Groundhog Daze

Hegemaniacs,

You have such a head for knowing. You know everything! So tell me how to get rid of the groundhogs that have taken up residence under The GC's deck. They're eating all the plants and scaring the hell out of me.

And no, we can't kill them. That's illegal in the state in question.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks.
res

Well, this will be interesting

In between the falling ash of the inevitable economic meltdown.

Senior lawyers at royal solicitors Harbottle & Lewis are "furious" at the way they have been blamed by Rupert Murdoch and others in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal, The Independent on Sunday has learned. They will meet the Metropolitan Police to explain their position "in the next few days".

They've been released from confidentiality and they are not going to take Rupert Murdoch blaming them lying down.

The Masters of the Universe have decreed

That we are all fucked.

I guess it is a "victory" so far as Obama is concerned as his wife and daughters were not given up in the deal.

I guess that's for the upcoming budget negotiations.

Yeah, right

I always roll my eyes in wonder at maintaining stupid explanations -- but then consider the acumen of the source:

Former President George W. Bush says his apparent lack of reaction to the first news of the September 11 2001 attacks was a conscious decision to project an aura of calm in a crisis.

Oh bullshit, it is so blatantly obvious you didn't know what the fuck to do. You're not running for shit anymore, just admit it.

Well that stunt wasted a lot of time

On to the next series of stupid stunts.

Under Ronald Reagan, the first George Bush, and Bill Clinton, payments on federal debt often got above 3% of GDP. Under Bush the second, payments were about where they are now. Yet suddenly, we are in a near collective hysteria.

Gee what could be the difference?

Pie Guy is an Ass

All The President's Men:

Deep Throat: You let Haldeman slip away.

Woodward: Yes.

Deep Throat: You've done worse than let Haldeman slip away: you've got people feeling sorry for him. I didn't think that was possible. In a conspiracy like this, you build from the outer edges and go step by step. If you shoot too high and miss, everybody feels more secure. You've put the investigation back months.

This is what I thought of when I heard about Pie Guy, the idiot who has now plead guilty to hitting Rupert Murdoch with shaving cream, thus paving the way for his wife's beat-down of the pie-thrower, and dozens of idiotic blog posts about "Tiger Mothers". Before Pie Guy let his missile fly, Murdoch was Lionel Barrymore in "It's A Wonderful Life", i.e., The Meanest Man in Town. After The Great Pie Incident, Rupert sat there all hunched over in his shirtsleeves looking like somebody's addled grandpa at Thanksgiving dinner.

Next time, save your pies for Ann Coulter.

Well, thank goodness "austerity" is the plan

Of our leaders of the beltway!

The economy grew less than expected in the second quarter as consumer spending barely rose amid higher gasoline prices, and growth braked sharply in the prior quarter, a government report showed on Friday.

Growth in gross domestic product -- a measure of all goods and services produced within U.S. borders - rose at a 1.3 percent annual rate, the Commerce Department said. First-quarter output was sharply revised down to a 0.4 percent pace from 1.9 percent.

I guess the only thing to do is blame Paul Krugman for being right again. Damn liberals.

And they don't believe in 'Evolution'

Conservatives used to be fans of the old Vietnam maxim of burning a village in order to save it.

Now, they're aiming higher, now they aim to burn down the United States.

It's still a book

If it is on a Kindle right?

I don't do many book reviews, in fact, Res has done some and she reads "q-u-a-l-i-t-y" literature. I've done a very few for books authors have been kind enough to send me (a very very rare treat, FREE BOOK!). One of the former that we both highly recommend is "The Looming Tower" by Lawrence Wright which is simply the best book about Al Qaeda that I can conceive of. One of the latter is Charles Pierce, "Idiot America", a triumph of justifiable scorn about conservative idiocy even before they idiotically called themselves 'Teabaggers'.

But, I have digressed.

The reason I don't do book reviews is that most of the books I read are non-fiction and historical and really, do you want a book review of some 900 page tome about "London" or the "First World War"? I don't.

But I have to say, I do love the non-fictional works of Eric Larson that read like the sugar candy of a great crime novel. 'Devil in the White City', loved it. 'Thunderstruck', loved it. And now, I just finished reading 'In the Garden of Beasts' primarily about the Ambassador to Germany at the dawn of Nazi Germany and his daughter (a writer of some later consequence and the very model of an impressionable dilettante). You couldn't make that story up, it's so bizarre. Essentially they know (and in the case of his daughter, intimately) many of the famous and infamous people of the American and German 30s. It's like Herman Wouk's Henry family, only they are interesting.

Oh, and it is also a cautionary tale of what you write in your diary and how it looks to posterity.

Highly recommended diversion from our modern era of depression, to read about the last one.

To Boldly Go

Shatner's going to screen The Captains for free on the U.S.S. Intrepid this weekend.

Can you imagine how crazy this screening's going to be? I foresee a lot of middle-aged guys squeezed into the Star Trek tunics and wielding the phasers they carried around when they were eight.

Twin bill from hell

Ugh.

"SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE Reunion with Victoria Jackson & Joe Piscopo @ the new CLUB PISCOPO in Atlantic City."

How is this not in Branson?

Dear George W. Bush

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you again for your tax cuts, your two pointless wars, and your massive expansion of the national security state.

We couldn't have reached this point without you.

Ass.

xxx...res

And so it continues

Another day another bit of assholery revealed:

Sara Payne, whose eight-year-old daughter Sarah was abducted and murdered in July 2000, has been told by Scotland Yard that they have found evidence to suggest she was targeted by the News of the World's investigator Glenn Mulcaire, who specialised in hacking voicemail...

The evidence that police have found in Mulcaire's notes is believed to relate to a phone given to Payne by [Rebekah] Brooks as a gift to help her stay in touch with her supporters.

And in perhaps the more incredulous statement of the year Brooks replied:

The idea of her being targeted is beyond my comprehension.

Really?!!! That's what you say, NOW?

Jeebus.

Cruel irony

Murdoch now convinced he's the Tsar of all the Russias!

Former staff at the News of the World are understood to be underwhelmed by efforts by News International to find them work after they were handed a list of potential jobs which included posts in Siberia

Retaliating with more democracy

Rather incredible pictures from Norway in the wake of Brevik's killing spree...or as Pat Buchanan calls it, "understandable but a little dramatic".

Can we at least significantly hike Buchanan's taxes?

It isn't like Ernst Stavro Blofeld didn't get briefings either

Oh, wait, even fictional supervillians don't get this kind of access:

The extraordinary access that Cabinet ministers granted Rupert Murdoch and his children was revealed for the first time yesterday, with more than two dozen private meetings between the family and senior members of the Government in the 15 months since David Cameron entered Downing Street.

