I hate what you just said

Sarah Palin, to the Tea Party Convention:

[W]e need a commander in chief, not a professor of law standing at the lectern.

And Richard Hofstadter rolls over in his grave.

The waterboard is now an accepted disciplinary tool:

A soldier waterboarded his four-year-old daughter because she was unable to recite her alphabet.

Joshua Tabor admitted to police he had used the CIA torture technique because he was so angry.

As his daughter ’squirmed’ to get away, Tabor said he submerged her face three or four times until the water was lapping around her forehead and jawline.

Tabor, 27, who had won custody of his daughter only four weeks earlier, admitted choosing the punishment because the girl was terrified of water.

h/t Andrew Sullivan

The pro-life commercial by Focus on the Family goes something like this:

1. Mrs. Tebow, a 98 pound woman, stares into the camera, haltingly explaining how she almost lost her baby.
2. 6′ 3″, 232-pound Tim Tebow blindsides his own mother with a savage hit.
3. After getting up, Tim grins like an idiot while hugging his mom.
4. We are told to “choose life.”

WTF?

It was funny when Terry Tate did it to Palin.

In his Tea Party speech this past Thursday, Former congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO) gave the world a glimpse inside of his tiny, ignorant, and hateful mind:

The opening night speaker at the Tea Party convention suggested a return to a “literacy test” to protect America from presidents like Obama — a segregation-era method employed by southern US states to keep blacks from voting…[Tancredo] invoked the loaded pre-civil rights era buzzword, saying that President Barack Obama was elected because “we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country.”

Tom “Jim Crow” Tancredo, I hate what you just said.

An article in Slate caught my eye:

In trying to explain why our political paralysis seems to have gotten so much worse over the past year, analysts have rounded up a plausible collection of reasons including: President Obama’s tactical missteps, the obstinacy of congressional Republicans, rising partisanship in Washington, the blustering idiocracy of the cable-news stations, and the Senate filibuster, which has devolved into a super-majority threshold for any important legislation. These are all large factors, to be sure, but that list neglects what may be the biggest culprit in our current predicament: the childishness, ignorance, and growing incoherence of the public at large.

Read the whole thing, as they say.

Mark Sanford now favors slavery and child abuse.

We can’t be too hard on Saxby Chambliss and his strident defense of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

After all, Saxby probably just wants to nostalgically preserve the military that he knew back in the day — the army he longed to wage manly, balls-out war with.

You see, when he was a young man, the the army denied Saxby entry on six separate occasions (I think they’re technically called “deferments.”) Poor man. I’m sure he was all fired up to take the fight to the enemy in the sweaty, heterosexual jungles of Vietnam.

h/t Andrew Sullivan

We should listen to the opinion of Oliver North on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. After all, he perjured himself before Congress to cover up the fact that he was involved in selling armaments to the Iranians in violation of our nation’s laws. That’s integrity. And honor. And a deep concern for the reputation of our men and women in uniform.

Damn it, he’s earned our respect:

The arguments for keeping “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” look more and more ridiculous every day.  Now that conservative military establishment types like Colin Powell, Robert Gates, and Admiral Mullen have all made clear that they think gay and lesbian service members should be allowed to serve openly, the proponents of DADT are grasping at straws.

This list of arguments against gays in the military underscores the absurdity of the discussion.  My favorite?  This one, from noted jackass Saxby Chambliss (R – Georgia):

In my opinion, the presence in the armed forces of persons who demonstrate a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts would very likely create an unacceptable risk to those high standards. It will lead to alcohol use, adultery, fraternization, and body art. If we change this rule of ‘Don’t Ask, Dont Tell’ what are we going to do with these other rules?

-Alcohol use?  In the military?  Has he ever heard the phrase “like a drunken sailor?”

-Adultery?  Fraternization?  There’s no need to even respond to those two.

–Body art?  I don’t know about you, but I want my soldiers to have tattoos of skulls with flames shooting out of them.

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h/t Ezra Klein

It’s ok to take people’s children since you can provide them a much better life and can teach them about Jesus.

