Photo courtesy of High School Musical 23: The Drunken Reunion Hook-Up
Dear Michael and Sharon Ensign:
This blog is looking for underwriters. Surely you've got better things to spend your money on than that foursome. And Nore Losercoleman and Macaca George. E-mail me.
Yours,
Roger
Pegaloon is asking for a beatdown by the FOX/Tea Party/Steyn/V.D. Hansen-Van Sustern wings of the Republican Party:
"She makes the party look stupid, a party of the easily manipulated."
As a wise woman once said, "Only one person can make you look stupid."
Peggy also opines:
She hurts, as they say, the Republican brand, with her mess and her rhetorical jabberwocky and her careless causing of division. Really, she is the most careless sower of discord since George W. Bush, who fractured the party and the movement that made him.
Rocket man burning out his fuse up here alone. (Although whoever wrote that subhead for Peggers was surely prescient.)
Just the other day, I said: Hey, Mom and Dad, could you give $96,000.00 to some woman I screwed, and her family? In unmarked bills?
Unfortunately, my parents stopped doing my laundry when I moved out. Not so for Johnny Ensign's parents:
Sen. John Ensign's attorney acknowledged Thursday that the Nevada Republican's parents paid nearly $100,000 to the family of his mistress around the time she and her husband left his staff in April 2008.
In a statement from Paul Coggins, Ensign's attorney, said that the senator gave Doug Hampton, Cindy Hampton and their two children gifts worth $96,000 and that "each gift was limited to $12,000." [Which was it, the Senator or his parents? Get better writers, Politic-ho -- RA]
"The payments were made as gifts, accepted as gifts and complied with tax rules governing gifts," Coggins said.
Coggins said that after Ensign told his parents about his affair with Cindy Hampton -who was an then a campaign aide - the senator's parents "decided to make the gifts out of concern for the well-being of long-time family friends during a difficult time.
"The gifts are consistent with a pattern of generosity by the Ensign family to the Hamptons and others."
That last statement was a huge mistake, Coggsy. Someone is going to demand proof.
"Doctor" Helen Smith ponders the death of Steve McNair:
What will happen if the evidence finds that this woman killed the victim? Probably nothing. "Experts," politicians, and activists will continue to say we need to focus exclusively on domestic violence against women...and people will applaud. Does anyone see the irony here?
Why, yes, I believe I do.
The murderess gets off scot free simply because she's a woman. If she was a man, she's get jail time and a lethal injection while sitting in the electric chair! How long must men put up with such discrimination! You're brilliant, "Dr." H!
Apart from the obvious idiocy of Helen Headcase's call from something to be done, the quack fails to identify anyone who thinks domestic violence (or any type of violence) is, or should be, illegal only when the victim is a woman. The "doctor" also fails to explain how any action could be taken to prevent an event such as McNair's shooting when there was no history of violence between the persons involved.
Since "Dr." Helen thinks men are the true victims of domestic abuse, the solution is obvious. Disarm all women to give men a level playing field. By force, if necessary.
Some tool named Tevi Troy (another moron from Cornell, and a wingnut welfare queen to boot), demonstrates his mastery of humor:
Harry Reid's press conference yesterday revealed some interesting things. The first thing is that he apparently doesn't think much of Al Franken's humor:REID: Senator Franken gave me a few jokes he thought I should share with you, but I didn't like them, so I'm not going to do it.Since senators love few things more than to get laughs from reporters, I would love to see the rejected Franken jokes and see if they were rejected because they were unfunny, tasteless, or both.
He's absolutely right. Tevi should demand to see the gags, and should refuse to do anything else until the Majority Leader hands them over and offers a full explanation for his refusal to recite them. If Senator Reid denies their existence, Tevi should blow the lid off this vast conspiracy and bring the Senate down around the Leader's ears.
Wotta maroon!
How does George Will keep his job with the Washington Post Writers Group?
*rimshot*
The usually accurate Bob Somerby appears to have confused Elizabeth "Lally" Weymouth nee Graham with Katharine "$25 K" Weymouth.
That would make Katharine her own mother, which, while it would explain how she got her current position, is scientifically impossible.
How dead is the Teabag Movement? Even a bought-and-paid-for hack like Roger el-Simon can't get it up for Bagism any more:
The Tea Party Movement has some promise, but it too looks backwards. Madison, Adams and Hamilton were clearly great men, but where are their modern equivalents? Surely we don't want to rely entirely on ideas honed in the Eighteenth Century, laudatory as many of them are. It’s good to be reminded of them, but it's also good to have a plan. I haven't heard one yet, just a lot of no - no to taxes, no to spending, no to socialized medicine. That's all fine as far as it goes, but it's not exactly inspiring.
That leaves inbred law perfesser Glenn Reynolds as the last man holding the teabag.
But disillusionment at his manufactured movement is just a part of Rog el's greater funk, which appears to have started at around the same time sales figures for Blackfisting Myself were released. Roger is really, really, really bummed, and it's all because America won't put out for him, no matter how much he begs:
Don't get me wrong - I love my country. And maybe it's because I love it so much that I am so depressed. Yes, I know it's always darkest before the dawn and all that. And I want to "look at the bright side," as my grandmother always advised. Still, these are dark times and it's hard to pretend otherwise.
I'm guessing Roger's Gran wasn't living in a mini-mansion off royalties and wingnut welfare. And that she was a lot more pleasant to be around than her fatuous mope of a grandson.
Fortunately, Rog has a solution to his malaise, one he lifted from the title of the shittiest Woody Allen film that Rog didn't write:
No, my suggestion is even more radical. We should junk the liberal and conservative orthodoxies that have divided - and blinded - us for so long and go back not to Eighteenth Century America, but Nineteenth, to the days of that most American of philosophies - pragmatism. "The pragmatists rejected all forms of absolutism and insisted that all principles be regarded as working hypotheses that must bear fruit in lived experience." Now there's a thought that might brighten even grumpy me on the Fourth of July.
That's the kind of philosophy we might expect from a man who believes that no one can tell he's bald if he never takes off his hat.
A sincere thank you to my guest bloggers, Anthony Cartouche and Tom Hilton.
A big round of applause for Anthony and Tom, give it up, everybody.
Modoc has the highest Republican registration of any county in California, it unfailingly elects anti-tax Republicans to office, and the vote here against last month's ballot measure that would have raised a variety of taxes was one of the most lopsided in the state. And yet, per capita, Modoc County gets more state taxpayer dollars than all but one of California's 58 counties....It's easy to laugh at Modoc, but the attitude is pervasive in California. Way too many people (and 34% is all it takes) believe in the Anti-Tax Fairy, who delivers all the essential services without anyone ever having to pay.
"I don't think voters in the conservative counties understand the connection between the service they are receiving and the votes their representatives are making," Evans said. "Maybe the layers of government are so convoluted that many people don't realize how it works."
In Modoc, the way it works is that if the cuts being proposed go through, near-catastrophe will reign, said County Administrative Officer Mark Charlton.
He said the entire road maintenance service would be closed except for snowplowing on a few main roads, the welfare-to-work CalWORKS program would be cut in half, many mental health patients would no longer be monitored and would relapse and wind up behind bars, and there would be fewer police patrols.
And if the Capitol does indeed slash Modoc County's money for road maintenance, health services and welfare job training - which will happen, if Sacramento's Republicans get their way - McGarva and Hodge have the same plan.Yes, that's right: the New Deal was a triumph of individualistic anti-government self-reliance.
