CNN:

Mark Hasse "had an absolute passion for putting away bad guys, and he enjoyed nothing better," his boss said.

Now investigators are looking into whether that passion led to Hasse being gunned down outside his office in Kaufman, Texas, where he was an assistant district attorney. Hasse was killed in the parking lot of the Kaufman County courthouse Thursday morning, shot several times after "a very small, very short confrontation," Police Chief Chris Aulbaugh said.

"It was apparent that he was not expecting to have anything happen," Aulbaugh said. "He was on his way to his office."

It's very sad, but there's also more to the story. A couple of months ago, the Department of Justice indicted 34 members of the Texas Aryan Brotherhood in connection with a joint task force that involved just about every county in Texas. Previous to that, they had two members of the Aryan Brotherhood plea-bargain to federal racketeering charges.

According to DallasNews.com, Hasse was involved in recent investigations of the Aryan Brotherhood, which would explain why the ATF, FBI, and Texas Rangers are all involved in the investigation of his shooting.

The Aryan Brotherhood is a criminal gang. Their activities transcend your run-of-the-mill white supremacist type. From the DOJ press release regarding the indictments of 34 members:

Court documents allege that the ABT enforced its rules and promoted discipline among its members, prospects and associates through murder, attempted murder, conspiracy to murder, arson, assault, robbery and threats against those who violate the rules or pose a threat to the enterprise. Members, and oftentimes associates, were required to follow the orders of higher-ranking members, often referred to as “direct orders.”

District Attorney Mike McClellan has promised to "pull [the murderer] out of whatever hole you're in, we're going to bring you back and we're going to let the people of Kaufman County prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law."

I have a feeling they won't be the only ones to throw the book at whoever did this, with all of those federal agencies involved.

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Everyone in the journalism business knows that Bill O'Reilly's ambush crews are among the more outstanding examples of the gaping lack of anything resembling journalistic ethics at the Fox News Channel.

But no one wants to talk about it. So like clockwork, we can count on Jesse Waters and his intrepid crew ambushing various people -- some of them public figures, some of them private citizens.

Their most recent victim was Al Gore, who knows a thing or two about journalism. He recognized what Waters was up to and told him flatly at the outset: "I don't like ambush journalism."

Finally, Gore had to get in Waters' face to explain to him he had no intention of being interviewed under those circumstances. O'Reilly seems to think that this was some sort of coup.

But notice that Waters does get off two questions. And they're very revealing, because both are predicated on falsehoods. In other words, Waters' questions are lies.

In order:

A. "What's your reaction to the fact that the Arctic ice is increasing?"

Actually, the Arctic ice cap is indeed shrinking dramatically, with 2007 being the worst year on record. However, things got slightly better in 2008 and 2009: they were only the second- and third-worst ice-cap melt years on record.

See, for folks on the right, that constitutes an "increase." But only for folks on the right.

B. "Are you embarrassed at all by Climategate, sir?"

Hmmm. I dunno about Al Gore, but since the scientific work and the scientists involved have been completely exonerated and the entire "Climategate" dustup revealed as a right-wing hoax that served double duty as propaganda and a smear campaign, it sure would be tempting to answer this one:

"Not at all, Jesse. And aren't you embarrassed at all for having promulgated a hoax and a smear?"

Of course, that is much wordier than the simple, handy, universal answer to any and every question we recommend for anyone ambushed by Jesse and his pals:

"Andrea Mackris."

You all remember how Jesse Watters of Fox News ambushed ThinkProgress's Amanda Terkel while she was on vacation. It was one of the more obscene examples of the routine violations of basic journalistic standards that Fox indulges when it sends out these ambush crews.

Well, a ThinkProgress writer caught up with Jesse while he was in the hallway at a right-wing gathering in D.C., and managed to turn the tables a bit. In the process, Watters just barefacedly lies on camera:

We pointed out to Watters that O’Reilly has said he always contacts people to give them a chance to respond before ambushing them. Watters attempted to stall several times before answering the question, but eventually responded:

WATTERS: We called her office.

Q: She said she got no call.

WATTERS: Yeah, no — I called her office twice.

Q: Who in the office did you call?

WATTERS: I called the main number.

Q: The main number?

WATTERS: Yeah, I called the main number and asked if Amanda Terkel was there.

Watters then began to say that he contacted Amanda Terkel “before we went after –” but stopped himself before finishing the sentence and instead said, “Yeah, before we went there.”

