We're definitely caught in a trap and I don't know that we can get out. Every single person outside the Beltway who lived through the Clinton years has to remember that the Republicans were relentless in their pursuit to take down the presidency. It was scandal after scandal thrown at the wall, to see what would stick. Kenneth Starr spent three years and $70 million looking at every possible avenue in which to justify impeaching a president who was distressingly competent in comparison to his Republican congressional majority.

Clearly, the GOP and the thinktanks they're constrained by think this is a winning strategy and we're in for more. I honestly am beginning to believe that impeachment is inevitable. Not for something justifiable, but because the Republicans are going to prey on those suspicious minds of their base. We've got real problems we need to address, but don't you think for one minute that they'll get noticed on the Sunday shows. Instead, it will be a parade of conservative talking heads trying to keep milking this trifecta of scandals for all their worth.

ABC's "This Week" -- White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer; Sen. Robert Menendez, D- N.J.; Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio; Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga.; Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y. Roundtable: ABC News’ George Will; National Journal Editorial Director Ron Fournier; American Urban Radio Networks White House Correspondent April Ryan; editor and publisher of The Nation Katrina vanden Heuvel; and ABC News Senior Washington Correspondent Jeff Zeleny.

NBC's "Meet the Press" -- Pfeiffer, Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.; Rep. David Camp, R-Mich.; Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif.; former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. Panel: chairman of the Democratic Caucus, Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA); Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan; and the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward.

NBC's "The Chris Matthews Show" -- Kasie Hunt, NBS News Political Reporter; David Ignatius,
The Washington Post; Gloria Borger, CNN Senior Political Analyst; Howard Fineman, The Huffington Post Senior Political Editor.

CBS' "Face the Nation" -- Pfeiffer, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas; Sen. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah; Associated Press President and CEO Gary Pruitt. Panel: New York Times' David Sanger, POLITICO's Lois Romano, The Washington Post's Dan Balz and CBS News Political Director John Dickerson.

MSNBC's "UP with Steve Kornacki" -- Margie Omero, Democratic pollster, Managing Director, Purple Strategies; Alan Abramowitz, political science professor, Emory University; Rick Hertzberg, writer, The New Yorker; Liz Kennedy, counsel, Demos; Mark Elias, attorney, Perkins Coie and chairman of the firm’s political law practice; Kim Barker, reporter, ProPublica; Chaumtoli Huq, professor, New York Law School, with expertise in labor, employment and human rights.

MSNBC's "Melissa Harris-Perry" -- Valarie Kaur, Senior Fellow at Auburn Seminary; Irin Carmon, Staff Writer at Salon.com; Dr. Monica Peek, Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Chicago / Breast Cancer Survivor; Scot Ross, Executive Director of One Wisconsin Now; Brittany Brathwaite, Just graduated from Syracuse University; Andy Chan, VP for Personal and Career Development at Wake Forest University

CNN's "State of the Union" -- Pfeiffer, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. Panel: USA Today’s Susan Page, Democratic Strategist Donna Brazile, Republican Strategist Ana Navarro, and CNN Chief White House Correspondent Jessica Yellin.

CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" -- Former chief of staff to President Ronald Reagan, Ken Duberstein; Glenn Hubbard, dean of the Columbia Business School, and Zanny Minton Beddoes, economics editor at The Economist; Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt.

CNN's "Reliable Sources" -- Former AP White House reporter Jennifer Loven, Mediaite’s Joe Concha and Jane Hall of American University; the Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin and Dave Shuster, host of Take Action News; Daily Beast reporter Michelle Cottle.

"Fox News Sunday" _ Pfeiffer, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis. Panel: Brit Hume, Fox News Senior Political Analyst; Kirsten Powers, Daily Beast Columnist; Karl Rove, Former Bush White House Senior Adviser; Dennis Kucinich, Fmr Rep (D-OH).

What's catching your eye this morning?

Happy Saturday night, folks! It's Blue Gal from The Professional Left Podcast, bringing you this week's podcast round up. Be aware that these podcasts are also available on i-Tunes, and may not be safe for work.

CNN / The Big Three (new podcast): Interview with Rep. Keith Ellison

The LEFT Show: The GOP only serves you if you have your papers, your incorporation papers, that is.

PBS Idea Channel (video) - Is a DOS Attack a Weapon?

Open Thread below....

Nightfall (Original Edition)
	Artist: Candlemass

Saturday!

Joy Reid at The Grio:

In a letter to members of Congress, which was obtained by NBC News, Heritage Action for America, the lobbying arm of the Heritage Foundation (which recently found itself in hot water over the racial IQ theories of the co-author of their widely panned immigration reform study, Jason Richwine, who resigned from the think tank last Friday), urged Republicans on Capitol Hill not to govern, and instead, to focus on the would-be “scandals” plaguing the Obama administration.

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Joe Stringer of ACCE, the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment talks about why he is going to Washington, DC to risk arrest at the Department of Justice.

Stringer,in Los Angeles talks about how the foreclosure crisis has decimated his neighborhood in Watts.

It's time for bankers to go to jail!

This may be President Obama's last chance to get justice for the millions of homeowners, taxpayers, and retirees whose homes, savings, pensions and livelihoods were stolen by Wall Street bankers.

Tell President Obama:

1. Prosecute Wall Street bankers for stealing our homes, savings and livelihoods.

2. Keep people in their homes by resetting their mortgages.

3. Make Wall Street pay us back.

Sign the petition here.

Interrogation rooms with wooden boards used to immobilize detainees, are among the evidence of torture Human Rights Watch says it has uncovered in Syria.