"Well, we'll just get by the way we did in the Great Depression - on our own," McGarva said.
No law, bill, resolution or any act of Congress shall exceed 2000 words, including all footnotes, amendments and signatures. Congress shall not vote on any item longer than that. Each item requiring a vote shall be read aloud in its entirety in session to a majority of members. Those not in attendance may not vote on the item.For reference, that's 11,114 fewer words than are in the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
A former mayor found sitting naked and holding a beer at a Rabun County campsite told police he wasn’t the same naked man seen walking around earlier.
Mark Musselwhite, 43, said he was hot and had been in the creek, according to a Georgia Department of Natural Resources incident report. He apparently didn’t think he was doing anything wrong.
Musselwhite, of Gainesville, was arrested last weekend after being confronted by state DNR authorities. He was charged with public indecency.
. . .Musselwhite, a Republican, was elected to the City Council in 2000. He served on the council for six years, including as mayor of the town. In 2006, he lost a bid for a state Senate seat.
Musselwhite previously served as deacon of First Baptist Church in Gainesville.
I'm taking a week's vacation beginning on Thursday and my plan was simply to let the blog lay dormant and see if anyone would notice. In light of Governor Sanford's trip on the Hillbilly Treasure Trail (which starts at the airport men's room in Plumber's Crack, Georgia, it seems), or whatever it was, I thought I should give notice, lest someone panic and call the National Guard.
I haven't solicited guest-bloggers but, if you've previously guest-blogged, you can still sign in and fiddle about. And I might be able to hook up anyone else who e-mails by noon tomorrow at the fastmail.fm e-mail address.
What's in it for you? That special feeling you get when you help someone less fortunate, or get your dope through customs without detection.
Speaking into William Safire's sphincter from somewhere in Hell, Richard Nixon offers his opinion of President Obama:
Nixon worried that greater access to abortions would foster "permissiveness," and said that "it breaks the family." But he also saw a need for abortion in some cases, such as interracial pregnancies.
"There are times when an abortion is necessary. I know that. When you have a black and a white," he told an aide, before adding: "Or a rape."
Tricky Dick also gives a posthumous shout-out to Ben Stein:
Dick is still the true voice of the Republican Party.At another point he said, "It may be they have a death wish. You know that's been the problem with our Jewish friends for centuries."
Nicholas Kristof blogs:
And for Ling and Lee, if by some chance this blog post reaches you, courage! We are with you in spirit, and some day this will end. Then you'll be back with your loved ones, celebrating, like David Rohde. You will come home!
Unless, like Daniel Pearl, you don't.
I am certain, Nick, that if Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee get internet access in their North Korean prison, the first thing they'll do is search your blog for words of comfort and inspiration.
Nick, if by some chance you're Googling yourself and this blog post reaches you, go fuck yourself!
Governor Sanford has been located. He went to Tijuana for the weekend with Grady and Rollo, and they were detained until Aunt Esther arrived with the bail money.
Or maybe this.
Here's an excerpt from Ms. Dowd's obituary, published in today's Times:
"It's like he's got one of those Fly Terminator targeting systems in his eyes," marveled Jon Stewart.
Maybe the president who collected Spider-Man comics as a kid couldn’t resist the age-old face-off with a fly.
The moment had echoes of parables in which the ordinary one becomes the golden one.
In "The Karate Kid," a teenager whose father has died learns lessons about the body and spirit from his surrogate father and karate teacher, Mr. Miyagi. His lessons are about not going to the dark side, the importance of discipline, and catching flies. "Man who catch fly with chopstick," Mr. Miyagi says, "accomplish anything."
In the Grimms’ fairy tale, "The Brave Little Tailor," a tailor brandishing a rag kills seven flies swarming around his jam-smeared bread. The little man admires his own bravery so much — "For joy his heart wagged like a lamb's tail" — that he wants the whole world to know of it. So he stitches up a belt for himself embroidered with the legend "Seven at one blow!" and saunters out.
Protected by his legend, using brains rather than brawn, he dispatches two giants and captures a unicorn and a wild boar before winning a princess and living happily ever after as a king.
The president didn't order up a "One at one blow!" belt. You don't need such accessories in the era of YouTube viral videos. But he did admire his own ninja moves so much that he gave himself a shout-out: "That was pretty impressive, wasn't it? I got the sucker." Then he solicited more snaps for what Harwood called his "'Make my day' moment" from his press secretary off camera: "Whaddya think, Gibbs?" After the interview was over, he continued his superfly moves by cleaning up the carcass with a napkin.
The moment may have resonated so much because some Americans fear that President Obama is too prone to negotiation, comity and splitting the difference, that he could have been tougher on avaricious banks and vicious Iranian dictators.
The "shocking murder in the White House," as Stephen Colbert dubbed it, was a small moment. "All they want is to be loved and to feed on our waste," Jeff "The Fly" Goldblum said in a dry defense of the exoskeletal creatures on the Colbert Report.
Mr. Goldblum's quip will serve equally a fitting eulogy for Ms. Dowd and her ordure oeuvre.
You should definitely read it while waiting for the pathetic output from the blog you're currently reading.
Doug Hampton reveals the right-wing cabal who threatened his family's lives:
The unethical behavior and immoral choice of Senator Ensign has been confronted by me and others on a number of occasions over this past year. In fact one of the confrontations took place in February 2008 at his home in Washington DC (sic) with a group of his peers. One of the attendee’s (sic) was Senator Tom Coburn from Oklahoma as well as several other men who are close to the Senator. Senator Ensign's conduct and relentless pursuit of my wife led to our dismissal in April of 2008. I would like to say he stopped his heinous conduct and pursuit upon our leaving, but that was not the case and his actions did not subside until August of 2008.
The actions of Senator Ensign have ruined our lives and careers and left my family in shambles. We have lost significant income, suffered indescribable pain and emotional suffering. We find ourselves today with an overwhelming loss of relationships, career opportunities and hope for recovery. Our pursuit of justice continues to place me and my family in harm’s way as we fear for our well being (sic).
It's heartbreaking to see someone mourn the loss of the gravy train with such sincere emotion. If my math is correct, Dougie and Cyn collected from the Senator for at least two months after the Coburn confrontation, and their kid collected a check for five months, all before Ensign's actions subsided.
Given all the grammatical errors (not all of which the Sun caught), the following statement by Doug should shock no one:
I have great respect and affection for Fox News and many of your collages (sic).
Signed, "Glenn Beck's No. 1 Fan (And Shepard Smith Can Blow Me)."
In Las Vegas on Wednesday, lawyer Daniel Albregts issued a statement that said "Doug and Cindy Hampton can confirm that they are the individuals referenced by Senator Ensign during his press conference."
"It is unfortunate the senator chose to air this very personal matter, especially after the Hamptons did everything possible to keep this matter private," the lawyer said. "It is equally unfortunate that he did so without concern for the effect such an announcement would have on the Hampton family. In time the Hamptons will be ready and willing to tell their side of the story." (Emphasis added)
Of course, Albregts' statement also contradicts Ensign's fallback fable that Doug was just threatening to go on Cheaters with some grainy night-vision footage of the Silver Fox in action. Either way, it seems Ensign's failed coverup is worse than his non-crime.
I'm just glad the story doesn't involve a Democrat. If it had, the police would be recovering Mickey Kaus's body in very David Carradinean circumstances.