In total, Cabinet ministers have had private meetings with Murdoch executives more than 60 times and, if social events such as receptions at party conferences are included, the figure is at least 107.

On two occasions, James Murdoch and former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks were given confidential defence briefings on Afghanistan and Britain's strategic defence review by the Defence Secretary, Liam Fox. A further briefing was held with Ms Brooks, Rupert Murdoch and the Sunday Times editor John Witherow.

Only on Fox

Apparently there is a "Democratic analyst" (always must be in quotes with Fox) that Rupert occasionally throws up on his cable news empire named "Krystal Ball".

If you are going to employ ringers, could you at least give them names that don't come in a Rex Morgan, M.D. theme?

Like we’ll need infrastructure in this country

Dear advocates of having roads to drive on that remain paved or bridges that don't collapse -- don't you people know their are at least three or four countries out there that haven't been invaded or occupied?

The engineers found that overall, the cost of failing to invest more in the nation's roads and bridges would total $3.1 trillion in lost GDP growth by 2020. For workers, the toll of investing only at current levels would be equally daunting: 877,000 jobs would also be lost. Already, the report found, deficient and deteriorating surface transportation cost us $130 billion in 2010.

Cry me a river (no wait, there's no need as one will soon be arriving when that nearby damn breaches). Have you not caught on to our nations brilliant jobs strategy? Instead of spending trillions on internal improvements (screw you Henry Clay!) we'll spend it occupying ever "ran", "raq" or "stan" we damn well feel like, the more vowels the better.

Soon, the only jobs will be in the military (or para-military) until you can finally retire and collect Social Security at 65, 67, 69, 71 oh screw it you cannot retire, somebody has to pay for the tax cuts of Luke Russert II, and various and sundry Bushes.

Just remember how free you are you ungrateful bastard.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Sums up the sociopathy perfectly

The Colbert Report
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It's because he "earned it" undoubtedly

All, undoubtedly, on "merit" right daddy?

James Murdoch could soon earn a cash bonus of up to $12m (£7.3m) from News Corporation on top of his $3m salary even though the part of the company he has run has been mired in the phone-hacking scandal, shut one of its flagship British newspapers and been forced to abandon the bid for BSkyB in the wake of cross-party hostility in the UK.

I just pray they'll escape the totalitarian oppression of the private jet tax!

Beyond Parody

If the media actually fairly applied coverage of the parties this might actually reveal the psychopathy:

According to the Washington Post, the House GOP leadership played a short clip from the Ben Affleck movie “The Town” to rally their caucus around Boehner’s debt plan:

Ben Affleck: I need your help. I can’t tell you what it is. You can never ask me about it later. And we’re going to hurt some people.

Jeremy Renner: Whose car are we going to take?

In the movie, the characters then put on hockey masks and bludgeon two men with sticks, then shoot one man in the leg.

I'm just relieved they didn't show Joe Pesci highlights from Casino they may have started masturbating right there.

Tell it to the Albigensians (among countless others) asshole

Bill O'Reilly has spent a decade tarring Muslims with the broad brush of mass murder so naturally...

But Breivik is not a Christian. That's impossible. No one believing in Jesus commits mass murder. The man might have called himself a Christian on the net, but he is certainly not of that faith.

In a long series of stupid statements, this may be the dumbest statement Bill O'Reilly has ever made.

Let us eat shit-cakes

This is an abysmal system that is going to end badly one way or another. No shared sacrifice from these assholes.

The 400 richest Americans used to pay 30% of their income on the average to Uncle Sam. Today, they pay 18% on the average, according to Steve Rattner, a Wall Street financier, who just presented these figures on Mornings With Joe,MSNBC.

The main reason for the drop in their tax rate of some 40% is the tax cuts by George Bush in 2003, taking the rate paid on dividends and capital gains down to 15%.

Not all that far afield really

Social Security Reform Bill Encourages Americans To Live Faster, Die Younger

Poor BP

They're only on pace to make over $22 billion in profits this year.

We better cut their taxes.

If I was Speaker of the House

I'd have to match Boehner by running my political platforms by Tommy Chong before I tell the caucus.

Although at least Tommy has some appreciable skill besides mastication.

Hmmm, I wonder why?

Funny first this happened:

The former Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Lord Macdonald was warned by his own employees as far back as 2006 that there were a "vast array" of News of the World phone-hacking victims.

And then this happened:

However, the hacking investigation was never widened despite pressure on the police and Lord Macdonald, the head of the Crown Prosecution Service at the time, to do so.

And then this happened:

Lord Macdonald...has since been hired by the newspaper's owner, Rupert Murdoch

I'm sure it's just a coincidence and there's no reason to suspect a connection...at all.

Keep it classy asshole

Glenn Beck was big enough to say at least they didn't deserved to be killed though...sorta.

Beck said the camp "sounds a little like the Hitler Youth. I mean, who does a camp for kids that's all about politics?"

He then went on to say that he had warned that there would be horrible consequences due to the rise of what he called the "evil" strain of Islam in Europe. Islam, he said, is "squeezing the neck" of the continent, and multiculturalism is "killing" it.

So you see, even when Muslims are not involved...they're still to blame if some white people get killed.

Update:

As to "who does a camp for kids that's all about politics?" Well, among others, followers of Beck's 9/12 project have done exactly that this summer with a program called "Vacation Liberty School." In these classes, children are taught about the supposed values of the country's founders. The school is organized and run by followers of the conservative tea party movement, although they have no official ties to Beck.

Lame or crazy?

Well, those really were some awesome speeches. The less fortunate get it...or everybody does.

Inspiring.

But truly none so inspired as "I'm shooting for no better than a single A rating" Boehner.

"I didn't sign up for going mano-a-mano with the President of the United States" — Speaker of the House John Boehner (R - Ohio), overheard by CBS News' Jill Jackson as he left the Capitol building following tonight's televised address.

No, he signed up for this:

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) outlined the GOP's debt-ceiling plan to conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh on Monday before showing it to his conference.

Priorities.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Welcome to My World

Dear Gay Friends,

Now that same sex marriage is legal in New York, there's no doubt that some of the questions/comments I've had to put up with as a singleton for years will be coming your way. See a list of examples below (Hegemaniacs: add yours in comments.) The ones in bold are the ones that well-meaning people have directed at me over the years.

I suggest practicing your best fake-smile in anticipation.

xxx...res

• When are you gonna get MAR-RIED?





• I just want to see you settled.





• Are you EVER gonna get MAR-RIED?





• What are you waiting for?





• All I want is a grandchild. Is that so much to ask?





• Do you want to break your mother's heart?





• You know what he's/she's thinking? "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?," that's what he's/she's thinking!





• You're not getting any younger, you know.





• If he/she is not marrying you after two years, he/she is not marrying you.





