California officials have opened an investigation into Goldline, the stalwart Glenn Beck Show advertiser, favorite of Mick Huckabee and other apocalyptic types. ABC's Nightline picked right up on it and did a report tonight (video above).

This idea of buying gold in tough financial times isn't new. What is new is the high-profile pimping of it on cable news. Not only in ads, but as part of the message like Glenn Beck's "God, Gold and Guns". Using typical scare tactics, Beck recommends buying gold as a hedge against the government's ultimate financial armageddon.

Goldline's business is simple: They buy and sell precious metals, specializing in numismatic gold coins. Investigators are looking specifically at whether Goldline International misrepresents pricing policies on its collectible coins, inflating them when they're purchased and deflating them when they're sold.

Goldline's management team should know about financial armageddon. They were right in the center of one in 1986, when some of them worked for Valley State Bank's Collateral Loan Division.

Valley State Bank

Two of Goldline's executive team -- Mark Albarian and Joel Gabrelow -- were officers of Valley State Bank's Collateral Loan Division from 1984-1986. Gabrelow was also Vice President of Numismatic Lending at West Coast Bank.

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From the forward:

"Gold Star Mothers is an organization made up of women who sons were killed in military combat during service in the United States armed forces. Recently a delegation of New York Gold Star Mothers made a trip to Washington, DC to discuss various concerns with their elected representatives. According to NewsMax.com there was only one politician in DC who refused to meet with these ladies. . .

. . . You got it! None other than the Queen herself, The Hildebeast, Hillary Clinton. She refused repeated requests to meet with the Gold Star Mothers."

It's a timely claim, in a way, since the right is outraged that she might be running for president. It's also completely false. Here's what the Gold Star Mothers themselves had to say about the "incident" on their official site:

"With regard to the NewsMax article concerning our organization, the American Gold Star Mothers, Inc., deeply regret the misunderstanding about Senator Hillary Clinton. The two mothers who visited Washington did not have an appointment with the Senator and she was not in her office on that day. We would appreciate it if the e-mails and negative comments about Senator Clinton would cease."

Case closed. Sadly, the rabid righties aren't the type to let the proverbial facts get in the way of a story.

(image courtesy of Mediaite)

It's no secret that CNN is tacking hard right, trying to pick up Fox News viewers. Hiring the likes of Bushie, Fran Townsend, and more recently, bringing right wing extremist "blogger" Erick Erickson on board and of course, their inexplicably positive coverage of the ongoing sham known as the Tea Party Express.

Tommy Christoper at Mediaite posted a story on April 4th respectfully refuting some claims made by C&L's Karoli, that CNN was actively pimping the tea party movement:

Upon closer inspection, however, it appears that while the effect of CNN’s coverage may be to promote the Tea Party Express, that’s not the intent. I think CNN is looking for another kind of gold in them thar Tea Party hills.

Fair enough. He disagreed with Karoli's opinion, but he kept digging and what do you know -- it appears that CNN is actively reaching out to far right propagandists like Newsbusters, touting how "fair and balanced" they really are:

A few days ago, I took a look at a Crooks and Liars post that suggested CNN was “pimping” the Great American “Tea Party Express PR and Propaganda Tour.” While I agreed with much of the post, I didn’t think CNN’s motivation was to promote the Tea Party tour, but rather, to be in the right place at the right time when something juicy happens.

As it turns out, reporting by conservative Newsbusters seems to confirm elements of liberal Crooks and Liars‘ thesis, or at the very least, that CNN is trying to have it both ways.

Apparently, CNN has become so desperate to boost ratings and attract Fox viewers, that they've actually stooped to wooing conservative bottom feeders like Michelle Malkin. (warning, link goes to her site) Christopher also posts an e-mail sent to Newsbusters from someone at CNN attacking their lefty critics:

“Clearly our critics from the left don’t think we should be covering the Tea Party movement in the way we are and clearly CNN thinks it’s a legitimate and important story.

If anyone from Newsbusters is interested in this angle – let me know.”

Well, this CNN employee is right - we lefties would definitely prefer that they not cover an illegitimate, astroturfed group of white, angry, racist fringe lunatics and militia nuts as though they were a legitimate, grass roots political organization. What next? Will CNN hire Charles Dyer as a "military analyst?"

Sunday's game is the first big test for the US hockey team as they play Canada in a non medal game at around 4:40 pm PST on MSNBC and it'll be intense. The winner gets the much coveted bye in the next round. The day opens with Russia vs the Czechs and finishes with the Swedes playing Finland. All grudge matches. The Canadians and Russians are the big favorites while the U.S. and Sweden are the dark horses, but as many as six teams could bring home a medal.

Mike Milbury, an NBC hockey analyst really was way over the top when he attacked the US team for playing not so great hockey in the Norway game during an intermission. Jeremy Roenick didn't take any of his nonsense, so good for JR.

He was acting like a jackass with his "the US sucks" rants. I hate the Olympic rules for overtime games. In the medal round, they should play until a goal is scored and get rid of the shoot out completely.

And I'm not the only person miffed at Milbury.

Dead Spin has more on his anti-Ovechkin crusade.

Here's the WaPo's Dan Steinberg on the dust up with Jeremy Roenick.

