Just finding out now. Hot Air will certainly have the best updates in their post here.

UPDATE: As I would have predicted, Howie Kurtz says Lawrence O’Donnell will be taking over. He has been auditioning hard, with his typical claptrap.

I have told you this before: I am reliably informed that he is an OK guy in person, and the TV person is an act. He sure as hell acts different when he fills in for Warren Olney on the “Which Way L.A.?” radio show. [UPDATE: Make that “To the Point” instead. The producer of “Which Way, L.A.” and “To the Point” writes to say that O’Donnell sometimes fills in on the latter but not the former.]

UPDATE x2 6:54 p.m. Pacific: Anderson Cooper plans to explain everything at 7, in 6 minutes. Is Olbermann going to CNN??

UPDATE x3 7:03 p.m.: Pretty clearly not. Cooper doesn’t know a thing.

UPDATE x4: From Twitter: “At long last, sir, have you no job?”

UPDATE x5: A Kos diarist urges the Modern Day Murrow to run for Lieberman’s — excuse me; THE PEOPLE’S — Senate seat.

Ace rips apart a National Enquirer piece that floats a Todd Palin affair with absolutely zero evidence. Here is one passage in which they attempt to bolster the story by assuring readers that it is partially based on an anonymous e-mail:

While representatives for Todd Palin vehemently deny he cheated on his wife, allegations of his extramarital affair surfaced on Jan. 4 when an anonymous tipster sent out messages to news outlets making the allegation using the e-mail address thepalinmorals@hotmail.com.

“My sources reveal that a massage therapist and computer technologist, SHAILEY TRIPP, had an affair with Todd Palin that lead (sic) to her arrest March of 2010,” claimed the anonymous e-mail.

Ace’s response is hysterically funny:

Wait, wait, wait — this allegation came from “thepalinmorals@hotmail.com? No, hold on — certainly not The thepalinmorals@hotmail.com?!!

Oh, well, that changes everything! I didn’t know this came from thepalinmorals@hotmail.com!!! Or, as I call thepalinmorals@hotmail.com, “the Gold Standard of lefty bloggers sending out false tips to the media in an effort to generate media interest.” If I had known this came from a respected source like thepalinmorals@hotmail.com, I never would have adopted such a sarcastic, dismissive tone.

But the National Enquirer has an update. You wouldn’t think they even needed one, given that thepalinmorals@hotmail.com had already provided the definitive word on the matter, but there’s so much more!

Read it all.

Now that we know that otherwise commonplace activity and speech (like using “crosshair” maps and speaking of “targeting” politicians) is off limits if it might be misinterpreted so as incite a crazy person to violence . . .

. . . not that that happened with Loughner BUT . . .

. . . isn’t there another commonplace activity that incites more crazy people to violence than any other?

When will the leftists call for the banning of Islam?

[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.]

As usual, you are positively encouraged to engage in sock puppetry in this thread. The usual rules apply.

Here’s a photo to get your creative juices flowing:

Please, be sure to switch back to your regular handle when commenting on other threads. I have made that mistake myself, a lot.

And remember: the worst sin you can commit on this thread is not being funny.

———————-

Also, for some random fun on a Friday, here is Chris Matthews telling Josh Marshall he is falling in love with him.

Not that there is anything wrong with that.

[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]

[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.]

I have kind of ignored the story of how Representative Steve Cohen of Tennessee compared opponents of Obamacare to Nazis, but I figured this was worth passing along.  Jon Stewart sends Cohen up for his hypocrisy:

(Hat tip: Hot Air.)

This is generally consistent with Stewart’s stance generally in favor of civility in discourse and so whether you agree or disagree with him on this point, you can respect his consistency.

But that all being said, while I am not bothered by the picture of that baby, I do find this to be creepy.

Seriously, Jordan, what the frak? I mean, I am not in the habit of making race based assumptions, but I do tend to think that black people don’t usually like Hitler if only because Hitler probably would have started murdering black people, too if the war had gone his way.  (But see this.)  Still, wtf, Michael?

[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]

[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.]

For a little Friday frivolity/nerdiness, I present to you the trailer for the game Duke Nukem Forever (mildly NSFW, for pixilated nudity and bad language):

And of course Gearbox, is stating that this game is coming out on May 3 of this year (source).  For those who don’t know, this game has become legendary in the way it has taken for-frickin’-ever to come out.  It has literally been in development hell for over twelve years, until the company that originally created it went under.