John Ensign's dirty little secret keeps getting dirtier. While he was screwing around with mom and paying dad more than $100K per annum, Ensign also found a job for Hampton Jnr.:
The 19-year-old son of a woman who reportedly had an affair with Nevada Sen. John Ensign was being paid by the National Republican Senatorial Committee during the relationship, federal election records show.
Brandon Hampton, who shares an address with former Ensign staffers Doug and Cynthia Hampton, was paid $5,400 between March 2008 and August 2008.
The payments, for "research policy consulting," ended the same month as the affair, which was said to begin in December 2007.
If there's anyone whose research and policy skills the NRSC needs, it's that of a teenager whose mom has questionable taste in congressmen.
Really, how hard can it be to identify John Ensign's staffer/lover? Mickey Kaus would have already sussed this one out with both hands tied inside his pants, but for the fact that Ensign's a Republican.
The NYT reports:
An aide said the consensual affair took place between December 2007 and August 2008, and that the woman worked for both Mr. Ensign's campaign operation, Ensign for Senate, as well as a conservative political action committee, Battleborn PAC, from December 2006 to May 2008. Mr. Ensign is honorary chairman of the PAC. The woman's husband was a member of Mr. Ensign's official Senate staff. Neither has worked for the senator since May 2008, the aide said.
Mr. Ensign, 51, is married and has three children. During college at Colorado State University, he became a born-again Christian and he and his wife, Darlene, were active in the Promise Seekers, an evangelical group.
Mrs. Ensign stands by her man:
Mr. Ensign's wife also issued a statement, reaffirming her commitment to her husband: "Since we found out last year we have worked through the situation and we have come to a reconciliation. This has been difficult on both families. With the help of our family and close friends our marriage has become stronger. I love my husband."
I'd say John "found out" more than a year ago, but maybe he's a little slow about such things.
Hearing reports that blackmail is involved, Michael Steele hopes to blame the affair on President Obama.
Update (6/17): Ensign was allegedly summering in the Hamptons. Since Ensign has reportedly charged Mr. Hampton with the crime of extortion, this should be interesting.
A remarkable story of an American railroaded by the British courts and his possible vindication:
The case of one of the most notorious murderers in British history, Hawley Crippen, is to be referred to the Court of Appeal, where the infamous doctor may secure a posthumous pardon 99 years after he was hanged.
The Criminal Cases Review Commission has been secretly examining the safety of Dr Crippen's conviction and officials believe that senior judges should now decide whether he is innocent of the murder of his wife in 1910. Cases are referred to the appeal court if the commission feels there is a "real possibility" that the conviction will be ruled unsafe and quashed. At the centre of the case is DNA evidence that may establish the innocence of the American-born Crippen.
Lawyer Giovanni Di Stefano and leading QC James Lewis, acting for Patrick Crippen, a relative of the doctor, said they were told last Friday that the case would be referred to the court in a development that may make Crippen the victim of the longest miscarriage of justice in British history rather than a name that is a byword for murder most foul. Crippen was hanged and buried in the grounds of Pentonville prison after a jury found him guilty.
According to prosecutors at his Old Bailey trial in 1910, the homeopathic practitioner poisoned his unfaithful wife, Cora, dissected her body and buried the remains in the cellar of their north London home. Police found a corpse with no head, bones or genitals. Preparations are already under way to begin the exhumation of Crippen's body at Pentonville. Descendants of Crippen said yesterday that they were "90%" certain that the body would be ferried back to Michigan in the US, where the Crippens have a family burial plot. Lawyers claim that such a development might also reveal the contents of a series of letters apparently buried in his coffin and which purportedly reveal the "truth" behind the body in the cellar.
...
The chief justice, Lord Alverstone, directed the Old Bailey jury in 1910 with concerns over the gender of the corpse by saying: "Of course, if it was a man ... the defendant is entitled to walk out of that dock."
Lewis, whose prosecution cases include ex-Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, has agreed to represent Crippen in court. Crippen's place in criminal history is cemented by the fact that he booked a passage on a ship to Canada taking his mistress, Ethel Le Neve, disguised as his teenage son. The pair were recognised by the liner's captain, who famously used the new Marconi telegraph system to alert Scotland Yard.
A compelling case against the death penalty, if the evidence is accurate.
Update: But apparently not breaking news.
This time, NRO's beg-a-thon doesn't include the rectal thermometer.
It was too painful for Jonah to have to shove it up far enough to hide the palrty level of giving.
Ross Douchehat says that the murder of doctors who provide abortions is God's will:
If abortion were returned to the democratic process, this landscape would change dramatically. Arguments about whether and how to restrict abortions in the second trimester — as many advanced democracies already do – would replace protests over the scope of third-trimester medical exemptions.
The result would be laws with more respect for human life, a culture less inflamed by a small number of tragic cases — and a political debate, God willing [sic - inshallah], unmarred by crimes like George Tiller’s murder.
Of course, Douchehat could just be saying that everything that happens, such as the 9/11attacks, is God's will. If abortion was "returned to the democratic process," God might stop the killing of doctors, or God might not. Hardly a reason to change anything.
As for how Douchey knows the result would be "laws with more respect for human life," or which lives Douchey is talking about, God only knows.
Scott Roeder called The Associated Press from the Sedgwick County jail, where he's being held on charges of first-degree murder and aggravated assault in the shooting of Dr. George Tiller one week ago.
"I know there are many other similar events planned around the country as long as abortion remains legal," Roeder said. He would not elaborate.
Put up or shut up, torture-lovers. If you can't justify it here, you're full of shit.
Here's Bay Buchanan, sticking up for her little thug employee, Marcus Epstein:
Within this story it was reported that two years ago next month Marcus assaulted a black woman in Georgetown calling her the “n” word.
Sorry, Bay. Little Marcus didn't just assault the woman. He assaulted and battered her by hitting her in the head while calling her a nigger.
With respect to the incident I have been asked not to comment by Marcus’ attorney since the case is still pending. But putting the incident aside, the stories about Marcus were for the most part inaccurate and incomplete.
And yet, Bay does comment on the incident by putting her sleazy little spin on it. And doesn't identify a single inaccuracy in any version of the event that I've seen.
I write this story not as an excuse for Marcus’ actions. There is no excuse. Marcus would be the first to admit this, and he has, many times.
Except, of course, in his plea agreement, where the little shit refuses to admit responsibility for his actions.
Marcus is half Jewish, and half Korean.
Just so you don't think he's some dirty New York Puerto Rican.
He has a pronounced speech impediment
Although he has an amazing capacity not to slur his racial slurs, even when "completely intoxicated." Nice trick, that.
an exceptional mind, and a remarkable talent for writing. But it was only after this incident that I came to fully appreciate his finest qualities.
Namely, his ability to hit African-American women.
So anyway, Marcus gets depressed his senior year in college and because he's such a good little race baiter, Bay installs him in a spare closet at the manse.
As he sat in my living room my heart broke. Never had I seen a person in so deep and dark a place.
Uh, what about your crazy brother, Hank? The one who watched Hardball and then went off to shoot some guy that Chris Matthews falsely suggested was responsible for harassing Kathleen Willey?
Where's the family loyalty, Bay?
After exhausting himself emotionally he went to one of my spare bedrooms to sleep. He stayed several months and left only when he felt he was strong enough to be on his own again. But the demons were too great.
