Duke Lacrosse Accuser Crystal Mangum Convicted of Child Abuse

The Tawana Brawley of the 2000's meets karma:

A woman who authorities said falsely accused three Duke University lacrosse players of rape four years ago has been found guilty by a North Carolina jury of child abuse and damaging property.


A Durham County jury on Friday convicted 32-year-old Crystal Mangum of contributing to child abuse or neglect. She was also convicted of injury to personal property, and resisting a public officer stemming from a February confrontation with her live-in boyfriend. All the charges were misdemeanors.


The jury deadlocked 9-3 on a felony arson charge, and Superior Court Judge Abraham Jones declared a mistrial.


Police said Mangum piled her boyfriend's clothing into a bathtub and set it on fire while her three children and two police officers were inside the apartment.

Say It Ain’t So: Will Rape Allegation Furor Be Keith Olbermann’s ‘Shoeless Joe’ Moment?

Mediaite.com:

On Tuesday’s Countdown, host Keith Olbermann and guest Michael Moore sparked widespread outrage over their dismissive treatment of rape allegations against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. An online protest ensued, and as Michael Moore ignored pleas for a correction, Olbermann tried to fend off criticism on Twitter. When he was unwilling to respond to legitimate questions regarding his handling of the allegations, Olbermann announced that he was quitting Twitter until the “frenzy” died down. If Sady Doyle, the woman who started the protest that forced him off Twitter, is any indication, he could be waiting a long time, and taking serious damage in the process.


The primary reason that people like Glenn Beck are somewhat immune to protests like this is that they’re generally carried out by people who already aren’t watching. Beck may say things that enrage people, but he’s not enraging the people in his audience. Fox News Channel can assess the effect of advertiser boycotts through the prism of his enormous audience, and make the calculation that the benefit outweighs the cost.


In Olbermann’s case, though, he has picked a fight with people who would normally be watching him declare spreaders of misinformation “Worst Person in the World.” Sady Doyle, the woman who started the #MooreAndMe hashtag, describes her sense of betrayal at being blocked by Olbermann thusly:


Number of Beloved Progressive Journalists Who Had Blocked Me On Twitter Yesterday: None, as far as I know!


Number of Beloved Progressive Journalists Who Have Blocked Me On Twitter Now: One. And it’s Keith Olbermann.


There’s no way to put a number on it, but it stands to reason that a substantial number of the #MooreAndMe protesters are also Countdown viewers, or potential viewers. Just as handling this properly could have been a big win for Olbermann, botching it so badly could hurt in ways he never imagined.


In her piece for Salon today (which bears reading in full), Doyle brings another key difference between Olbermann and Beck into sharp relief. Speaking about some of the misguided reactions she has gotten on Twitter, Doyle says:


One of the chief objections, from fans of Moore and Olbermann, is that Assange isn’t being charged with rape. “He was accused ONLY of consense.sex w/o a condom,” wrote Twitter user MariahWestwind. “u r all fucking retarded, really fucking dumb……….it was consensual sex and his condom broke which is a crime in sweden u fucking retards,” wrote a commenter on my blog, “Ralph,” who was sadly deleted. This is demonstrably wrong. It’s untrue. But Ralph, Mariah, and all the others have reason to believe it. Because they got the information from the news. They got it from Michael Moore. And they got it from Keith Olbermann.

Obama Signs Bush Tax Cuts Into Law

It's the best way to run the country, not as an ideologue but as someone whose concerned about what's best for all Americans:

President Barack Obama signed into law a huge, holiday-season tax bill extending cuts for all Americans on Friday, saluting a new spirit of political compromise as Republicans applauded and liberals seethed. The benefits range from tax cuts for millionaires and the middle class to longer help for the jobless.


The most significant tax legislation in nearly a decade will avert big increases that would have hit millions of people starting in two weeks on New Year's Day. Declared Obama: "We are here with some good news for the American people this holiday season."

"This is progress and that's what they sent us here to achieve," Obama said as a rare bipartisan assembly of lawmakers looked on at the White House.

The package retains Bush-era tax rates for all taxpayers, including the wealthiest Americans, a provision Obama and congressional liberals opposed. It also offers 13 months of extended benefits to the unemployed and attempts to stimulate the economy with a Social Security payroll tax cut for all workers.

