Louisiana-Gate: Follow the Money

All four men were charged with entering federal property under false pretenses for the purpose of committing a felony, which carries up to 10 years in prison. They were not charged with wiretapping.

So the yahoo that filmed himself in various ACORN offices making an ass out of himself and a some poor ladies trying to do their job. It's like going into twenty different McDonald's and filming an employee dealing with a difficult and bizarre order and picking the three you didn't get thrown out of. Yeah, one or two of those ACORN people need to find something else to do for a living because they're doing this wrong but the police were called on these people at several offices and they were simply thrown out of several more.

Who paid for James O'Keefe (that's the yahoo) to do this stuff? Who paid six people to spend several days to do this kind of thing? Who rented the vehicles, paid for the plane tickets, etc.? Who is sponsoring James O'Keefe?*

So, the little shit is now looking at ten years in prison and he should get every last minute of it. A message needs to be sent to this kind of person (you know, an asshole who's not too smart and has too much money at his disposal) that you should tread lightly with other people's privacy and the law. You can't just do anything you want in this country. That seems to be what the conservative media (and conservatives in general for that matter) believe the law is: something you should butt up against until you get a warning and then start butting somewhere else.

Bill O'Reilly (the BIGGEST ASSHOLE ON EARTH)* has taught these young dimwits to bully your way into the midst of those you consider your enemy** and attack them ruthlessly. And so the stupid decide to take it a big step further when O'Reilly's toes are well over the edge.

It's a tribute to Mary Landrieu's staff that they immediately saw these people as frauds. That woman's got one tough job, no doubt.

*Apparently It's Andrew Breitbart. Who pays him? (Media Matters has more about these people.)
**Assault journalism is nothing new but O'Reilly only uses it to harass people with whom he disagrees. Basically he's a total dick about it and therefore he's the BIGGEST ASSHOLE ON EARTH.
**I think this is a major difference between the conservatives and the rest of us: They seriously consider their political opponents to be enemies, not opponents.

Crash Meme - Is This a Come Back?

After a good, long run last year the car crash meme seems to have lulled. Will the complete wreck known as the Democratic Party bring it back? The totaled health care reform? Or maybe the actual fucked up and fatal Toyotas with their stuck gas pedals will be all it needs. Stay tuned.

Howard Zinn 1922-2010

At [an] event in Madison, Wisconsin, Howard issued a challenge to the audience. He said, "Our job as citizens is to honestly assess what Obama is doing. Not measured just against Bush, because against Bush, everybody looks good. But look honestly at what Obama's doing and act as engaged and vigorous citizens."

via

First Car Crash in Ages

Flying Pigs Are Back: Saints & Massachussetts

Slowpoke: Vicious Circle of Stupidity

"Free Speech"

The 'Devil' Writes Pat Robertson...

Dear Pat Robertson,

I know that you know that all press is good press, so I appreciate the shout-out. And you make God look like a big mean bully who kicks people when they are down, so I'm all over that action. But when you say that Haiti has made a pact with me, it is totally humiliating. I may be evil incarnate, but I'm no welcher.

The way you put it, making a deal with me leaves folks desperate and impoverished. Sure, in the afterlife, but when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on earth -- glamour, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle. Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing. And that was before the earthquake.

Haven't you seen "Crossroads"? Or "Damn Yankees"? If I had a thing going with Haiti, there'd be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox -- that kind of thing. An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing against it -- I'm just saying: Not how I roll.

You're doing great work, Pat, and I don't want to clip your wings -- just, come on, you're making me look bad. And not the good kind of bad. Keep blaming God. That's working. But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract.

Best, Satan

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune
via NPR

Warmest Decade Ever

Except for a leveling off between the 1940s and 1970s, Earth’s surface temperatures have increased since 1880. The last decade has brought temperatures to the highest levels ever recorded, and the last year of the decade (2009) was tied for the second warmest year in the modern record, a new NASA analysis of global surface temperature shows. The analysis, conducted by the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York City, is based on temperatures recorded at weather stations around the world and satellite data over the oceans. NASA Earth Observatory

Not that facts ever get in the way of global climate change deniers, here's another massive pile of data showing what's going on.

Tilting At Windmills - The Supreme Court Just Ruled for Windmills...

More Corporate Overlords! - The Death of America

Mr. Fish.

Our Dark Corporate Overlords

No Restrictions on Corporate Money in Elections

Statistics

Harper's Magazine: The Guantánamo “Suicides”

The Guantánamo “Suicides”: A Camp Delta sergeant blows the whistle

By Scott Horton

...Late on the evening of June 9 that year, three prisoners at Guantánamo died suddenly and violently. Salah Ahmed Al-Salami, from Yemen, was thirty-seven. Mani Shaman Al-Utaybi, from Saudi Arabia, was thirty. Yasser Talal Al-Zahrani, also from Saudi Arabia, was twenty-two, and had been imprisoned at Guantánamo since he was captured at the age of seventeen. None of the men had been charged with a crime, though all three had been engaged in hunger strikes to protest the conditions of their imprisonment. They were being held in a cell block, known as Alpha Block, reserved for particularly troublesome or high-value prisoners.

As news of the deaths emerged the following day, the camp quickly went into lockdown. The authorities ordered nearly all the reporters at Guantánamo to leave and those en route to turn back. The commander at Guantánamo, Rear Admiral Harry Harris, then declared the deaths “suicides.” In an unusual move, he also used the announcement to attack the dead men. “I believe this was not an act of desperation,” he said, “but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us.” Reporters accepted the official account, and even lawyers for the prisoners appeared to believe that they had killed themselves. Only the prisoners’ families in Saudi Arabia and Yemen rejected the notion...

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Rush Limbaugh Still Alive

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but Rush Limbaugh may have had a heart attack while vacationing in Hawaii, that "exotic" island. The bad news is that it was not fatal.