Early one Saturday evening, several months later, I received a call from a friend of Marcus’. "Marcus is in jail," he told me. The two of them had gone to Georgetown to have a drink before joining others for dinner, he explained. When they left their drinking hole, however, Marcus was completely intoxicated, nearly incapable of walking. It was then that the incident occurred.
So the incident occurred exactly as it was reported, except they left out the part where Marcus became magically intoxicated through no fault of his own. And Marcus didn't punch a cop like Bay's butch brother, Pat. Instead, he struck an innocent woman while spouting racial slurs.
Okay, who's been drunk?
Raise your hands.
And how many of you hit a woman while spewing racist slurs because of the booze?
Nobody?
Anybody here been depressed?
Beat up any women?
It's amazing that the troubled Marcus didn't paste Bay during all of those months in the Buchanan compound.
Wonder how that didn't happen.
Marcus was arrested and released that same evening. Unable to face this new level of disgrace and failure, he went to his office where he drank to make the pain go away -- for good.
Disgrace and failure? No 23 year old is a failure who has his own office stocked with booze and the keys to Bay Buchanan's magic kingdom.
Marcus agreedto have his mommy and daddy and some high-priced legal talent run interference for him
and spent six weeks in a California facility. I told him if he did so he would have a job to come back to. In the last two years I have seen a transformation. He joined AA, attends meetings several times a week, and volunteers at detox and rehab facilities to help others struggling with alcoholism.
Here's the problem. If Bay is to be believed, little Marcus hasn't done shit. No mention of apologizing to his victim. No mention of restitution to the victim or to the United States for the cost of his prosecution. No public statement of remorse. No attempt to address his bigotry, indeed, he continues to work for loathsome bigots -- and not just the Buchanans.
But the Left doesn't care about any of this.
Well, you've got me there, Bay.
They kept moving this little tidbit, watching it ricochet around their shallow world in the blogosphere, until it landed on a popular site for incoming law students. There individuals who claim they’re interested in carrying-out justice in this world saw to it that Marcus paid again for his offense. With nothing but a skeleton of a story they initiated a campaign targeted at UVA's Admission Office. And they won -- Marcus will not be attending UVA Law School in the fall.
Yeah, it couldn't have had anything to do with Marcus lying on his law school application, could it, Bay? Now that we've got UVA Law by the balls, guys and gals, let's demand full professorships and bullshit chairs like Glenn Reynolds has.
Don't slit your wrists yet, Bay. You and Pat have been compensated handsomely for your bile and have been media darlings for over two decades without wasting three years on the Uniform Commercial Code and declarations against interest. Just introduce little Markkky Markkk to Phil Griffin and Jonathan Klein and I'm sure he'll do just fine in this cruel, cruel world.
Update: Final link corrected.
Update II: The Huffington Post says that Marcus's plea deal required him to write a letter of apology to his victim and a $1,000 donation to the United Negro College Fund. I'm sure those were his idea.
Bonus Fun:"Here's some remorse and self-awareness for you:
It would be futile to even begin to catalog all the people whose careers have been destroyed for uttering 'nigger' or even words that sound like 'nigger' no matter the context."
That's our boy, wallowing prospectively in his own victimhood, nine months after his crime. (See the quote in comments here; no link to the racist website where Marcus published the statement.)
Charles Krauthammer thinks it's dangerous when "concern for certain ethnicities override[s] justice."
The Bush Administration's criminal attorney attempts to smear Judge Sotomayor, and reveals his own intellectual incompetence:
Obama had some truly outstanding legal intellectuals and judges to choose from — Cass Sunstein, Elena Kagan, and Diane Wood come immediately to mind. The White House chose a judge distinguished from the other members of that list only by her race....
Sotomayor's record on the bench, at first glance, appears undistinguished. She will not bring to the table the firepower that many liberal academics are asking for. There are no opinions that suggest she would change the direction of constitutional law as have Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court, or Robert Bork and Richard Posner on the appeals courts. Liberals have missed their chance to put on the Court an intellectual leader who will bring about a progressive revolution in the law.
So Yoo thinks the only distinction between Judge Sotomayor and the other outstanding legal intellectuals and judges he names is her race, but he also thinks she's not an intellectual leader or a distinguished jurist. What a maroon!
Those enhanced interrogations in Karl Rove's private chambers must have done some permanent damage to poor Johnny's brain.
Several federal court clerks, all of whom are Democrats and all of whom want President Obama to appoint a judicial star of the highest intellectual caliber, have separately confirmed to me that New Republic legal affairs editor Jeffrey Rosen was seen this morning wandering around without pants, throwing feces at passersby and shouting into his cell phone headset, "tell the Chief Justice that it's Jeff Rosen calling... Rosen! R-O-S-E-N!"
None of the clerks would comment on whether Rosen's exposed anus was "especially clean and tight."
I haven't researched whether these reports are consistent with Rosen's character, or true, nor have I spoken with anyone who hasn't seen Rosen flinging excrement. However, I'm certain that the anonymous witnesses were not motivated by sour grapes or ideological disagreement, so the reports must be true.
"If girls realized the consequences of sex, nobody would be having sex," says Bristol, sitting at her parents' lakeside patio table. "Trust me. Nobody."
Maureen Dowd: "no, we were going back and forth discussing the topic of the column and he made this point and i thought it was a good one and wanted to weave it in; i just didn't realize it was josh marshall's point, and we've now given him credit my friend didn't want to be quoted; but of course i would have been happy to give credit to another writer, as i often do."
Act I; Scene I:
Dowd: Boy, that Dick Cheney sure is something! I've got a lot to say about torture in my next column, but I just can't find the exact words.
Friend: The way I see it, Maureen, more and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when the Bush crowd was looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq.
Dowd: That's an interesting point. Hold on. Let me write that down. Could you repeat that?
Friend: Sure. More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when the Bush crowd was looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq.
Dowd: Got it. May I use that? With credit, of course.
Friend: Of course. But I don't want any credit.
Dowd: I'd be happy to...
Friend: Thanks, but I'd rather you didn't quote me.
Dowd: You're the best. I can't tell you how much this helps me.
There are many ways to play this scene. If I'm Friend, what's my motivation?
Who believes MoDo's explanation that she lifted the following sentence from Josh Marshall innocently, via a friend who just happened to quote Josh verbatim, and who Ol' Dowdy then quoted verbatim with attributing the quote to the friend, and with one minor change?
More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when the Bush crowd was looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq."
As Dowdy works for The New York Times, shouldn't the management there be gearing up for an investigation like the one involving Jayson Blair? A peek into Dowd's computers at her palatial D.C. estate is in order, to search for evidence as to whether Dowd did visit TPM when she was on deadline. The paper should also check Dowd's phone records for urgent calls to the sacrificial friend minutes after she learned she had been nailed. And exactly who is the schmuck who's willing to take a fall for the biggest embarassment to the times since Bill Kristol and Judy Miller fouled the roost?
MoDo has friends in high places at the paper and the Beltway incest crowd, so she'll likely get the same level of protection as Miller got before the stench became unbearable. But I'd love to see Judy back in the Times once more, blasting Dowd in the same way Dowd blasted Judy before it was revealed they're a geriatric version of Patty and Cathy Lane.
Further proof of Dowd's guilty mind is that (with apologies to Josh) the sentence is not one of Josh's finest prose efforts. If Dowd was borrowing the idea from a friend, wouldn't she rewrite the sentence so it sounded better?