At a cost of $858 billion over two years, the deal contains provisions dear to both Democrats and Republicans. It represents the most money that Obama was likely to have been able to dedicate over the next year to the slowly recovering economy. Yet it also increases the federal deficit at a time when the country is growing increasingly anxious about the red ink.

Keith Olbermann Outs Rape Victims, Protects Serial Rapist Julian Assange

When he's not smearing women in general, he's protecting rapists while outing rape victims all under the guise liberal fascism. It's who he is, too bad the George Soros-run MSNBC just doesn't seem to care:

On Tuesday’s Countdown, host Keith Olbermann and guest Michael Moore sparked widespread outrage over their dismissive treatment of rape allegations against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. While some of the segment is open to interpretation, Moore made a clear factual error when he said that Assange only stands accused of having his condom break during consensual sex.


First some background on the initial controversy as I reported it last night:


Filmmaker Michael Moore is in hot water over comments he made during Tuesday night’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann. In discussing rape allegations against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, Moore appeared to dismiss the accusations as “hooey” (although he was actually referring to what he views as the use of the allegations as a pretext to silence Assange), and repeated the false claim that Assange is only accused of having a condom break during consensual sex.


When I asked Olbermann to clarify via Twitter, he responded by attacking me personally, then offered the kind of non-apology that he would normally fricassee had it come from a conservative.


To be clear, there is a compelling case that Olbermann and Moore were engaging in despicable rape apologia, a case with which I agree. Tigerbeatdown.com, the website that started the Twitter campaign to shame Moore into apologizing, makes that case more eloquently than I ever could.


However, much of that case relies sufficiently on matters of interpretation and (completely fair) logical extensions to make it impractical to argue 140 characters at a time. As Olbermann’s Twitter feed attests, the format lends itself to deflection and selective response.


This is why I chose to focus simply on Moore’s assertion, unchallenged by Olbermann, that the allegations against Assange consist merely of consensual sex during which the condom broke. Guilt or innocence aside, the substance of the allegations are verifiable, and have been reported extensively. In fairness to Olbermann, though, I allowed that the “broken condom” lie has been so oft-repeated in the media that perhaps he was unaware it was false. Here’s how our Twitter exchange began:


chrisatyoursix I cant wait to watch @KeithOlbermann at 8 to see why @MMFlinthelped bail out an accused rapist. 14 Dec


KeithOlbermann @chrisatyoursix you might want to read in on those charges 14 Dec


tommyxtopher @KeithOlbermann @chrisatyoursix Are you saying that holding a woman down after she tells you to stop isn’t rape? (link) Or are u saying that you don’t think Assange has been accused of holding a woman down after she said “stop?” (link)


tommyxtopher Because that’s what he’s accused of: holding a woman down after she said “stop.”http://bit.ly/fMVA7m (link)


tommyxtopher I’m not asking to be a douche, just allowing that maybe you and @mmflint really don’t know what Assange is accused of. (link)


KeithOlbermann @tommyxtopher You’ve already crossed that threshold. Do not contact me again. (link)


He followed up by calling me a “hatchet man,” and when others tried to get him to answer the question, resorted to craven sophistry:


jsmooth995 @KeithOlbermann Your ad hominem jab, even if true, doesn’t negate the substance of his questions. And he’s hardly the only one asking. (link)


amaditalks @KeithOlbermann Well I’m no one’s hatchet man & I don’t work for any websites. So how about if you answer that question for me? (link)


KeithOlbermann @amaditalks Do you have a copy of the charges? Because until you do, the answer is, “none of us knows.” (link)


tommyxtopher @KeithOlbermann @amaditalks That’s sophistry. The “accusations” (not charges) have been reported extensively.http://bit.ly/fMVA7m(link)


suddenlyjen love @KeithOlbermann freaking the f**k out over someone asking a totally reasonable question. Congrats on being an adult, Keith! (link)


KeithOlbermann @suddenlyjen Next time you get a flock of people lying about what you said or did not say on tv, remember how you phrased that (link)


There may have been people in the #MooreAndMe thread who ascribed things to Olbermann that he didn’t actually say, but I was certainly not one of them. To be clear, I point this out not out of some sense of personal injury (my record speaks for itself), but to demonstrate the lengths to which Olbermann will go to avoid admitting he was wrong.


