Then again, they are kind of slow on the uptake.

The unprovoked attack by a stranger on a farm family sent shock waves throughout the whole of Minnesota two years ago. Michael Zabawa drove his truck into a ditch one snowy night and then went to the nearest farmhouse for help — and left a husband and son dead, a mother and wife badly injured. No one had the foggiest idea why anyone would do such a heinous thing.

But Jon Tevlin of the Minneapolis StarTribune has discovered some unsettling information about Michael Zabawa — information I had never before seen or heard in the two years this case has been in the public eye locally. Michael’s father, Donald Zabawa, was deeply involved in right-wing terror groups throughout the 1980s and 1990s, including the Posse Comitatus, the Christian Patriots Defense League, and the Christian Identity movement led by James Wickstrom, who he counted as a friend.

I was on ABC’s Politics Live with Rick Klein and Jonathan Karl today, talking about the questions that surround the AIG bonus deal cut by Timothy Geithner. In today’s press conference, Jake Tapper raises many of these same questions with Robert Gibbs, namely — why didn’t the Treasury force AIG to break these contracts three weeks ago before they agreed to give them $30 billion more in TARP funds?

Using footage shot by NBC, David Gottleib and James Ruxin assembled a post-Jonestown massacre documentary, a chilling and cautionary tale of power, cult mindset and pure evil.

Survivors and escapees discuss Jim Jones’ prophecies and healing–some perhaps real, others faked–and his gradual decent into madness, the suicide drills, beatings and public humiliation.

While we wait for the Election Contest Court to issue its rulings on this case, here are a few appetizers to keep you occupied. . .

These are not retention bonuses–this is protection money.

I confess that I find it difficult to find much difference between the actions of the Treasury under Bush and Paulson, and those under Geithner. In both cases job one seems to be to bail out bankers and give money to private investors, not to fix problems in a sustainable fashion which looks after taxpayers.

President Obama has said he wants every legal angle pursued in stopping these bonuses from going out—do you think he had this in mind?

President Obama’s comments regarding the AIG bonuses were welcome, but they raise more questions than they answer:

Under these circumstances, it’s hard to understand how derivative traders at AIG warranted any bonuses, much less $165 million in extra pay. How do they justify this outrage to the taxpayers who are keeping the company afloat?

Mark Danner has an Op Ed in the NYTimes today and a longer piece in the New York Review of Books both based upon the recent Red Cross report based on interviews with detainees transferred from CIA black sites to Gitmo. It is a chilling litany of tortures done to fellow human beings while in US custody.