News Roundup for 2/25/11

Local criminal

-Headline of the day-
"Ex-AG sees violations by Walker in stunt call."

Remember that phone call that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker took a little while back? You know, the one where he thought his boss was calling him? Yeah, that one. Turns out that Scooter may have confessed to breaking a law or three while trying to convince "David Koch" that he was being really successful in doing away with unions and please god pleasepleaseplease don't shut off the money tap to his campaign coffers.

Former Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager reviewed the recording -- like everyone else under the sun -- and concluded that Walker's probably a tad bit outside the law. "There clearly are potential ethics violations, and there are potential election law violations and there are a lot of what look to me like labor law violations," she said in an interview. "I think that the ethics violations are something the (state) Government Accountability Board should look into because they are considerable. He is on tape talking with someone who he thinks is the funder of an independent political action committee to purchase advertising to benefit Republican legislators who are nervous about taking votes on legislation he sees as critical to his political success... One of the things I find most problematic in all of this is the governor's casual talk about using outside troublemakers to stir up trouble on the streets, and the fact that he only dismissed the idea because it might cause a political problem for him."

Part of the problem with the "troublemakers" thing is that, even if he finally decided against it, he says "we" thought about it. Discussing how to commit a crime is conspiracy to commit that crime -- even if you eventually decide not to. It just has to be a serious consideration, even if it's just one of many options.

"For a governor even to consider a strategy that could unnecessarily threaten the safety of peaceful demonstrators -- which the governor acknowledged he did -- is something that simply amazes me," Peg says.

So, are we going to see Scooter behind bars soon? We've got a Republican Governor, a Republican Assembly, a Republican Senate, and a Republican Attorney General.

What do you think? (Capital Times)


-Guy Colbert-
Last night, Stephen Colbert interviewed journalist and constitutional lawyer Glenn Greenwald on the story of Wikileaks, Anonymous, HBGary, the Obama administration, Bank of America, and Greenwald himself. It's this whole big, complicated thing, which Colbert did a great job of condensing here:

So, Colbert goes on from this to interview Greenwald. A redditor watched the interview and noticed a strange flash on Colbert's face for a moment, so a look at a slowed down clip of the flash was in order. This was what further investigation revealed:



That's a Guy Fawkes mask, a symbol of Anonymous and a reference to the movie V for Vendetta. Colbert is clearly showing support for Anon.

Or maybe he just doesn't want his World of Warcraft character messed with. (Washington Post)


-Bonus HotD-
"Witnesses: Republican Laughed When Asked 'Who's Gonna Shoot Obama?'"

Georgia Rep. Paul Broun is a douche. Proven fact. (Talking Points Memo)