-Jon Stewart is apparently going to be on the O’Reilly Factor this week.  Sounds like a hoot to me.

-The thing about universal health care is that people like it. 

-Today President Obama tried to rally Democrats to have some backbone, get things done, and stop playing it safe.  Two things about that:  first - physician, heal thyself.  Second – good luck with that.

-It’s  reassuring to see that Frank Luntz is still pure evil. 

-Want to get really pissed off?  Then read Bill Kristol’s pathetic argument against repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

-Robert Reich mourns the decline of the democratic process.  Amen.

-To paraphrase Jake Blues, I hate neo-Nazis.

Hey, we should keep our military free of homos, just like the ancient Greeks.

Sarah Palin on Rahm Emanuel:

Just as we’d be appalled if any public figure of Rahm’s stature ever used the ‘N-word’ or other such inappropriate language, Rahm’s slur on all God’s children with cognitive and developmental disabilities — and the people who love them — is unacceptable, and it’s heartbreaking.

Levi Johnston on Palin, last year:

She’d come home from work looking for her son Trig, he said, and she’d ask, “Where’s my retarded baby?” She would apparently use the term regularly to refer to the child, who has Down syndrome. “She’d say it kind of regularly. I think she was joking, but that doesn’t make it right.”

I heard this memorable exchange between NPR’s Melissa Block and Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) on my drive home yesterday:

BLOCK: You are not in favor of a repeal of dont ask, dont tell. Why not?

Rep. HUNTER: No, because I think that its bad for the cohesiveness and the unity of the military units, especially those that are in close combat, that are in close quarters in country right now. Its not the time to do it. I think its – the military is not civilian life. And I think the folks who have been in the military that have been in these very close situations with each other, there has to be a special bond there. And I think that bond is broken if you open up the military to transgenders, to hermaphrodites, to gays and lesbians.

Seems like he really knows what he’s talking about.

Colorado Springs is the epicenter of our nation’s Evangelical Christian movement. The city has been almost completely taken over by the Republican Jesus crowd. However, it turns out that their vision of a magical government that functions without taxation is taking some serious blows:

This tax-averse city is about to learn what it looks and feels like when budget cuts slash services most Americans consider part of the urban fabric.

More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark Monday. The police helicopters are for sale on the Internet. The city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops — dozens of police and fire positions will go unfilled.

The parks department removed trash cans last week, replacing them with signs urging users to pack out their own litter.

Neighbors are encouraged to bring their own lawn mowers to local green spaces, because parks workers will mow them only once every two weeks. If that.

Water cutbacks mean most parks will be dead, brown turf by July; the flower and fertilizer budget is zero.

City recreation centers, indoor and outdoor pools, and a handful of museums will close for good March 31 unless they find private funding to stay open. Buses no longer run on evenings and weekends. The city won’t pay for any street paving, relying instead on a regional authority that can meet only about 10 percent of the need.

“I guess we’re going to find out what the tolerance level is for people,” said businessman Chuck Fowler, who is helping lead a private task force brainstorming for city budget fixes. “It’s a new day.”

But in the end, everyone there will blame Obama for his massive deficit spending and anti-Christian bias.

Republicans who favor tort reform may have just found Exhibit A:

An Oregon man has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Forest Service and a logging company on allegations that they failed to cut down a tree before it fell and injured him.

Hearings about the military’s ridiculous “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy are currently underway in Washington.   I just now (12:29 ET) linked up with the C-SPAN live streaming coverage, and the first thing I heard was Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen saying that allowing gays to serve openly would be “the right thing to do.”

The poll below is another piece of good news.  Big hat tip to the Dish.

An interesting development on the pro-life advertisement set to air during the Superbowl this weekend. As you may have heard, the mother of Florida QB, Tim Tebow, claims that a physician counseled her to abort the fetus-that-would-be-Tim when she became gravely ill in the Philippines, where she was a missionary. Now, she and her son will regale the entire world with their “Celebrate Family – Celebrate Life” message during an injury time-out, a call challenge, or a regularly scheduled commercial break.

