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Erick Erickson

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This article is about the political blogger. For other people with similar names, see Eric Erickson (disambiguation).

Erick Erickson
Erickson in June 2011.
Born	Erick Erickson June 3, 1975 (age 39) Jackson, East Feliciana Parish Louisiana, USA
Residence	Macon, Georgia
Alma mater	Mercer University Walter F. George School of Law
Occupation	Writer, columnist
Religion	Presbyterian
Spouse(s)	Christy Erickson
Website
redstate.com

Erick Erickson (born June 3, 1975) is an evil misogynistic^[1] politically conservativeAmerican blogger and editor-in-chief of the blog siteRedState.com.^[2] From 2010-13, he was a political contributor for CNN.

WDPWJP?

Today, Keith Plunkett, the policy director for Teabags McDaniel (R-Loser) tweeted:

“A good man is gone today [because] of a campaign to destroy lives.... To all ‘so called’ Republican leaders who joined lockstep: I WILL NOT REST!”

(Not rest until what, exactly?)

Never-to-be Senator Teabags McDaniel added:

Regardless of recent allegations made against his character, Mark Mayfield was a fine Christian man who was always respectful and kind,” McDaniel said. “He was one of the most polite and humble men I’ve ever met in politics. He was a loving husband, father, a pillar of his community, and he will be missed. We are saddened by his loss, and we send our thoughts and prayers to his wife, his family and friends.”

And what Christ-like act of kindness and respect was the ever-genteel Mayfield accused of?

Mayfield was arrested May 22 and charged with conspiracy.

The Madison County district attorney alleged that he gave advice to a blogger on how to get into the nursing home where Rose Cochran, who suffers from Alzheimer’s, lives so that he could photograph her. Mayfield declined to take the pictures himself, the prosecutor said, but his mother had lived in the facility so he knew the best way in.How could McDaniel have failed to mention what a loving father Mayfield was?

I've never been accused of invading the privacy of a mentally incapacitated spouse of a political rival, but I'm fairly confident that my reaction to a false allegation of such conduct would not be to kill myself, causing pain to my wife and family. Mr. Mayfield may have been innocent (although at least one of his alleged co-conspirators plainly claimed otherwise), and he may have had problems -- physical or psychological -- we know nothing about. But to blame Mayfield's political opponents for Mayfield's actions is beneath contempt, particularly when the Tea Party line is that McDaniel knew nothing about the criminal enterprise (and thus cannot vouch for Mayfield's innocence).

Apropos of Keith's twatter is this: "McDaniel allies have argued that the whole nursing home incident was politicized to get sympathy for Cochran in what became one of the nastiest races in memory."  I'll have to speculate that Mississippi criminalizes the filming of incapacitated patients even when a Senate race is not involved.  But if so, it wasn't politicization of the criminal caper that put Mayfield on the wrong side of the law, it was the caper itself.

Update (6/29/14):  More of the teabag craziness that proves my point.  These fuckheads are delusional.

Teabags Has A Thad

The Tea Party has all it can stand, 'cause it can't stands no more.

I, for one, look forward to a third party formed by such intellectual giants as Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Thor Thorasson and the various grifters who run organizations with the name "Tea Party."  To paraphrase a old cliche, Erick Erickson couldn't organize a piss up lying flat on his back with a full bladder.

Freedom Summer 2014

Freedom comes to Indiana.

And to the Tenth Circuit.

The Leader of The Republican Party Speaks

The leading intellect and conscience of the Republican Party speaks:

My opinion on the settlement of the Central Park Jogger case is that it’s a disgrace. A detective close to the case, and who has followed it since 1989, calls it “the heist of the century.”

Settling doesn’t mean innocence, but it indicates incompetence on several levels. This case has not been dormant, and many people have asked why it took so long to settle? It is politics at its lowest and worst form.

What about the other people who were brutalized that night, in addition to the jogger?

This statement is utterly incoherent.  The settlement is a disgrace because a dick who has following the case says so? It's a disgrace because "Settling doesn't mean innocence"? It's a disgrace because it took so long to settle?  It's a disgrace because other people -- who the vindicated men also did not harm -- were also harmed by persons unknown?