Even those people who don’t care about games but just would like to read the fascinating story of a company going horribly wrong, this article in wired is excellent reading.  To give you a sample from it:

Broussard simply couldn’t tolerate the idea of Duke Nukem Forever coming out with anything other than the latest and greatest technology and awe-inspiring gameplay. He didn’t just want it to be good. It had to surpass every other game that had ever existed, the same way the original Duke Nukem 3Dhad.

(more…)

[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.]

Clip this away, folks, for this will prove once and for all that Johnson is actually a liar.

Just today The Other McCain noted how easy it is to ignore Charles Johnson.  But since Patterico stirred things up, I came across this astonishing item from Johnson.

Apparently he has written at least one piece in the UK’s Guardian about the “haters” in America like Pam Geller.  Yeah, you read that right, the Guardian, which he used to refer to as the al Guardian (although to his credit he owns up to that comment).  So a few commenters with long memories brought up Johnson’s own use of the term “pancake” when mocking the death of Rachel Corrie.  Bear in mind, back in the day he used to make jokes like that all the time.  When I made some kind of joke about memorializing her with a breakfast at the International House of Pancakes, I was ripping off borrowing Johnson’s jokes.  So a few people brought up those kinds of comments.  For instance:

Sacredham

Charles used to refer to Rachel Corrie, a pro-Palestinian “activist” who was crushed by a bulldozer, as “Saint Pancake.” Google for “rachel corrie pancake breakfast.” For him to try to characterize the former tone of his site as the result of too-loose moderation is simply disingenuous.

But Johnson selectively chooses to respond only to Joey100’s comment:

Some of the rhetoric – al Guardian, St. Pancake – has been brought up in this thread to embarass CJ. Maybe he should speak to that.

To which Johnson responded:

First, about the term “St. Pancake” — the simple fact is that I never used this term at LGF, and in fact I have told people many times, when I saw them using it, that I didn’t like it. I even warned some people that continuing to use it would get their accounts blocked. This is a case in which the smear is absolutely, 100% due to the very people you see posting hateful comments directed me in this thread.

(more…)

As I explained last night, Glenn Beck never told his supporters to shoot anyone in the head:

The full transcript is here. When you read it, you will see that the word “you” refers to the leftist politicians in Washington and their pals in the media, and “they” refers to their radical leftist friends — who, Beck warns, actually believe there must be violent revolution . . . and if they don’t get what they want, they may start one.

Beck is warning the comfortable pols that the people who put them in power aren’t going to be satisfied with seeing just a little of their agenda accomplished. They want it all. Because they are revolutionaries at heart — people who have called for violence and never repudiated it. And if they aren’t satisfied, Beck tells the pols, they will come after you. Violently.

Now comes Brad Friedman doing his typical “am I lying or am I stupid?” game:

Then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, referred to by Beck as a Marxist revolutionary in the comments above, represents San Francisco in the U.S. Congress.

But remember, both sides do it! Remember all of those quotes from the top stars in the Progressive media like Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann and Randi Rhodes and Thom Hartmann imploring supporters to shoot Republicans in the head?

Me neither.

With this quote, Brad Friedman shows he is either lying, or has literally no idea what Beck was saying. He wasn’t calling Pelosi a Marxist revoutionary. He was saying she inhabits Washington by the grace of the fringe left, including Marxist revolutionaries.

In comments to his post, Friedman responds to his own commenters who try to explain the context. He doubles down in the process:

As to the nonsense that Beck was talking to “the left” and saying THEY should shoot someone in the head, that argument is absolutely absurd, and anyone who makes it — including Murray as you suggest he did — would have to be utterly disingenuous to even suggest such a thing. Unless they didn’t actually want to bother to find out, as is likely the case with Murray.

When Brad Friedman says an argument is “utterly disingenuous” that is usually a strong clue that it is true.

But if you want to talk “utterly disingenuous” . . . . ask yourself: why do I bring up Brad Friedman? Long-time readers already know, but for the rest of you, I’ll spell it out. Because, in his ranting about Glenn Beck’s violent rhetoric, Brad Friedman is business partners with a guy who was convicted of setting off numerous bombs — including one that literally blew off a man’s leg. (The maimed man later committed suicide as a result of his injuries.) Brad Friedman is partnered with a guy who was a suspect in the execution-style murder of a grandmother.

You want “utterly disingenuous,” Friedman, you embody it.

Brad Friedman might want to clean his own house before he flaps his lying gums about Glenn Beck, is what I’m saying.

But remember, both sides do it! Remember all those right-wing bloggers who are business partners with someone who actually blew a man’s leg off with a bomb?

Me neither.