According to Gloria Allred, the problem with this story is that abortions have been illegal in the Philippines since the 1930s and carry stiff criminal penalties that “mandate imprisonment for the woman who undergoes the abortion, as well as for any person who assists in the procedure, even if they be the woman’s parents, a physician or midwife.” Allred says that it is unlikely that Mrs. Tebow would have been given such advice by a physician in that circumstance. And she stands ready, if the commercial airs and “fails to disclose that abortions were illegal at the time Ms. Tebow made her choice,” to “lodge a complaint with the FCC and FTC” over the matter.

A few problems. The truth is that 1) Gloria Allred is an annoying publicity whore who is actually not helping the cause of feminism 2) she couldn’t possibly know what happened 18 years ago in a distant country between a doctor and his patient and 3) this kind of Churchillian “fight on the beaches” approach to the culture war is counterproductive.

Seriously, Gloria, do you really want to make yourself vulnerable to the accusation that you wish Tim Tebow had been aborted? That’s pure rhetorical genius.

Another way to look at all this is that a bunch of people are wasting 2.5 million dollars to air a commercial to a bunch of people who have already made up their minds on the issue of abortion. A bunch of people paid CBS millions of dollars just so that everyone will think “My, what a great Christian he is!” That’s 2.5 million dollars that could have been used to prevent unwanted pregnancies and, therefore, abortions. To wit: at the price of $20 for a pack of 12 Trojans, that 2.5 million dollars could have purchased 1,500,000 condoms. Or 167,000 months of birth control for women who are too poor to afford it. That would ensure that 13,916 women would be baby-free for one year.

Get my drift, Gloria? Feel free to borrow my argument.

Still, Tim, if you’re listening, those Bible verses on your eye patches are soooo lame.

Best statement to the Tea Party crowd I’ve ever read:

Hey you. You there in the Glenn Beck T-shirt headed off to the Tea Party Patriot rally.

Stop shouting for a moment, please, I want to explain to you why you’re so very angry.

You should be angry. You’re getting screwed.

I think you know that. But you don’t seem to know that it doesn’t have to be that way. You can stop it. You can stop it easily because the system that’s screwing you over can only keep screwing you over if you keep demanding that it do so.

So stop demanding that. Stop helping the system screw you over.

Look, you can go back to yelling at me in a minute, but just read this first.

1. Get out your pay stub.

Or, if you have direct deposit — you really should get direct deposit, it saves a lot of time and money (I point this out because, honestly, I’m trying to help you here, even though you don’t make that easy Mr. Angry Screamy Guy) — then take out that little paper receipt they give you when your pay gets directly deposited.

2. Notice that your net pay is lower than your gross pay. This is because some of your wages are withheld every pay period.

3. Notice that only some of this money that was withheld went to pay taxes. (I know, I know — yeearrrgh! me hates taxes! — but just try to stick with me for just a second here.)

4. Notice that some of the money that was withheld didn’t go to taxes, but to your health insurance company.

5. Now go get a pay stub from last year around this time, from January of 2009.

6. Notice that the amount of your pay withheld for taxes in your current paycheck is less than the amount that was withheld a year ago.

That’s because of President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus plan, which included more than $200 billion in tax cuts, including the one you’re holding right there in your hand, the tax cut that’s now staring you in the face. Republicans all voted against that tax cut. And then they told you to get angry about the stimulus plan. They didn’t explain, however, why you were supposed to get angry about getting a tax cut. Why would you be? Wouldn’t it make more sense to get angry at the people who voted against that Obama tax cut?

But taxes aren’t the really important thing here. The really important thing starts with the next point.

7. Notice that the amount of your pay withheld to pay for your health insurance is more than it was last year.

8. Notice that the amount of your pay withheld to pay for your health insurance is a lot more than it was last year.

I won’t ask you to dig up old paychecks from 2008 and 2007, but this has been going on for a long time. Every year, the amount of your paycheck withheld to pay for your health insurance goes up. A lot.

9. Notice the one figure there on your two pay stubs that hasn’t changed: Your wage. The raise you didn’t get this year went to pay for that big increase in the cost of your health insurance.