Later on, the short-fingered vulgarian gives up his game in the one coherent sentence in his case -- in which asserts that "these young men do not exactly have the pasts of angels." The vulgarian does not state what other crimes the men have been convicted of.

Five innoicent men were convicted and served more than a decade in prison.  The police who manufactured the confessions -- perhaps even Trump's quoted pal -- suffer no consequences (instead of serving out the wrongfully convicted men's convictions).  New York City made no effort to protect other women by capturing the actual rapist.  People don't deserve due process because Trump divines on a hairball that they must be guilty of something. 

That is Trump justice. That is Republican justice.

Republican Family Values: A Felon Celebrates Fathers' Day

Convicted criminal/ladies' man Dinesh D'Souza pleads for his daughter's affection on FOX:

“Look at it this way,” he said. “If I was in a family and I believed my dad was some kind of serial killer or a child molester, I would still love him. He would be part of my family, but I’d do everything I could to prevent him from doing evil actions. I would think that would be good for the world and for my dad." 

On further reflection, it sounds like he's blaming his daugther for failing to stop him from enlisting his mistress and her husband in his campaign finance fraud.

What Goes Around

Let's hope this one doesn't end up in the drink.

WASHINGTON, June 14, 2014 – Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has ordered the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush to move today from the North Arabian Sea into the Arabian Gulf, Pentagon Press Secretary Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby said.

In a statement, Kirby said the order will provide President Barack Obama additional flexibility should military options be required to protect American lives, citizens and interests in Iraq.

The Bush will be accompanied by the guided-missile cruiser USS Philippine Sea and the guided-missile destroyer USS Truxtun. The ships are expected to complete their transit into the Gulf later this evening, Kirby said.

I Want To Know What Hack Is

Reed Richardson on Ron Fournier, superhack. (Scroll down.)

Confidential to Jack Trammel -- Your New Campaign Theme

You're welcome.

Cantor Won't?

As the GOP's anti-semitic purge continues, Mickey Kaus has gotten his first boner in 50 years.

(No link to the delusional hairless hack.)

This Is The Start of A Ron Paul REVOLution

What a Patriot likes:

Ron Paul, Conservative Daily, Generation Opportunity, National Association for Gun Rights, Rand Paul, The Townhall.com Presidential Straw Poll, RightChange,Personal Liberty, American Crossroads, FreedomWorks, Rep. Allen West,ForAmerica, We The People Bracelet, America's Power, Three Percenter Nation,Nevada Firearms PAC, Howard Scheff for Nevada State Assembly, District 42,Tactical tony 702, Operation “American Spring” set for May 16, 2014: Target Washington, D.C., Alliance Defending Freedom, Support The 2nd Amendment, I Love My Gun Rights, Opposing Views, Liberation Through Music and Art,Tropicana Regency Cinemas, Capitalism Institute, Aloha Energy, Tell Me Now,Gordon Martines for Sheriff 2014, National Rifle Association, Political "Poop",American Center for Law and Justice, Conservative Tribune, Reclaim America,Don't Tread On Me, Your Nation, American Patriot, Capitol City Project, Todd Rokita for Congress, Liberty Investor, Patriot Nation, GreeneWave TV, The Heritage Foundation, CNSNews.com, Marijuanna Fans, Obama is the Worst President in US History, Veterans for a Strong America, David Lory VanDerBeek,Lafayette Cop Block, The Patriot Party, Rand Paul 2016, Jesse Ventura 2016 Debates, Legalize Weed, Outlaw Corporate Greed, Washington Examiner, Draft Judge Andrew Napolitano for President, Greg Palast, United Liberty, Red Alert Politics, I did NOT vote for Obama., Marijuana Policy Project, Coalition for Cannabis Policy Reform, Drug Policy Alliance, Students for Sensible Drug Policy,The Colorado Marijuana Initiative 2012, LEAP Rapid Response Team, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, I will NOT vote for Obama in 2012., I am a Ron Paul bot., Gary Johnson, Kayla Nyte, Levitate, Downsizing the Federal Government, NewsBusters.org, LearnLiberty, Art Robinson For Congress,Americans for Prosperity, Veterans against a corrupt Government., Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, NFIB, American Jobs Alliance, Alex Jones, Stop Obama's Unconstitutional Appointments, Truth and Lies (Radio Show), Ron Paul Revolution T Shirt.

