Round One

And, John, I — you’re absolutely right that presidents have to be prudent in what they say. But, you know, coming from you, who, you know, in the past has threatened extinction for North Korea and, you know, sung songs about bombing Iran, I don’t know, you know, how credible that is. I think this is the right strategy.

Judges

This really just speaks for itself...

credit: Discourse.net, who got it from .... there's a long line here

In the words of the next President of the United States

I am so fricking stoked.

There are those who say that this primary has somehow left us weaker and more divided. Well I say that because of this primary, there are millions of Americans who have cast their ballot for the very first time. There are Independents and Republicans who understand that this election isn’t just about the party in charge of Washington, it’s about the need to change Washington. There are young people, and African-Americans, and Latinos, and women of all ages who have voted in numbers that have broken records and inspired a nation.

All of you chose to support a candidate you believe in deeply. But at the end of the day, we aren’t the reason you came out and waited in lines that stretched block after block to make your voice heard. You didn’t do that because of me or Senator Clinton or anyone else. You did it because you know in your hearts that at this moment – a moment that will define a generation – we cannot afford to keep doing what we’ve been doing. We owe our children a better future. We owe our country a better future. And for all those who dream of that future tonight, I say – let us begin the work together. Let us unite in common effort to chart a new course for America.

Hillary, ya did good to the end.

"We pledged to support her to the end," Representative Charles B. Rangel, a New York Democrat who has been a patron of Mrs. Clinton since she first ran for the Senate, said in an interview "Our problem is not being able to determine when the hell the end is.

Um, probable cause?

Last November, his lawyer wrote a letter to the FBI. In it, GOP political operative Roger Stone's attorney, Paul Rolf alleged that New York Governor Eliot Spitzer "used the services of high-priced call girls" while in Florida, basing his information on a "social contact."

The letter, dated Nov. 19, said Stone gleaned the information from "a social contact in an adult themed club."

"The governor has paid literally tens of thousands of dollars for these services," Rolf wrote. "It is Mr. Stone's understanding that the governor paid not with credit cards or cash but through some pre-arranged transfer."

It continued, including particular detail -- Stone's lawyer wrote that the governor hadn't taken off his calf-length socks "during the sex act."

It's unclear whether Stone's letter sparked the investigation: court papers say the investigation began "in or about October 2007."

The New York Times reported that law enforcement officials "stumbled upon" the prostitution ring after they'd begun an investigation of Spitzer for potential corruption, after a bank flagged "suspicious transfers."

Edwards, Clinton and Obama on the TV Strike

...and the presidental runners from the left weigh in on the writer's strike ... not that liberals need further branding with the Hollywood stamp.

Colbert in Carolina

photo credit: Wilder

Stephen Colbert’s presidential candidacy may have been a joke to many, but apparently some in South Carolina took it seriously enough to lobby Democratic officials in the early primary state to deny him a spot on the state’s ballot.

The lobbying was pretty intense, according to several people, with most of it against allowing Mr. Colbert, the comedian on Comedy Central and native son of the state, on the ballot. They included prominent supporters of Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois, although another prominent supporter lobbied in favor of Mr. Colbert. The Obama campaign said that it had no connection to the vote.

The party’s executive council voted 13-3 last week to reject Mr. Colbert’s ballot application. Mr. Colbert formally acknowledged yesterday that he was dropping his candidacy but the party’s vote has drawn fierce criticism on the Internet, saying the move was undemocratic, and continues to roil the party.

story credit:NYTimes

So, let's here it for Dick!

Dick Harpootlian, the former chairman of the state Democratic party and an Obama supporter, lobbied on behalf of getting Mr. Colbert on the ballot.

“I think humor plays a big role in politics,” Mr. Harpootlian said. “To sit around dour-faced discussing macro-economics, good golly. Most of us got involved in politics because it was fun.”

He also said he thought a Colbert candidacy would have been good for South Carolina. “He was drawing attention to our state, he wasn’t making fun of if it _ well, in a way he was _ but we missed an opportunity to draw people into our primary,” he said. He said that so many young people get their news from Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart and the “Colbert Report”, “why not go after that demographic?”

