Editors’ Blog
Your subscription could not be saved. Please try again.
Your subscription has been successful.
08.26.13 | 10:21 am
Different Category Of Gotcha

One more point on the latest James O’Keefe shenanigans.

There’s a lot of backstory here, not least of which is that Jim Letten’s office prosecuted O’Keefe and his posse for their 2010 “prank” on Sen. Mary Landreiu’s office in which they gained access by posing as telephone repairmen.

But the main thing to keep in mind in gauging Letten’s reaction is that Letten probably couldn’t care less whether O’Keefe is operating as a conservative activist (the term of art Letten uses in the video is “political extremist nutjob”) or as the journalist speaking truth to power that he fancies himself to be. As a career prosecutor, Letten is indifferent to which of those boxes O’Keefe fits in.

In his mind, O’Keefe is a former criminal defendant who showed up at Letten’s home and talked to his spouse. That taps into the deepest, darkest fears of prosecutors. It’s in a different category than the usual O’Keefe on-camera gotcha and may explain in part why the man who took down Edwin Edwards is so livid in that video.

08.26.13 | 10:11 am
‘A Nasty Little Cowardly Spud’

The former U.S. attorney in New Orleans, Jim Letten, who is now a dean at the Tulane Law School, absolutely loses it when confronted on campus by James O’Keefe and a camera crew.

08.26.13 | 9:56 am
Submitted Without Comment

Measles outbreak hits Texas megachurch whose pastor expressed skepticism about vaccines.

08.26.13 | 9:49 am
Kerry On Syria

Secretary of State John Kerry to make statement on Syria situation at 2 p.m. ET. Watch.

08.26.13 | 6:44 am
This Is Nuts

The white supremacist prison gang known as 211 Crew is apparently still causing havoc in Colorado. After being linked to the killing of the state’s prison chief earlier this year, the gang has allegedly ordered a “hit” on a local judge, causing him to go into hiding.

08.26.13 | 6:24 am
Hellooo East Tennessee

Former U.S. Senate candidate arrested for allegedly trying to hire a hit man to kill his sheriff deputy uncle.

08.23.13 | 1:48 pm
The Day In 100 Seconds

On the latest stop on President Obama’s summer bus tour, he heads to CNN to discuss all of the season’s big stories.





Full-size version.

08.23.13 | 9:45 am
Parting And Leaving You With Some Obvious S**t

I’m going on vacation for a week. Honestly, I really need it. But before I do I couldn’t help leaving with you not with anything particularly insightful but something actually pretty obvious to anyone who has a brain and/or doesn’t harbor a lot of racial animosity toward black people that needs to find some comeuppance or ‘I told you so’ about Trayvon Martin.

So here goes. Read More

08.22.13 | 6:33 pm
Vegas Cops Disrupt ‘Sovereign Citizen’ Terror Plot

Plotters wanted to abduct police officers, put them on trial in people’s courts and then execute them in order to build a following for their radically antiauthoritarian political movement. “We need to arrest the police and take them to our jail and put them in a cell and put them on trial in a people’s court,” David Allen Brutsche allegedly said, “If we run into the position that they resist, then we need to kill them.”

08.22.13 | 1:56 pm
C’mon, Donald

Donald Trump, birther extraordinaire, doesn’t want to talk to TPM about Ted Cruz’s Canadian birth certificate.