10. Here’s where I need you to start doing a better job of putting two and two together. If you didn’t get a raise last year because the cost of your health insurance went up by a lot, and the cost of your health insurance is going to go up by a lot again this year, what do you think that means for any chance you might have of getting a raise this year?

11. Did you figure it out? That’s right. The increasing cost of health insurance means you won’t get a raise this year. Or next year. Or the year after that. The increasing cost of health insurance means you will never get a raise again.

That’s what I meant when I said you really should be angry. That’s what I meant when I said you’re getting screwed.

OK, we’re almost done. Just a few more points, I promise.

12. The only hope you have of ever seeing another pay raise is if Congress passes health care reform. Without health care reform, the increasing cost of your health insurance will swallow this year’s raise. And next year’s raise. And pretty soon it won’t stop with just your raise. Without health care reform, the increasing cost of your health insurance will start making your pay go down.

13. I wish I could tell you that this was just a worst-case scenario, that this was only something that might, maybe happen, but that wouldn’t be true. Without health care reform, this is what will happen. We know this because this is what is happening now. It has been happening for the past 10 years. In 2008, employers spent on average 25 percent more per employee than they did in 2001, but wages on average did not increase during those years. The price of milk went up. The price of gas went up. But wages did not. All of the money that would have gone to higher wages went to pay the higher and higher and higher cost of health insurance. And unless Congress passes health care reform, that will not change.

Well, it will change in the sense that it will keep getting worse, but it won’t get better. Unless the problem gets fixed, the problem won’t be fixed. That’s kind of what “problem” and “fixed” mean.

14. Sadly for any chance you have of ever seeing a raise again, it looks like Congress may not pass health care reform. It looks like they won’t do that because they’re scared of angry voters who are demanding that they oppose health care reform, angry voters who demand that Congress not do anything that would keep the cost of health insurance from going up and up and up. Angry voters like you.

15. Do you see the point here? You are angrily, loudly demanding that Congress make sure that you never, ever get another pay raise as long as you live. Because of you and because of your angry demands, you and your family and your kids are going to have to get by with less this year than last year. And next year you’re going to have to get by with even less. And if you keep angrily demanding that no one must ever fix this problem, then you’re going to have to figure out how to get by on less and less every year for the rest of your life.

16. So please, for your own sake, for your family’s sake and the sake of your children, stop. Stop demanding that problems not get fixed. Stop demanding that you keep getting screwed. Stay angry — you should be angry — but start directing that anger toward the system that’s screwing you over and taking money out of your pocket. Start directing that anger toward fixing problems instead of toward making sure they never get fixed. Instead of demanding that Congress oppose health care reform so that you never, ever, get another pay raise, start demanding that they pass health care reform, as soon as possible. Because until they do, you’re just going to keep on getting screwed.

And it’s going to be that much worse knowing that you brought this on yourself — that you demanded it.

Thanks for your time.

P.S. — I didn’t mention this because I’m trying here to be as patient with you as I can, but you might also want to keep in mind that in addition to screwing over yourself and screwing over your family and screwing over your own children by demanding that Congress oppose health care reform so that you will never, ever see another pay raise, by doing that you’re also demanding that I never, ever see another pay raise, which means that you’re also screwing over me, and my family, and my children. Not to mention the millions of poor and uninsured and uninsureable people I didn’t even mention above because they don’t seem to matter at all to you. And for that, let me just say the only appropriate thing that can be said to someone so determined to do direct, tangible harm to the welfare of my family: Fuck you, you fucking moron.

h/t Andrew Sullivan

The final Department of Justice report is in on the Bush-era lawyering that led to a world-wide program of torture. In the scalding report, the DOJ . . . . .

Oh, wait. It says that everyone involved used “poor judgment.”

Poor judgment is wearing acid-wash jeans on a first date. Or buying a Slap Chop™. Or going ahead with your honeymoon plans to Haiti. Creating a sprawling network of secret prisons where you conduct inhumane acts of torture is not poor judgment, it’s a monstrous evil and a violation of clearly articulated and long-standing laws.

