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.
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.
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.
Dick Van Dyke and other recent behind the scenes moments at the White House:
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
TPM Reader TW asks …
In all the news about derivatives compromises I’ve not seen any mention of how the other major issues were resolved. Will banks create a fund to pay for future meltdowns or will it simply be paid by selling off assets? What happens to financial institutions (not just banks) that take on too much risk? Will anyone in the govmt have the power and process to safely resolve their obligations? Did they come to any conclusion on whether anything was “too big to fail”?
Our Brian Beutler is up on the Hill dogging the story as we speak. We’ll try to get you those answers.
Did MSNBC really play it as ‘Republicans and Democrats fail to agree on unemployment extension’? It’s a rhetorical question. They did. But my God, ‘filibuster‘ just goes further and further down the memory hole.
Earlier in the Florida Senate campaign, Marco Rubio pledged his support for full repeal of Health Care Reform. Now he’s hedging on that, saying he thinks we should keep the ban on denial for preexisting conditions and allow kids to stay on their parents’ plans until they turn 26.
In political terms, that’s enough to count as your classic flip-flop. You can see the video here.
But there’s a deeper substantive point, which is actually worse, but will likely get less play. Read More