Furries do it Gangnam Style! No, not the video in question, it's just entertaining.

Too bad no one's leaked the video (yet), but I suppose you would want to hang onto it for the lawsuits those interns will probably bring. And they think liberals are the strange ones, huh? What brilliant young staffer came up with the bright idea of showing this to Christian conservatives?

I have to say, this sounds like it was planted by Dick Armey to blow things up now that he got his payday. But still entertaining, nonetheless! Via Raw Story:

The controversial conservative super PAC FreedomWorks created a promotional video that depicted former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton having oral sex with a woman in a giant panda suit, according to a report published on Thursday.

Former FreedomWorks officials told Mother Jones‘ David Corn that an internal investigation was focusing on the group’s president, Matt Kibbe, and a possible area of inquiry was the video in question.

“The video included a scene in which a female intern wearing a panda suit simulates performing oral sex on Hillary Clinton,” Corn reported, noting that the film had been created to play on large screens the FreePAC conference in July 2012.

Sources told Corn that the premise of the video was a dream sequence, where Executive Vice President Adam Brandon voyeuristically observes “a giant panda on its knees with its head in the lap of a seated Hillary Clinton and apparently fellating the then-secretary of state.”

Oopsy! Slip of the tongue, so to speak. There are so many wingnuts in the closet, I guess they forgot that you don't "fellate" women.

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The report confirms what we've said here all along: FreedomWorks is less grass roots and more astroturf than anything else, with the majority of its funding coming from corporate donors, foundations, and big money types. You may recall that Richard Stephenson of Cancer Centers of America is the sugar daddy who bought Dick Armey's $8 million retirement. There's more.

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By now, you've probably already heard of Jose Antonio Vargas, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who came out as undocumented in the New York Times Magazine. Memeorandum and Mediagazer, sites which aggregate political and media news, are exploding with his story. Matthew Yglesias even dropped his academic pretensions for a bit to shed a tear or two for Vargas. I say that with love.

If you're as moved as Mathew Yglesias has been moved, and there's only one thing you do in reaction to Vargas' story call Barack Obama through Presente.org and ask him to stop deporting people like Vargas.

Media Matters has a good round-up of the nativist conservatives that are committing demographic suicide by going berserk over this story. I'll write more on the nativists, later, but Vargas' story has highlighted, yet again, for me, how far progressives and the mainstream media have to go before they can begin to cover these stories accurately and with a semblance of humanity. Let's start with Heather Horn staff writer at The Atlantic:

Whatever you think of the illegal immigration issue, it's hard to dispute that there's a fundamental injustice occurring if Vargas gets let off the hook, while hundreds of thousands of other illegals get deported. Even those who want to see productive illegal immigrants granted amnesty might admit that making exceptions purely based on prominence isn't right. What if there's someone as intelligent and productive as Vargas--but not as famous--out there right now?

Heather Horn - The Atlantic (22 June 2011)

Wow. I don't even know where to start. While I somehow doubt Horn's concern for the "hundreds of thousands" that are being deported I've already told people who are concerned to call Barack Obama and ask that his administration use discretion to stop deporting people like Vargas. Recognizing that, I'll start simple with Horn's use of the term "illegal". More people have referred to Vargas as an "illegal immigrant" at this point than I care to count. Not only is that phrase dehumanizing, it's legally innaccurate. No human being is illegal. The word illegal should be used to describe acts, not to define people. Horn, however, goes a step further than dehumanization and legal innaccuracy and gets into butchering grammar with her use of the word "illegals." Sorry Ms. Horn, the word "illegal" is not a noun. Maybe you and the nativists who dehumanize people with the term "illegals" should start taking English lessons from undocumented people like Vargas. If you haven't signed the pledge to Drop The I-Word, please do so.

To Horn's central point about fairness, I'll bring in Nick Baumann at Mother Jones:

I'm sympathetic to Matt Yglesias' view that we should empathize with all people who come to the United States in search of a better life, even if, unlike Vargas, they do so knowing that what they're doing is illegal. But I've also worked with foreign-born journalists who've paid thousands or tens of thousands of dollars and waded through miles of red tape and seemingly senseless regulations—including, sometimes, returning to their home countries for a period—in order to work in this country.* (This applies outside of journalism, too, of course.) I wonder how they're feeling about Jose Antonio Vargas this morning.