• I just want you to be happy. (h/t watertiger)





• It's as easy to fall in love with a rich man/woman as it is to fall in love with a poor man/woman.





• Do you want your mother to die before she sees you married? (h/t watertiger)





• If you're good-for-nothing brother can get divorced, then so can you! (h/t watertiger)






• Your father and I were married? What? It's too good for you?





• I just want the best for you.





• If you don't hurry up, all of the good ones will be taken.

And my personal favorite:

If you don't watch out, you're going to wind up like your cousin Maryanne.*

*Died alone in her apartment at age of forty-five.

ASIDE: What the HELL is wrong with Blogger's formatting?!?!??!

You sure about that?

Seems like the very definition of a consensus to me.

BTW, that piece of shit opened at 10 more theaters this weekend and its box office take dropped about two-thirds.

Can we just confirm that the only people that appreciate this person are cable news channels and smart-ass bloggers looking for material?

Dear CNN

I've really had enough of the "Glamor Shots" pictures of Norway's new Quisling when ever you speak of him.

Right Wing Has Beens

This article about right wing fossil Dinesh D'Souza's latest wingnut welfare gig is really funny.

Domestic Terrorism

Charles Pierce, writing in Esquire:

But above all, they will say, Ignore the fact that there is still a horrible utility in political violence, the way there was during Reconstruction, or during the labor wars of the early twentieth century. If there were not, it wouldn't be so hard to get an abortion in Kansas, and assault weapons would not have been accessories of choice at recent rallies purportedly held to discuss changes in the way the country organizes its health-care system.

If you haven't read Pierce's excellent article, you should. And if you're a Norwegian politician who thinks that you ought to let a domestic terrorist dictate public policy, shame on you. You need only look at the example of the United States to see how well that works.

This can go right next to the Grover Nordquist post

A post literally on how Amy Winehouse's death can be used in your small business plan.

Obviously I've been using the obsolete Freddie Prinze business plan.

State of Cosplay

John Boeher: We insist you shoot the American economy in the head.

Barack Obama: How about just in the foot? Okay, okay, both feet, but for now, that's my final offer. But you guys have to hold the gun.

Harry Reid: Let's compromise, let's shoot it in the gut and see what happens.


[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Speaking of Right Wing Nutters

Amen

The Brits Tory/Lib Dem coalition in England can summarize the state of our nation quite well:

Business Secretary Vince Cable has launched an extraordinary attack on "right wing nutters" in the US who are threatening to cripple the world economy...

"The irony of the situation at the moment, with markets opening tomorrow morning, is that the biggest threat to the world financial system comes from a few right-wing nutters in the American congress rather than the eurozone."

Mr. Cable is a Liberal Dem the middle of the road party in the UK, but I think it is fair to assume this is an agreed upon position in the entirety of the Cameron government.

Where's John McCain

This morning talking about how to balance the federal budget by having Cindy take care of it, like she does his?

Maybe he'll show us the hip slide-rule moves that crashed many a plane in the Navy?

Kindred spirit

Sounds like the worst Norwegian since Quisling was a Glenn Beck script-writer.

And I'm not going to watch the video but according to Balloon Juice this was included.



Most all of the GOP is gonna be pissed they didn't come up with this first.

I'm willing to bet

That John Boehner walked out on Barack Obama more often than he's walked out of a tanning booth.

But at least Boehner took the time to take in a ballgame.



(pic via Deadspin)

I'm a good portion "Norwegian"

But along with running the fuck away from lutefisk, my family abandoned the language so by the time the fourth generation came around (waves) I cannot understand a lick of it.

But apparently the right-wing mass murder suspect liked Pam Geller's Atlas Shrugs a lot.

Go figure.

But but we already blamed a Muslim!!!!

The nightmarish day in Norway naturally had people "suspecting" Al Qaeda in the kind of societal scapegoating we've come to expect.

Of course, suspecting is a little much in Rupert-Land desperate to fan the flames of full on insanity in a direction other than themselves (I wonder if they'll hack the nation's cell phones tonight to see if it worked?).



Naturally, it turns out it wasn't Al Qaeda, but rather the kind of right-wing bible-distorting lunatic that is all too well-known (and well ignored) in this country but God-forbid it gets mentioned in various terrorist warnings.

The 32-year-old suspected of massacring at least 80 young people at a summer camp and setting off a bomb in downtown Oslo that killed at least seven is a mystery to investigators: a right-winger with anti-Muslim views but no known links to hardcore extremists.

"He just came out of nowhere," a police official told The Associated Press.

My sympathies Norway

A bombing near the Prime Minister and then a mass shooting where they thought he would be. Dozens killed.

Awful.

Au contrarian

Really, this is what it has come down to at Slate?


What is next, "Pumpkins, they are ruining Halloween!" or "The flag, stripes make our country look fat!"

Oh, I've got one. "Constant contrariness is ruining everything! I mean it's why SLATE exists!"

This tweet is right!

Get on with it already

Justice delayed...

Top Pentagon leaders will notify Congress as early as Friday that the Defense Department is ready to end the ban on gays serving openly in the military, officials said, a landmark moment after almost two decades of controversy.

The action means the ban will formally disappear in late September.

Will the last person in Britain, not hacked

Please call me...on their landline?

Three solicitors representing phone hacking victims were themselves targets of the News of the World, according to Newsnight. They included Mark Lewis, the lawyer for the family of Milly Dowler and Gordon Taylor, the former head of the Professional Footballers' Association. The programme reported that the solicitors were not put under surveillance for the purpose of writing stories about them.

Murdoch may have flown out of the country on his private jet, but the scandal is ever metastasizing.

And the "hacking" may soon find news areas of privacy invasion by Murdoch, Inc.

Tom Watson, the Labour MP who helped expose phone hacking, has warned that the illegal interception of emails will be the next big scandal to emerge.

Get ready to sign more checks Rupert. In the UK Murdoch's pernicious power has -- for now at least -- been diminished substantially. Here, not so much. The vast majority of Americans want such potential privacy invasions looked into. What reason do we have to believe this Administration, so preternaturally afraid of attacks from the Right (as opposed to their base), will do so thoroughly? We will see.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Why can't you be the son of someone famous?

Because that's how it works for Luke Russert!

Cenk Uygur--the progressive online talk show host whose brief tenure as an MSNBC anchor ended on Wednesday--tore into the network in a lengthy monologue on Wednesday night, saying he had turned down a smaller role on MSNBC because he had been told he was too combative towards "those in power."

Always figured this was under Karl Rove's bed

A sinkhole formed in a house on July 19, 2011 in the north of Guatemala City. (Johan Ordonez/AFP/Getty Images …

End of an Era

Ends quietly in the middle of the night. Who knows whether we'll ever summon up the initiative to return.