I hope someone steps up on this and doesn't let Dowd slide with her bullshit once again.
Update: One suggestion for the friend is Leon Weasel-tee-yay, friend of Scooter Libby. Maybe a stint in rehab will save Dowd.
If you oppose marriage equality, someone -- and we're not sure exactly who -- will stop at nothing to ruin your life. Take it from someone whose well-concealed identity as a tedious scold was made public by radical homosexualists:
First, note what the movement of tolerance does when you simply exercise your rights to free speech, taking a position they disagree with. They go personal. They go for the jugular. They try to embarrass and humiliate you. They will stop at nothing not only to discredit but absolutely destroy you [sic].
In this case, they will find pictures of you modeling lingerie and tell people you had objects surgically inserted into your breasts. In fact, since they will stop at nothing, they presumably will do this even if you haven't posed in lingerie or gotten breast implants. They will make you write ungrammatical sentences. They are that evil.
Speaking as someone who supports marriage equality, I don't care if you've posed in your underwear or had breast implants. Speaking as someone who's sane, I wouldn't pose in my underwear or get breast implants if the revelation of those facts would embarrass me, humiliate me and/or destroy me. If you're going to do that kind of thing, don't claim you're a victim of character assassination when it is revealed that you've done that kind of thing.
K-Lo and her co-author seem to smell a big gay conspiracy behind Operation Destroy American Beauty, but they don't marshal any facts to place a smoking gun in the mitts of "the movement of tolerance." I don't know, nor do I care, who divulged the extremely uninteresting details of what-her-name's beautiful life, but such revelations happen to famous people -- and morons too -- regardless of their views on civil rights. Were John Edwards and that cable-teevee douchebag with the eight kids victims of the Gay Crusades as well? Only in the dankest recesses of K-Lo's barren bonce is Miss California a wall trophy for the gay mafia.
Of all the reasons John McCain had his ass handed to him last November, surely Michael Goldfarb's incompetence must be ranked somewhere in the low 700s. Still, Goldfarb's status as a first-rate cretin cannot be denied:
Yesterday THE WEEKLY STANDARD obtained a copy of Elena Kagan's senior thesis, written almost thirty years ago while an undergraduate at Princeton. The title of the thesis: "To the Final Conflict: Socialism in New York City, 1900-1933"
Goldie has blisters on his lips from reading through this tome in 24 hours, and has uncovered such subversive bon mots as these:
Why, in a society by no means perfect, has a radical party never attained the status of a major political force? Why, in particular, did the socialist movement never become an alternative to the nation’s established parties?
Radicals have often succumbed to the devastating bane of sectarianism; it is easier, after all, to fight one’s fellows than it is to battle an entrenched and powerful foe. Yet if the history of Local New York shows anything, it is that American radicals cannot afford to become their own worst enemies. In unity lies their only hope.
Goldfarb hasn't yet reached the part where Kagan calls for show trials and the public execution of Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale for crimes against the workers, and the redistribution of mood rings from the oligarchy to the proletariat.
O.J. Simpson's choice for President in 1988 has died.
The locker room showers of this country are a little less integrated today. And presidental politics lost the finest double act this country had seen before McCain/Palin:
At a meeting of young Republicans in July, Mr. Dole remarked with barbed humor that "Kemp wants a business deduction for hair spray." Speaking to the same group, Mr. Kemp came back with the retort: "In a recent fire, Bob Dole's library burned down. Both books were lost. And he hadn't even finished coloring one of them."
Huh? Whut Arkansas Project, Swift Boat Veterans, Jerome Corsi, Regenery Publishing, Fox Networks, Sinclair Broadcasting, Washington Times, NewsMax, WorldNetDaily, Rupert Murdoch, National Review, American Spectator, David Horowitz, Matt Drudge, Republican National Committee, National Republican Congressional Committee, Karl Rove, Alberto Gonzales, Floyd Brown, Roger Stone, David Bossie, Stanley Kurtz, Alan Keyes, conservative talk radio, Pajamas Media and conservative blogosphere? Did whut? (drools)
Hold him back! Hold him back!
"Professional blogger" John Hawkins is hoppin' mad. He wants to defeat the treacherous leftists, but those pussified conservatives won't let him win. If only he had a cunning plan:
Instead of continuing to complain, here’s a better idea. Why don’t conservatives do opposition research on the journalists endlessly running stories about Bristol Palin and Joe the Plumber? Have they ever been arrested? Whom do they own property with? Have they ever been paid to do a speech for someone and then run a favorable news story about him? Certainly Keith Olbermann’s personal life is just as newsworthy as Joe the Plumber's, and the details of Maureen Dowd's life are just as noteworthy as those of Bristol Palin — are they not?
Maureen Dowd's personal life? That's your plan? Maybe John Tierney has some sepia-toned daguerreotypes he can sell you, and a stereopticon to view them on.
Here's another example. On college campuses, conservative speakers often need bodyguards to give a speech. Conservatives are shouted down and attacked — and nothing serious ever seems to happen to the fascists who engage in these thuggish tactics. So why shouldn't conservative groups do the exact same thing to every liberal speaker who comes to the college? Go on stage, lock arms, and shout him down — then sue the university if they're given so much as an hour's detention more than the protesting liberal students.
Detention? But what will you do if they take away your hall pass?
Are you sick of feeling like you need to familiarize yourself with porn terms just to understand what they’re saying about the tea parties on MSNBC or CNN? Then start filing obscenity complaints with the FCC.
Careful, Johnny. You never know who might get swept up in your Rosie Palmer Raids.
But there are some things that even John Hawkins won't do for love
Obviously, we don’t have to become liars — in fact, even setting aside the ethics of it, it's better for our credibility if we don't.
You can't kill a corpse, Johnny.
How much credit did John McCain get for refusing to talk about Jeremiah Wright and Barack Obama’s lack of patriotism? How many times was George Bush — a moderate on domestic issues who bent over backwards to create a “new tone” — accused of being Hitler? How many times has Fox News, which makes more of an effort to be balanced than any of the other networks and all the biggest newspapers in America, been accused of being as biased as Rush Limbaugh?
How many fingers am I holding up, Johnny?
Now that John Hawkins has proposed all these ideas, he has an obligation to carry them out. John owes us a report on Keith Olbermann's sex life by next week and, above all, he must storm the stage when President Obama speaks at Notre Dame on the 17th. Otherwise, he's all talk and no action.
Sully Joe Sullivan is still backpedaling on his glowing endorsement of the bullshit 20/20 piece saying that Matthew Shepherd's murder wasn't motivated by anti-gay bigotry. In 2009, he writes:
I agree, but then I've never been on the gay left and have always opposed these laws. There is a real debate about the 20/20 story and, for the sake of balance, you can read the critiques of it here and here.
Of course, Sully didn't think there was a "real debate" of the 20/20 piece back in 2004, when he was pimping it -- and his tangential role in it:
Now ABC News has prepared an important, thorough and debunking review of what happened. I was tangentially involved in the documentary, but wasn't privy to its most closely held findings. I have a feeling it will reveal how dangerous it is to rest an entire political argument on one incident, whose details were always murky and subsequently turned into myth.
How does one have a real debate a "thorough" "debunking"? How does one debate a false story, a "myth."
Perhaps Sully should explain his acknowledged role in the piece, rather than pretending to be a neutral observer, as he now does. Why doesn't Sully acknowledge his involvement any more? If there's a real debate about the piece, Sully should explain what he knows -- both about the reporting and the murder itself -- so we can judge the piece on all the facts.