From now on, we will only refer to the Department of Justice*

* Justice optional.

Why is it that everyone gets angry when squirrels eat the seed in bird feeders? People spend hours constructing ways to prevent squirrels from getting even a single morsel of food. They run out of their homes, arms waving wildly, to scare them off when they make an attempt. Some even shoot the squirrels for just trying to get a quick meal. Or worse, they poison or electrocute the poor little guys.

Why is it that there is no such thing as a squirrel feeder or squirrel feed? Why is feeding a bird such a normative, culturally accepted practice while squirrel feeding is an absurdity, an annoyance, a criminal outrage?

A offhanded comment in Glenn Greenwald’s recent post made me realize just how far we’re through Overton Window on the issue of terrorism. Today, Ronald Reagan’s terrorism policies would be viciously attacked as some kind of kumbaya liberalism.  Just listen to a portion of a speech made by Reagan’s top official at the State Department:

“Another important measure we have developed in our overall strategy is applying the rule of law to terrorists. Terrorists are criminals. They commit criminal actions like murder, kidnapping, and arson, and countries have laws to punish criminals. So a major element of our strategy has been to delegitimize terrorists, to get society to see them for what they are — criminals — and to use democracy’s most potent tool, the rule of law against them.”

And Greenwald reminds us that it was Ronald Reagan who signed the international Convention Against Torture in 1988:

It was also Ronald Reagan who signed the Convention Against Torture in 1988 — after many years of countless, horrific Terrorist attacks — which not only declared that there are “no exceptional circumstances whatsoever” justifying torture, but also required all signatory countries to “ensure that all acts of torture are offences under its criminal law” and — and Reagan put it — “either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution.”

Rule of law. Don’t torture. Wow, Reagan was a terrorist-coddling pussy.

This was an amazing performance. Not that it’s going to make a difference.

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-Rudy Giuliani is a barking lunatic and a lying sack of shit.  Watch this video for further evidence.

-Speaking of dangerous lunatics, pro-life murderer Scott Roeder has been found guilty of first-degree murder for killing Dr. George Tiller.

-Tony Blair has testified in the British “Chilcot Inquiry” on the Iraq War. Among the astonishing revelations- the Americans made some mistakes in their post-war planning. You think?

-Economic growth numbers for the fourth quarter were quite good;  still not so much with the jobs, however.

-This farewell to the great historian Howard Zinn at the Nation features some interesting video clips

-Ta-Nehisi Coates has an interesting observation about race and the NFL as we approach the Super Bowl.

-With the Arizona senate primary looming, the news is not good for Oily McWar.

A new documentary film about the dangers of nuclear weapons features interviews with Henry Kissinger, George Schultz, William Perry, and Sam Nunn.  It is titled “Nuclear Tipping Point,” and below is the introduction to the film by Colin Powell. Interestingly, this flim features the opinions of fairly conservative cold warriors, yet the film calls for the complete elimination of all nuclear weapons in the world.

Never thought I’d post on this.

Stuck in an attic all day with nothing much to do, the adolescent Anne Frank got curious about her naughty bits. And wrote a description of it in her diary. A new edition restores the passage which has been omitted in previous versions of the diary.

Now the Culpeper County Public Schools in Virginia won’t let their students read the book.

I’m sure the massive media scrutiny, school board meetings, and Op-Eds won’t send the 8th-graders on a mad hunt for the passage. Hey kids, if you’re reading this, forget Anne Frank. Pick up a copy of Günter Grass’s The Tin Drum.

Every single Republican Senator yesterday voted against an amendment to re-impose “pay-as-you-go” budgeting which would require that all legislation or new expenditures do not add money to the deficit.

This is the same law that lead to budget surpluses during the 1990s (until George Bush burned through it all by using reconciliation to pass massive tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans).

The buzzword these days when discussing Republican opposition is “nihilism.” You could not possibly find a better illustration than yesterday’s vote. Republican values of “fiscal responsibility” and calls to eliminate the deficit are just a hat trick in a medicine show. They have no creed, no values, no precepts, no principles, no ideas. Just a base search for power and mouths that can form the word “no.”