The fact that Olbermann engaged the issue at all is minimally to his credit, at least relative to Michael Moore’s complete silence on Twitter. However, his “apology” left much to be desired: (condensed from 5 separate tweets)


Rape has touched my family, directly and savagely, and if anybody thinks I have addressed it without full sensitivity, then that assessment is the one that counts, and I apologize. But these accusations that I “revealed” an accuser’s identity by retweeting Bianca Jagger’s link, or that I ’shamed’ an accuser by asking a question about the prosecution of a man governments are trying to bury, or that I do not ‘understand’ charges that have yet to be presented in their final form, reflect exactly the kind of rushing to judgment of which I’m accused, and merit the same kind of apology I have just given.


Olbermann did, indeed, retweet a link that contained the identities of Assange’s accusers, a fact of which I was previously unaware. Whether the info was already “out there” or not, this act (even if inadvertant) abetted the very tactic that keeps many women from reporting rapes at all. Olbermann may be technically innocent of “outing” the alleged victims, but he certainly played a part.


Leaving aside the “sorry you’re so sensitive” tone of the apology, which is (minimally) open to interpretation, it fails to address the substance of the complaints against him. Obviously, no decent person is immune to the horror of sexual abuse, at least anyone who knows six or more women. In the macro, Olbermann and Moore stand accused of allowing their zeal to defend Assange to override that empathy.

Jimmy Carter: "My Biggest Failure Was Not Getting Reelected"

Who knows, maybe Barry will soon be feeling the same way.

California Lawmaker Suggests Schools Teach Accomplishments of Gay Americans

Of course it'd be a senator from San Francisco, where else would you expect:

A state lawmaker wants a new lesson plan for California classrooms. He wants to recognize the contributions made by gay Americans.


Senator Mark Leno of San Francisco is proposing Senate Bill 48, known as the Fair Education Act. It would require classroom text books to be re-written with historical details about the gay movement in America and California. The books would also highlight gay people who have played a significant role in our country's history.


Some parents are fighting the option of a gay lesson plan for students. Dianna Awuy believes it's cool if you're gay, but she thinks the gay agenda shouldn't be forced onto students. "When they grow up they're going to be emotionally scared, because they don't know about gay and stuff like that."


Members of Equality California are promoting the Senate bill. They feel it's about time LGBT contributions are known to all students. Mario Guerrero says this bill is far from an agenda. "The LGBT community has our civil rights has it's beginning, so just talking about that, or important authors or important individuals that describe themselves as being part of the community should not be overlooked in history."


The bill is only in the discussion phase now. Parents and lawmakers will get a chance to give their opinions as the proposal moves forward in the Assembly. If approved, it could be a year or two before those new textbooks with gay contributions are printed.

Of course, homosexuality is a behavior that should never be compared to something genetic like race, but why spoil a good leftwing propaganda?

RELATED: Uncivil Rights

CNN Airs Video Of Shootout At Florida School Board Meeting (Warning: Graphic), Clay Duke Linked To Liberal Website Media Matters

Mediaite.com:

An extremely disturbing video is hitting the airwaves showing a man named Clay Duke opening fire on a school board meeting in Florida earlier today. Duke, apparently upset over the firing of his wife, later fatally shot himself.


Anderson Cooper reported on the incident on CNN, and showed video of Duke spray-painting a red “V” with a circle around it (think the movie V For Vendetta) before telling several people in the room to leave. At one point, a woman tries to knock the gun out of Duke’s hand, but is unsuccessful. Superintendent Bill Husfelt pleads with Duke to let it go, and then Duke fires several shots. Duke is then shot by Mike Jones, a security officer for the school district (Jones was off-camera). An absolutely surreal scene.


Also disturbing, arguably, is CNN’s exploitative handling of the video. They take pains to repeatedly warn viewers how graphic and upsetting the images will be, but wait until after they’ve played the video (twice, once in slow motion) to telll viewers that all of the assailant’s shots missed. This seems to confirm the rather obvious fact that “Graphic footage!” warnings are about gluing eyeballs, not shielding them.

Major props to that lady, Ginger Littleton, who tried to knock the gun out of that crazy guy's hands with her purse--that took some major cojones.

RELATED: FL School Board Shooter Posted Suicide Note railing Against The Rich, Linking To Media Matters

Michael Moore Offers Julian Assange Bail

The fat man on the Left remains an utter disgrace.

