[Guest Post by Lee Stranahan]

CBS released open mic audio of Barack Obama talking about the budget process.

In what he thought was a private chat with campaign donors Thursday evening, President Obama offered the most revealing behind-the-scenes account to date of his budget negotiations with GOP leaders last week.

CBS Radio News White House correspondent Mark Knoller listened in to an audio feed of Mr. Obama’s conversation with donors after other reporters traveling with the president had left the room.

Forget about policy for a moment — this is the way I prefer to hear politicians speak. I’d like both sides to start actually saying what they mean.

Is there any way we can force this? Perhaps some sort of constitutional amendment the politicians be required to wear a wire at all times with a separate Internet radio station for every representative, senator, cabinet secretary, the president and the vice president? Yes, you would have to suffer through listening to their personal lives and bodily functions but eventually they have to go about their business and we would have the same level of transparency that we’ve come to expect from Snooki.

All the pussyfooting around has consequences. During last week’s budget battle, the Republicans were especially weak on this. The Democrats were out there saying Republicans were trying to kill women, and Republicans were saying – well, nothing really. I don’t remember what they said.

– Lee Stranahan

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

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

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.

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And for Friday frivolity, via Hot Air, we have the trailer to the new Planet of the Apes prequel, Rise of the Planet of the Apes:

Of course it is really hard to understand how this is reconciled with the timeline of any of the movies (let alone any TV shows or cartoons).  After all, there have sort of been two prequels to The Planet of the Apes already.  First there was Escape From the Planet of the Apes:

And then there was after that, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes:

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Lurkers, please participate!

I want to make this as clean as possible, so I will save my thoughts and commentary for after the poll. Please answer the following question. You may consider it a false choice — in fact, it probably is! — but pretend someone is holding a gun to your head and you must make the choice. Just because I’m curious about the results.

To make things concrete: in this poll question, when you read “spending cuts” interpret that as: spending cuts of the sort proposed by Paul Ryan. When you read “new taxes” interpret that as: tax levels reverting to where they were under President Clinton.

Also assume that any law would be written to tie the higher taxes to the spending cuts — in other words, if any of the cuts are repealed or undone, the tax increases are automatically repealed.

Now to the question:

Please answer the question BEFORE reading any further.

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

Update: Gavin Atkins, whose keen eye started this whole thing, links to this post

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You might remember the other day I pointed out how the UN predicted 50 million climate refugees by 2010, a prediction that came up laughably short of the mark by only around 50 million.  Well, if you go to that post and click on the link to the UN page making that claim… something funny happens.  You get this:

Of course the great thing about the UN is that even though they are a dishonest-to-evil club for dictators they are also clumsy.  Apparently no one at the U.N. knew there was such a thing as a google cache.

As Charles Johnson can tell you, it is very hard to truly make something disappear down the memory hole.

Finally, a big hat tip to Carlitos.  But for his tip, I never would have known the page had disappeared.  I had moved on.

Also, I will be putting up screen shots of the google cache (and the full “page not found” screen cap) under the fold, in case someone at the U.N. grows a brain.

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

Update: Ms. Cupp responds!

And I will respectfully disagree with her on one thing. Personally I find the death threats I get now and then to be hilarious, in their impotence. But she’s entitled to feel differently. Also Red Eye weighed in:

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I am tempted to ignore this just so that Olbermann can disappear into oblivion, but frankly the hypocrisy is too juicy to give up.  So yesterday we get the usual eliminationist rhetoric from the left, this time from Keith Olbermann, wishing via Twitter that S.E. Cupp’s parents had received the benefits of Planned Parenthood:

On so many levels she’s a perfect demonstration of the necessity of the work Planned Parenthood does RT @meow_6 #worstpersons S.E Cupp bashing PP on Joy Behar last nite. http://j.mp/hktGUX,

Later on when he started getting pushback on that comment, he explained he didn’t mean she should have been aborted, but instead meant her parents should have used birth control, writing with his usual charm:

@oakdogg I said no such thing. Only 3% of PP’s work is abortions. Unless you’re moron Jon Kyl

So just to make it all clear, he didn’t wish Ms. Cupp was killed in the womb, but rather that she had never been conceived in the first place.  Indeed as of now, you can see the following tweet on his feed:

To wrap it up: @SECupp lied slandered PP in public; I said her parents could’ve benefitted from PP counseling – since they raised a liar

I won’t pretend to know what was going on between his ears.  It is plausible for Olbermann to associate PP primarily with birth control rather than abortion, so I will credit his clarification as honest.

But there’s a few funny things about that statement.  First, doesn’t that implicitly mean that in Keith Olbermann’s mind that there is something wrong with abortion?  I mean if there was nothing wrong with abortion then wishing her to be aborted is no worse than wishing her mother took the pill, right?

Second, does it shock you that all of this is more than a little hypocritical of Olbermann?  Here he is, for instance, blaming Bill O’Reilly and company for the death of George Tiller:

(Transcript, here, if you can’t view the video.)

So, Keith…  aren’t you doing pretty much the same thing?  You are saying that the world is better off without a person because she is, in your mind, a liar.  Now besides the obvious fact that by your logic we should wish you were never born, then isn’t it fair to say that if anyone should attack or kill Ms. Cupp, that this would be your fault?  Sure, you didn’t ask for her death, but it is not a large leap for a deranged Olbermann fan* to decide that if she should never have been conceived, she should not continue living, either.

As if he hadn’t demonstrated his hypocrisy one hundred times over by having that regular “Worst Person in the World” segment.  Indeed, watch that whole clip to see him hypocritically denounce Bernard Goldberg for his book 100 People Who are Screwing Up America.  Seriously, what on earth is the difference between writing that book and telling people on a regular basis that someone you merely disagree with is one of the worst persons in the world, beating out dictators and terrorists?

So finally, Keith, have you no shame?

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* Pardon the redundancy.

[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]

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

From People Mag:

It’s a girl for Megyn Kelly!

The America Live host, 40, delivered daughter Yardley Evans Brunt at 10 a.m. on April 14, it was announced on air Thursday.

Weighing in at 7 lbs., 12 oz., Yardley joins big brother Edward Yates, 19 months, the Fox anchor’s first child with husband Doug Brunt.

Kelly announced her pregnancy in November.

Of course God forbid those children ever get in trouble.  Their mom is a real barracuda in cross examination…

[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]