Nick Baumann - Mother Jones (22 June 2011)

It's difficult for me not to descend into sarcasm after reading this. Does Baumann really think that foreign journalists envy Vargas' position, right now, or for the last decade and a half, for that matter? Would Baumann care to get any of those foreign journalists on record so we know who those heartless bastards are? I thought the supposedly liberal Mother Jones magazine really took a step forward when reporter Tim Murphy stopped using the word "illegal," but Baumann just put the magazine another huge step backward in the anti-migrant direction with this post. Finally, I'll refer to Bryan Preston over at Pajamas Media whom I believe most succinctly provides the nativist view:

He took at least two jobs that otherwise would have gone to others who are here legally.

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darrelplant: Bringing a microphone to a gun fight

Joe. My. God: GOP Rep, Duncan Hunter to introduce bill to blockafe DADT repeal certification

TalkLeft: Obama ends high tech border fence

Mother Jones: Bye bye, Silvio

They gave us a republic...: The Nightowl Newswrap

Rumproast: Epic Rap Battles of History

Vagabond Scholar: Jon Swift Memorial Roundup 2010

p m carpenter's commentary: No offense, but...

Lean Left: A Working Man got somewhere in Washington

Economist's View: Fannie, Freddie, and the Pain Caucus

Mother Jones: The Worst of Wall Street

Ramblings: Apple rotten to the core?

Democratic Strategist: The midterms too, shall pass

Michael Tomasky: Taxes and inequality (and Lady Gaga's meat bikini)

Mother Jones: Rick Santorum's anal sex problem

3quarksdaily: The Crimewave That Shames the World

The Donkey Edge: The Theater of the Absurd

Tina Dupuy: Net Neutrality: A critical issue with a lame name

Rep. Bob Inglis (R-SC) speaks aloud what we all know: the tea party is the Republican Party and vice versa. After his primary defeat, he gave an interview to Mother Jones' David Corn where he spoke some plain truths. While there may be nothing in that interview we didn't really know on some level, it's pretty remarkable to have Inglis be the voice of reason.

By all measures, Inglis is a conservative's conservative. He was one of the most vocal and persistent voices in Bill Clinton's impeachment, and can be relied upon to vote against anything that supports abortion choice, or funding for government programs. A classic fiscal and issue conservative.

Yet, the tea party begs to differ.

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Why does this annoy me so much? According to Mother Jones, there's been a positive breakthrough in Congress' effort to roll back parts of the Citizens United decision and put light on funders of advertising and direct mail campaigns by outside groups.

House Democrats today reached a deal with the National Rifle Association that would roll back parts of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, the widely disdained legal precedent that opened the floodgates to corporate-funded political ads. The Dems' deal would require groups like the US Chamber of Commerce to disclose the top funders of their political ads, but would create loopholes for the NRA and other membership groups.

According to Politico, the deal would exempt any organization with over one million members in existence for more than ten years with members in all 50 states. They'd also have to raise less than 15% of their funds from corporate sources.

Assuming these requirements were met, they would not have to disclose the funding source behind the ad.

I realize that unions fall into the definition, but the NRA has not exactly been a shrinking violet when it comes to astroturfed campaign efforts. Giving them a pass bothers me almost as much as giving the US Chamber of Commerce a pass.

I can also imagine about sixty different ways for the US Chamber to walk around these exemptions. They're already putting a full-court press on small businesses to become part of the organization. Most small businesses are not incorporated. While I'm certain it will take awhile for that 15% funding requirement to be met, I'm not at all certain the US Chamber wouldn't find a way to meet it.

There is a little voice in my head which gets louder with every passing day. It screams this: There really isn't much excuse for any entity who is so passionate about political issues and candidates that they're willing to spend millions to elect/defeat them to actually STAND UP AND SAY SO.

I simply do not see how this story ends without criminal charges -- and for more than the guys at the bottom, who were reacting to the pressure from above. I'd like to point out the superb work done by Mother Jones on this story, and urge you to go throw them a few bucks for their investigative fund if you can spare it:

A prominent Houston attorney with a long record of winning settlements from oil companies says he has new evidence suggesting that the Deepwater Horizon's top managers knew of problems with the rig before it exploded last month, causing the worst oil spill in US history. Tony Buzbee, a lawyer representing 15 rig workers and dozens of shrimpers, seafood restaurants, and dock workers, says he has obtained a three-page signed statement from a crew member on the boat that rescued the burning rig's workers. The sailor, who Buzbee refuses to name for fear of costing him his job, was on the ship's bridge when Deepwater Horizon installation manager Jimmy Harrell, a top employee of rig owner Transocean, was speaking with someone in Houston via satellite phone. Buzbee told Mother Jones that, according to this witness account, Harrell was screaming, "Are you f*cking happy? Are you f*cking happy? The rig's on fire! I told you this was gonna happen."

