When Glenn Beck speaks, a little more truth dies. In usual right-wing echo chamber fashion, they just can't let go of Shirley Sherrod. They're milking her story so dry the cows are screaming.

The latest accusations, which I have seen repeated verbatim on the Illinois Review and the Washington Examiner so far, and which appear to be from a press release sent out for posting across all conservative blogs in an effort to game the Google, are nearly unintelligible. But I'll try. (h/t BillieGirlToo)

Oh noes! Shirley Sherrod's group, New Communities, was involved in the Pigford lawsuit against the USDA

Oh, seriously. They were, that's true. And who better to hire to actually make reparations than the person who actually understood the damages?

From the press release:

... Over the years, USDA refused to provide loans for farming or irrigation and would not allow New Communities to restructure its loans. Gradually, the group had to fight just to hold on to the land and finally had to wind down operations.

... The cash (settlement) award acknowledges racial discrimination on the part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture for the years 1981-85. ... New Communities is due to receive approximately $13 million ($8,247,560 for loss of land and $4,241,602 for loss of income; plus $150,000 each to Shirley and Charles for pain and suffering). There may also be an unspecified amount in forgiveness of debt. This is the largest award so far in the minority farmers law suit (Pigford vs Vilsack).

This particular round of crazy asks a series of questions that are irrelevant, not particularly interesting, and attempt to suggest that hiring her was the USDA's effort to "shut her up", and she was summarily fired so as to cover up the dastardly news that she was involved in the Pigford suit.

This question really takes the cake, though:

Given that New Communities wound down its operations so long ago (it appears that this occurred sometime during the late 1980s), what is really being done with that $13 million in settlement money?

Oh wow, wingnuts! She must have STOLEN IT. RIGHT?

The release then goes on to suggest that the USDA might be worried about possible waste, fraud and abuse (you know, that bill the Republicans all voted AGAINST?).

Step back, think. If a court-ordered settlement is to be made from the government to people who were wronged, how is that waste, fraud or abuse? It's only in the minds of the crazy folks like Breitbart, who is desperately trying to intimidate Sherrod out of suing him, as far as I can tell.

Meanwhile, over at the Illinois Review...

Writer Teri O'Brien manages to conflate the New Black Panthers, William Ayers, AND the Pigford case, citing the strength of character and discernment in Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.

Somewhat breathlessly, Ms. O'Brien heaves forth the knowledge that Sherrod's husband...

...was a former honcho in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee back in the 1960’s. You can read more about it in Bill Ayers book “Fugitive Days.” Yes, that Bill Ayers. He was involved in SNCC as well.

Now see? That's how you take an apple and an orange and make it into a prune. You find out about a group, link up 'scary guy' Bill Ayers without any corresponding direct link between the two or between the SNCC and the Weather Underground and all of a sudden it's a story! Who needs journalists when we've got Breitbart and his merry minions to keep us stupid?

Media Matters has a thorough debunking of this story and all of the companion versions here.

Here's a newsflash for conservatives: Shirley Sherrod is not going to be your tea party wedge issue for August. You don't have health care reform to kick around anymore and your conduct in Congress should earn you a one-way ticket home. It might be time to quit milking dead stories and get on with life on the Planet Earth. Planet Teabag can't be reached by normal humans yet.

For a palate cleanser after this tripe, I highly recommend Joan Walsh's essay on the Shame of Right Wing Journalism, and especially, this brilliant essay from her about the wrong lessons of the Sherrod story.

This reaction fascinates me. You would think having a country that's no longer at war would be some kind of terrible tragedy, a major blow to our self-esteem. Oh noes, who will we be without the war?

The minions of the corporate media seem to be even more upset than the administration over the release of the Wikileaks documents, and I think I know why: They just can't bear the thought that they are no longer the gatekeepers.

WASHINGTON — The disclosure of a six-year archive of classified military documents increased pressure on President Obama to defend his military strategy as Congress prepares to deliberate financing of the Afghanistan war.

The disclosures, with their detailed account of a war faring even more poorly than two administrations had portrayed, landed at a crucial moment. Because of difficulties on the ground and mounting casualties in the war, the debate over the American presence in Afghanistan has begun earlier than expected. Inside the administration, more officials are privately questioning the policy.

"Earlier than expected"? Honey, some of us have been questioning this rotten war since Day One. And we've certainly been questioning it for the last year. You must not get out much.

In Congress, House leaders were rushing to hold a vote on a critical war-financing bill as early as Tuesday, fearing that the disclosures could stoke Democratic opposition to the measure. A Senate panel is also set to hold a hearing on Tuesday on Mr. Obama’s choice to head the military’s Central Command, Gen. James N. Mattis, who would oversee military operations in Afghanistan.

Administration officials acknowledged that the documents, released on the Internet by an organization called WikiLeaks, will make it harder for Mr. Obama as he tries to hang on to public and Congressional support until the end of the year, when he has scheduled a review of the war effort.

“We don’t know how to react,” one frustrated administration official said on Monday. “This obviously puts Congress and the public in a bad mood.”

May I make a suggestion? Do that review now. What's the point of dithering on this?

Mr. Obama is facing a tough choice: he must either figure out a way to convince Congress and the American people that his war strategy remains on track and is seeing fruit — a harder sell given that the war is lagging — or move more quickly to a far more limited American presence.

I wish I could remember where I read it, but yesterday I saw something somewhere where a blogger was trying to discuss the Wikileaks report with someone he knew who was a Hill staffer. The staffer told him he didn't want to know -- because it would be harder to defend his Member's vote if he did.

That's the game, ladies and gentlemen. Politics above truth, winning over doing the right thing.

Oh noes! We sure hope they can't quit you, Michael Steele, the gift that keeps on giving. But just in case, is there a 99 percenter plan on wingnut welfare?

Open Thread below...

Oh noes! If you can't hold on to your basic, "queer"-hatin', low-information, unlicensed plumber not really named Joe that you hold up for WAAAAYYYY past his fifteen minutes as the epitome of the Republican Party, who can you hold on to?

Samuel Wurzelbacher, better known as Joe the Plumber, tells TIME he's so outraged by GOP overspending, he's quitting the party — and he's the bull's-eye of its target audience. But he also said he wouldn't support any cuts in defense, Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid — which, along with debt payments, would put more than two-thirds of the budget off limits. It's no coincidence that many Republicans who voted against the stimulus have claimed credit for stimulus projects in their district — or that Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal stopped ridiculing volcano-monitoring programs after a volcano erupted in Alaska. "We can't be the antigovernment party," Snowe says. "That's not what people want."

All this while the Republicans back-pedal off their "listening tour" to find out how real Republicans want their party to move towards because they can't bear the thought of upsetting Rush Limbaugh. Tellingly, the enabling and complicit Time Magazine completely buries the lede deep within the article--fourteen paragraphs down--that the man who owes his entire fame to the Republican Party is now taking his ball and going home.