysterious Case of Anthony Weiner's Cock, the story has finally gotten interesting, mostly for revealing the existence of cretins even more cretinous than Andrew Breitbart and Ace O' Spades.

Take, for instance, Tom-Tom "Tommy" Christopher, a blogger at Dan Abrams' website, Mediocrity. Christopher has written a five-page post celebrating the fact that on one occasion Andrew Breitbart did not publish something false. His headline:

Andrew Breitbart Did Not Run "Weinergate" Evidence Which Turned Out To Be Fake.

Of course, many people don't publish (or repeat) lies all the time. But Tom-Tom thinks that Breitbart deserves a long-winded and poorly-written gold star about the one time Breitbart could have published a lie, but didn't.

According to Tom-Tom, Tom-Tom was contacted by an "under-aged" girl who was chatting with one of Represenative Weiner's online stalkers/accusers. The girl told Tom-Tom that she and her friend had previously communicated online with some other netcretin associated with the accuser, and the girl's friend told the netcretin that Rep. Weiner had communicated privately with her. (The friend later admitted she made this up.) Tom-Tom thinks that Breitbart's decision not to publish an undocumented, third-hand allegation makes him worthy of copious praise. Perhaps Breitbart can return the favor and heap praise on Tom-Tom for not sodomizing newborn kittens before their eyes have opened.

(The love-struck Tom-Tom even promises Breitbart, "For my part, I would testify in court that Andrew did not induce anyone to produce evidence against Anthony Weiner, fabricated or otherwise, and treated the documentation presented to him with circumspection." Of course, such testimony would never be permitted in court, based on such fundamental principles of evidence as compentency, the hearsay rule, etc. Tom-Tom would be more credible promising to catch a grenade for "Andrew," ala Bruno Mars.)

Of course, Tom-Tom's praise of Breitbart as ethical and concerned about protecting minors is based on false facts and premises, as demonstrated here and here. But we're more concerned with Christopher's scumbaggery, not Breitbart's. And Christopher's post is exceedingly creepy.

In the course of his story, Tom-Tom details parts of his lengthy communications over the internet with one of the two high school girls, and names the girls "Betty" and "Veronica" in his post. I'm not saying that Tom-Tom imagined his online chats in this matter, but the mere fact that he was communicating with "under-aged" girls about a sexual subject (the false allegation of inappropriate conduct by Weiner) is pretty sleazy in itself. Someone actually concerned with the privacy of minors might have spent less time (that is to say, no time) communicating with those minors and/or might not have featured them so prominently in a story the only point of which was that Andrew Breitbart did not publish one false allegation he received.

Diving even deeper into the sewer, presented, without comment, is the transcript of a 3.5 hour online sexychat between between some student filmmaker and "Dan Wolfe", in which Dan denies any desire to be the next Joe the Plumber. Like Tom-Tom Christopher, Dan is a concerned parent who spends quality time with his kids by ignoring them for hours while engaged in self-centered online wankery (figuratively) and trivia.

Who knew the internet was so jam-packed with losers?

Update: Tom-Tom gives Andrew some more love by crowing that Andrew removed a link to "underage" girls on the Big Government site after only four days. Whatta guy! At least Tom-Tom didn't get the chance to name those girls after Josie and the Pussycats or other characters in comic books for preteens.