A 76-page FBI affidavit said the 51-year-old Democrat was intercepted on court-authorized wiretaps over the last month conspiring to sell or trade the vacant Senate seat for personal benefits for himself and his wife, Patti.

Well, look at that. It looks like U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, can actually stay within the confines of the Constitution, use our legal system properly to acquire a lawful court order and still get the (alleged) bad guy. So maybe that Bush Executive Order “allowing” illegal wiretapping wasn’t so critical after all?

I am of two separate and distinct minds on this matter however. On the one hand, I don’t really understand how you can “force” a company into doing something like this. They have set their business model up one way and cater to the heterosexual community. There is nothing about eHarmony that would prevent some competitor or start-up to fill the niche of providing similar services to same-sex couples. This is not discrimination. If you don’t like the services that eHarmony offers, then go elsewhere (or start your own). As a matter of fact, according the msnbc story:
The popular online matchmaker has been sued before for discrimination.

Last year, a Northern California woman sued the online dating service. She also alleged discrimination against gays, lesbians and bisexuals.

In 2005, a San Francisco man filed a similar complaint to McKinley’s, but the state determined no discrimination laws were violated.

On the other hand, I am happy about the ruling in so much as with New Jersey agreeing and pushing this case as discrimination, it is recognition in a sense that there is no real difference between heterosexual and homosexual couples other than the parties involved.

Of course, I am certain that Bill O’Reilly will offer this up as “proof” of his and Newt Gingrich’s arguments that as Gingrich stated: “I think there is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us.” So, I am curious, in a can’t look away when you see the trainwreck coming kind of way see where this is going to take us.

After about two minutes into his portion of the interview, Colmes read to Bachmann her pre-election comments in which she said, “I’m very concerned (Barack Obama) may have anti-American views” and had called for the media to do a “penetrating expose” into the “views of the people in Congress and find out if they’re pro-America or anti-America.”

When confronted with this what does Michelle Bachmann say? That she never said it, that it was an “urban legend.” Apparently she believes she can just pretend it never happened and that people won’t be able to prove that she did. Unfortunately for her… this isn’t the “good old days” before television shows were recorded.

Rexburg Mayor Shawn Larsen wrote in a guest editorial sent Tuesday to local newspapers that he was saddened by the notoriety his community had received over the incident, both across the United States and abroad.

See? Not sad that these children are being raised to be racists. Not upset that it helps feed into the already bad reputation has of being a White Supremacist State and home to “Aryan Nations.” But I guess some apology is better than nothing, which is what you get from the Superintendent of the school district that would rather blame the media for reporting on it.

“In our district there was an isolated instance of children making regrettable and unacceptable remarks in regards to harming President-elect Obama,” Thomas wrote in a letter to parents Monday. “Word of this behavior leaked out to a hyperactive media and bloggers which in turn distorted way out of proportion the comments that were made, painting the entire community with the same negative brush.”

Yes, that is it. It is OK to be racists as long as that “hyperactive media” or those pesky bloggers know about it and call them out for their actions. Because it is not the “whole community” that is at fault… it was only an entire bus load of children. Naturally, you know kids these days, they just say the wackiest things, it is not like they learned such hatred at home now is it? Of course not, I am sure they are all just downloading lying hate mongers like Sean Hannity onto their iPods and learning it there without their parent’s knowledge.

Now understand, I realize there are good and bad people everywhere, and that just because somebody is from Idaho doesn’t automatically make them a racist or a hateful person. But when there is a bus load of children doing this, there is evidence that there certainly is a problem, and that problem isn’t that some asshat blogger called you on it.

“The Obama recession is in full swing, ladies and gentlemen,” Limbaugh told his radio audience of 15 million to 20 million on Thursday. “Stocks are dying, which is a precursor of things to come. This is an Obama recession. Might turn into a depression.”

These of course are the same type of people backed by “expert” Dave Ramsey that claimed there was no recession and that it was being “made up” by the media. Earlier this year Ramsey said,

“I’m 47-years-old,” Ramsey replied, “and every year in my memory, there’s been some sort of talk like this … but I’ve never seen it happen.

OK — but how can we be so certain that the world’s not going to fall apart this time around?

“The U.S has the most robust economy in the history of man, and it’s the most sophisticated it’s ever been; there are lots of checks and balances and safety nets,” Ramsey explained.

Of course, there is always an excuse at the ready. As these naysayers, continued to push forward for the past year, the “classic definition” of recession (2 consecutive quarters of declining GDP), the situation continued to deteriorate, but now they want to blame the not yet President for it.

It was last November when Fed Chairman rebuffed Sen Chuck Schumer (D-NY), stating that his forecast was for moderate but continued growth when Schumer asked if we were headed towards a recession. As Bob Herbert pointed out in a NY Times Op-Ed last November:

With all due respect to the chairman, he would see the recession that so many others are feeling if he would only open his eyes. While Mr. Bernanke and others are waiting for the official diagnosis (a decline in the gross domestic product for two successive quarters), the disease is spreading and has been spreading for some time.

This wasn’t Monday morning quarterbacking, this was a year ago, when something could have (and should have) been done. But instead, the partisan wingnuts instead choose to rewrite history. And I guess when you had Fox News touting how “right” people like Ben Stein were, who were screaming “The subprime mortgage problem is grossly overstated; the sector is just too small,” I guess you really need to rewrite it if you are going to even feign going forward that you have any idea what you are talking about.

Obama thinks he is a good talker, but he is often undisciplined when he speaks. He needs to understand that as President, his words will be scrutinized and will have impact whether he intends it or not.

OK, well I don’t completely agree with him, but there have been a couple of slip ups, and I can see what he is trying to say here, but then we get to the punchline:

In this regard, President Bush is an excellent model; Obama should take a lesson from his example. Bush never gets sloppy when he is speaking publicly. He chooses his words with care and precision, which is why his style sometimes seems halting. In the eight years he has been President, it is remarkable how few gaffes or verbal blunders he has committed. If Obama doesn’t raise his standards, he will exceed Bush’s total before he is inaugurated.

Now, obviously it is quite clear why I thought he was joking, right? I mean… President Bush? The man that has had 365 day calendars, books… with multiple volumes and countless wesite and videos dedicated to what may be the worst spoken President ever, the man that has never learned to pronounce the word nuclear… that is who Obama should model himself after?

But apparently, he was serious.

According to the story on Politico:

A roomful of academics erupted in angry boos Tuesday morning after political analyst Michael Barone said journalists trashed Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republicans’ vice presidential nominee, because “she did not abort her Down syndrome baby.”

Barone said in an e-mail that he “was attempting to be humorous and … went over the line.”

Went over the line? Where the hell is this line? Just what part of abortion is funny? What part of any of this is humorous? This is backpedaling plain and simple because he never expected anybody to question his outlandish accusation.

His “point” according to the article was:

“I was trying to focus on press hostility to Palin. I agree with [Washington Post media reporter and CNN 'Reliable Sources' host] Howard Kurtz that the press was much more interested in tracking down negative information on Palin than Obama.”

I’m really confused by people like this. I mean I am only a blogger sitting in my parents basement in my pajamas (no not really), and even I know the main reason that Palin was getting most of the press attention is because Obama (as well as McCain and Biden) all were vetted out by the press already during the primaries. So why is this such a revelation to people like Barone? Why wouldn’t it be obvious that now it would be Palin’s turn under the microscope since the other players in this have already gone through this? I mean, it would seem quite clear that it is because he is trying to push this agenda, but I am trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, though I don’t know why. They either need a vacation, or to be medicated.