Sully's fallback position is that Shepherd murder isn't the issue, what he really cares about is the injustice of hate crimes laws. (Of course, he could have made that argument without endorsing shoddy reporting or attacking his political enemies -- if he wasn't Sully, that is.) But he still doesn't understand hate crimes legislation.
At least this go round he doesn't claim that such laws create protected classes or punish thought. But he still argues that there's no reason to treat variations of the same criminal act differently based on intent. Yes, the victim of of a revenge killing which started as a bar fight or a lovers' quarrel is just as dead as the victim of a fatal gay-bashing. And both killers deserve harsh punishment. But if we want to discourage things which should be stopped -- and can be stopped -- by imposition of harsher penalties, it makes sense to impose a greater punishment on those things. There are criminal laws which impose greater penalties for killing on-duty police officers, or federal workers, or children. There are criminal laws which impose greater punishment for defrauding or abusing the elderly or incompetent, because they are more vulnerable to abuse. These laws reflect not only value judgments, but also practical judgments as to most effective way to deter certain types of crimes. For Sullivan to pretend that hate crimes laws are some aberrant deviation from what exists in our present legal system is simply absurd.
Following in the footsteps of the U.C. Berkeley School of Law and Open Sores Media aka Depends Media (don't make me link to Jeff Jarvis), the Grand Old Party plans to piss away good money on bad public relations:
GOP set to launch rebranding effort
Posted: 11:00 PM ET
From CNN Chief National Correspondent John King
WASHINGTON (CNN) - Coming soon to a battleground state near you: a new effort to revive the image of the Republican Party and to counter President Obama's characterization of Republicans as "the party of 'no.'"
CNN has learned that the new initiative, called the National Council for a New America, will be announced Thursday.
It will involve an outreach by an interesting mix of GOP officials, ranging from 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain to Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor and the younger brother of the man many Republicans blame for the party's battered brand: former President George W. Bush.
In addition to Sen. McCain and Gov. Bush, GOP sources familiar with the plans tell CNN others involved in the new group's "National Panel Of Experts" will include:
*Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a former national GOP chairman
*Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal
*Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney
It will report to GOP congressional leaders, and among those signing the announcement that will be made public Thursday are:
*House GOP Leader John Boehner
*House GOP Whip Eric Cantor
*House GOP Conference Chairman Mike Pence
*Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell
*The No. 2 Senate Republican, Jon Kyl
*And the Senate GOP Conference Chairman, Lamar Alexander
Now there's a diverse group of leaders if ever I saw one. And it's a breakthrough concept for a Party's leadership to take on leadership roles. They're all looking forward ... to a long nap.
Wait....
UPDATE: South Dakota Sen. John Thune will also participate in the group. The Republican congressional leadership is also slated to travel the country and attend town-hall meetings as part of the new effort.
Perhaps I've been too harsh.
To save the Grand Old Party from blowing hundreds of thousands on sleazebag ad types who don't moonlight as sex workers, I'm asking my readers to come up with alternative suggestions to the National Council for New America (NC-FN'A). Leave your suggestions in comments, and I'll forward the best suggestions to Chairman Steele.
Oh. Wait.
Arlen Specter has two biographies on his official website. The first paragraph in each is bland boilerplate. Here is the second paragraph of each:
One:
His legal background and experience in constitutional law provided the skills to chair the dignified confirmation hearings of Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito. In earlier confirmation hearings he had the courage to cross party lines in opposing Judge Bork and disagreeing with conventional wisdom in supporting Justice Thomas after dissecting the contradictory and highly charged testimony.
Two:
Senator Specter has been a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee since he came to the Senate. As such, he has played an instrumental role in many of the Senate's most important issues, including the confirmations of Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. and Justice Samuel Alito to serve as Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Near the top of Arlen's own list of accomplishments in the U.S. Senate is giving lifetime tenure to John Thomas and Veto Scalito. And he supported Clarence Thomas not for his legal competence or knowledge, but because he wasn't convinced Thomas victimized his female staff. The pool of qualified jurists has grown exponentally.
It's Specter's party; we're just Lana Clarkson.
Finally some relief for the overlooked victims of the Bush recession:
The Yankees cut by up to 50 percent the price of the $2,500-a-game Legends Suite seats for full season-ticket holders at their new stadium on Tuesday. They also announced that holders of the ticket plans behind home plate would be given an equal number of tickets free.
Sadly, the prospective purchasers have already Gone Galt and will only return when they follow the Galt's Gulch Baseball Club on their road trips to New York City.
Dig this crazy reasoning:
Suppose the investigators decide that the country does not want to see the former president and vice president in the dock. Then underlings pay the price while big shots go free. But at some point, if he is at all a man of honor, George W. Bush would feel bound to say: That was my policy. I was the president. If you want to indict anyone for it, indict me.Don't investigate because we can't hold the President accountable for violating the law and we can't hold others accountable for violating the law when we won't hold the President accountable.
Is that where we want to go? I don't think so.
Here's an idea: How about we suppose that the country (and not just Broder) decides whether they want to see Bush and Cheney in the dock after all the facts are made available to them. And how about we further suppose that the investigators will follow the law and will indict or not based on the facts, as the law requires them to do, rather than follow some opinion poll. You know, like what is supposed to happen for every other citizen of the United States. Or, better yet, why don't we not fucking suppose at all, and just find out the facts instead.
The biggest flaw in Broder's reasoning is that assumption that George W. Bush is at all a man of honor. Of course, Broder's conclusion that Bush is a man of honor is based on his belief that Bush never got blown in the Oval Office.
Miss Bybee regrets, you are unable to breathe today, sir,
Miss Bybee regrets, you are unable to breathe today.
She is sorry you are restrained,
Tied to a board, blindfolded, gagged and drowned, sir,
Miss Bybee regrets, you're unable to breathe today.
When she woke up and found that her dream of power was gone, sir,
She blamed the people who insist on the rule of law,
And from under her judicial robe,
She cried about context and pressure from Karl Rove, sir,
Miss Bybee regrets her role has seen the light of day.
When Congress came and got her and dragged her from the bench, sir,
She wasn't strung from the old willow at Guantanamo Bay,
But at the moment she dies (of old age),
She will suffer just like the victims of wingnut rage, sir.
Miss Bybee will regret she is unable to breathe today.
(With apologizes to Cole Porter.)
Waterboarding isn't torture. I pay good money for waterboarding.
Okay, technically, it's not water.
The newspapers report, but bloggers add important information the papers don't print for whatever reason.
Of course, blogs make shit up as well. They misrepresent and distort, intentionally and otherwise. Just like television stations and newspapers. It's not the medium, it's the messenger.
(Links via Atrios)
Newt Gingrich rides Moby Dick Airways.
Seems appropriate.
The Chair of the RNC rode Dick in the 2004 and 2008 cycles too.
It's going to be a regular Swallowpalooza in Sacto tomorrow:
Tentative Event Schedule
April 15th - Tax Day!
California State Capitol Building - West Steps
Party from 12:00 to 3:00
11:00 AM Set-up and "Gates Open"
12:00 PM Kick Off
1:00 PM Your World with Neil Cavuto: Live
3:00 PM Neil Cavuto - Fox Business News: Live
And don't forget the the twilight concert by Big Head Neil and the Monsters, followed by the midnight repeat of Your World with Neil Cavuto, and an extra special appearance by Michael "The Unrecognized" Reagan.