Watters is lying, just like he did when he claimed he contacted Hendrick Hertzberg before accosting him in New York City. No one at the Center for American Progress ever received a call from Jesse Watters or anyone else at Fox News about having Amanda appear on the show.

Watters previously had a little taste of turnabout. He deserves a whole lot more. Because karma is a bitch.

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When Laura Ingraham filled in for Bill O'Reilly on Friday's night's O'Reilly Factor, she ran a segment on abortion that was ostensibly an "investigation" into Planned Parenthood. It featured a logo that placed a red set of crosshairs -- the kind you find on a rifle scope -- over PP's logo.

I'd just like to ask one question:

What the hell were these people thinking?

Now, presumably, Ingraham herself did not order up this graphic, or if she did, it at least went through the hands of the show's regular producers and overseers. These are the same people who just went through a well-deserved round of approbation for their role -- in the form of those 28 references to Dr. George Tiller as a "baby killer" -- in the murder of Tiller by an anti-abortion fanatic.

And now they're running a graphic suggestive of what Ann Coulter calls "a procedure with a rifle" -- something, in fact, that Coulter has actually encouraged on The O'Reilly Factor.

Really, I'm serious. What are these people thinking?

Of course, we know all too well that O'Reilly and Co. did their best to disavow any culpability in the matter whatsoever -- somewhat less than convincingly. So maybe the continuing demonization of abortion providers on this program is part and parcel of that defiance.

And the same sort of anecdotal demonization that characterized O'Reilly's attacks on Tiller were similarly at play in this segment on Planned Parenthood. It essentially involved an ambush team using a youngish-seeming woman posing as a 14-year-old entering a variety of Planned Parenthood clinics and recording the responses -- most of which, as described by the fake teen here, actually fit the standard response of most properly run clinics in trying to make sure that younger patients feel at ease.

The overriding message, once again, is that these abortion providers are a pack of morally depraved sickos who deserve to be in the crosshairs. Lovely.

I can think of three possibilities here:

1. Someone just thought putting an organization in the crosshairs was the best way to represent that they were under investigation, and the other implications of such a graphic just didn't cross anybody's radar.

2. They thought about it, recognized that it might not be appropriate, but did it anyway, either out of defiance or simply not caring.

3. They did it with full intent, understanding full well that the suggestion of violence against Planned Parenthood was present, and in fact designing the graphic with that in mind.

Of the three, I think the second is the most plausible. But it's only slightly less appalling, for different reasons, than the other two.

Look, despite what the O'Reillys and Glenn Becks and Laura Ingrahams like to claim, no one is trying to "silence" them for expressing their opinions. This is about being responsible with that big media megaphone they hold. Promoting a violent mindset toward abortion providers, as we have already seen, is profoundly irresponsible. It's long past time that it stop.

Adam Green from Open Left spotted one of those Fox News ambush crew outside an ACORN gathering yesterday and decided to have a little fun with them on behalf of Amanda Terkel.

It was Griff Jenkins, there on behalf of Glenn Beck (who barely used Jenkins' stunt on his show, since it was not exactly a success), complete with a small red carpet he rolled out for ACORN officials. Mind you, it was Jesse Watters, not Jenkins, who perpetrated that outrageous stalking of Terkel, but then, the whole ambush-crew approach is such a journalistic travesty it doesn't matter.

Besides, we've seen Jenkins besiege a hapless history prof with bogus misrepresentations of his work, so it's not like he's an innocent in this. And who can forget Griff getting smacked down by Barney Frank?

Indeed, this whole ambush-journalism thing doesn't seem to be working out too well for Griff. He certainly wasn't prepared to deal with Green. Karmic payback and all that.

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If you happened to see Bill O'Reilly wanking ever onward Monday night in recapping his confrontation with Joan Walsh on Friday, you probably got the same low mordant chuckle out of his self-serving edit of the interview. After all, it gave him a chance to repeat three more times his leading "When did you stop beating your wife?" question.

But as we noted at the time, Walsh at critical junctures of the exchange handed O'Reilly his lunch -- especially when she zeroed in on his irresponsible, violent and often eliminationist rhetoric directed at the objects of his ire, and his refusal to man up to the predictable (and now manifest) consequences of that.

Indeed, O'Reilly (as usual) edited the video to make him look triumphant against the hapless liberal. But in reality, Walsh seriously called him out at key moments and kicked his butt -- especially at the end.

So we decided to offer our own Crooks and Liars Special Edition Video of the showdown. In which Walsh shines triumphant. It's not quite the whole story, but it's a lot closer to what actually happened than O'Reilly's pathetic whinefest.

