By their works ye shall know them, I guess!

Grammy-nominated As I Lay Dying vocalist Tim Lambesis was arrested in Oceanside on Tuesday on suspicion of hiring a hit man to murder his estranged wife, according to the San Diego County Sheriff's Department. Lambesis, 32, was charged on three federal counts -- one count of solicitation to commit murder and two counts of conspiracy to commit crime.

The Times' L.A. Now reported that Lambesis "was arrested without incident while shopping. He is accused of attempting to find someone to kill his estranged wife, who lives in Encinitas." Authorities told L.A. Now that he had "attempted to hire an undercover sheriff's detective for the murder."

A representative for the band did not respond to requests for comment.

Lambesis, an openly Christian heavy metal artist, had recently raised more than $78,000 from fans to fund his side project, Austrian Death Machine, a band mocking the film work of Arnold Schwarzenegger. For $500, Lambesis promised to be "your personal trainer for a month." The top prize, for those who spent $5,000, was to have the winner's initials tattooed on Lambesis' buttocks.

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Over the weekend, Harvard professor Niall Ferguson gave a speech in which he tried to discredit the economic theories of John Maynard Keynes by basically calling him a fag. Ferguson, who subsequently apologized, has now written an "Open Letter" to Harvard, and like right-wingers always do when they say something offensive, can't quite help bathing himself in victimhood.

In the long run we are all indeed dead, at least as individuals. Perhaps Keynes was lucky to pre-decease the bloggers because, for all his brilliance, was also prone to moments of what we would now call political incorrectness.

Uh, first of all, what does something Keynes supposedly said have to do with gay-baiting Keynes? And second of all, gay-baiting Keynes isn't "political incorrectness" -- it's bigotry.

What the self-appointed speech police of the blogosphere forget is that to err occasionally is an integral part of the learning process. And one of the things I learnt from my stupidity last week is that those who seek to demonize error, rather than forgive it, are among the most insidious enemies of academic freedom.

Ay-yi-yi. Another wingnut who thinks "free speech" means "I get to say whatever I want and no one gets to say anything mean about me." So pathetic.

In his posthumous book, Our Common Wealth: The Hidden Economy That Makes Everything Else Work, Jonathan Rowe writes:

To get to San Francisco from where I live, I usually drive through the hamlet of Nicasio. It’s just a scattering of wooden structures around a community baseball field. The hills beyond are mainly ranches, not much changed from a century ago.

Recently, a sign appeared by the road there. “SOON TO BE BUILT ON THIS SITE,” it said, and my insides went code red. I thought of bulldozers, asphalt, a mange of houses with glandular disorders.

Then I saw the [sign’s] smaller print: “Thanks to your help, absolutely nothing.”

That story makes me smile, because it is so Jon Rowe. A close friend and idea co-conspirator, Jon tirelessly challenged the American anthem, “more, faster, bigger, louder.” For years, in one article and column after another, he asked that we pause our relentlessly self-centered, materialistic spree long enough to consider where it might be leading us.

If one thing most defined Jon’s work, which appeared in The Atlantic, Christian Science Monitor, Washington Monthly and other publications, it was his ability to help us better see ourselves, our lives, and our culture—with clear, simple, oddly beautiful prose.

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The man clearly has a gift for understatement.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who has an ‘A’ rating from the National Rifle Association (NRA), said he’s "frustrated" with the group, accusing them of a misinformation campaign in regard to the bipartisan background checks bill he authored with Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.).

The West Virginia Democrat said the group was trying to scare gun owners and said the slippery slope argument the gun lobby pushed was disingenuous.

“I’m frustrated with any organization that basically is saying things – and what they’re doing is they’re rattling the cage, if you will, saying, well if [Congress does] this they’re going to do this. It’s a first step,” Manchin said on "CBS This Morning" on Tuesday.

Frustrated?

In addition to flat-out lying about Manchin's bill, the new president of the NRA likes to refer to the Civil War as the "War of Northern Aggression," has referred to President Obama as a "fake president," and openly contemplates armed rebellion against the US government.

Hey Joe: the time to be "frustrated" with this nutbar organization is long over. The only reasonable thing to do at this point is resign.

Your move, Senator.

There are probably fewer pundits more consistent at their intellectual dishonesty than James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal. This week he topped himself -- no easy task.

The headline, responding to the recent reports of a woman in Wyoming who perpetrated a hoax pretending to have been threatened with rape by a right-wing hater, read:

'Hate Crime' Hoaxes
Why are they so common, especially on campus?

And indeed Taranto goes on to ask:

Why are phony "hate crimes" so common, especially on college campuses?

Oh really? Phony hate crimes are common? Taranto arrives at this conclusion from ... a single case? (He later cites two cases of phony hate crimes ... from thirty and twenty years ago, respectively. Neither were on a college campus.)

Where is the data to back up this claim? Can Taranto show us any more cases of phony hate-crime reports from college campuses? Yes, there have been some (we know of a few others), but just how many are there? Enough to claim that it's "common"?

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Happy Hump Day, Crooks and Liars! True Story: a former boss would not allow us to call Wednesday Hump Day because he was afraid it was sexual harassment, which I think said more about him than it did about us.

First Draft has some advice for the over-compensating, would-be Rambo.