The thing about Allen West

Is that working for him is proof you're on par with being as crazy and mean as he is...which means he must employ Tex Watson and Squeaky Fromme.

Eh, close enough

The kind of victory Pyrrhus could appreciate.

Muammar Gaddafi could stay in Libya if he gives up power, France said on Wednesday, signalling a new effort to find a diplomatic solution to a five-month-old war that has failed to oust the resilient leader.

The United States said Gaddafi must quit, but whether he remained in Libya after that would be up to the Libyan people.

Couldn't they at least suggest Elba?

Yet another great policy victory for our nation's strategy of eventually fighting every possible nation. You better get ready Lichtenstein and Lesotho!

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Pies in the face are bad enough

But when did the Tories start electing sex-dolls?



via Watertiger.

Edvard Munch is not amused.

Just how bad is it?

How slimy is the Murdoch scandal? This slimy.

They literally employed an axe murderer to "hack" people.

Waste of a fine meringue

In today's classy representation of the modern Republican Party we have Allen West who sent what he or Steve King say to themselves in the mirror every morning to Deborah Wasserman-Schultz:

You are the most vile, unprofessional ,and despicable member of the US House of Representatives.

Oh well, let's see if we can get worse, if you're Michele Bachman you can give a reporter the kind of beating that Glenn Beck has to pay for.

And meanwhile those and a story like this...

Nearly one quarter of the Metropolitan Police’s press staff have worked for News International at some point, Sir Paul Stephenson, the outgoing commissioner, revealed today.

All get lost because some asshole decides to pie Rupert Murdoch and somehow make him into a sympathetic figure, no small trick.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Roger Ailes can have you murdered as long as he stays within his budget

That's comforting.

Q: What payments could executives like Rebekah Brooks sanction on their own?

James Murdoch says people like Brooks had budgets. As long as they stayed within those budgets, that would have been fine.

Are you paying attention Whitey Bulger?

Remember this patented technique:

Q: When did you realise a parliamentary committee had accused your executives of collective amnesia?

Rupert Murdoch says he does not know.

"Don't be too hard on me I'm a senile old man!"

Rupert Murdoch's testifying tact ... in addition to pounding the table when explaining what a big company he has to control ... is to play the senile old man. Infamous "bathrobe-wearing" mob boss Vincente Gigante didn't play old and doddering more effectively.

Look man

Don't bring that laptop, cellphone and paperwork to my home...that will look suspicious.

No just put it in the parking lot of the shopping center close to my house and I'll go find it. Because that's TOTALLY the logical and non-suspicious thing to do.

Connected to reality watch

This came up yesterday, but I was too lazy to mention it at the time.

Murdoch was attending a conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, in early July when it became clear that the latest eruption of the hacking scandal was not, as he first thought, a passing problem. According to a person briefed on the conversation, he proposed to one senior executive that he “fly commercial to London,” so he might be seen as man of the people.

He naturally ended up coming in a private jet. But how exactly would this be man of the people, like he'd choose to fly coach?

Now he's a rumor

If Murdoch does poorly tomorrow, he may be replaced as CEO of NewsCorp by -- apparently -- former pitching great Rollie Fingers.

Oh what a beautiful morning...

Schadenfreude's coming my way...

Rupert Murdoch, his son James and their sacked chief executive of News International, Rebekah Brooks, will appear before the Culture, Media and Sport Committee at 2.30pm.

That's 9:30 a.m. eastern for Rupert to come forward...hopefully without the gratuitous buffalo shot.

And after 4,000 phone hacks, $250,000 plus in police bribes, and millions in hush money paid by his largest Sunday paper, he has a time-tested strategy for avoiding responsibility. He'll plead ignorance. "Oh it's such a big company, and I'm over in America, how could I possibly know what happens over here?"

Except, of course, for the last time he testified before Parliament in 2007 -- after phone-hacking of celebrities became known, but was purported by Murdoch, Inc. to be the work of one rogue reporter:

"For The Sun and News of the World he explained that he is a 'traditional proprietor'. He exercises editorial control on major issues - like which party to back in a General Election or policy on Europe."

It added: "Mr Murdoch did not disguise the fact that he is hands-on both economically and editorially."

We'll see if someone notices the distinction later this morning.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

This sounds awfully familiar

Guy who brought forth evidence embarrassing to UK's powers that be commits suicide.




Oops, sorry, no this one.

Although

If the crazies in the GOP refuse to raise the debt limit bringing about a great depression I guess it might save Rupert's ass.

So no need to be nervous at all.

I know FoxNews is trying to cover it as little as possible

But Rupert's comeuppance is on the verge of bringing down the British government. Which will make it even harder to ignore over here.

Mr Cameron had been on the brink of appointing the BBC’s Guto Harri as his media chief when he was Opposition leader. Mr Harri and his family spent a weekend with the Camerons in 2007 to discuss the job offer.

However, it went to Mr Coulson after Mrs Brooks got involved, according to sources in the Tory party and at News International.

She is said to have told Mr Cameron that the post should go to Mr Coulson to strengthen links between the Tories and News International.

So much for Murdoch not pulling the strings.

Korporate Kulture

News America, profiled today in the NY Times, was a NewsCorp. subdivision that true to all NewsCorp properties played hardball way over the line and has the many millions settlements to prove it...sound familiar?

Here's the kind of person Murdoch placed in charge:

News America was led by Paul V. Carlucci, who, according to Forbes, used to show the sales staff the scene in “The Untouchables” in which Al Capone beats a man to death with a baseball bat. Mr. Emmel testified that Mr. Carlucci was clear about the guiding corporate philosophy.

According to Mr. Emmel’s testimony, Mr. Carlucci said that if there were employees uncomfortable with the company’s philosophy — “bed-wetting liberals in particular was the description he used” Mr. Emmel testified — then he could arrange to have those employees “outplaced from the company.”

Liberal = 'Soft on Murder, big on ethics'.

Nice Parting Shot!

In addition to Rebekah Brooks getting the surprise unseen, but short, perp walk, the Commissioner of the Metro police force in London resigned yesterday having hired and taken favors from a former News of the World editor.

But notable is what the departing Constable said in comparing himself to the Prime Minister:

In an emotional statement yesterday evening he insisted he did not want to “compromise” the Prime Minister but pointedly said Mr Wallis had not been associated with phone hacking at the time Sir Paul employed him in October 2009.

He said that by contrast the full scale of phone hacking at the News of the World had begun to emerge when Andy Coulson, David Cameron’s former director of communications, resigned as editor

BOO YAH!

Hard hitting journalism FoxNews style

I Understand A White Collar Criminal Defense Is Expensive

So Brooksie's £3.5 million severance package will come in handy.

