From npr:
Americans owe a debt of gratitude to Richard Shelby, the senior Republican senator from Alabama, and the rest of the Senate should be furious at him.
The reason is simple. Shelby has overstepped the usual bounds of caution and produced an act of senatorial arrogance so breathtaking that the country just might notice. And if the country actually knew that such shenanigans were possible, the country would be amazed and, one would hope, perturbed.
(ChattahBox)—-[...] After Sarah Palin’s keynote speech last night at the Tea Party Convention, she sat down with the event organizer Judson Phillips for a brief question and answer session. The questions were apparently pre-screened and Palin’s team of handlers had presumably prepped her on the right-wing talking point answers. But the half-term governor of Alaska still needed to look at the crib notes she scribbled on her left hand, to answer basic questions.
From the San Francisco Chronicle:
Carly Fiorina’s U.S. Senate campaign has created the nation’s newest online star – the “demon sheep” – in its new ad attacking the Republican primary’s front-runner, former South Bay Rep. Tom Campbell.
From abcNEWS:
Prosecutors at the human rights trial of former Liberian warlord Charles Taylor alleged Thursday that Christian televangelist Pat Robertson had lobbied the White House on Taylor’s behalf in return for a gold mining contract.
The controversial pastor and former Republican presidential contender met with then-President George W. Bush on Taylor’s behalf, prosecutors charged during cross-examination of Taylor in a Dutch courtroom, allegedly in return for a contract to mine gold in southeast Liberia — a contract they say that Taylor had no legal right to grant.
So, here’s the scoop, kids. Glenn Beck was jawing with his radio sidekick, Pat Gray (apparently, one dumbshit per show is not enough) about the prez, Barack Obama, daring to use his name. Not Glenn Beck’s name, Barack Obama was using his own name, Barack Obama. 
Well, kids, I found out something quite interesting about Glenn Beck on teh Google that you simply have to read!
It’s this, from the sidebar:
Children Mary, Hannah (from first marriage); Raphe, Cheyenne (from second marriage)
Stay with me kids, and I’ll ’splain.
From Planet Washington (McCLATCHY Trusted Voices):
In 1993, when Congress strongly resisted President Bill Clinton’s attempt to end the U.S. military’s ban on gay service members, Gen. Colin Powell, then the top military officer, helped broker a compromise policy that came to be known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
Wednesday, Powell joined the Pentagon’s current leadership, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, now the nation’s top officer, in urging the policy’s repeal, saying that “attitudes and circumstances have changed.”
They have indeed.
From Hot Dish Politics at the Star Tribune:
Speaking to a crowd in Rochester yesterday, Rep. Michele Bachmann warned that Democratic health reform proposals could eventually prompt the government to use health care as a tool to limit people’s free speech.
The Post-Bulletin has a video and story of Bachmann’s address to about 200 people.
She explained that a man recently approached her to say that in Japan, which “had the government takeover of health care,” the government puts people who criticize the health system on “a list” and denies them treatment.
Is that what the man really said? Maybe what he really said was just…
Did you lose your Japanese to Batshit Babble Dictionary, Michele?
Keep reading →
From David Zurawik at THE BALTIMORE SUN:
Give Sean Hannity credit: At least, he had James O’Keefe, the ACORN video boy, on his show Monday night. Unlike some other folks at Fox News, he didn’t act like this comic-book crusader was suddenly dead to him after O’Keefe was arrested for entering the office of U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu under false pretenses.
On the other hand, maybe he should have ditched O’Keefe, too. What a sorry excuse for an interview and a lame defense O’Keefe offered for his actions. Hannity struck one of his favorite interview poses in such situations — that of a defense attorney trying to establish his client’s version of the facts of the case. But the 25-year-old O’Keefe wasn’t able to even do the light lifting that his half of the game required.