Speaking of O'Reilly whinefests, I've also compiled a collage of his recent whining about left-wing meanies who have the audacity to call him out for nastiness -- denouncing in particular the "politics of ridicule" and the "demonization" of the opposition that those hateful far-left liberals employ. This includes some footage of one of his ambush crews attacking a woman at her car -- for having simply criticized O'Reilly.

And then it's capped off by a couple of his nastier "Pinhead" segments. Who's demonizing who?

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There are some things that are always constant. It rains a lot in Seattle, their coffee is great and it's north of California. And whenever Bill O'Reilly feels threatened he summons Juan Williams to appear on The Factor to apologize for BillO's actions. Last night Juan did his job well. He plays a good faux liberal when BillO needs one. Just remember, "when O'Reilly's in a jam, who's he gonna call? JuanBusters." Check this out.

Williams: There are people who are going to try and use this now to make others who have critical of a women having the right to choose, make that into a political tool to beat people up and to try and convince people that these are all extremists and the fact is that you're not extremist. There are a lot of people who by a matter of conscience are troubled by abortion, especially late term abortion and I know you O'Reilly, what you did is you said it bothered you personally and there's nothing wrong with that.

----

But let me just say, they're going after you, Bill O'Reilly and I've never heard you say to block a clinic , I've never heard you say to create violence to intimidate women who are legally seeking an abortion. I've never heard you say go after the doctor's, berate them, certainly not kill them. Never. Never! Not true.

No, he just used his ambush producers to stalk him.

Oh, my friend Brian Russell was on that segment.

And of course he doesn't want to be a vigilante but...

And if I could get my hands on Tiller -- well, you know. Can't be vigilantes. Can't do that. It's just a figure of speech.

David Neiwert has an excellent post with with some great video.

Bill O'Reilly has Dr. George Tiller's blood on his well-stained hands

O'Reilly similarly accused anyone who refused to buy into his accusation of coddling killers:

I don’t care what you think. We have incontrovertible evidence that this man is executing babies about to be born because the woman is depressed…if you don’t believe me, I don’t care…You are OK with Dr. Tiller executing babies about to be born because the mother says she’s depressed.

O'Reilly later attacked Kathleen Sebelius for her refusal to prosecute Tiller. And he kept it up. As recently as this spring he again spent a segment excoriating Tiller as a murderer. Priscilla at Newshounds ran through the file in March.

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Gobsmacking. There's no other word for it. What else can you call it when a national TV network's most popular anchor goes onscreen and reports a story that not only completely inverts reality, but does it by unleashing a camera crew that engages in the behavior of stalkers, actually tracking down a woman blogger on her weekend getaway and ambushing her at her hotel? It's not just hypocrisy: This is a psychotic perversion of press rights in a way that violates basic American privacy rights. And it's dangerous as hell.

That's what Bill O'Reilly did tonight on the O'Reilly Factor. Here's the report from O'Reilly's own sector of Planet Wingnuttia:

O'Reilly: Now, for the evil part. Last month, after the charitable event was announced, a bunch of far-left loons picked up some propaganda from the hate group Media Matters, that said I am unsympathetic to the plight of crime victims -- a preposterous lie. Along with America's Most Wanted, the Factor has done more for the victims of crime in America than any other television program on the air. The loons pointed to a Radio Factor episode from three years ago. We've posted the entire commentary on BillOReilly.com.

Elements at NBC News then encouraged the loons to protest the Alexa Foundation, causing Alexa and her family major grief.

That's right: O'Reilly is claiming that these reports actually harmed rape victims, since the Alexa Foundation was probably acutely embarrassed by the reports. So to prove his sensitivity to rape victims, he sent out a news crew to stalk a woman on her private weekend getaway.

What so infuriated O'Reilly was a Think Progress report -- itself a pickup from NewsHounds, and which in turn was picked up by MSNBC -- pointing out that while O'Reilly was going to give a speech before the Alexa Foundation, which benefits rape victims and their families, he had something of a history of gross insensitivity to the victims of rape himself. Here's what Amanda Terkel at Think Progress actually reported:

Our post — which never criticized the Alexa Foundation — highlighted the fact that in the past, O’Reilly has implied that women who dress in a certain way or consume too much alcohol should perhaps expect to be raped. Here is what he said on his radio show on Aug. 2 about Jennifer Moore, an 18-year-old woman who was raped and murdered:

Now Moore, Jennifer Moore, 18, on her way to college. She was 5-foot-2, 105 pounds, wearing a miniskirt and a halter top with a bare midriff. Now, again, there you go. So every predator in the world is gonna pick that up at two in the morning. She’s walking by herself on the West Side Highway, and she gets picked up by a thug. All right. Now she’s out of her mind, drunk.