Anyone else wonder if the Fox Brain Room is being dismantled as I type (if it hasn't already)?

Still going with By Labor Day.

BUM BUM BAH!!!!!!!!!!

Rebekah Brooks, the daughter Rupert Murdoch says he never had (which makes his actual daughter real happy I'd reckon) ARRESTED!!!!

So many shoes have dropped it's like an Imelda Marcos' closet exploded.

Although now she won't be testifying on Tuesday...somewhat conveniently.

They and Republicans have so much in common

North Koreans sound more like Teapartiers all the time.

Five North Koreans Tested Positive For Steroids Because They Were Struck By Lightning, Says North Korea

But of course,

Pawlenty Decries ‘Catastrophic Scandal’ Of Freddie Mac, Appoints Top Freddie Mac Lobbyist As Campaign Co-Chair

Of course this guy is "a guy" and white and rich as opposed to poor and black like so many Freddie Mac beneficiaries so it's all good.

(all good except Pawlenty's ratings)

Forget Bolton, I'm getting my own tingly senses going

If you are starting to think "Attaturk sure is enjoying this whole Murdoch in trouble thing" you are damn right I am.

By Bolton's Boner it shall be done!

Former CIA guy goes back to time-tested, ever made, statement that Israel is going to bomb Iran in the Fall.

John Bolton is both aroused and enraged someone is stealing ("Mencia-ing") his act.

Just like a Republican

The 200 employees of News of the World got three months severance when Rupert shut the whole newspaper down because of the malfeasance they had no part in.

The people who oversaw his bidding however...

Five days after the News of the World rolled off the presses for the last time, Rebekah Brooks, the chief executive of its publisher News International, walked out of the company with a severance package estimated by senior colleagues at £3.5m.

Her departure follows that of the final editor of the NOTW, Colin Myler, who is understood to be in line for a £2m pay-off, and two of the company's senior lawyers, Jon Chapman and Tom Crone, who will each get about £1.5m.

Wonder how much Les Hinton got?

Yep

The man knows Rupert like few others.



This also is interesting:

There will be many moves before Tuesday's date with Parliament...including much practicing for Rupert. I've seen this: they drill him. He can't stay on script without endless repetition.

I suggest someone like Tom Watson (the MP not the golfer) go at things from angles ol' Rupert hasn't prepared to obfuscate about.

Oh and when Rupert -- as he did yesterday -- claims "I COULDN'T POSSIBLY HAVE KNOWN" here's a nugget from the last time he testified under oath before Parliament.

Rupert Murdoch said he was "hands-on both economically and editorially" with his newspapers on the last occasion he gave evidence to a British parliamentary committee, the Press Association reports.

The media tycoon told the Lords communications committee four years ago that he was a "traditional proprietor" of the News of the World and the Sun, and decided their stance on issues such as Europe and which party to back in a general election.

That was four years ago during the height of phone hacking, BTW.

Yesterday he stated:

He said, however, that he attends to a lot of details in a multi-billion company with thousands of employees.

Funny how he's hands on, except -- of course -- when it might get his ass in personal trouble.

He'll pretty much be the living embodiment of Goya's famous painting of Saturn devouring his children over the next few days.

I'm sorry but who is lying?

Yesterday evening Rupert interviewed by an employee in the Wall Street Journal and said it is all no big deal, no problem at all, all a minor understanding, charges full of lies.

A few hours later, the person he had adamantly refused to get rid of, Rebekah Brooks...
gonzo.

Why tamper with "Perfection"?

This coming Tuesday will be quite entertaining I hope when Murdoch testifies in front of a committee of the British House of Commons (or it will turn out like a typical American Congressional Hearing and be quite awful), but Murdoch's sycophantic interview in the Wall Street Journal is full of wanking.

Murdoch, who will join his younger son James and News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks at the hearing, added: "We think it's important to absolutely establish our integrity in the eyes of the public."

The chairman and chief executive of News Corp also defended the company's handling of the crisis, claiming it had made only "minor mistakes".

Yes, I'm sure Milly Dowler's family would agree -- it was all a "minor mistake" hacking their daughter's phone and making them think she was alive.

"When I hear something going wrong, I insist on it being put right," he said.

Yeah, like this prompt correction -- it's all the liberals fault!

Rupert's interview does seem a lot like one Mubarak or Qadahfi (500th different spelling!) would give.

Thrill of blowing up brown people? Apparently "priceless"

It would be nice if journalists practiced the journalism of informing the populace of figures like this:

...the projected shortfall for the Medicare program “over the program’s 75-year planning horizon is less than 0.4 percent of GDP. This is less than one quarter of the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

This story, it seems "familiar"

Someday some American leader will actually anticipate something. Someday.

The man who murdered President Hamid Karzai’s half brother spent years as an ally of the United States in the war against the Taliban.

The killer, Sardar Mohammad, a police commander, met on several occasions with U.S. and British military officials, shared intelligence with Americans and played a part in Afghan arrests of scores of Taliban fighters, according to three relatives interviewed on Thursday in his home near Kandahar...

But one of Karzai’s brothers and a senior Afghan official said they were now convinced that the Taliban somehow won Mohammad’s allegiance in recent months and convinced him to carry out an assassination on the group’s behalf.

When has this ever happened before in this part of the world, other than pretty much every time? We and our policies of reflexive unthinking unconditional support of one country and bombing and/or occupying a fair share of the other countries in the region seems like such a clear path for consistent and unwavering popularity?

Better have a Predator drone fire off another missile to make us feel better.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Get your Obstructionism Muscles ready for kerning!

4.45pm: Rupert Murdoch and his son James have indicated that they will give evidence to the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee on Tuesday, a News Corporation spokesperson told the Press Association.

I understand Roger Ailes will also be attending, sitting in the back looking at the MPs hungrily while holding a woman in a chain-mail bikini on a leash.

Nobody could not have anticipated

Or not already have known that NewsCorp is essentially a well-compensated intellectual (and now criminal enterprise) engaged in the petty jealousies of it's ruling family. A Borgia-like group who start wars (at least Cesare fought in his), like to display people in virtual cages, and use poison in their pens instead of in their soup.

In a 2007 affidavit, Spiegelman said “accepting freebies, graft and other favors was not only condoned by the company but encouraged as a way to decrease the newspaper’s out-of-pocket expenses…and that News Corp. attorneys had been instructed to ‘look the other way.’” There was a policy of “favor banking,” the affidavit said, “practiced on a much larger scale by Rupert Murdoch.” In 2001, Spiegelman said in the document, “I was ordered to kill a Page Six story about a Chinese diplomat and a strip club that would have angered the Communist regime and endangered Murdoch’s broadcasting privileges” as he was trying to get Beijing’s approval for his satellite-television service...

