Okay, this is going to seem technical. But if you care about public corruption prosecutions, you want to read this.
You probably saw yesterday that former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling won at least a limited victory before the Supreme Court. But the decision actually — or at least potentially — goes way, way beyond Skilling’s fate. We’re actually at work on a larger piece on this. But I just wanted to flag briefly now that the case centered on something called “honest services” fraud which the Justice Department has repeatedly used in Public and Corporate corruption cases over recent years. Read More
Dick Van Dyke and other recent behind the scenes moments at the White House:
1. I’m proud of it. 2. Who cares? 3. It’s not my fault. 4. I’m sorry.
The four stages of politician grieving, J.D. Hayworth edition. He’s now apologized for his ‘free money from the government’ informercial.
As you can probably see from our coverage, I’m incredibly interested in the Nevada senate race. But sheesh, could we please get some more pollsters covering this race? Going back to last year, only two pollsters have sampled the Angle vs Reid match-up. One is Rasmussen and the other is Mason-Dixon. So I don’t feel like I have any clear idea of where the race really is.
Gary Faulkner, the American who got arrested in Pakistan carrying a gun, a sword, night goggles and a Christian literature on a personal hunt for Osama bin Laden, says he actually got within firing range of bin Laden.
And how exactly do you go about trying to find bin Laden?
“You don’t. You let the spirit guide you and unless you have the spirit of God, not the Mother Mary or some Mohammad or something like that. God almighty has to put his hand on you. I’ve been protected.”
So the spirit guides you to some Arab guy who looks like bin Laden and you whip out the sword. Amazing the Pakistanis don’t want this guy following the spirit around the country.
Salt of the earth American David Jungerman lives in Raytown, Missouri.
And if you’ve been through Raytown recently you might have noticed that he’s got a semi-truck trailer parked on his farm in a cornfield along Highway 71 with the words …
Are You A Producer or Parasite
Democrats — Party of Parasites
Jungerman was fed up with people who “always have their hand out for whatever the government will give them” in social programs.
That was going well until it emerged that Jungerman has pocketed more than $1 million in federal crop subsidy payments in the last fifteen years. $34,000 last year alone. 2000 for whatever reason was a blowout year, when he pocketed $224,763.
Asked by the Kansas City Star how that didn’t make him a parasite too, Jungerman responded, “That’s just my money coming back to me. I pay a lot in taxes. I’m not a parasite.”
I think I’ll just reprint the first paragraph of this one …
The far-right third party that Nevada GOP Senate candidate Sharron Angle called home in the 1990s supported abolishing “the debt money system” and ran a vitriolic anti-gay insert in state newspapers that portrays LGBT people — or, as Angle’s party called them, “sodomites” — as child-molesting, HIV-carrying, Hell-bound freaks, according to documents obtained by TPM.
Read the rest here.
The latest from the financial reform conference committee negotiations, via TPM’s Brian Beutler: Both sides in the Senate have struck a deal on the Volcker rule, agreeing to include a smaller loophole in the rule than the pro-industry types wanted. That compromise, though, is just among senators. They now need House negotiators to sign off on it.