O’Reilly’s comments about Moore were part of a larger segment about the dangers of drunkenness. His other example was Mel Gibson going on a drunken tirade and yelling anti-Semitic comments. “I think it’s safe to say that if Mel Gibson didn’t get drunk, he wouldn’t be in this terrible situation he finds himself in,” said O’Reilly. “And if a young woman, 18-year-old Jennifer Moore of Harrington Park, NJ, didn’t get drunk, she’d be alive today.”

No doubt O'Reilly is still reeling from the embarrassment of a previous case where his grotesquely insensitive remarks came back to haunt him: namely, the Shawn Hornbeck incident, in which O'Reilly first suggested that a boy who had been kept a captive of a child molester for years had somehow "wanted it." As it happened, he was scheduled to speak before a conference for the families of missing kids. The ensuing uproar didn't subside until his appearance was cancelled.

In other words, the guy who should have at some time apologized for belittling the victims of sexual assault -- and never has -- instead is claiming that his critics "hurt a rape victim and her family."

The Alexa Foundation is sticking with O'Reilly (a spokesperson was on afterward to fiercely denounce the protests). There apparently were pickets outside O'Reilly's appearance, and a groups called Concerned Women Against Sexual Violence created a petition of protest as well -- which got a big shout-out from Keith Olbermann.

So of course, Bill O'Reilly sent out his flying monkeys -- namely, the same ambush news crews, headed by an uber-cretin named Jesse Watters, who have attacked other hapless miscreants who had the audacity to bother O'Reilly's august ego -- in swift and nasty retaliation, as Terkel describes:

Continue reading »

This time O'Reilly releases his flunkie on Pulitzer Prize-winning editor of the Atlanta-Journal Constitution Cynthia Tucker. Ms. Tucker's crime? Criticizing Bill O'Reilly for having a double standard when it comes to the teen pregnancies of Jamie Lynn Spears and Bristol Palin.

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O’Reilly guy: “Cynthia, in your column, were you comparing Bristol Palin to Jamie Lynn Spears?”

Cynthia: “In my column, I was criticizing Bill O”Reilly. And I stand by that.”

O’Reilly guy: “Bill pointed out that Jamie Lynn Spears was running around unsupervised. You know that. So you were saying that Bristol Palin was running around unsupervised.”

Cynthia: “If I said that, read that part. You’re holding the column (in your hand). Read where I said Bristol Palin was running around unsupervised.”

O’Reilly guy: “You inferred it.”

Cynthia: “I inferred O’Reilly is a hypocrite. And I stand by that. Good day, gentlemen. I’m going inside to finish my Saturday chores.”

Transcript via Kos, who writes:

Does O'Reilly really want to maintain that the difference between Jamie Lynn and Bristol is that the Spears daughter was "running around unsupervised"? Because if O'Reilly insists that Bristol, to the contrary, was supervised, then how exactly did she get knocked up? It would follow that ... yeah. Gross. And somehow, I really, really doubt that's what happened.

Bill O'Reilly is the ultimate coward. Not only is he incapable of admitting he's wrong when called on it, he sends his minions out to harass these people at their homes. How petty can this guy be?

Act now and you'll get Bill O'Reilly's Greatest Ambush Hits, including Rep. Wexler, Bill Moyers, Arianna Huffington, GE CEO Immelt, Scott McClellan, and Mark Cuban.

Also be sure to check out Amato's: Handy Tips To Defend Yourself Against The Falafel Guy Fatwa

BillO's peeps sandbag Rep. Wexler. Nice going Bill. Not everyone can handle it like Bill Moyers.

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BillO's act of sandbagging people with a camera crew who he disagrees with where they live is unseemly. He's such a frustrated man that he has to harass them with the Jesse Watters type idiots if they won't appear on his show. I think it's about time a group of people count up all of these BillO stakeouts and then camp out at his house, cameras in hand and stay there while O'Reilly comes home and jump out of the bushes and ask him about Andrea Mackris and Shawn Hornbeck until he gives up this farce. Let's see how you like it, Bill.

He really has crossed the line.

Here's my complete guide for all those that might have occasion to combat this jackass:

The Complete Guide on How to Deal with Bill O’Reilly’s ambush producers