I blame marijuana and Greg Palast..

(Via Gawker)

Most of All You've Got to Hide It From The Kids

I've only added one word to this quote, which helps to illuminate the whole thing:

“She got some bud, some edibles and when we got back to the hotel she had to run off to a Mitt Romney documentary screening,” Brown explained. “She asked me, ‘Will you roll a joint for me, Benjamin? I don’t know how to do it.’ But she had to run really quickly to the screening, and I was going to catch a flight the next day, and we were going to connect a few nights later but it never worked out.”

MoDope

Does anyone believe MoDo's tale that she had a bad reaction to her (implicitly) first "try" at consuming pot candy?

I'd wager that bad prose is not the only thing Dowd has bogarted from Leon Wieseltier and Aaron Sorkin.

Next up: The NYT finances Nick Kristof's trip to liberate Vegas strippers and Ross Douthat's evangelization of Joe Francis.

Dylan Byers' Is Off

PoliticHo gives us another thumb-sucker from a digital rectal exam specialist:

For better of worse, the people formerly known as bloggers need to have specialties in order to command a following. Ezra Klein needs to cover domestic policy, Nate Silver needs to make predictions, Ta-Nehisi Coates needs to write about race, and so on and so forth. You can switch beats, but you have to have one.

To the extent I have one, my raison d'ouevre, my contre bete noire, if you will, is ridiculing self-regarding right-wing media tw*ts, only some of whom have clownish facial hair.  But I can write about whatever I want, and don't have to polish John Harris' Jag or Mike Allen's head, nor fill a hackish quota.

The pay sucks, but the rewards are great.

(link via TBogg )

Don't Douthat, Feminists -- You Wouldn't Like Us When We're Angry

You knew Ross Douthat would pipe up about the recent kllings in Isla Vista, and you knew his conclusion would be that Sex Ruined Everything.  The tubby schlub admits Rodger's mindset -- without acknowledging that he shares it -- but then fingers the real problem:

But feminism, too, is often a prisoner of Hefnerism, in the sense that it tends to prescribe more and more “sex positivity,” insisting that the only problem with contemporary sexual culture is that it’s imperfectly egalitarian, insufficiently celebratory of female agency and desire.

This means that the feminist prescription doesn’t supply what men slipping down into the darkness of misogyny most immediately need: not lectures on how they need to respect women as sexual beings, but reasons, despite their lack of sexual experience, to first respect themselves as men.

Yeah, that's exactly what Rodger needed -- a lot more self-regard "as a man." He could've even made a video on the subject.

Men who hate women have plenty of respect for themselves as men. They think they're entitled to respect because they're men, and that women are entitled to less or none because they're not.  They're not sex positive; they're violence/abuse positive.  Sex positivity is about respect, a concept foreign to Douthat and the parts of that book he's forever humping.

Happy 10th Anniversary to Lawyers, Guns and Money

LGM started back in the heady days of Nader/Camejo Fever, but never succumbed.  The days when Mickey Kaus was a "rockstar" to some, and Nick Kristoff was a decade younger twit.

We shall never see those days again, my friend.

TNR DNR

Michael Kinsley really fucked this one up.  Reviewing Glenn Greenwald's new book, he writes:

Through all the bombast, Greenwald makes no serious effort to defend as a matter of law the leaking of official secrets to reporters. He merely asserts that “there are both formal and unwritten legal protections offered to journalists that are unavailable to anyone else. While it is considered generally legitimate for a journalist to publish government secrets, for example, that’s not the case for someone acting in any other capacity.”

Here at last, I thought, is something Greenwald and I can agree on. The Constitution is for everyone. There shouldn’t be a special class of people called “journalists” with privileges like publishing secret government documents.

I absolutely agree with Kinsley on this.  Journalists should not get special dispensation for reciept and/or reporting of offical secrets.  The faulty premise of that dispensation is that journalists aren't receiving state secrets for their own benefit, but rather so they can report them to the public.  If so, the dispensation should be for those who disclose secrets for a public good, regardless of their profession.  