He also said that if Dennis Kucinich, “who believes in U.F.O.s,” can get on the ballot, Mr. Colbert should be able to as well.

Blowjobs over black blows?

credit:Raw Story

Jon Stewart this week had some fun at the expense of a Florida state representative's claim that he was not actually offering to give an undercover officer $20 in exchange for letting him perform oral sex on the officer, rather was afraid that he would "become a statistic" because he was surrounded by "stocky black guys."

"He's not gay, he's afraid," Stewart mocked in a Daily Show segment. "His thinking is, hey you wouldn't hit a guy with a (cock) in his mouth, would ya? I mean, c'mon, it's your (cock)."

Correspondent John Oliver further belittled the Republican legislator's lame excuse.

"It's pathetic. I thought of a couple off the top of my head just standing here," Oliver says. "I have a terrible lip condition that can only be cured through contact with other men's penises. I had a bad headache and I thought I saw an Advil on another man's penis. I tripped and fell mouth first ... onto his penis."

But Oliver defended Florida State Rep. Bob Allen because, "black people are terrifying."

"I remember the Million Man March back in 1996," he said. "White people were lined on both sides of East Capitol Street, and out of sheer terror were (blowing) everyone who walked past them."

From Paris to Scooter

After wading through the Hilton's hoo-hah, here's what interests me:

Ms. Hilton was not the only high-profile defendant whose celebrity prompted a raised eyebrow from a judge this week. Also on Friday, the judge who sentenced I. Lewis Libby Jr. to prison this week issued an order dripping with sarcasm after receiving a supporting brief from a dozen prominent legal scholars, including Alan M. Dershowitz of Harvard and Robert H. Bork, the former Supreme Court nominee.

The judge, Reggie B. Walton of Federal District Court in Washington, said he would be pleased to see similar efforts for defendants less famous than Mr. Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney.

“The court trusts,” Judge Walton wrote, in a footnote longer than the order itself, that the brief for Mr. Libby “is a reflection of these eminent academics’ willingness in the future to step up to the plate and provide like assistance in cases involving any of the numerous litigants, both in this court and throughout the courts of our nation, who lack the financial means to fully and properly articulate the merits of their legal positions.”

“The court,” he added, “will certainly not hesitate to call for such assistance from these luminaries.”

Scooter Libby gets 30 months

Paging Fox News.

After the news broke, Fox News devoted just nine consecutive minutes to the story up to 1 p.m. Between noon and 1 p.m. ET, Fox News did not interview any legal or political experts and not return to the story after its original report.

Instead, between noon and 1 p.m., here is a list of some of the more pressing news stories that Fox News opted to cover instead of Libby's sentencing:

The abduction of a Kansas City teenager outside a Target discount store. (Fox News returned to this story several times within the hour.)
A plane crash into Lake Michigan.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's (D-NY) recent comments about faith in her life.
Casinos giving away gasoline in order to entice visitors.
Record producer Phil Spector's murder trial in Los Angeles.
Lightning striking a house in Oregon.
A tornado warning issued for western Connecticut.
News that the father of JonBenet Ramsey is dating the mother of missing teen Natalee Holloway.
R&B singer R. Kelly's legal woes.
An update on the JFK Airport terror plot.
Cuba state-run television airing a new interview with Fidel Castro.
Foreign policy tension between Russia and the United States.
At the top of the 3 p.m. ET hour, Libby's sentencing was slotted as the day's fourth most important story on Fox News' Studio B with Shepard Smith.

...from Media Matters.

My vote is for the Professor

Run, Al, run.

Hillary and Wal-Mart

from NYTimes. Photo credit: Richard Berquist for shot of the 1990 board.

In Mrs. Clinton’s complex relationship with Wal-Mart, there are echoes of the familiar themes that have defined much of her career: the trailblazing woman unafraid of challenging the men around her; the idealist pushing for complicated, at times expensive, reforms; and the political pragmatist, willing to accept policies she did not agree with to achieve her ends.

Few more thoughts here.