Bless her heart Michele Bachmann just can't win the song war. Maybe she should just give up and have someone make her own campaign song like Herman Cain did.

Tuesday, Bachmann greeted the crowd giving a nod to The King on the day of his birth after coming out on stage to "Promised Land." Only…. it wasn't his birthday. Fans of Elvis gathered in Graceland to celebrate his death instead.

As I'm sure you remember, Bachmann had some issues when she chose "American Girl" by Tom Petty to usher her out onto stages across Iowa. Petty wasn't too happy about it and asked Bachmann to stop or .. I suppose that would be the last dance with the Mary Jane of the Midwest.

But now Bachmann is using the Elvis Presley song "Promised Land." At least we say it was an Elvis song because he was the one who made it famous. And his is the version that Bachmann uses. The interesting thing is that it wasn't actually written by Elvis - it was actually written by Chuck Berry …. while he was in in a mid-western prison serving a sentence for armed robbery after hijacking a car at gunpoint, after sticking up a gas station and a convenience store.

Continue reading »

Digby: Drawing the line

OurFuture: Understanding the attacks on public employees

Mad Kane’s Political Madness: Want Tom in Prison - No Delay

alicublog: Won't somebody please think of the wingnuts?

Balkinization: Is the Obama administration countenancing torture of a US serviceman?

Right Wing Watch: Jacobs: Birds are dying because of DADT repeal

Medal of Freedom, Anyone?

via BlondeSense: Did anyone else see Ben Bradlee on Ted Koppel tonight? Koppel asked Bradlee what he thought of Pat Buchanan's comments that Deep Throat Mark Felt was not ...
Bradlee didn't even allow Koppel to finish.
Bradlee said, why should I see Buchanan or Gordon Liddy practically fresh from prison talk about Mark Felt and morality.... Felt couldn't go to Attorney General John Mitchell--who is worse? Mitchell or Gonzalez? Because Mitchell helped plan Watergate with Liddy in his office at the Justice Department. read on

BALANCE, CABLE NEWS–STYLE

via Tapped ...Nothing quite captures the storied revolving-door problem in American political punditry like seeing old Watergate players themselves (or, in the case of Pat Buchanan, not a Watergate participant but certainly a loyal Richard Nixon soldier) playing disinterested pundit-analysts on one talking-head show after another discussing Mark Felt. At this point maybe it shouldn’t seem so bizarre to me to see Chris Matthews chatting with G. Gordon Liddy about this story as if they were David Brinkley and Chet Huntley chewing over the day’s headlines.

That these characters have carte blanche on the cable chat shows to serve as credible Felt naysayers is just one more illustration of the wonderful cloak of immunity enjoyed by all right-wingers in the clubby, insular D.C. punditry world. Lying, stealing, prison time -- literally nothing can discredit a conservative gabber enough to cancel their membership card to the commentariat. And today we have Peggy Noonan to thank for granting some establishment pundit legitimacy to Ben Stein’s thoughtful Deep Throat-as-genocidaire thesis. Can’t wait to hear Liddy’s thoughts on it tonight on Hardball.

DeLay Threat Potentially Illegal

via Think Progress

Sen. Frank Launtenberg (D-NJ) has sent a letter to Tom Delay advising him that his threat may have violated federal law:

You should be aware that your comments yesterday may violate a Federal criminal statute, 18 U.S.C. 115 (a)(1)(B). That law states:

“Whoever threatens to assault…. or murder, a United States judge… with intent to retaliate against such… judge…. on account of the performance of official duties, shall be punished [by up to six years in prison]”

Threats against specific Federal judges are not only a serious crime, but also beneath a Member of Congress. In my view, the true measure of democracy is how it dispenses justice. Your attempt to intimidate judges in America not only threatens our courts, but our fundamental democracy as well.

Read the full text of the letter here.

Racism stands tall!

Beggars Can Be Choosers: $10 billion Pentagon program fails to defeat IED threat in Iraq

Immigration Prof Blog: Business is fighting tough measures on immigration. Who didn't see this coming?

Ice Station Tango: If Karl Rove isn't in prison by then, he and John Edwards will have a debate at the University of Buffalo on on September 26.

The KC Blue Blog: Looks like the ol' Southern Strategy is alive and well in Missouri

Calculated Risk: More trouble in bank paradise

ANNALS OF JOURNALISM: The Media brought me donuts...A sterling example of why Mr. Sheri Annis is such an important 4th Estate Lawn Jockey...ABC: Agent Backs Cheney...Fighting the shock-jocks...The Atlantic Monthly continues to decline...Journalism without journalists...The ubiquity of inanity...At Last! A good, issue-driven Health Care Story...And NPR did one, too!...Taken for a ride in Miami...Fox moves from eccentric to weird...This explains a lot...CBS aired a portion of Floyd Brown's attack ad, failed to report Obama is not a Muslim...

digby: U.S prison for terrorists often held the wrong men.

Pacific Views: Some selective history in the first of a three part WaPo series on the housing bubble.

Seeing the Forest: G-Dub has FINALLY decided to go after Bin Laden, but it's all about his pathetic "legacy."

Odd Bits of Life in New Orleans: Wingnuts emerge from their caves to compare Iowa and Gulf Coast flooding. (h/t First Draft)

Things More Muslim than Obama

OFF THE BEATEN PATH: Skewz, Drexel Dems, A Spork in the Drawer, The Local Crank

Could it be any clearer that this?

The Defense Department was mum Friday on the reasons for the abrupt removal of a Guantánamo war court judge who had threatened to suspend the trial of Canadian captive Omar Khadr in a showdown with the controversial prison camp.

---

Military prosecutors had been pressing Brownback to set a trial date, but he has repeatedly directed them first to satisfy defense requests for access to potential evidence. At a hearing earlier this month, he threatened to suspend the proceedings altogether unless the detention center provided records of Khadr's confinement....read on

Left in Alabama: More support for Jim Webb's GI Bill legislation. Are you listening, John McCain, and all you other Republicans in Congress?

PTSD: Given the underplayed, staggering numbers on veteran suicides, post-traumatic stress disorder, brain injuries and the like, it seems like awfully bad form to prosecute and imprison a veteran for pushing for PTSD benefits. While some innovative approaches for treating PTSD seem effective, replacing the VA's 'criminally negligent' leadership might also help.

The War Comes Home: Cutting to the heart of the war and Winter Soldier.

FranIAm: "Lest We Forget" — Revisiting Hiroshima.

Majikthise: Phylis Schlafly, rape denier.

The Satirical Political Report: A sneak peek behind the scenes of the Hamas superdelegates. (Horrors, has Joe Lieberman heard?)

Guest roundup by Batocchio. Please e-mail submissions and tips to Batocchio9 at yahoo dot com. Thanks!