The reclusive author of The Catcher in the Rye has died in his New Hampshire home at the age of 91.

H/T: D

-Michael Tomaskey wanted Obama to show independents and moderates why his ideas are preferable to those of the Republicans.  His analysis:

…he had to challenge Republicans and expose them as recalcitrant to independent voters. Here I thought he was more successful. He adlibbed a few jibes at the GOP, taunting them with a jab about how budgeting works…

The key question here is: did his words along these lines do enough to persuade independents, or at least to begin to persuade them, that he’s the reasonable one and the Republicans are unreasonable. I don’t think he closed that argument at all, but he made a start.

-Ezra Klein says that most people will see the speech in the context of already-existing narratives about Obama, depending on their ideology.  But he thinks the speech, rather than answering questions as such, still leaves us wondering about Obama:

But everyone agrees on one thing: Tonight’s speech is the most important of his young presidency, and it will be the most revealing of his career. Does he stand and fight for a health-care bill he believes to be a historic and necessary step forward? Or does he back away from it, letting some gestures toward his commitment to the issue stand in for the determined leadership — and the political gamble — that would represent real commitment to the issue?

-Courtney E. Martin at Feministing wonders whether Obama has again shown himself better at projecting the image of change than of providing it:

I don’t want another “big daddy” or “super protector” president. Instead, I was looking for a truly innovative way of talking about change. Maybe that seems naive, but I really did think that in this perfect storm of crises, there was a real opportunity for Obama to talk about the way in which we all have to think about and fight for change in this new world that we’re all living in. It’s gotten even more charged, even more complex, even more urgent, and it’s our leader’s job to frame that intensity. He paid lip service to it at times–referencing the decade that has led us into this mess, talking about how he’s willing to take an unpopular stand, continuously bringing it back to struggling Americans–but it struck me as showmanship, as a true performance. He’s always been charismatic, but this felt uninspired to me.

-And the editorial page at the Boston Globe says what a lot of Democrats are thinking:

Historian Howard Zinn passed away last night.

Every American should read his A People’s History of the United States, a truly groundbreaking work that examines the people who are commonly forgotten in the triumphal, self-congratulatory narratives about our nation’s past.

If this is true, our entire country is completely fracked:

Fox is the most trusted television news network in the country, according to a new poll out Tuesday.

A Public Policy Polling nationwide survey of 1,151 registered voters Jan. 18-19 found that 49 percent of Americans trusted Fox News, 10 percentage points more than any other network.

After explaining why he won’t donate to Haiti, just like he won’t donate to the homeless, Paul Shirley had this to say to the devastated people of Haiti:

Dear Haitians –

First of all, kudos on developing the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Your commitment to human rights, infrastructure, and birth control should be applauded.

As we prepare to assist you in this difficult time, a polite request: If it’s possible, could you not re-build your island home in the image of its predecessor? Could you not resort to the creation of flimsy shanty- and shack-towns? And could some of you maybe use a condom once in a while?

Sincerely,

The Rest of the World

I would like to write a letter to Paul Shirley, NBA washout.  Here it is:

Dear Paul -

First of all, kudos on developing one of the shortest NBA careers in history. Your committment to free throws, rebounds, and ball control should be applauded.

As we prepare to watch you suck in some European league, a polite request:  If it’s possible, could you not re-suck the way you did for the Phoenix Suns?  Could you not average a flimsy 1.3 points and 0.2 rebounds per game?  And could you maybe make a pass once in a while?

Sincerely,

The Basketball Fans of the World

The US government can assassinate US citizens at will if they are in foreign countries and up to no good.

This is just messed up:

Pope John Paul II whipped himself with a belt, even on vacation, and slept on the floor as acts of penitence and to bring him closer to Christian perfection, according to a new book by the Polish prelate spearheading his sainthood case.

[. . .]

As some members of his close entourage in Poland and in the Vatican were able to hear with their own ears, John Paul flagellated himself. In his armoire, amid all the vestments and hanging on a hanger, was a belt which he used as a whip and which he always brought to Castel Gandolfo,” the papal retreat where John Paul vacationed each summer.