From the e-mail bag:
So on this Tax Day, April 15, the Republican National Committee is asking you, along with hundreds of thousands of grassroots activists across our country, to assert a real patriotic act by sending a virtual tea bag to Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and the rest of the tax, spend and borrow Democrats. Let them know enough is enough and you don't approve of their plan to pass the largest tax hike in American history.
And when you send your virtual tea bag today, I hope you will also take this opportunity to make a secure online contribution of $25, $50, $100, $500 or $1,000 to the RNC today to help fund our efforts to resist the massive tax and spending increases Barack Obama and the Pelosi-Reid Democrats are attempting to ram through Congress.
...
Schlomo, Americans will pay more in taxes this year than they will spend on food, clothing and housing combined and it is still not enough for Barack Obama and the liberal Democrats.
...
And when you do, please also make a secure online contribution of $25, $50, $100, $500 or $1,000 to the RNC today to fight the Democrats' efforts to take advantage of America's present economic difficulties to force through their reckless agenda.
Let them know you already pay enough in taxes by sending them a virtual tea bag by clicking here. Please send your virtual tea bag today. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Michael Steele
Chairman, Republican National Committee
P.S. Schlomo, let Obama and the liberal Democrats know enough is enough. Send them a virtual tea bag this Tax Day to protest the liberal agenda to raise your taxes and those of every American. And please take this opportunity to make a secure online contribution of $25, $50, $100, $500 or $1,000 to the RNC to support and elect Republicans who believe in the principles of lower taxes, limited government and personal responsibility. Thank you.
Steele wants you to pay for the privilege of virtual teabagging.
(He also wants you to "assert a real patriotic act." Fucking illiterate.)*
And he repeats his teabegging three times, just in case you're too stupid to understand it the first two times.
* More illiteracy on the Teabag Donation page: "The Obama Democrats want to raises taxes to bankroll their plans to increase spending to record levels, change the tax code to redistribute the wealth of working families, and destroy the savings of millions of middle-class Americans."
A Republican who thinks he is above the law.
Okay, I'll narrow that down. A Minnesota Republican and soon to be indicted former United States Senator who thinks he's above the law:
"The overwhelming weight of the evidence indicates that the Nov. 4, 2008, election was conducted fairly, impartially and accurately," the panel said in its unanimous decision.
In rejecting Coleman's arguments, the panel said the Republican essentially asked it to ignore Minnesota election requirements and adopt a more lenient standard allowing illegal absentee ballots to be counted.
The panel also rejected Coleman's comparison of Senate election problems to those in the 2000 presidential race in Florida.
Unlike Florida, Minnesota has statewide standards for absentee voting that are "uniform and explicit and apply in every county and city," the panel wrote.
Congratulations, Senator Franken.
Syphilis Gonorrhea Hanson has some "thoughts" about pirates:
Piracy may or may not be a matter of American national security, but the American people will not for long stand the notion that a captive brave American ship captain risks his life to escape, while formidable American naval power either cannot or will not punish the miscreants.
More Americans have been killed this month by paranoid anti-Obama teabaggers wearing body armor than have been killed by pirates in the last 100 years.
While Hanson's preferred solution, involving a big 'splosion and 300 naked, glistening swabbies, might arouse Hanson's interest for a few minutes, the American people might prefer a plan which didn't involve killing the brave American ship captain for Hanson's vicarious jollies.
V.D. also notes that, since 1989, his fellow academics have been soft on piracy. Perhaps the eggheads are big Bobby Bonilla fans.
Update: Is this butch enough for ya, Herpes?
Planned Parenthood loses this round.
This kind of thing is bound to happen when Jeffrey puts his tube in.
Allegedly.
(Link via the extremely admirable Fire Mickey Kaus.)
Here's a tea party protest that Instacracker hasn't covered yet:
Poplawski had feared "the Obama gun ban that's on the way" and "didn't like our rights being infringed upon," said Edward Perkovic, his best friend.
Perkovic, 22, said he got a call at work from him in which he said, "Eddie, I am going to die today. ... Tell your family I love them and I love you."
Perkovic said: "I heard gunshots and he hung up. ... He sounded like he was in pain, like he got shot."
Poplawski had once tried to join the Marines, but was kicked out of boot camp after throwing a food tray at a drill sergeant, Perkovic said.
Another longtime friend, Aaron Vire, said Poplawski feared that President Barack Obama was going to take away his rights, though he said he "wasn't violently against Obama."
Vire, 23, said Poplawski once had an Internet talk show but that it wasn't successful. He said Poplawski owned an AK-47 rifle and several powerful handguns, including a .357 Magnum.
Three police officers were killed. Poplawski, wearing a bulletproof vest, was not.
Maybe the 'Cracker will blame the deaths on "Police lameness."
The Palin clan is trying to give hillbillies and petty thieves a bad name:
Todd Palin's half-sister was arrested Thursday after police say she broke into a Wasilla home for the second time this week to steal money.
Palin is the husband of Gov. Sarah Palin. He declined comment.
Diana Palin, 35, entered a home near Wasilla’s Multi-Use Sports Complex and attempted to steal cash from the owner’s bedroom, police said.
She also broke into the same house on Tuesday and stole $400, they said.
She was arrested Thursday morning on felony charges of first-degree burglary and misdemeanor charges of criminal trespass and theft, police said. Friday morning, she remained jailed at Mat-Su Pretrial Facility in Palmer in lieu of $10,000 bail and court-approved third party custodian.
Diana and her husband, Scott McLean, live in a different neighborhood from the location of the home she is accused of burglarizing.
This kind of thing is to be expected when your family disses your dealer's son and you can no longer get your crank on credit. Not that that happened here. This shouldn't present a problem for Diana anyway, given all the cronyism and corruption in the Alaska state government.
Update (4/4):
It was a family outing, reportedly:
Palin's four-year-old daughter, who had been waiting in a 1993 Toyota Camery [sic] during the Thursday incident, entered the house shortly before police arrived as the scene, the prosecutor stated during a hearing on Friday. The affidavit read that the girl told police she had been to the house days before with her mother. Diana Palin denied this, the Daily News said, and claimed she mistook the house for a friend's place.(First link via TPM.)
Ed Schultz isn't my cup of tea, but he probably won't give himself strange haircuts, weep uncontrollably and do prop comedy.
Veteran talk radio host Ed Schultz joins MSNBC as host of "The Ed Show," premiering on Monday, April 6. "The Ed Show" will air weekdays, 6-7 p.m. ET. The announcement was made today by Phil Griffin, President, MSNBC.
"I am thrilled to have Ed kicking-off our primetime lineup," said Griffin. "Ed's proven that he can connect with Americans and will be a perfect compliment to Chris, Keith, and Rachel. He's already made his mark on radio and I'm excited to see what he'll do with the 6 p.m. hour."
"I'm excited to have this opportunity with MSNBC," said Schultz. "I look forward to having a day to day discussion with fellow Americans on issues that really matter to all of us."
David Shuster, currently hosting "1600 Pennsylvania Avenue" at 6 p.m. ET on MSNBC, will join Tamron Hall as host of a new 3-5 p.m. ET program on MSNBC. Shuster will also continue to anchor breaking news coverage during the day and serve as a regular substitute anchor for "Countdown with Keith Olbermann." Norah O'Donnell's hour will move to the morning. The exact hour will be announced at a later date.
