It's incredibly ironic that after years of the Patriot Act, and actually sitting on information that the Bush administration had been monitoring millions of Americans' communications without warrants that the media is now up in arms and wailing "First Amendment!" when they find out that the Obama administration got a subpoena to check the phone records of AP journalists in an attempt to find a national security leak.

For what it's worth, I'm not sure that this is the case that the collective media wants to hang their "chilling whistleblowers" hats on. In the case of sensitive counterterrorism (and especially, as in this case, a turned operative), I think maybe it's a good thing that whoever had those loose lips feels chilled from leaking information to the media. This isn't a case where a crusading whistleblower exposes malfeasance. This could have potentially hurt future counterterrorism targets. However, because ultimately, this is about them feeling violated, they ignore the legal subpoena and groundwork they didn't report on when it was established and just clutch their pearls.

In any event, it's time to dispel the laughable notion that any of us has any privacy any more any way. From grocery store buyers cards to Facebook, Americans have essentially waived their privacy away. The amount of information available on any and all of us is astounding, and much of it is freely given away by us. I've logged into my Facebook account only to find friends "checking in" from gyms, restaurants and even holidays (nice to let the world know you're not at home for potential burglers). Amazon crafts special deals based on my browsing history. Tweet about Wegman's Deli and watch Whole Foods send you a tweet about their superior deli department, as happened to a friend of mine.

And yes, the government is listening as well. The Patriot Act has been strengthened, not weakened in the intervening years. To the best of my knowledge, Room 614A in the SBC Building in San Francisco is still operational.

Privacy in the Google age is a myth. The sooner the media catches up to the reality that affects all of us, the sooner we can start discussing the real issues surrounding our privacy and rights.

Happy Saturday night, folks! It's Blue Gal from The Professional Left Podcast, bringing you this week's podcast round up. Be aware that these podcasts are also available on i-Tunes, and may not be safe for work.

CNN / The Big Three (new podcast): Interview with Rep. Keith Ellison

The LEFT Show: The GOP only serves you if you have your papers, your incorporation papers, that is.

PBS Idea Channel (video) - Is a DOS Attack a Weapon?

Open Thread below....

Joy Reid at The Grio:

In a letter to members of Congress, which was obtained by NBC News, Heritage Action for America, the lobbying arm of the Heritage Foundation (which recently found itself in hot water over the racial IQ theories of the co-author of their widely panned immigration reform study, Jason Richwine, who resigned from the think tank last Friday), urged Republicans on Capitol Hill not to govern, and instead, to focus on the would-be “scandals” plaguing the Obama administration.

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Ordinarily I wouldn't give this kind of a story attention, but the radio host who said that disgusting thing has somehow gotten enough traction in radio-land to attract the likes of Larry Pratt and Ted Nugent. Plus, I've had my own personal encounter with him.

Back in 2008 I did a daily online radio show called NewsGang Live with some techies, some political types, and others. At the time, there was no BlogTalkRadio but Steve and Tina Gillmor managed to figure out how to do it with uStream and a call-in conference number . Peter Santilli would call into the show often, presenting himself as an independent voter who wasn't sure how he would vote in 2008. He was disruptive and annoying but he wasn't crazy and he wasn't especially much of an independent either, but more of a straight-up conservative and conspiracy nut.

Now he's a crazy conservative. Via Right Wing Watch:

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Amazon Video recently released 14 series pilots, and asked the internet to vote. The big winner? "Alpha House," a very funny series by Garry "Doonesbury" Trudeau about four wingnut senators sharing the same house. (I'm hoping "Onion News Empire," an Airplane-esque takeoff, also makes the cut.)

Let's just say that I think you may recognize a couple of the senators.

So what story lines would you like to see them use?

As if it weren't already clear that the so-called "IRS scandal" is nothing of the sort, now it's becoming even clearer that it's a just another bit of that down-the-rabbit-hole-up-is-downism in which conservatives have come to specialize in recent years.

The Institute for Research and Education in Human Rights -- which, among other things, monitors the far-right extremists who have been filling the ranks of the Tea Party -- has an excellent takedown of the IRS nonsense:

The Tea Party and the IRS “Scandal”:
The Actual Facts of the Case

While it is well-known that the so-called IRS scandal has been used by Tea Partiers to bash the IRS, less well known are the actual facts of the case.

Some of the flagged groups did have their tax-exempt status delayed or did face some additional scrutiny, but not a single group has been denied tax-exempt status.

A May 14 draft report by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration found that none of the 296 questionable applicants had been denied, “For the 296 potential political cases we reviewed, as of December 17, 2012, 108 applications had been approved, 28 were withdrawn by the applicant, none had been denied, and 160 cases were open from 206 to 1,138 calendar days (some crossing two election cycles).” (p. 14)

In fact, the only known 501(c)(4) applicant to recently have its status denied happens to be a progressive group: the Maine chapter of Emerge America, which trains Democratic women to run for office. Although the group did no electoral work, and didn’t participate in independent expenditure campaign activity either, its partisan nature disqualified it from being categorized as working for the “common good.”

The Inspector General’s report found that in the “majority of cases, we agreed that the applications submitted included indications of significant political campaign intervention.” (p. 10). In fact, only 91 of the 296, roughly 31%, of the applications reviewed for the report did not have “indications of significant political campaign intervention.” In other words, more than two thirds of those flagged for processing by a team of specialists had those indications.

That sort of political campaign intervention would normally disqualify a group from 501(c)(4) status, but the deluge of Tea Party applications combined with the politicization of the process has allowed them to slip through. A closer look by IREHR at the activities of some of the Tea Party groups that are currently under review or have received non-profit status from the IRS, reveals a difficult and dangerous situation.

Be sure to read the whole thing.

As the report concludes:

Rather than the so-called scandal cooked up by Tea Party groups, the real criticism of the IRS may be that it has let so many of these groups get away with what are apparently egregious violations.

That's what all the yelling's about. It's to keep people from seeing the plain truth: Many of these people really are tax cheats trying to game the system for partisan advantage.

Of course. After all, it's not as if anyone is going to stop them! They crashed the world economy and got nothing more than a couple of taps on the wrist, so why wouldn't they do this?

California Attorney General Kamala Harris, who filed suit against JPMorgan Chase last Thursday, says that from January 2008 to April 2011 -- just as people were reeling from the Wall Street-driven financial crisis -- the megabank unleashed over 100,000 lawsuits against consumers over uncollected credit-card debt in the state of California alone. That includes 469 lawsuits in a single day.

Now, it usually takes time and money to pursue lawsuits through the court system. So how in the world did Chase keep up this breakneck pace? The lawsuit claims that the bank took a number of little shortcuts, like robo-signing, in which bank employees produce sworn documents and other legal filings without bothering to check bank records or examine cases for accuracy.

Another nasty trick Chase is accused of deploying is what’s known, appropriately, as “sewer service.” This means that Chase failed to properly serve notice of debt collection lawsuits against consumers (it dumped the notices “in the sewer”), but then lied and said it did. This means, you, as a consumer, have no idea that a lawsuit has been launched against you.

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Good for them! So far, $75,000 in pledges have been made:

Want to buy the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun and six other daily newspapers? No, I don’t mean at the newsstand.
The Other 98%, a nonprofit organization, has setup a crowdfunding campaign to buy Tribune Co.’s newspaper business. The initiative is meant to prevent the Koch brothers, Rupert Murdoch or some other billionaire from buying it.

The campaign is looking to raise $660 million in the next 31 days so it can outbid the Kochs – the high-powered, libertarian brothers known for hosting $50,000-a-plate fundraising events for Republican candidates, according to the pitch on Indiegogo, a crowdfunding site. The group promoting the campaign was founded in 2010 with the mission “to kick corporate lobbyists out of DC,” according to its website.

In the case of the stop-the-Kochs campaign, the group doesn’t want “press freedom to be subject to the benevolence or non-benevolence of a billionaire,” according to Nicole Carty, one of the organization’s activists. “The press belongs to the people,” she said.

The newspapers were valued at $623 million last year, according to bankruptcy filings, making crowdfunding target of $660 million a competitive bid.

All Things Democrat - who could have predicted that the GOP would fabricate emails?

Echidne of the Snakes - look! Michael Kinsley said something stupid on the internet!

Prairie Weather - House Republicans: they just can''t help themselves;

Right Wing Watch - look! Alan Keyes said something stupid on the internet!

The Mahablog - GOP flogs dead horse, tilts at windmills, same old.

blogenfreude blogs at stinque.com, tweets @blogenfreude, and loves this guy.

Send tips to MBRU [at] crooksandliars [DOT] com.

Per Parenting Magazine, "Show and tell gold, right there."

Joe Biden writes to the young man who suggested guns should shoot chocolate. The letter reads:

Dear Myles,

I am sorry it took so very long for me to respond to your letter. I really like your idea. If we had guns that shot chocolate, not only would our country be safer, it would be happier. People love chocolate.

You are a good boy, Joe Biden