Joe Scarborough: Media Outlets “Never Say Clinton Appointee” During Controversy

Mediaite.com:

The story of How Bill Clinton Got His Groove Back continued today on Morning Joe, where Joe Scarborough took offense to what he sees as media bias for the former Democratic president. Mika Brzezinski characterized Judge Henry Hudson as a “George W. Bush appointee,” and it was that qualifier that so irked Scarborough. “They never say Clinton appointee” when one is implicated in an unpopular event, he said. But whenever there’s controversy, there are Bush appointees and Reagan appointees all over the place—including MSNBC, he made sure to note.


“It was our staff that did it this time,” he said, before launching into his mini-rant on the matter. Newsweek escapee Jon Meacham was there to “totally agree” with him, offering that “it shows a certain tendency to caricature the right.”


This morning’s MSNBC argument corresponds to last night’s MSNBC argument, which had Chuck Todd musing to Chris Matthews that there a lot of “Clinton Kool-Aid drinkers” in the media who are “enamored” with any “shiny metal object that has the Clinton name on it.”


Scarborough, however, isn’t as star-struck by the Secretary of State’s husband, which you can see for yourself in the MSNBC clip below.

Robert Gibbs On Keith Olbermann’s Nazi Appeasement Tax Compromise Comparison: ‘Stop.’

Hey it's a leader of the "sanctimonious" Left Barry was talking about the other day, getting his ass handed to him by....Robert Gibbs!

During his patented Special Comment segment last week, Countdown host Keith Olbermann showed his displeasure with President Obama’s compromise on the Bush Tax Cuts by comparing it to Nazi appeasement. At Monday’s White House briefing, I asked Press Secretary Robert Gibbs if the White House had any reaction to the comparison. Gibbs responded that he doubted the President had heard Olbermann’s remarks, reiterated that the White House thinks the compromise is a good deal, and addressed the appeasement charge. See Gibbs’ response after the jump.


I was more interested in Gibbs’ thoughts on such heated opposition rhetoric coming from someone who’s so influential with the President’s base, but Gibbs opted to teach Keith Olbermann a quick mini-course on Godwin’s Law.


Transcript:


Robert Gibbs: Tommy…


Tommy Christopher: Thank you, Robert. Thank you, Les. I have three quick questions. First one, last week during his Special Comment, Keith Olbermann compared the President’s tax compromise to Nazi appeasement. I wanted to see if you guys had a reaction to that. Did the President hear that? Or, what do you think about that?


Robert Gibbs: I doubt the President heard that. I, obviously, have given a number of answers that would denote that we think it’s a good agreement.And…I would say this to Democrats or Republicans, whenever you compare anything to what the Nazis did, if you ever get to that point in your speech, stop. Because nothing does, and hopefully, God willing, nothing ever will.


The entire point of Godwin’s Law, of course, is that those who violate it make themselves irrelevant. In the case of Keith Olbermann, though, a little light Nazi rhetoric isn’t going to break the spell he has over much of the President’s base. While Bill Clinton’s Friday appearance at the White House may help to sway rank-and-file Democrats, the former President is no hero to the Kos nation over which Olbermann holds sway. Appeasing them may be a tricky thing.

Neil Cavuto Tells Chris Matthews To Shove His Condescending Comments About Chris Christie Up His Ass

Source

Virginia Judge Rules ObamaCare Unconstitutional

Eventually you just knew that some judge would:

A Virginia federal judge on Monday found a key part of President Barack Obama's sweeping health care reform law unconstitutional, setting the stage for a protracted legal struggle likely to wind up in the Supreme Court.


U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson struck down the "individual mandate" requiring most Americans to purchase health insurance by 2014. The Justice Department is expected to challenge the judge's findings in a federal appeals court.


Hudson's opinion contradicts other court rulings finding the mandate constitutionally permissible.


"An individual's personal decision to purchase -- or decline purchase -- (of) health insurance from a private provider is beyond the historical reach of the U.S. Constitution," Hudson wrote, also stating that "no specifically articulated constitutional authority exists to mandate the purchase of health insurance."


"Despite the laudable intentions of Congress in enacting a comprehensive and transformative health care regime, the legislative process must still operate within constitutional bounds," Hudson added. "Salutatory goals and creative drafting have never been sufficient to offset an absence of enumerated powers."


A federal judge in Virginia ruled in favor of the administration earlier this month over the purchase requirement issue, mirroring conclusions reached by a judge in Michigan back in October.