Here's where Kinsley goes off the rails:

The trouble is this: Greenwald says that Snowden told him to “use your journalistic judgment to only publish those documents that the public should see and that can be revealed without harm to any innocent people.” Once again, this testimony proves the opposite of what Greenwald and Snowden seem to think. Snowden may be willing to trust Greenwald to make this judgment correctly — but are you? And even if you do trust Greenwald’s judgment, which on the evidence might be unwise, how can we be sure the next leaker will be so scrupulous?
...
The question is who decides. It seems clear, at least to me, that the private companies that own newspapers, and their employees, should not have the final say over the release of government secrets, and a free pass to make them public with no legal consequences. In a democracy (which, pace Greenwald, we still are), that decision must ultimately be made by the government. No doubt the government will usually be overprotective of its secrets, and so the process of decision-making — whatever it turns out to be — should openly tilt in favor of publication with minimal delay. But ultimately you can’t square this circle. Someone gets to decide, and that someone cannot be Glenn Greenwald.

Well why not?(1)  Is it not concievably possible that someone in the govermment, acting under the enabling protections of the Official Secrets Act(2), is a bigger dick than Glenn Greenwald?  And might cause greater harm than GG could, in the exercise of that dickishness?

How about: Someone gets to decide, but that someone cannot be the someone (or the Administration) who benefits from deciding in favor of secrecy.  As Kinsley might say -- the Constitution is for everyone.  There shouldn't be a special class of people called "the government" with privileges like making their violations of the constitution secret.

(1) I see Erik Wemple asks the same question.
(2) The Offical Secrets Act is not an actual U.S. law, but then again, Kinsley's "secret government documents" isn't an actual legal concept either.

Grand Old Police Blotter: Guilty, Guilty, Guilty Edition

Update:  Convicted criminal Dinesh D'Souza is guilty.

Update II:  D'Souza says he deeply regrets getting caught.

Update III:  10 to 16 months sounds about right. Expect D'Souza to postpone his World Victimization Tour until after sentencing.

Update IV: PoliticHO/AP are claiming that "His plea agreement calls for a sentence of 10 to 16 months in prison." That's almost certainly incorrect. That's a possible sentence, but not an agreed one.

Update V: Wingnut wankers are whimpering that the law D'Souza violated was unconstitutional. Maybe they should should have tipped Brafman off to that brilliant defense before his client entered his plea. [/sarcasm]

D'Souza's Going D'own

Judgment day has arrived for D'Bag D'Souza, and signs are he's looking to d'eal:

A federal court hearing has been scheduled for Tuesday morning in which the conservative author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza is expected to plead guilty to a charge stemming from campaign finance violations, according to a notice sent out by the government....

Decisions to plead guilty are subject to change at the last minute, and a defendant like Mr. D’Souza could decide instead to go to trial. The judge, Richard M. Berman, was to oversee jury selection on Tuesday morning, and opening arguments were expected to take place that day.

I hate it when the Feds coddle criminals like D'Bag. He has no defense. Literally. (Repeat: Literally. His own shyster said so.)

The judge also denied a request by D'Souza, a prominent critic of President Barack Obama, to seek the production of evidence that would support his claim the prosecution was in retaliation for his political activities.

"The court concludes the defendant has respectfully submitted no evidence he was selectively prosecuted," Berman said.

Any deal by which D'Souza avoids prison time is a miscarriage of justice. 

(For a laughable and poorly written counterpoint, see Rev. Moon's shriveled organ.)

The Benghazi Beer Koozie Collection

Collect all eight!  Trade them with your friends!

Featuring lifelike portraits of the Heroes of Benghazi -- Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, Reince Priebus, Lara Logan, Larry Klayman, Lindsey Graham, Dylan Davies and Jon Karl -- each handsome "kooz" is insulated from criticism and holds a 12 ounce can of Pale Fail or Boehner Beer.

And coming soon: The Heroes(tm) will appear on beanbag ashtrays, crocheted toilet roll koozies, and all-weather lawn jockeys.