News Roundup for 12/27/10

James O'Keefe

-Headline of the day-
"FOX News Devastated Over Arrest Of ACORN Pimp, Says The Story Probably Needs 'A Lot Of Context.'"

Man, I quit doing the roundup for a couple days and all hell breaks loose. Lemme get you caught up here; remember that guy who created a firestorm with a Halloween costume and bad tax advice from ACORN?

Yeah, turns out he's a criminal. Here's the fun part; it also turns out that ACORN isn't.

See, this guy -- James O'Keefe -- was enjoying his newfound wingnut fame so much that he decided to take drastic measures to keep it going. So he tried to tap Sen. Mary Landrieu's phones. Which is weird, because if there's one Democrat (whose name isn't Ben Nelson) who's on O'Keefe's side of the argument most often, it's Mary. But she manages to call herself a Democrat and manages to get people to believe that -- which means she's a Communist.

Anyway, you can just imagine how illegal this all is. Way illegal. So illegal that a president once resigned, rather than face scrutiny over a similar wiretapping scheme.

Well, it's not so cut and dried as that. At least, not for FOX News, who played the story this way when they first reported it:


REPORT TIM GAUGHAN: [It's a] very weird story that probably needs a lot of context and a lot of looking into, which is what we’re going to do here. I just wanted to get it on the record with it right now.

ANCHOR SHEP SMITH: So, they’re saying basically, they’re in there -- It sounds as if what they’re saying is, they’re looking for some ACORN hanky panky and they try to tap into Mary Landrieu’s telephone to get it.

GAUGHAN: That could be one way of looking at it, yes.


You know, when you put it in that context, it's still way illegal. (Think Progress, with video)


-Wow. Just wow-
Another thing that happened while I was dicking around with computer machines and monitor sets and interweb wires was that South Carolina Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer decided that now would be a good time to display just what kind of a lunatic Nazi fuckwit he is.

See, the government should end assistance to people who fail drug tests. "My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed," he said. "They will reproduce, especially ones that don’t think too much further than that. And so what you’ve got to do is you've got to curtail that type of behavior. They don’t know any better." So drug addicts should starve or they're gonna have sex all over the place. Something like that anyway. I apologize, I'm not fluent in moron.

OK, so we had Gov. Sanford's affair with Evita Peron. Then we had Slow Joe Wilson yelling at the president during a joint session of congress. Now we've got the Lt. Governor talking like freakin' Mussolini.

Seriously South Carolina, what the fuck is wrong with you? (Washington Post)


-Ear to the ground-
Sources tell me that there's going to be this Obama guy on the teevee tonight and that it's going to be super-duper important.

I'll let you know if I hear more. (Washington Post)