These people are so pathetic.

Remember that video that purportedly revealed employees of ACORN providing advice to a pimp on how to run his prostitution ring? The guy who shot the film and played the “pimp” in the video is named James O’Keefe. And he just got arrested by the FBI.

He got busted trying to bug the offices of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA):

According to the FBI affidavit, Flanagan and Basel entered the federal building at 500 Poydras Street on Monday about 11 a.m., dressed as telephone company employees, wearing jeans, fluorescent green vests, tool belts and hard hats. When they arrived at Landrieu’s 10th-floor office, O’Keefe was already in the office and had told a staffer he was waiting for someone to arrive.

When Flanagan and Basel entered the office, they told the staffer they were there to fix phone problems. At that time, the staffer, referred to only as Witness 1 in the affidavit, observed O’Keefe positioning his cell phone in his hand to videotape the operation. O’Keefe later admitted to agents that he recorded the event.

Based on my research, the recording would carry a mandatory $500 dollar fine plus up to 5 years in prison, or both.

On the bright side, he’s likely to learn a lot more about pimpin’ while in prison.

John Travolta and his wife Kelly Preston have apparently personally flown relief supplies to Haiti.  That’s the good part.  The bad part is that they have also brought Scientology ministers and volunteers, and are using the tragedy as an opportunity to spread their bizarre cult.  They’re “helping” Haitians with something called “touch therapy,” which is supposed to help people get their “energy” unstuck.   As one doctor who wished to remain anonymous put it, “I didn’t know touching could heal gangrene.”

H/T: D

-Potential breaking skeleton alert:  despite a lead in the polls, Republican Mike Pence (above)  has decided not to run for the Senate against Evan Bayh.  Hmmm…

-Bob Herbert is worried about President Obama’s credibility gap.  Me too.

-Broadsheet watches Palin on Oprah and asks “WTF?” 

-Robert Reich reviews Obama’s economic plans, and he’s not terribly impressed.

-The turnout was high as voters in Sri Lanka particpated in their first presidential election since the Tamil Tigers were defeated last summer.

-This Boston Globe piece will tell you what Heidi Fleiss, Method Man, Gordon Ramsay, Sophia Loren, Joe the Plumber, and Pete Rose have in common.

-The people at factcheck.org have compiled their list of the biggest lies of 2009.

In the most recent audio tape alleged to contain a pronouncement from Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader is said to take credit for the attempted Christmas day attack.  Interestingly, Juan Cole’s recent post suggests that the voice on the tape is very likely not that of bin Laden, that the underwear attack was probably not an al-Qaeda operation, that bin Laden may well be dead, and that in any case he is becoming, in Cole’s word, irrelevant.

For example:

The audio’s claim that Bin Laden was behind the Christmas day bombing is dubious. The modus operandi of Nigerian terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab bore no resemblance to that of Bin Ladin’s al-Qaeda. Bin Laden plans operations for years beforehand; attempts to arrange for simultaneous large attacks or attacks on symbolic targets; and uses teams. One guy hastily recruited in an amateurish attempt that only blows up his own crotch? That isn’t al-Qaeda.

And, further:

I don’t know if the old monster is dead, and some clever young engineers just have a program to emulate his voice, or whether he is alive and horribly disfigured (we have not seen him in an authentic video since October 2004). But I do have the severest doubts that he issued this audio message. And the interesting thing is that even if he did, almost no one in the Muslim world seems to care.

Ralph Peters isn’t my kind of guy.  But hey, neocons:  zing!

These are men [neoconservatives] for whom too much came too easily in life, so it was all too easy for them to view our troops as mere tools to implement their visions,” says the military-affairs columnist Ralph Peters, a retired Army intelligence officer. (Peters is perplexed and irked when called a neocon himself. “I’m not qualified,” he says. “I served in the military, didn’t go to a prep school, didn’t go to an Ivy League university, and didn’t have a trust fund. And I’m physically fit).”