When celebrities criticized the Iraq War, Spiegelman added, he was told to remind readers of their show-business projects “in case they feel like boycotting.”

In similar fashion, Stern says the troops regularly received marching orders. “For a long time the Clintons were targets,” he said. “You couldn’t get enough dirt on the Clintons. Then Bill Clinton made a rapprochement with Murdoch, sucked up to him in the run-up to Hillary running” for the Senate in 2000.

“Then one day it was, ‘You can’t write anything bad about the Clintons.’ We had to kill stuff all the time. It filtered down from Murdoch. In the meetings we’d be told, ‘No way, mate.’”

Some Australians who were friendly with the Murdoch family, such as actress Nicole Kidman, “had a free pass,” Stern said.

I Call Bulls#$t.

Shorter Bancroft Family: Nobody could have predicted that Rupert Murdoch blah blah blah blah blah...

Nobody could have anticipated

I'm guessing the same sort of finding will eventually be shown about NewsCorp ("maybe" without the pederasty):

Ireland’s minister for children, Frances Fitzgerald, said that the report indicated that the Vatican’s “sole concern was the protection of the institution — not the children.”

via AmericaBlog.

"Angry Black Man" alert

Poor little Eric Cantor ran to the microphones to try to get a video made worthy of any hostage taking terrorist.

Oh, he was so scared of angry black man. Stay tuned tomorrow when Cantor proclaims Obama finally showed him the "whitey tape".

Finally, a character witness

After days of being pilloried, just because he oversaw a corporate culture that thought it was just fine to listen in on private voice mails of murdered children, Rupert Murdoch is finally defended by a person of appropriate character.

It is unlikely that Mr Murdoch, his son James, or Les Hinton committed crimes (Mr Hinton is a very decent man). Discerning people should not be impressed by the process familiar to me and other victims of it, of hostile media solemnly citing law professors and retired prosecutors and sources who spoke on condition of anonymity (usually tendentious fantasies of the journalists themselves), to comment on the Murdochs’ legal problems.

Signed,

Conrad Black, aka, soon to again be inmate number 18330-424.

Maybe someday soon Conrad and Rupert can commiserate in adjoining minimum security cells?

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Truth finally puts on pants -- no doubt Andrew Breitbart won't notice he's allergic to truth and justice

Well, what do ya' know:

Two union members accused of beating conservative activist Kenny Gladney outside an August 2009 town hall meeting in St. Louis were acquitted of all charges by a jury Tuesday, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.

Wonder if Kenny Gladney is married to backward "B-Girl" now?

Tbogg who is the Emile Zola of the "Gladney Affaire" (surely a proud moment for him) has more of the pathetic details.

Gladney’s testimony was the most damaging to the prosecution’s case. For starters, Gladney appeared in a neck brace, which brought back memories of him showing up at a tea party rally in a wheel chair despite the fact that he was running around with no obvious discomfort immediately after the altercation took place. The defense lawyer said that Gladney’s neck brace, which he was wearing because of surgery for a herniated disc, had nothing to do with the altercation, and Gladney did not challenge him on that point, so I assume it’s true. But this opened up a criticism from the defense lawyer who asked Gladney why he showed up at the tea party rally in a wheelchair. Gladney saidhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif, basically, that it was hot and he was on medication and “they didn’t have folding chairs or lawn chairs.” Ouch.

The defense lawyer also pointed out that Gladney had repeatedly claimed in the past that he was “handing out flags for free.” But this seemingly is in contradiction with his claim that he went to the rally to “make money” by selling buttons and flags. The defense lawyer suggested that Gladney said this because he thought it would make him appear more sympathetic, just as showing up in a wheelchair would make him appear more sympathetic.

A Bunch of Guys whose education stopped in the 8th Grade

Get into Harvard.

Pull it off at Yale like the Bush family and I'll be really impressed.

By all means

Oh how it will be fun to see Bachmann implode...when she doesn't even realize it is happening.

It's part of Satan, I think, to say this is gay.

Good luck Mitt, there's only about a sixth of the population that doesn't think stating this is repugnant, but loves it. And it is the sixth that watches FoxNews and votes in Republican primaries and caucuses.

Time to pay up

While waiting for the eventual story of Murdoch papers phone-hacking cancer-wards, Jerry's Kids, Tom Hanks, the Pope, and Nelson Mandela, it is good to remember there are further crimes and hypocrisies for Rupert to mine.

Remember when it was reported that GE didn't pay any taxes last year and Fox News went nuts because GE owned NBC and GE head Jeffrey Immelt supports Obama?

Why yes I do, good times.

Over the past four years Murdoch's U.S.-based News Corp. has made money on income taxes. Having earned $10.4 billion in profits, News Corp. would have been expected to pay $3.6 billion at the 35 percent corporate tax rate. Instead, it actually collected $4.8 billion in income tax refunds, all or nearly all from the U.S. government.

Why that little scamp -- not paying taxes is the epitome of good citizenship if you are conservative and only became a citizen to acquire media properties. Why it is, I dare say, the very height of patriotism -- if you are a Republican.

Poor misunderstood Rupert, just ask Roger "Go Ahead and Call me Richard" Cohen.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

The Al Gore is Fat Act falls short

Dumbest piece of legislation this term (and that's pretty dumb obviously) falls a little short.

Tea Party conservatives fell far short of the two-thirds majority required to pass Rep. Joe Barton’s (R-TX) BULB Act, which would have revoked lighting efficiency standards that are already reducing pollution, creating jobs, and spurring technological innovation.

I understand Al Gore also uses such innovations as "the zipper" and "pants" so perhaps the Teaparty will take up banning them for that reason next?

And no one really cares

The National League won the MLB All-Star Game. I remember when that was news and that happened every year.

I'm old.

I bet he cried

Casually xenophobic British ultra-nationalist Morrissey was bitten by a dog of unknown origin and — holy shit — he cracked a bone in his finger!

Shorter Roger Cohen

In which I deftly avoid Godwin's Law.

"I'm here today to tell you that Stalin was occasionally a good parent.

And Beria was often a kindly uncle."

Lack of Logic, it's not just for American Political Culture

From a parliamentary hearing in the UK on Murdoch's newspapers and phone-hacking -- and how they used the police to do so. The Chief Investigator Incompetent at the Metropolitan Police who years ago proclaimed Murdoch Inc's phone hacks limited is being grilled:

12.24pm: Lorraine Fullbrook, a Conservative, asks Yates if he has ever received payment from a news outlet.

Yates says he has never, ever, ever received payment. He thinks the question is amazing.

Q: Have any of your staff received payments?

That's "highly probable", he says. The Met employs 50,000 people.

That's impossible...yet highly likely.