Whoever was on the other end of the line was apparently trying to calm Harrell down. "I am f*cking calm," he went on, according to Buzbee. "You realize the rig is burning?"

At that point, the boat's captain asked Harrell to leave the bridge. It wasn't clear whether Harrell had been talking to Transocean, BP, or someone else.

On Friday a spokesman for Transocean said he couldn't confirm or deny whether the conversation took place. He was unable to make Harrell available for an interview.

During hearings held late last month by the Coast Guard and the Minerals Management Service, Harrell denied any conflicts with his BP or Transocean bosses. He said that he did not feel pressured to rush the completion of the well, even though the rig had fallen behind schedule.

Yet Buzbee's claims add weight to other statements that contradict Harrell's version of events. Testifying before the Coast Guard and MMS panel last month, Douglas Brown, the chief mechanic on the Deepwater Horizon, said that on the morning of the day that the rig exploded Harrell had a "skirmish" over drilling procedures during a meeting with BP's "company man," well site leader Robert Kaluza. "I remember the company man saying this is how it's going to be," Brown told the panel. As Harrell was leaving the meeting, according to Brown, "He pretty much grumbled, 'I guess that's what we have those pincers for,'" referring to the blowout preventer on the sea floor that is supposed to be the last resort to prevent a leak in the event of an emergency. The blowout preventer failed following the explosion on the rig, causing the massive spill. (Transocean's chief electronics technician, Mike Williams, also recalled the argument but named a different BP "company man," BP's top official on the rig, Donald Vidrine).

In a statement to the Wall Street Journal, Transocean appeared to back the claims that Harrell had feuded with BP: "The testimony certainly seems to suggest that [Harrell] disagreed with the operator's instructions, but what those were and why he disagreed are matters that will ultimately be determined during the course of investigations."

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On his show yesterday, Glenn Beck decided to finally confront Anthony Weiner's investigation of his Goldline scam -- in predictable Beck fashion:

Step A: Frame such attacks in a paranoid light -- "They're out to destroy me because I speak the truth to you!"

Step B: Double down on the scam by promoting it directly on the show.

Yet as Rep. Weiner noted:

"It is not surprising that Glenn Beck is attempting to deflect from his behavior in promoting Goldline," Weiner told Yahoo! News in a statement. "But the facts are clear. Goldline rips off consumers and Glenn Beck helps."

In the report (on Weiner's House website as a PDF), Weiner charges that Goldline "grossly overcharges" for coins and makes false claims about gold being a good investment. Goldline touts gold as a more solid investment in this economic climate.

The report says the gold retailer has entered "an unholy alliance with conservative pundits" — among them Beck, Fred Thompson, Dennis Miller, Mark Levin and Laura Ingraham — to "promote Goldline by playing off the fear of inflation."

"What we have found, by looking through the public records, is that very often they use their public programs to advocate purchasing gold, and then immediately, advertisements begin for Goldline," Weiner said in a news conference Tuesday.

As Will Bunch notes, Mother Jones just published a months-long investigation of the practices of Goldline and its gold-industry cohorts, and the results aren't pretty:

The price of gold has increased 133 percent since the beginning of 2006, yet many Goldline customers say they have lost money on their purchases after discovering—as Richardson did—that they had badly overpaid for their gold coins. Richardson is one of 44 people across the country who have filed complaints against Goldline with the Los Angeles BBB in the past three years; customers have also griped about their dealings with the company on message boards such as Ripoff Report and PissedOffConsumer.com. Regulators in Missouri have sanctioned the company for pressuring an elderly couple to liquidate their other investments to buy overpriced coins.

The Federal Trade Commission received 17 separate complaints about Goldline's sales tactics between early 2006 and May 2010, according to information obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. Many of those stories mirror Richardson's.

And of course, our favorite Insane Wingnut plays an important role in all this:

Beck, whose various media enterprises brought in $32 million last year, according to Forbes, has a particular interest in plugging gold. Since 2008, Goldline has been one of his most reliable sponsors, underwriting his comedy tours and investing heavily in his radio show. Last year, after Beck called President Obama a racist, and mainstream advertisers bailed on his cable show, Goldline stuck by him. And its loyalty appears to have paid off. In an email, Goldline's executive vice president Scott Carter says that while its Beck sponsorship doesn't bring in the majority of its customers, it "has improved sales," which exceed $500 million a year.

... The more worked up Beck gets about the economy or encroaching socialism, the more Goldline can employ those fears in pitching their products to his audience. But in putting his seal of approval on Goldline, "the people I've trusted for years and years," Beck has gone beyond simply endorsing an advertiser.

No doubt Mother Jones will be appearing on Beck's chalkboard soon, too.