I suppose the strategy is to have a blue collar, non-East Coast moderate Dem, since nobody was buying Matthews as a regular guy. But if he hosts the same Newsweek/Politico/WaPo/NBC Rolodex filler that populates the network around the clock, what difference does it make?
Best of luck to Ed.
At memeorandum.com, sham swabbie "Captain" Ed Morrissey reminds us exactly why he's so special:
"Ed Morrissey / Hot Air:
Video: Maher salutes American troops — I stopped watching Bill Maher a long time ago, and it's moments like this that remind me why he's a waste of broadcast air time." (Emphasis added.)
The size of Limbaugh's radio audience must be credited to his followers' inability to understand more complicated technology.
At the same location, Prof. V.D. Hanson demonstrates the advanced stage of his infection with this bit of masturbatory prose:
"Victor Davis Hanson / The Corner:
First-person Socialism — I think our president needs to invest more in the use of the third-person 'government,' since his speeches more and more center on the narcissistic 'I' and 'me.' Even the car-takeover speech was 'I-ed' to death."
Starting a written statement of opinion with the words "I think" is very bad form -- if what you wrote isn't what you think, why the fuck did you write it?
If you want to see what a lying sack of shit Hanson, compare Hanson's bastardization of the text to Obama's actual speech. Obama's speechwriters use "we" and "the government" much more often than "I" or "me." (V.D. also claims that rhe President's use of the first person goes "on and on" after his excerpts, but it doesn't.) It takes a sociopath to find an inordinate use of the first person in the President's statement. And V.D. knows he's lying, which is why he doesn't link to the text.
Once in a while, something so perfectly moronic comes along that mockery cannot illuminate the stupid.
Much of Mr. Obama's vaunted online strategy involved utilizing "Internet trolls" to invade enemy lines under false names and trying to derail discussion. In the real world, that's called "vandalism." [RA -- no, it's not.] But in a political movement that embraces "graffiti" as avant-garde art, that's business as usual. It relishes the ability to destroy other people's property in pursuit of electoral victory.
Hugh Hewitt's popular site shut off its comments section because of the success of these obnoxious invaders. Breitbart.com polices nonpartisan newswire stories for such obviously coordinated attacks. Other right-leaning sites such as Instapundit and National Review Online refuse to allow comments, knowing better than to flirt with the online activist left.
During the Clinton impeachment scandal, a new group out of California called MoveOn.org employed a plan to get its members to dial into right-leaning talk radio shows with scripted talking points falsely claiming that they were Republicans. They said they would never vote for the GOP again if the case against Bill Clinton was pursued.
Particularly eggregious is the Obama Administration's use of the vile expletive glibertarian and speculation about Megan McArdle's gender. Have they no decency?
The crazy corn in Andy's excrement is so abundant that it's impossible to choose from the kernels. But the fundamental flaw is Andy's call to arms without naming the weapon to be used. Andy begins and ends his epistle thusly:
A digital war has broken out, and the conservative movement is losing. Read the comment sections of right-leaning blogs, news sites and social forums, and the evidence is there in ugly abundance. Internet hooligans are spewing their talking points to thwart the dissent of the newly-out-of-power.
We must not let that go unanswered.
...
The American right is in a heap of trouble in a media age that doesn't shun the goons and liars that have poisoned the political process and won the American presidency by breaking the rules of fair play. It is time to fight back, but it won't be easy. The enemy is willing to do and say anything in order to win.
So what is the exit strategy? Shunning? Not having comments? Comment registration? Counterinsurgency? Dimbart rejects the last tactic as un-Judeo-Christian and expressly denies that he is the brains behind the Rebel Alliance ("Of course, every now and then, a curious right-winger will go in and engage in discussion at a left-wing site, but rarely under purely disingenuous and mass coordinated means").
I guess that leaves surrender.
What's up with medical marijuana advocates claiming that President Obama is laughing at them? Here's an example, from the Huffingglue Post:
Today, in the historic first online town hall, President Obama fielded questions from nearly a hundred thousand people online. One of the most popular questions, and indeed, one of the most popular questions in any forum that lets people vote on what matters to them, was about whether legalizing marijuana would help improve the economy and job creation.
Chuckling, the President said: "I don't know what this says about the online audience, but [laughing] this was a fairly popular question, we want to make sure it was answered. The answer is no, I don't think that is a good strategy to grow our economy."
...
Pot saved my life. It's a miracle drug, even the crappy non-organic kind made in a lab.
The President will be asked this question again, and maybe next time he won't laugh at us.
And here's some similar dumbassery from Libertarian Fonzie, who can't blame his ignorance on a near-death experience.
I support the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes (subsidized, if necessary) and the decriminalization of marijuana use. I support legalization of marijuana to the extent that I care at all. Obama wasn't ridiculing medical marijuana use which, according to his characterization of the submissions, wasn't even the question asked. I may be giving Obama too much credit, but I suspect he was goofing on glibertarians who think the world revolves around their right to smoke their inheritances.
If the Obama Administration does reconsider federal drug policy, and it should, it won't be due to the outrage of libertarian wankers prancing about the internet in their hemp-fiber posing pouches.
At the New York Times, it's all the anecdotes that are fit to print:
Take the case of Karen Zuercher and her husband, in San Francisco. Inspired by watching the movie "An Inconvenient Truth," they decided to swap out nearly every incandescent bulb in their home for energy-saving compact fluorescents. Instead of having a satisfying green moment, however, they wound up coping with a mess.
"Here's my sad collection of bulbs that didn't work," Ms. Zuercher said the other day as she pulled a cardboard box containing defunct bulbs from her laundry shelf.
One of the 16 Feit Electric bulbs the Zuerchers bought at Costco did not work at all, they said, and three others died within hours. The bulbs were supposed to burn for 10,000 hours, meaning they should have lasted for years in normal use. "It's irritating," Ms. Zuercher said.
Irritation seems to be rising as more consumers try compact fluorescent bulbs, which now occupy 11 percent of the nation's eligible sockets, with 330 million bulbs sold every year. Consumers are posting vociferous complaints on the Internet after trying the bulbs and finding them lacking.
If someone bitches about it on the internet, it must be true.
I've been using CF bulbs for years. I've never had one fail to work or burn out prematurely. In fact, I've bought them on sale (4 for a dollar) and the problem I have is that I've got a bunch of them sitting on a shelf because the current ones haven't burnt out. Based on my experience, therefore, CF bulbs are infallible.
I am sure there are defective CF bulbs. I've purchased traditional bulbs that didn't work, probably because they were dropped in the store and the filament was damaged. Oddly enough, I didn't nurse my grievance at the offending globes or bitch about them on the internet or elsewhere or store them away in my laundry room as proof I'm not insane...SEE, IT'S THE GODDAMN BULBS' FAULT AND I CAN PROVE IT! I either returned them to the store or, more likely, just tossed them.
The problem with the Times article is that it's devoid of any information about the failure rate of CFs or any comparison to the failure of other forms of lighting. You can write an article about defects in any product or service, but there's no point to such an article unless it provides substantive information about the overall utility or cost of the product (actual failure rate, cost per defective bulb, savings/benefit for properly working bulbs &c.) And even less of a point to an article whose headline ("Do New Bulbs Save Energy if They Don't Work?") suggests that the article will provide an answer to the question posed.
I could go on, but while writing this I see this guy already made the same points and I've just wasted my time writing this.
