And so it begins. My bet is still on.

Can the Yanks pull off the upset?

Are British fans really as confident in their team as they say they are? They can get a little out of hand now and then, but drinking warm beer can do that to anyone. The 2010 World Cup is here and I'm psyched. Vegas has England picked as the third favorite to win it all behind Spain and Brazil. The USA is considered a middle of the pack team out of 32. Losing Charlie Davies really hurts, but after coming in second to Brazil in the Confederations Cup after shocking Spain and the extra experience some of their key players have received overseas makes them a little better than they are ranked. I hope so anyway. And how does my Italian brother Giuseppi Rossi feel now after being cut from the Italian team? He was born in New Jersey and would have been a very important player for the US if he had played for us.

Here's my challenge. If England wins, I'll buy their jersey, put it on, take a photo and post it on C&L as soon as I can. (Hopefully within a week) If the US wins, then all you Brits have to do the same, only wearing a US shirt of course and email your mugs to C&L at crooksandliars@gmail.com or sitemonitor1@gmail.com
it's a simple bet, but could be fun. Both teams should get out of their groups to the death match brackets either way.
Are you up for it? I hope there will be a rematch somewhere down the road if the US plays like they did in South Africa once before.

UPDATE: And our heart goes out to Nelson Mandela and his family for the tragic loss of his thirteen year old great-granddaughter. She died in a car crash coming home from a Thursday night kick off concert for the World Cup.

(Photo via Reuters)

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Yesterday on her Fox News show, Megyn Kelly thought it would be revealing in some fashion or another to run footage of protests from angry Latinos in Arizona, and run them side by side with footage from the Tea Party protests in Washington, D.C. in March.

Talk about selective footage: What they showed of the Arizona protests -- which indeed were largely peaceful -- were the moments when the rowdiness got out of hand and people were arrested. And of course, the footage they showed of the Tea Partiers was of moments when their protest was entirely peaceful -- not the ugliness that erupted when Democrats tried to walk through the crowd.

But it left me wondering: Why didn't Kelly and Co. do the same thing back in March when there were in fact immigration marchers in D.C. at the same time as the Tea Party protests on health-care reform?

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As I noted then:

Indeed, this crowd was significantly larger than the much-promoted "9/12 March on Washington" last September, even though that event was endlessly promoted for over a month by Fox News (I know, I know; they like to claim they had 1.2 million people there, but the reality was that it was actually about 70,000).

Yet, strangely enough, there was only ONE Fox News crew on hand to cover the immigration march today. I spoke with the reporter for this crew, and he told me Fox News had several other crews on hand today -- but they were all up covering the Tea Partiers and the health-care vote.

And in case you're wondering, there were exactly ZERO stories on Fox News reporting on this march in advance. ZERO. I couldn't find any at CNN or MSNBC either.

There was exactly ONE report on Fox News covering this rally -- because Fox was so busy covering the Tea Party protesters.

On its website, Fox carried only an AP report (now scrubbed) and a slide show. That was it.

The final estimate for this crowd was 200,000 people -- which dwarfed the Tea Party protests. And it was considerably more peaceful and civilized than the ugliness up at the Capitol.

Wonder why they didn't do a comparison/contrast back then, don't you?

Remember when Andrew Breitbart swore no racist slurs were hurled at the Congressional Black Caucus the day of the health care vote? He sneered at the possibility that any teabagger had behaved in a racist or inappropriate fashion just before he promised to donate $100,000 to the United Negro College Fund if he was proven wrong.

Seems to me the video up above is pretty clear and convincing evidence of spitting, racism and hate, and it seems Breitbart thinks so, too. Now that he can't deny it happened, he's choosing to blame John Lewis et al for walking through the group of angry teabaggers.

In truly despicable fashion, Breitbart let Hannity's audience know how outraged he was at the unfairness of it all:

BREITBART: The very act of the Black Congressional Caucus, walking through the tea party people while holding all those videos was an act of provocation. They need this desperately and one last thing. The language that Nancy Pelosi is using about the civil rights movement, comparing the unpopular health care bill to the civil rights movement ties into this… They’re all on the talking points, basically telling black people that the white people are trying to take your health care from you. This is a racial, racist, racially divisive strategy that they’re playing that’s very dangerous in the United States.