Politiks As Usual: In The News 12/13/10

Estate Tax Emerges As Key Democratic Beef In Obama's Compromise

19 Unusual Gifts Nobody Wants

Ruling Elites Wage War On Morality

Yes, ObamaCare Still Worse Than You Thought

Gossip Blogs Claim Teens Are Getting Pregnant To Get On MTV Show

Obama's Approval Rating Hits All-Time Low With Liberals At 70 Percent

Haiti 'Perfect Environment' For Disease

What's Next For Liberals? Friendly Fascism

Michael Steele To Announce RNC Re-election Decision Monday Morning

Michael Bloomberg On Presidential Run: 'No Way, No How'

The Unmaking Of The President

Check's Finally In The Mail For Black Farmers

Condoleezza Rice Schools Katie Couric on Why U.S. Invaded Iraq

Leftist revisionism gets it card pulled:

On December 3, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave CBS's Katie Couric a much-needed lesson on why America invaded Iraq.


When Couric said to her guest during an "HBO History Makers Series" interview, "Documentaries have been made about how intelligence was incorrectly analyzed and cherry-picked to build an argument for war, and memos from that time do suggest that officials knew there was a small chance of actually finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq," Rice stopped the host dead in her tracks:

Bernard Madoff's Son Commits Suicide

The lives Bernard Madoff ruined now come home to roost:

The death of Mark Madoff, the son of convicted Ponzi-schemer Bernard Madoff, was ruled a suicide by the New York City medical examiner's officer on Sunday, a day after the victim's body was discovered hanging from a ceiling pipe in his SoHo apartment.


Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the medical examiner, said the autopsy was completed around 1 p.m. Sunday. Borakove said medical examiners will conduct toxicology and tissue tests on the body. The result, she said, will not be made public unless Madoff's next of kin asks for the case file.

Madoff killed himself two years to the day after his father was arrested for swindling $50 billion from investors in the largest Ponzi-scheme in U.S. history.

None of Madoff's immediate family members have commented on his death. However, the attorney who represents the victim's mother, Ruth, said she "is heartbroken."

Democrats Blocking Unemployment Benefits, Liberal Media Care Less

HotAir.com:

You would never know, would you? In all of the fury and progressive passion to soak the rich, no one is chattering about the expiration of unemployment benefits–except for the unemployed. With rising gas and food prices and the holidays quickly approaching, the Democrats zeal for taxing the rich has eclipsed the need to stimulate the economy and create jobs with unemployment compensation. As Pelosi states, it is “cruel” not to extend the benefits and typically the Republicans are blamed for this cruelty. But, now it is the Democrats holding up the unemployment benefit extension. And no one seems to even notice.


The agreement reached by the White House and GOP called for an extension of unemployment benefits, which now seems to be DOA according to House Dems.


The fact that the Democrats are blocking the tax cut deal between the White House and GOP–which most Americans support noted by Ed–puts out the question of are the Democrats capable of governing according to the will of the American people and in a bipartisan manner. Clearly, the Democrats are squandering this opportunity based on their Keynesian and progressive taxation ideology as exemplified here by Rep. Barney Frank.


The baseless notion that the wealthy do not pay their fair share has been argued, but facts are facts, and the rich do pay the most taxes already:


In 2006, the latest available year from CBO, the top 20 percent of income earners paid 86.3 percent of all federal income taxes, an all-time high. This is an increase of over 6 percent from 2000, when the top 20 percent paid 81.2 percent. During the same period, the bottom four quintiles all saw their share of the federal income tax burden fall sharply:


* The bottom 20 percent of income earners’ share of federal income taxes fell from -1.6 percent in 2000 to -2.8 percent in 2006;
* The next 20 percent’s share declined from 1.1 percent to -0.8 percent;
* The middle quintile’s share dropped from 5.7 percent to 4.4 percent; and
* The fourth quintile’s share decreased from 13.5 percent to 12.9 percent.


Each of these four quintiles’ shares was an all-time low.


This class warfare the Democrats perpetuate is floated under false pretenses and plays out bitterly in society and pits Americans against one another. Moreover, the Democrats apparently have no problem using the unemployed as leverage in their deal, because according to Senator Chuck Grassley, he concedes that a deal could have been passed for a 3-month extension of unemployment benefits without the tax deal.