What’s worse than having your picture taken with Saddam Hussein?

Right-wing media completely wrong about phony outrage that gets lots of media coverage. So, everything is back to normal.

But meet and shake hands with this Evil Bun? No thanks.

Video don’t lie. Ask ACORN. Ask Shirley Sherrod. Ask NPR.

Now consider how Keller equates O’Keefe’s serial fabrications with Julian Assange’s leaks–leaks the NYT has heavily relied upon in its own reporting.

In The Monster, Michael Hudson gives us a detailed account of the how Roland Arnall created Ameriquest and made it into the giant of subprime lending. In the process the book implicates the major Wall Street firms, most importantly Lehman, who eagerly packaged junk loans into mortgage backed securities and more complicated instruments. He also notes the corruption of the three major credit rating agencies, who received big fees for giving these assets investment grade stamps. The list of aiders and abettors includes Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, California Governors Grey Davis and Arnold Schwarzenegger, and even the community group ACORN.

Glenn Beck and his co-conspirators are at it again, this time demonizing an elderly college professor who is now being threatened with physical violence by Beck’s fans.

I love New Orleans. I fell in love with the city as a little girl, just by reading stories set there. I watched in agony as Hurricane Katrina approached, prayed with friends that the city would be spared and wept when the levees broke and destroyed so many lives. I was given the opportunity to research and fact-check the city online post-Katrina, followed by two amazing, transcendent trips to NOLA in 2006 and 2007 for the Voodoo Music Fest and then Mardi Gras. I cheered when the Super Bowl was held there with U2 playing at halftime and whooped with ecstatic joy embracing a group of Orleans-loving friends when the Saints won last season. New Orleans is at once languorous and vital, seductive, dangerous, joyous, profound, sacred, nasty, naughty, glorious. She is the Holy of Holies, full of magic and mystery, charm and force; fierce and exuberant.

Rachel Maddow performed another fine public service last night by connecting the dots on the various Fox News stories designed to convince white people to be afraid of blacks and minorities.

After being offered a new job with USDA, Shirley Sherrod told the media she indeed wants to hear from the President, to acquaint him with some realities from her life that he may not understand. So she needs to be convinced that he — the President of the United States — believes in, and will fight for, the principles he claims to hold.

Agriculture Secretary Vilsack issued a statement this a.m. saying he will reconsider the case that led to the forced resignation of Shirley Sherrod, after he and the Obama Administration faced a storm of criticism for their actions.