Sounds like a case for the WaPo's "Fact-Checker".

WaPo's "Fact-Check" invents new Democrats only rating

The Pinocchio Test

Becerra is sincere in his convictions and his statement is true, so far as it goes. Yes, Social Security in the past has not contributed to the nation’s debt. But it’s basically a meaningless fact and actually distracts from the long-term fiscal problem posed by the retirement of the baby boom generation and the shrinking of the nation’s labor pool.

We are going to label this with that relatively rare rating: “true but false.” (Still need to get an icon!)

True But False

Fred Hiatt World where truth must bend to Village idioms.

So, um, why don't you shut the fuck up then?

The Israeli far-right and the American far right have a real affinity wide-sweeping generalizations based on a complete lack of knowledge:

Glenn Beck: "The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, at the ruling class, is about the destruction of Israel and the end of the western way of life. Period. That’s what it is. I don’t know a lot of Palestinians but I also don’t know a lot of Jewish people either. I don’t really classify people that way. They’re just people."

I don't really know, but I'm going to tell you anyway.

Huzzah!

Grand Old Psychopaths

Keeping it classy:

Arizona state Sen. Lori Klein (R) [w]hile showing off her “raspberry-pink handgun,” she “aimed it at a journalist” who was interviewing her about her pro-gun positions just outside the Senate chambers. The gun, a .380 Ruger, was loaded, and Klein did not have the safety on. Klein, however, told the reporter not to worry because “I just didn’t have my hand on the trigger.”

Another day another malevolent disclosure

This is simply non-stop entertainment.

Shortly after Scotland Yard began its initial criminal inquiry of phone hacking by The News of the World in 2006, five senior police investigators discovered that their own mobile phone messages had been targeted by the tabloid and had most likely been listened to...

Watching NewsCorp and the Murdochs meltdown is the best kind of entertainment, the entertainment of reaping the whirlwind.

Comeuppance

This was the best part of justice of the U.S. - Brazil match yesterday when late in extra time Erika of Brazil did her best Sergio Busquets impression and flopped on the ground as if she had been shot for a couple minutes and being carted off just to kill time.

She then popped right up and ran back on the pitch, thinking she had effectively killed off most of the game.

Ironically, that small portion of time she gave to the United States end up being the time in which the U.S. equalized.

Ha Ha!

Place Your Bets

On when we find out that Murdochian properties in America were hacking Democratic politicians' phones.

I'm going with "By Labor Day".

Three Murdoch Papers Reportedly Targeted Gordon Brown.

Dedicated to Austerity

Just because

Yeah, but they are cursed with that "socialistic health care" and shit

We'll never let that commie clap trap come here!

Alberta created more new jobs in June (22,000) than all 50 U.S. states combined (18,000), even though the U.S. population is 85 times larger than Alberta's...

Compared with the U.S., Canada has been a lean, mean, jobs-creating machine.

Adding jobs is also SOCIALISM!!!

Awful

River cruises are a normal family vacation outing in Russia.

More than 100 people, including many children, drowned when a riverboat filled with families cruising the Volga River sank over the weekend, rescue officials said on Monday, conceding little hope remained of finding survivors.

Apparently children were in an internal play area separate from their parents when the sinking occurred (apparently quite swiftly) causing them to be disproportionately among the victims.

Yet more fireworks

When is the U.S. media going to notice that FoxNews is the American brand of this bullshit?*

Breaking News

BBC business editor Robert Peston says the e-mails passed to the police on 20 June seem to suggest the News of the World was buying the private contact details of the royal family from a royal protection officer.

In the old days, there'd be several heads on London Bridge over this. Good times.

*Silly rhetorical questions, the answer of course is "Never, and when is Rupert writing me a check?"

I don't know how it will happend, or that it is even possible

But somehow Rich Lowry is going to end up making these digital pages stick together.

What?

Rupert and company are just not hooked up right.

One of the historic curiosities of the NoW's demise has been the resurrection on Twitter of the curious tale of Charles Begley. He was the paper's bespectacled, boyish-looking reporter who then-editor Rebekah Brooks made "Harry Potter correspondent" ahead of the release of the first film about the wizard in 2001, a task that involved him changing his name by deed poll and being ordered to permanently dress in robes and a hat. Begley finally objected after Brooks allegedly ordered him to don the outfit immediately after the September 11 attacks. Here's a Guardian account from the the time, and a Daily Telegraph piece detailing phone transcripts about Begley's worries.

These are simply horrible people -- and even worse perhaps -- ridiculous.

Up the Chain of Command

They're getting closer and closer to Rupert. As Steve Doocy would never say "THIS IS HUGE!"

Rebekah Brooks, the chief executive of Rupert Murdoch’s News International, faces being questioned under police caution over her role in the phone hacking scandal which brought down the News of the World.

“What can I say? I’m not very bright”

Over the last week a pair of Republicans Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum ran into trouble over signing a pledge drafted by a far-right Iowa group to outlaw such things as gay people, pornography and the 13th Amendment.

When confronted with this Santorum had a rather novel answer.

"When I first read it, I was taken aback by it. I can't argue that I wasn't," Santorum told CNN's Candy Crowley.

But...

"But I understand why they're saying it, because it does undermine people's respect for the institution, respect for the people governing this country. If you can't be faithful to the people that you're closest to, then how can we count on you to be faithful to those of us who you represent?"

So in other words, "What they wrote was awful, but what the hey? I'll sign it anyway, because that's the frosty mix of excrement that Rick Santorum stands for".

Bravo.

[Cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Get your own popcorn!

Oh my...it can get worse.



Rupert thinks just like Glenn Beck.

Suck on this

Today's last edition of Murdoch's News of the World had some subtle messages for his British Roger Ailes Rebekkah Brooks who remained wealthily employed while they lost their jobs.

Have staff who put together the News of the World's last ever crossword included some subtle hints for News International's chief executive, Rebekah Brooks, the former editor who told them that the newspaper was to be shut down today?

The Independent's Whitehall Editor, Oliver Wright, has pointed out a few interesting elements in the quickie crossword on page 47. Its clues include:

Across
• Brook (6)
• lamented (8)
• Prestige (6)
• Stink (6)
• Catastrophe (8)

Down
• Digital protection
• Less bright
• Chair
• Pest
• Cease
• Criminal enterprise

I can't say I'm sad about the "grand bargain" falling apart

But the reasons are best summarized by Booman.

Boehner can't find the votes, doesn't want to run to Hoyer to get them, and has backed out of a commitment to a grand deal. The orange bastard is caught on flypaper and he's willing to set every dollar in the world ablaze to extract himself with his gavel intact.

Sound familiar?