Riverbend has not blogged in a while, but gives us a tour de force reflection on the 10th Anniversary of The Fall of Baghdad.

Marmel makes a modest proposal.

Bonus track:Juanita Jean's World's Most Dangerous Beauty Salon Inc has found a second career for Louie Gohmert and/or perhaps Rick Perry.

Round-up by Tengrain of Mock, Paper, Scissors who also blogs at Dependable Renegade. Send tips to: mbru AT crooksandliars DOT com

It is extremely rare that I will run any ad here at open thread, but this one features the two Spocks and is terribly clever.

Open thread below...

This Sunday's episode of 60 Minutes was a brilliant case study in the media's ability to manipulate the public mind. The entire hour is worth studying, if only as one of the most illuminating and sophisticated examples of media manipulation in recent memory.

Who, What, When, Where ...

The most important editorial decision may not be how to cover a story, but which stories will be covered at all. But once a story is assigned, however that happens, the journalist's responsibility is to inform readers - or the audience - of its meaning and context.

60 Minutes failed both tests.

The old journalistic maximum said a good journalist had to answer five questions in every story: Who, what, when, where, and why?  Of those, "why" is the most important questions of all. Without it, stories are more likely to misinform than inform.

In this case, the misinformation seems deliberate. The intended message seems to be government can't help us. We must militarize or cities and depend on the generosity of billionaires, or we don't stand a chance.

... and Why

Three stories were aired Sunday night: Counterinsurgency Cops, Robin Hood, and Invisible Wounds. The first two pieces advanced the anti-government billionaires' agenda with almost Orwellian efficiency. The third was less driven by that agenda, although it also reflected the biases which big-money interests have built into the institutions of journalism and politics.

Counterinsurgency Cops covered, as the name suggests, the adoption of military counterinsurgency techniques by urban police forces. It's a controversial topic: Do we really want our cities subjected to the same occupation-style military tactics as neighborhoods in Kandahar and Mazal-i-Sharif? One might expect both sides of the argument to be covered in a story like this.

One would be wrong.

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The FBI arrests a right-wing extremist in Minnesota for a planned domestic-terrorism attack:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced on Monday that it had arrested a Minnesota man for plotting a “localized terror attack.”

A press release from the Minneapolis Division said that “special agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in conjunction with the Montevideo Police Department; the Chippewa County Sheriff’s Office; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives; the Minnesota State Highway Patrol; the Bloomington Police Department; the Minnehaha County Sheriff’s Office (South Dakota); the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources; and members of CEE-VI (Cooperative Enforcement Effort), executed a search warrant at 1204 Benson Avenue, Lot #8, in Montevideo, Minnesota. Several guns and explosive devices were discovered during the search of the residence” on Friday.

Buford “Bucky” Rogers, 24, was arrested for unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon. An Associated Press report said that he had previously been convicted for felony burglary in 2011 and a misdemeanor charge of dangerous handling of a weapon in 2009.

It appears he came by his nuttiness the natural way -- via his family:

Throughout the interview with FOX 9 News, Jeff Rogers insisted he still doesn't know why his family is considered a threat.

"We are peaceful people, okay? We're not out to blow up the world -- none of this crap," Jeff Rogers said.

Investigators claim to have removed a computer, a military-style Romanian rifle and explosives from his shed -- specifically, Molotov cocktails and pipe bombs. Jeff Rogers said that isn't the case, describing the seized items as household chemicals.

"That's a bunch of s---," he said.

Police and Jeff Rogers both point out that Buford Rogers does not live at the home. Rather, he lives across town with his girlfriend and their new baby. Neighbors say they don't see him much, but residents told FOX 9 News the family is very dedicated to their Black Snake Militia, which some consider un-American.

Jeff Rogers is not coy about the family's political leanings, displaying an upside down American Flag and signs suggesting the government wants to implant microchips inside citizens outside his home.

"We are patriots. You guys are patriots," he said. "You see the country is going to s----."

Yet, Buford Rogers' Facebook page suggests a sinister side to his politics. In publicly visible posts from 2011, he wrote, "We already started fighting. I'm sure you'll hear about it in a bad way."

A website for the Minnesota Minutemen Militia, which says it is not anti-government, claims the Black Snake Militia is comprised of 73 members. The leader's profile shows a man who claims to be 29 years old wearing a ski mask and holding an assault rifle. His bio reads, "Im an american patriot willing to lay down my life so we may take our republic back…. [sic]"

Meanwhile, the media -- and Fox News especially -- yawn. Eric Boehlert observes:

You will likely not be surprised that none of Fox News' primetime hosts mentioned the Rogers arrest last night or the looming threat of right-wing extremist violence. That, despite the fact the shows have dedicated countless programming hours in recent weeks to ginning up fear and angst surrounding the terror attack in Boston on Patriot's Day.

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Howie Klein will be leading a chat with Pennsylvania's Daylin Leach over at Blue America.

Come join us to talk with a strong progressive we need to have in Congress. To be clear, the chat will take place on this Blue America post, not in the comments below.

Feel free to ask him questions on gun safety regulations, the GOP obstructionism, the War on Women and all the other issues facing us.

Editor's note: Daylin is not only a great progressive, he's funny! Go ask him some questions!