The noise machine is cranked up to full volume and steaming right ahead. In classic blame-the-victim style, Breitbart suggests that John Lewis and Emanuel Cleaver should have walked around the murmuring mob of nasty white folks rather than through them, because obviously the mere presence of black Congressmen was so inflammatory as to throw all caution (and spit) to the wind.

Never mind that they were walking up stairs to the building where they work as representatives elected by the majority of voters in their districts. That doesn't matter to Andrew Breitbart, because he just cannot stand the unbearable weight of intellectual honesty.

His remarks prove how deeply racist he, and the movement he champions, truly are.

TBogg: The beatings will continue until morale improves

skippy the bush kangaroo: How Goldman Sachs bet on America failing

The Bobblespeak Translations: Face the Nation with Joe Lieberman

field negro: Pastor, please don't shoot, you might hit the usher

ANNALS OF JOURNALISM: California AG Brown illegally taped reporters...Not a news organization...Jon Stewart breaks it down...Inside Iraq...Media failure compounds the financial failure...NPR gets it wrong...Sometimes, opinion kills...Moonie Times reaches out to Tea Partiers...Shielding reporters and bloggers...Short on facts...Phony AP fact check...Fred Hiatt's strange argument...Early Glenn Beck footage located...Budding journos

Bobby Jindal Touts Louisiana's Economic Successes While Refusing to Credit Stimulus Package

I bet you won't hear about this on the Sunday Talk Shows even if you disagree with the way the president handled the stimulus.

From the WSJ: U.S. Economy Gets Lift From Stimulus

The U.S. economy is beginning to show signs of improvement, with many economists asserting the worst is past and data pointing to stronger-than-expected growth. On Tuesday, data showed manufacturing grew in August for the first time in more than a year. "There's a method to the madness. We're getting out of this," said Brian Bethune, chief U.S. financial economist at IHS Global Insight.

Much of the stimulus spending is just beginning to trickle through the economy, with spending expected to peak sometime later this year or in early 2010. The government has funneled about $60 billion of the $288 billion in promised tax cuts to U.S. households, while about $84 billion of the $499 billion in spending has been paid. About $200 billion has been promised to certain projects, such as infrastructure and energy projects.

Economists say the money out the door -- combined with the expectation of additional funds flowing soon -- is fueling growth above where it would have been without any government action.

Many forecasters say stimulus spending is adding two to three percentage points to economic growth in the second and third quarters, when measured at an annual rate. The impact in the second quarter, calculated by analyzing how the extra funds flowing into the economy boost consumption, investment and spending, helped slow the rate of decline and will lay the groundwork for positive growth in the third quarter -- something that seemed almost implausible just a few months ago. Some economists say the 1% contraction in the second quarter would have been far worse, possibly as much as 3.2%, if not for the stimulus.

I can tell you now that this news will be buried deep into the tar pit of Bobble heads' lost dreams and missing pens. I challenge the media to cover this. Will they? We'll see. All the idiot conservatives that said the stimulus failed have to eat their words because Rupert, the Overlord of their Universe has put it in his WSJ pages.

John McCain: The Stimulus is a Failure, But Don't Dare Ask Arizona to Give Any of the Money Back

dday says:

The recovery is still jobless thus far, which means it's not a real recovery yet. And the White House made two mistakes - one, they soft-pedaled the recession, claiming that unemployment would not go above 9% or so, leaving them susceptible to the charge that the stimulus isn't working; and two, they put far too much of the stimulus into tax cuts instead of the public investment that would have made it even more successful, particularly on the jobs front.

But without the public investment the stimulus has thus far provided and will continue to provide, we'd be mired in more negative growth and a near-depression.

The Urban Dictionary has just added a new phrase:

Pullin' a Palin

1. Quitting when the going gets tough; abandoning the responsibility entrusted to you by your neighbors for book advances and to make money on the lecture circuit.

2. Bizarre move that will damn ambitions for higher office.

I bet when people saw Jade they were convinced that David Caruso was pullin' a Palin.

Please feel free to use this new term in a sentence in the open thread below...

Sensen No Sen: The health care crisis oligopoly and the real weight of the AMA

The Stranger: A classic example of the Gay Panic Defense

Jack & Jill Politics: New video from @WeekInBlackness - BET doesn't care about black people

D-Day: The Maze of Food Policy

NotionsCapital: American Milestone - 2.75 ton of fudge!

James Wolcott: Sarah Palin taunts John McCain with her runaway caboose