The American media is still pretending Murdoch's thuggish behavior is limited only to Great Britain:

“I can think of at least two members of Parliament who could have been criticizing Murdoch five years ago, and said nothing because they were afraid,” said Chris Bryant, a Labour member of Parliament who serves on the Culture, Media and Sport Committee and who has been a persistent critic of Mr. Murdoch.

It was Mr. Bryant who, at a hearing on press standards in 2003, asked Ms. Brooks, then editor of The Sun, whether she had ever paid the police for information. She was seriously displeased with the tough tone of his questions; so were other tabloid editors who spoke at the hearing.

A few months later, Mr. Bryant was the subject of an article in The Mail on Sunday, illustrated by a photo of him in his underpants that he had posted on a gay dating site. (He does not make a secret of his sexuality.) The News of the World also printed the story, copying the account.

After Mr. Bryant spoke last fall in Parliament against tabloid tactics, he said a friend received telephone calls from two Murdoch underlings. “They told him, ‘You know Chris Bryant? Just let him know that this will not be forgotten,’ ” Mr. Bryant related.

Oh, that never happens here...see every Murdoch media outlet.

So

How much pain are the wealthy being asked to endure?

Oh, that's right, none.

All the rest of us can fuck ourselves also.

Rest in peace Betty

Betty Ford was the greatest credit to Gerald Ford I can think of.

Imagine how hounded she and her pro-choice husband would have been in today's Republican Party...they were relatively hounded as it was.

Enjoy

A target of smear merchants giving some preppy practitioner of the same his comeuppance in the latest Murdoch sleazefest.

Obviously, it's the "deficits" fault

The time tested method of making sure no jobs are created has always been cutting government spending.

Good thing everyone in power and the media are making sure this long-known historical truth is not getting in the way of cutting government spending.

Only 18,000 jobs created in June, well below expectations...as usual per Atrios, the unders win.

Thank goodness for hard-hitting journalism

At NBC keeping the TRULY important stories alive.

Yeah, good luck with that one

Here's your campaign slogan:

Hey America, you can kiss your Playboy centerfolds and internet fap fests goodbye if Michelle Bachmann is elected. Tea Party/GOP nutcase Bachmann is the first candidate to sign THE FAMiLY LEADER pledge banning pornography

The pledge was put together by Iowa right-winger Bob Vander Plaats who you suspect with a name like that has a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge collection of snuff porn.

More Schadenfreude please!

Closing down News of the World (for the purpose of a long-planned reorganization) may not get Rupert out of this one.

Today, The Independent reported that hacking allegations have engulfed a second publication of Rupert Murdoch's -- The Sun -- his "best-selling" daily paper in the U.K. Previously, the scandal was confined to Murdoch's News of the World tabloid.

Y'know how to pick 'em

For years David Cameron laid down with Rupert Murdoch and came up with fleas while hiring Rupert's louse Andy Coulson to be his Communications Director.

Sometime thereafter:

Andy Coulson has been told by police that he will be arrested on Friday morning over suspicions that he knew about, or had direct involvement in, the hacking of mobile phones during his editorship of the News of the World.

Wow, public officials going to jail for malfeasance in their past. Dick Cheney is proud to be an American!

Meanwhile, yesterday former Murdoch employee as editor of the News of the World Peirs Anthony bemoaned how the scandal has affected the real victims:

"I have a lot of sympathy for those at the top. They couldn't know what's going on ..."

Which is why, I guess, Mr. Coulson is getting arrested, for not knowing what is going on. Meanwhile, Murdoch and his brood and British Roger Ailes, Rebekkah Brooks, remain employed and rich -- aka victims -- while they shut down News of the World and fire a few hundred employees, all while whining that actual journalist shut them down with y'know journalism. Meanwhile, in the U.S. see the earlier Dick Cheney comment.

But hey, at least the U.S. and Britain have one thing in common, they won't criminally punish torturers and war criminals.

Special relationship indeed.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Hypocrites gonna "Hypocrate"

Via Roger Ailes, National Review prime knob Andy McCarthy:

I love the bumper sticker Rush suggested at the top of the show today: “If you can’t do the time, do the crime in Florida!”

Truer words never bloviated.

Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Bailey?

Her No. 1 Iowa stroker backer:

Can you see Churchill sitting it out? It’s unthinkable. Can you see George Washington in 1776 sitting it out?”

Um, yeah. What do Churchill, Washington and Palin have in common other than brain death?

Could you see Churchill resigning after Tubruk?

Could you see Washington resigning during Valley Forge?

See, rhetoric works better when it is based in analogies that apply to the person you are comparing.

7:11 a.m. Central

Time for the Administration to start brow beating the base and calling them the problem.

Atrios is Saruman with a better grilling technique

He doesn't predict, he merely foretells:

As part of his pitch, Obama is proposing significant reductions in Medicare spending and for the first time is offering to tackle the rising cost of Social Security, according to people in both parties with knowledge of the proposal. The move marks a major shift for the White House and could present a direct challenge to Democratic lawmakers who have vowed to protect health and retirement benefits from the assault on government spending.

The Republicans merely went on the record of wanting to eliminate it, now they will manage to run against the Democrats for actually tampering with it.

Galtland Acres

It isn't taking Minnesota's government shut down long to create a post-apocalyptic world suited for bad Kevin Costner movies or inevitable Viking playoff defeats:

Vandals went wild at abandoned Minnesota state parks over the holiday weekend, wrecking buildings and driving around closed gates as the government shutdown drags toward its second week.

I can only imagine what the Visogoths will do -- oh, that's right they are already running the Minnesota legislature.

Feel free to begin drinking your own urine Minnesotans.

Even "Worser"

Rupert Murdoch's latest abuse gets more outrageous every day:

Scotland Yard is investigating claims that families of members of the armed forces killed in Afghanistan and Iraq have been targeted by Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator who worked for the News of the World.

Murdered children, targeted; terrorist victims, targeted; war casualties, targeted. But leave it to ex-pat jackass Piers Morgan to cry for the real victims, Rupert Murdoch and his cronies.

"I have a lot of sympathy for those at the top. They couldn't know what's going on ..."

Well, I'll be

Even the conservatives in Great Britain (who to be fair would be more liberal than most Democrats in this country sadly) have summed up Rupert thusly:

Zac Goldsmith, a Conservative, said the Murdoch empire had become too powerful.

We have seen, I would say, systemic abuse of almost unprecedented power. There is nothing noble in what these newspapers have been doing. Rupert Murdoch is clearly a very, very talented businessman, he's possibly even a genius, but his organisation has grown too powerful and has abused that power. It has systematically corrupted the police and in my view has gelded this Parliament to our shame.

If only Americans would be similarly "fair and balanced" for real.

A Frothy Mix of Staggering Genius

Makes Bachmann look smart in comparison: