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The Dave Matthews Band has agreed to pay $200,000 (105,000 [pounds]) after their tour bus dumped human waste on a boatload of tourists in Chicago.

(link)

The Dick Dasen Trial: Weekend Edition

Yesterday, I twice heard on the radio a commercial for that evening's Entertainment Tonight. According to the spot, the show planned to broadcast segments with Dr. Phil counselling Pat O'Brien: "Pat, whuut the hyell were yew thankin'?" and Mary Kay LeTourneau's advice to her kids: don't have sex before marriage.

I first thought it was a parody.

It wasn't.

Which brings me to the Dick Dasen trial. The commercial made me question whether I was spending too much time on a lurid story with little or no relevance to politics, society in general, or the lives of anyone I know.

But I decided I want to be a real media player and, therefore, I need to expand my Dasen coverage. I'm thinking reenactments -- not just of the trial, but of the events described in testimony; expert commentary from batshit rabid former prosecutors demanding justice for Dasen's alleged victims (referred to on a first-name basis, of course) and current and former crank addicts, johns and 16-year-olds; and multiple Dick-cams, trained 24 hours a day on the entrances to the Flathead County Courthouse and stately Dasen Manor. It could be brillant.

While I work out the funding for my ambitious plans, however, you'll have to settle for cut-and-paste reporting.

On Wednesday, the State opened it case with testimony from a police officer who described how Dasen came to the department's attention. Detective Kevin McCarvel then described how the police set up an encounter between Dasen and one of his intended beneficiaries:

With video and sound surveillance equipment in a room at the Blue and White Motel, officers saw what transpired. McCarvel said the informant was partially dressed when Dasen entered the room. There was discussion about her "financial needs," then Dasen rubbed the woman's feet and he started to get undressed.

When it appeared Dasen was reaching to remove the woman's underwear, McCarvel said, officers entered the hotel [sic] room and arrested Dasen.

Later, some physical evidence was introduced:

Also introduced as evidence were sexual "aids" and toys, about 30 computer disks, and a personal computer tower that were all recovered from Dasen's office on March 3.

Best questioned officer Timothy Falkner, the evidence technician who collected the items from Dasen's office.

He asked who put the sex toys in Dasen's office. When Falkner said he didn't know, Best asked, "Can you tell me whether or not it was a member of your search team?"

Objection. Asked and answered.

More on the physical evidence here. (Search for "disconcerting size")

On Thursday, the prosecution presented the testimony of the aforementioned informant, Leah Marshall. Ms. Marshall offered a tragic account of her life as a drug addict. She first did crystal meth at age 12 and abused drugs with her mother, who also was an addict. Marshall claims that Dasen gave her large sums of money in exchange for sex, although he never articulated the concept of an exchange. Later, she claims, Dasen paid her for recruiting other women for similar transactions.

Dasen's attorney was set to cross-examine Marshall on Friday, but that's not yet online.

The Fifteenth Column

I'm sworn to secrecy about the reasons, but I've been asked -- in my capacity as a blogger -- to identify one to fifteen of my favorite columnists, in order of preference. Since this blog really is all about you -- the Roger Ailes community -- I think you should have the final say in this effort. I'll select my faves, but all votes will be equally weighted.

Here's my list so far:

Peggy Noonan
David Horowitz
Kaye Grogan
el-Brent Bozell
The Virgin Armstrong

What, you were expecting Paul Krugman?

I'll take nominations in comments until 6 p.m. Eastern time on Monday, May 2.

Remember, they have to be regular columnists, not bloggers or plumbers or whatever Mickey Kaus is. You don't have to rank them, since that would make things too complicated for me and I'd just ignore it anyway. Don't vote more than once, although how would I know? And no voting for yourself -- that means you, Dr. Quackhammer and Ms. Malkintent!

Thanks for your help.

Simple Simon

There's a word for this post. Genius. Read it.

Peggy Noonan is running a contest:

"I here invite all readers who work in government to give, in one paragraph, their memory of Most Obnoxious Hissy Fit by or Most Appalling Style of any unnamed government official with whom they have worked, and what they learned from it."

Whatever you do, don't e-mail her paragraph six of this article.

Pest of the Web

James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal isn't the sharpest tool in the jumbo-sized chest of very dull Republican tools. He accuses Max Blumenthal "play[ing] at [sic] the age-old political sport of guilt by association" by reporting that the Family Reseach Council's Tony Perkins paid white supremacist and felon David Duke $82,000 for Duke's mailing list. The guilt is paying a Klansman eighty-two thousand for a mailing list of his fellow racists. That's guilt by action, pure and simple.

Oi, Taranto. What'chu think you're playing at, sunshine?

James Guckert Gets Pissy

April 29, 2005 -- DISGRACED former White House reporter/male escort Jeff Gannon can't believe no one has invited him to tomorrow's White House Correspondents Dinner. "It seems to me to be odd to exclude the one person who has brought more attention to the White House press corps than anyone else in years," Gannon tells PAGE SIX's Jared Paul Stern. "Probably many who would want to extend such an invitation already assume I will be in attendance." Gannon, whose real name is James Guckert, quit his job with the conservative Talon News earlier this year after his fake name, lack of journalistic qualifications and male escort connections came to light. The dinner usually features several stars and sensational guests such as Paula Jones to liven things up. The sub-par star lineup this year includes Robert Duvall, Burt Reynolds, Randy Quaid, Ron Silver, Patricia Heaton and Anne Hathaway.

If only the Powerline boys had a table and a spare $200.

The Dick Dasen Trial - Opening Statements

Dick Dasen's attorney revealed his theory of the case in his opening statement on Wednesday.

Best told jurors they'd hear about Dasen's good works, his charity that has helped the Flathead Valley's poor pay for housing, medication, food, utilities, day care, "generally every sort of charitable cause."

But, he said, "there's no fool like an old fool. Mr. Dasen was duped and acted foolishly."

Dasen, Best told jurors, "committed adultery, and he did it often."

That lapse, Best said, already has destroyed Dasen's personal life and self-esteem.

But, Best said, there was no crime. Dasen had "affections" for the women, Best said, and "truly felt for all the people with whom he was involved."

...

Best also questioned whether Dasen was manipulating the girls and women, or whether it was the other way around. "Before it's over," he predicted, "you'll wonder who had control."

Interesting. The women not only forced Dasen to give them money, they forced him to have sex as well. One cannot imagine the depths of his suffering.

This seems an odd strategy. Defense counsel's admitting the sex and the payment of money. (Probably because he has no choice.) Dasen's alleged charitable motive for exchanging money for sex would seem irrelevant to the elements of the crimes. And if he's arguing the absence of a quid pro ho - that giving money and the sex were unrelated transactions -- there's no manipulation or control involved; Dasen and his partners were just friends with benefits.

Best hit several times on the fact that Dasen's personal life is in ruins, hinting, perhaps, that the defendant had already paid the price.

So he's not getting any, anymore.

Thank goodness for the presumption of innocence -- it's about all Dasen has going for him right now.

Justice Thursday

Despite its faults, Florida has some very sound jurists.

Investigators should be able to examine the medical records of conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh, Florida's Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

In a 4-3 vote, the court declined to review Limbaugh's appeal from a lower court, where he argued that a seizure of his medical records violated his privacy rights.

Thursday's decision may bring prosecutors one step closer to charging Limbaugh, if they determine he illegally bought prescription painkillers.

It's nice to see a majority of strict constructionists on the Florida high court.

"This is a quintessential ACLU case," said Howard Simon, executive director of the group's Florida branch. "If you look beyond the central figure, the celebrity of this case, what it boils down to is diminishing the privacy of medical records for everyone in the state of Florida."

"Boils." Heh.

Roy Black, the Miami lawyer who is representing Limbaugh, issued a written statement Thursday afternoon promoting his client's innocence.

"I have said from the start that there was no violation of the . . . statute, but that Rush Limbaugh should not have to give up his right to privacy in order to prove his innocence," Black wrote.

In a separate statement, Black billed Limbaugh a cool thou for the first statement.

Daryn Kagan soon may have some formidible competition for Big Pharma's affections.

Dick Dasen Trial -- Day Two

Actually, jury selection didn't go that slowly.

A jury of five women and seven men will hear opening arguments Wednesday in the case of a prominent Kalispell businessman accused of numerous sex crimes.

Here are the charges:

Dasen faces one felony count each of rape, for engaging in sexual relations with a child not old enough to grant her consent; sexual abuse of children, for photographing sexual encounters with underaged girls; aggravated promotion of prostitution, for compelling at least five underaged girls to become, in effect, his personal prostitutes; and promotion of prostitution, for leading women of all ages into a lifestyle of prostitution.

Dasen also faces one misdemeanor charge of soliciting a prostitute, and nine felony solicitation charges.

If true, Dasen's not just a wealthy john, he's a cretin of astounding proportions.

"I just wonder how this man got himself into such a pickle," one [prospective juror] said as the questions continued Tuesday. "It just seemed from the newspapers that it just got to be a real mess."

Yes, it's quite a pickle.

Tony Perkins, Man of God

Max Blumenthal shines the spotlight on Tony Perkins, Family Research Council President and Friend of Frist. Blumenthal writes in the Nation:

Four years ago, Perkins addressed the Louisiana chapter of the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), America's premier white supremacist organization, the successor to the White Citizens Councils, which battled integration in the South. In 1996 Perkins paid former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke $82,000 for his mailing list. At the time, Perkins was the campaign manager for a right-wing Republican candidate for the US Senate in Louisiana. The Federal Election Commission fined the campaign Perkins ran $3,000 for attempting to hide the money paid to Duke.

Would Jesus pay 82K to a Klansman?

Sounds like Perkins has less of a problem with white robes than he does with black ones.

(Link via Buzzflash.)

Dick Dasen Trial: Day 1

Jury selection has begun in the criminal trial of Christian philanthoprist Dick Dasen. It's going slowly.

And here's an interesting tidbit from the local press:

About that same time, at least one witness became shy, saying he was "concerned for his own personal safety." One of Dasen's "girls" had turned up dead in a motel room, strangled with Dasen's semen beneath her naked body.

Police have been careful not to tie Dasen to the murder, but witnesses were hearing rumors about "Dasen 'having things done' to people who threatened him and/or posed a threat to him," the record states.

Armed with that evidence, police asked one of "Dasen's girls" to place a recorded phone call to Dasen. She set up an "appointment" for the first week of February 2004, and police rented two adjacent motel rooms - one for the cops and one for the "appointment."

The sting came off without a hitch; Dasen was arrested wearing only his underwear and socks.

I had thought the murder victim had no connection to Dasen, but just happened to be killed in a motel room Dasen had allegedly previously used.

After his arrest, Dasen provided his attorney, George Best, with the names of 400 females "who he has 'helped,' " the affidavit states.

That's a lot of help.

The Old Stomping Grounds

Northwest Indiana. It's San Diego for ugly people:

Longtime Democratic operatives have only themselves to blame for not cleaning their own house and embracing reform. They could have been heroes. Instead, they are looking sheepish and have alienated the people who will be the party's future. When George Pabey, a Puerto Rican candidate, challenged Mayor Robert Pastrick of East Chicago, the longest-serving head of a political machine in America, Mr. Pabey seemed to have won - until absentee ballots were counted. Hispanics, who make up some 52 percent of the city, were enraged, believing they had been robbed. The state's highest court agreed and nullified Mr. Pastrick's victory. He lost in a rematch and Mr. Pabey became the city's first Hispanic mayor.

Mr. Pastrick himself has not been charged, although several close associates and his son Kevin received prison sentences. But it is unseemly that the former mayor continues to hold sway in the state party. The mayors of Gary, Hammond, East Chicago and Whiting distanced themselves from him and signed on to a good government initiative. One, Scott King, the 10-year mayor of Gary, went further. Citing the Democrats' problems and their lack of real leadership, he quit the party last week. "I haven't lost my mind," he told me. "I'm an Independent. Not a Republican." Still, it is the first time in generations that someone who is not a Democrat has been mayor of Gary. The constituents don't seem upset, Mr. King said.

Just like old times.

New Voices Emerge

I, for one, look forward to Arriana Huffington's new blog.

The "MSM" has for too long silenced the voices of Jann Wenner, Barry Diller, Walter Cronkite and Norman Mailer.

Tony Blankely for too long has been denied a platform to slander George Soros.

Where else could Conrad Black's dogsbody, David Frum, find a space to suck up to his beleaguered master?

Where else would Michael Medved find an wide audience for his completely sane theory that "oil companies are always anti-semitic."

Where would the malnourished John Fund find a buffet that hasn't blacklisted him?

And where but such a blog could Mort Zuckerman publish his thoroughly researched, scholarly papers on tort reform?

I haven't been this excited in ages.

Crazy Davy Gets Out His Crayons

I've got a new post at Horowitz Watch about David's latest version of reality.

For more Horowitzian fun, read his latest at Clownhall.com. It's got everything: paranoia, paranoid speculation, self-pity, inconsistency and, best of all, really, really bad writing. For example:

In fact to propritiate [sic] the backlash was the only reason the university itself put up a modest honorarium for my speech.

Sometimes a conservative in my audiences will not be able to contain their distress at the presence of a political opponent and let their hostility be seen.

There is only one conservative in Professor Hiller's department, of course, and it was he who was pointing the finger at me.

I try to fathom what kind of teacher would do a thing this to his students?

This is the real mission that drives them not the academic filler.

This man -- I will call him Crazy Davy -- writes like an subliterate twelve year old, yet wonders why he couldn't get a job as a professor.

By the way, if midget Mickey Kaus loathes the Los Angeles Times so much, what was he doing at the Times' Book Festival? (Link to my earlier post; why bother?)

It's not like he's an author. And there's not much evidence that he reads anything besides right-wing blogs and online newspapers linked to by those blogs.

Maybe he was there to beg MoDo to write a book about her ailing mother. Was he there to mooch a twenty from Mike Kinsley? Or was he Hugh Hewitt's waterbearer?

Howie the Unreliable Putz

Speaking of dishonest, overheated rhetoric, Howie the Putz channels el-Brent Bozell and Nooners in an embarassing performance claiming the SCLM has been biased against Benny the Rat.

The Putz announces his bogus premise as follows:

Pummeling the pope. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger gets a hero's welcome in Rome and rough treatment in the press. Are the media giving him a tough time because of his conservative views, or properly scrutinizing the world's newest religious leader? A 1,000-year tradition meets the 21st century media.

Apparently pointing out that the pope has conservative religious views constitutes pummeling.

Fortunately, E.J. Dionne tells Kurtz that he's full of crap:

I am so tired of -- any coverage of somebody who is conservative that is not adulatory, a whole bunch of guys get on television and attack the press for not being adulatory. It's the same story that they are regurgitating about the coverage of Cardinal Ratzinger as Pope Benedict as they would about George Bush.

If you look at the leads of all the stories in the major newspapers, I talked to reporters in Rome who said that their newspapers actually pushed down some of the critical commentary, precisely because they didn't want to come out of the box in the first five paragraphs of their stories saying these critical things. Yet this choice was controversial, that's a fact.

You've been pummelled, Howie.

Shorter John Leo: I've found some right-wingers more dishonest and given to overblown rhetoric than even myself.

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A Happy Anniversary

"Five years ago I returned to my dad," he said. "That was the happiest day of my life."