Cap fans aren't happy with Mike, but Crosby did win the Cup last year with Pittsburgh and he certainly is a tremendous player.

I think Mike was much worse to the Americans though because he disrespected many very good NHL players. Let the games begin. Go USA and screw Mike Milbury's negativity.

(Corrected. I read some wrong bio information on Milbury last night. My bad. Here's his correct info. )

It is curious that this AP article left out one giant aspect of the UBS scandal -- the role former GOP Senator Phil Gramm may have played in their illegal activity.

MIAMI – Swiss bank UBS AG "systematically and deliberately" violated U.S. law by dispatching private bankers to recruit wealthy Americans interested in evading taxes and must be forced to reveal the identities of 52,000 of those clients, the Justice Department said in a court filing Tuesday.

The filing, which comes amid several published reports that the case may be near settlement, urges U.S. District Judge Alan S. Gold to hold UBS accountable for conducting years of illegal business on U.S. soil — business that earned the bank more than $100 million in fees but cost the U.S. hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid taxes.

"It is time for UBS to face the consequences that it has brought upon itself," said Justice Department tax attorney Stuart Gibson in the 55-page filing. "The United States has proven its case for enforcement."

As Jon Perr wrote earlier this year, Gramm was instrumental in handcuffing the IRS while he was in the Senate, and may have paved the way for UBS to commit their crimes once he became their Vice Chairman in 2002.

This is comedy gold.

From the May 18 edition of Talk Radio Network's The Savage Nation:

SAVAGE: And yet here in America, I've had some people come to my aid. They see the bigger picture. They're not like [Bill] O'Reilly; they're not like Limbaugh, who's the biggest disappointment of all. Limbaugh has turned out to be the biggest phony of all of them, all of them. Amongst all of them, he is the biggest fraud. Rush Limbaugh is a fraud. When he was accused of the drug usage, I supported him. But that man is a one-way street. It's all about him. He's in it for nobody but himself.

Talk about a big pay-per-view gate. Let's see a head on fight between the Savage Nation and the Dittoheads in the Thunderdome.

Thanks to John Cole for the comedy gold of yesterday. The folks at Red State noticed that convention-going Democrats didn't walk around waving their cheap flags on sticks all the time like good nationalist zealots Republicans do. So they set out to find all those tens of thousands of flags that had been evident in pictures of the hall but not upon the persons of Democratic attendees having lunch, shopping at the mall or going to the restroom.

Did they ask the convention organizers where the flags had gone - maybe for re-use at Invesco Field last night where there were also tens of thousands of the little beauties in evidence? No. Did they look under seats where they might have been stashed for safekeeping? No. Did they... you know, this one seemed a no-brainer for any intrepid investigator to me ... did they ask the delegates and attendees themselves? No.

They followed their own inner voices, like Bush looking for WMD in the wilderness, and headed straight for the trash.

There they found - ZOMG! - a dozen or less of those abused tens of thousands of flags, all broken and stuff from wildly being waved, in an entire dumpster of trashbags. Which must surely prove that Obama hate America. Or something.

And Obama would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for those pesky kids!

Meanwhile, on the other side of the uppitty zealot patriot fence, the GOP knows how to wave a flag with style.

This is the concept for their convention hall:

Yes, that's a massive video screen. I can't figure out whether they want to show Obama how to stage a real Reichstag Nuremberg Rally (ok, but you got the gist) or intentionally wanted a look reminiscent of the Norsefire Party out of V for Vendetta.

Download | play Download | play

American speed skater Joey Cheek has done a great deal to bring global attention to the immense suffering of the people of Darfur, forming Team Darfur and even going so far as donating his $40k Olympic bonus to the cause in 2006. Unfortunately, the gold and silver medalist was punished for his activism by the Chinese government -- who has contributed to the genocide in Darfur by fueling and supporting Sudan's murderous military government -- when they revoked his visa this week, preventing him from attending this year's Olympics in Beijing.

During the opening ceremony NBC's Bob Costas discussed the controversy surrounding Cheek and the Chinese government, noting that he made it clear he would not protest the Chinese government during the Olympics:

Costas: "Joey Cheek had planned to invoke the Olympic truce, the time-honored concept of an Olympic truce, to call attention to the humanitarian crisis in Sudan. He did not intend to directly protest the Chinese government. The fact that they pulled his visa is so contrary to the Olympic ideal it is simply outrageous."

I wondered if NBC was going to cave on this or take a stand and defend Cheek against the reprehensible actions of the Chinese government. I applaud Costas for choosing the latter.

Download | play Download | play (h/t Bill W)

Comedy gold at the TV and Radio Correspondents Dinner.

"That's odd. I wonder why there's a cardboard cut out of Mitt Romney behind me."

Actually, that's the funniest part. That should tell you something.

Download | play Download | play (h/t Heather)

A sparkling list of hackery marks Friday's Worst Person in The World for Countdown. The bronze goes to Republican presidential contender Rudy Giuliani for letting his 9/11 Tourettes outbursts reach the point of caricature. Perennial list sitter Bill O'Reilly gets the silver for being too stupid to know the difference between the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence as well as having the bad taste to be proud of said stupidity. And finally, the gold goes to the richly deserved Roger Ailes for his revolutionary FOX Business Channel, who has only averaged 6,300 viewers during the day and 15,000 during prime time.