Proof of torture -- that's what Human Rights Watch says they've uncovered in Syria. Researcher Lama Fakih says they've found everything from written accounts of abuse to actual torture devices, in the rebel held city of Raqqa.

Human Rights Watch researcher, Lama Fakih: "We were able to see, for example, documentary evidence of the types of cases that the intelligence forces were following. We were able to see the solitary confinement cells where the detainees were held. We were also able to see interrogation rooms and torture rooms."

Most of the material was found inside former security and military intelligence facilities.

"In one case," Fakih continues, "in the State Security branch, we were able to see a basat el-reeh torture device. This device is a wooden board that is in the shape of a cross that a detainee is bound to. It folds in half and enables the guards and interrogators to bind to detainee in a very uncomfortable position so they can beat him while he is defenceless."

Interviews with locals, according to Human Rights Watch, also confirmed reports of torture and arbitrary detainment. The New York based activist group is urging local oppositon leaders to safeguard documents and other material that might be used as evidence that war crimes were committed.

Much more on the findings in Syria from Human Rights Watch.

Ordinarily I wouldn't give this kind of a story attention, but the radio host who said that disgusting thing has somehow gotten enough traction in radio-land to attract the likes of Larry Pratt and Ted Nugent. Plus, I've had my own personal encounter with him.

Back in 2008 I did a daily online radio show called NewsGang Live with some techies, some political types, and others. At the time, there was no BlogTalkRadio but Steve and Tina Gillmor managed to figure out how to do it with uStream and a call-in conference number . Peter Santilli would call into the show often, presenting himself as an independent voter who wasn't sure how he would vote in 2008. He was disruptive and annoying but he wasn't crazy and he wasn't especially much of an independent either, but more of a straight-up conservative and conspiracy nut.

Now he's a crazy conservative. Via Right Wing Watch:

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Amazon Video recently released 14 series pilots, and asked the internet to vote. The big winner? "Alpha House," a very funny series by Garry "Doonesbury" Trudeau about four wingnut senators sharing the same house. (I'm hoping "Onion News Empire," an Airplane-esque takeoff, also makes the cut.)

Let's just say that I think you may recognize a couple of the senators.

So what story lines would you like to see them use?

As if it weren't already clear that the so-called "IRS scandal" is nothing of the sort, now it's becoming even clearer that it's a just another bit of that down-the-rabbit-hole-up-is-downism in which conservatives have come to specialize in recent years.

The Institute for Research and Education in Human Rights -- which, among other things, monitors the far-right extremists who have been filling the ranks of the Tea Party -- has an excellent takedown of the IRS nonsense:

The Tea Party and the IRS “Scandal”:
The Actual Facts of the Case

While it is well-known that the so-called IRS scandal has been used by Tea Partiers to bash the IRS, less well known are the actual facts of the case.

Some of the flagged groups did have their tax-exempt status delayed or did face some additional scrutiny, but not a single group has been denied tax-exempt status.

A May 14 draft report by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration found that none of the 296 questionable applicants had been denied, “For the 296 potential political cases we reviewed, as of December 17, 2012, 108 applications had been approved, 28 were withdrawn by the applicant, none had been denied, and 160 cases were open from 206 to 1,138 calendar days (some crossing two election cycles).” (p. 14)

In fact, the only known 501(c)(4) applicant to recently have its status denied happens to be a progressive group: the Maine chapter of Emerge America, which trains Democratic women to run for office. Although the group did no electoral work, and didn’t participate in independent expenditure campaign activity either, its partisan nature disqualified it from being categorized as working for the “common good.”

The Inspector General’s report found that in the “majority of cases, we agreed that the applications submitted included indications of significant political campaign intervention.” (p. 10). In fact, only 91 of the 296, roughly 31%, of the applications reviewed for the report did not have “indications of significant political campaign intervention.” In other words, more than two thirds of those flagged for processing by a team of specialists had those indications.

That sort of political campaign intervention would normally disqualify a group from 501(c)(4) status, but the deluge of Tea Party applications combined with the politicization of the process has allowed them to slip through. A closer look by IREHR at the activities of some of the Tea Party groups that are currently under review or have received non-profit status from the IRS, reveals a difficult and dangerous situation.

Be sure to read the whole thing.

As the report concludes:

Rather than the so-called scandal cooked up by Tea Party groups, the real criticism of the IRS may be that it has let so many of these groups get away with what are apparently egregious violations.

That's what all the yelling's about. It's to keep people from seeing the plain truth: Many of these people really are tax cheats trying to game the system for partisan advantage.

Of course. After all, it's not as if anyone is going to stop them! They crashed the world economy and got nothing more than a couple of taps on the wrist, so why wouldn't they do this?

California Attorney General Kamala Harris, who filed suit against JPMorgan Chase last Thursday, says that from January 2008 to April 2011 -- just as people were reeling from the Wall Street-driven financial crisis -- the megabank unleashed over 100,000 lawsuits against consumers over uncollected credit-card debt in the state of California alone. That includes 469 lawsuits in a single day.

Now, it usually takes time and money to pursue lawsuits through the court system. So how in the world did Chase keep up this breakneck pace? The lawsuit claims that the bank took a number of little shortcuts, like robo-signing, in which bank employees produce sworn documents and other legal filings without bothering to check bank records or examine cases for accuracy.

Another nasty trick Chase is accused of deploying is what’s known, appropriately, as “sewer service.” This means that Chase failed to properly serve notice of debt collection lawsuits against consumers (it dumped the notices “in the sewer”), but then lied and said it did. This means, you, as a consumer, have no idea that a lawsuit has been launched against you.

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