Kelly Kerr, The Tulsa World, October 22, 2007 Oral Roberts came to his namesake university for the first time in three years on Monday and told students and employees in a chapel service "the devil is not going to steal ORU." He said all allegations made in a lawsuit and an attached report are false. And he said Richard Roberts, who took a leave of absence as the school's president last week, eventually will return to his position. Oral Roberts also said he has moved back to Tulsa. The crowd gave him multiple standing ovations during the chapel service. He said the university will begin mediation this week with the three former professors who sued them for allegedly wrongfully terminating them or forcing them to resign. In the meantime, Oral Roberts said he is serving as co-interim president with Victory Christian Center pastor and ORU alumnus Billy Joe Daugherty. Read More Here

Rudy the Smear Merchant: Giuliani swiped at Hillary Clinton by misrepresenting a quote of hers at the GOP debate Oct. 21, and even got the quote wrong:

"Giuliani said he agreed with one thing the former first lady said recently. 'I have a million ideas America. Cannot afford them all,' he quoted her as saying as laughter filled the debate hall. 'I'm not making it up.'" -- From "Republicans clash: Who is most conservative?" AP, Oct. 21, 2007.

What the quote actually referred to was Clinton putting a check on the kind of flagrant deficit spending that has been a hallmark of the Bush Republicans for the last six years:

"[S]he is not formally proposing anything she can't fund without increasing the deficit: 'I have a million ideas. The country can't afford them all.'" -- From "Clinton vows to check executive power," Marcella Bombardieri, Boston Globe, Oct. 11, 2007. "Whether Rudy believes in this kind of politics reflexively, as the psychologically crippled Bush does, or as a means to an end, as Karl Rove does, isn't clear. But there's no question that Giuliani has made the continuation of Swift-Boating politics a linchpin of his candidacy." -- Matt Taibbi, "Giuliani: Worse Than Bush," Rolling Stone, June 2, 2007. "He [Giuliani] then added that he had brought down crime, cleaned up Times Square, cut taxes and eliminated the city's deficits. 'I think that was a pretty darned good conservative record,' he said." -- From "Republicans clash: Who is most conservative?" AP, Oct. 21, 2007.

Gee, you don't think Rudy might distort his record as mayor just to be president, do you? Let's see, crime went down nationwide during Rudy's two terms as mayor, but in some big cities dropped by a greater rate than in New York; Giuliani predecessor David Dinkins started the clean up of Times Square; Rudy cut taxes, but basic city services suffered and New Yorkers were sick of this pompous, overbearing nitwit after eight years. Note to Republicans who want to bring Giuliani down: Why not ask 'America's Mayor' why workers at the Pentagon 9/11 attack site were wearing hazmat suits, while there weren't even enough face masks for workers at the WTC Ground Zero site, even though respiratory masks were mandatory? Oh, and ask him why he's never attended the funeral of even one dead 9/11 Ground Zero worker -- afraid of the booing, Rudy? And how about his indicted good buddy, the former NYC police chief, business partner, and corrupt Mob contact Bernie Kerik? One more thing: Don't forget to pass out plenty of photos of Rudy in drag -- that oughta put the fear of the Lord (& Taylor) in those 'family values' voting Christopublicans, and anyone else with eyes. BTW, the Big Media should really get a grip on anointing Rudy this early in the game -- it's mostly name recognition right now and, as Paul Waldman notes, Joe "Piss On You, I Work For George W. Bush!" Lieberman was the leading Dem presidential candidate at this point in 2003. -- Watch for even more 'eruptions' in the Larry Craig sex scandal -- seems the Hall of Fame flamer was also visiting gay male prostitutes, as well as doing tap dances in restroom stalls. According to Mike Jones, a former male hooker who upset Rev. Ted Haggard's rotten apple cart, Craig was once a customer of his, and he claims to have the documents to prove Lar visited him for a sexual encounter. Perhaps Craig's excuse will be that he was ripped out of his gourd on some meth that he had taken for the first time and didn't realize it was a male prostitute. ("Damn it all, I got that number from Vitter!") -- Tranny Annie a Godless hypocrite? Nooooooo! Any truth to the rumor that a certain dedicated Coulter Watcher has hired a private detective to find out how many times a week the purportedly pious Jesus True Believer and 'Jew Perfecter' attends church? (Cocktails with Matt Drudge and appearances at CPAC don't count.) Any truth to the further rumor that in two months the P.I. has come up with zero trips by Ann Coulter to any church of any denomination anywhere?

Here’s a prediction: If a Democrat wins the White House, the “press” will suddenly re-discover the ability to ask the “tough” questions, with follow-ups. They’ll offer up the mea culpa that they don’t know what’s been wrong with them but they realize, now, that they have an important job to do policing the administration and they’ll promise not to make that mistake again. And they won’t, at least not until a Republican returns to the Oval Office. I base this prediction on my belief that the “press” is, by and large, owned by – and operated for the benefit of – large corporations. It’s no accident today’s mainstream media attacks liberals and sanctifies conservatives. In fact, it’s the plan. After Watergate (the original scandal-name-gate), Republicans realized the most important impediment to their dream of perfect corporate hegemony was the free and independent press. If multi-national corporations were to seize effective control of the American political process, they would have to minimize interference from meddlesome, puny reporters. Enter Ronald Reagan… When I was young, it was common for programming to be interrupted with an announcer intoning, “The following is a rebuttal to a KRUD editorial regarding…” whatever. If a broadcaster presented an editorial opinion, he was required, as a condition of his license to use the common airwaves, to provide equal time for responsible, opposing opinions. That’s all. That’s it…the whole thing. It was called the Fairness Doctrine. “St. Reagan” (reverential fanfare here) eliminated enforcement of the Fairness Doctrine, putting an end to true “fairness” and “balance”. Instead, we were left with a slogan. Then the Telecommunications Act of 1985 began the process of watering down ownership rules for media outlets. The result was more and more corporate control of “news” outlets free from any restriction of being honest or fact-based. It took time, to be sure. Nobody really paid much attention as one media outlet after another was gobbled up in the name of “competition”, even as the consolidation of those outlets eliminated competition. Reporters will say (honestly, I think) that nobody ever told them to write conservative-friendly stories. But over time, they noticed that if they wrote honest news, they couldn’t get a by-line. Never getting printed (or any air time) means not keeping your job. Over time, the “press” became a conservative echo chamber by simple attrition. Control was debugged and fine-tuned during the Clinton administration. Mainstream media manufactured “scandal” after “scandal” about the Clintons. “FBI-gate”, “File-gate”, “Travel-gate”, “Vince Foster-gate”... the list was endless because it was only limited by the fertile imaginations of the “reporters”. Nothing ever came to fruition from any of it, except, of course, “Monica-gate”. The test of the new corporate-controlled “news” came in the late 1990’s with the impeachment of Bill Clinton. At the time, polls – not yet in the corporate fold – showed 75% to 80% of Americans opposed impeachment. But conservatives in Congress insisted they had a “moral obligation” to pursue charges even in the face of constituent disapproval. The key balancing factor was the press. Even though the vast majority of Americans opposed impeachment, the “press” offered up a steady stream of “experts” explaining exactly why Congress had no choice. Suddenly a personal peccadillo became a “high crime and misdemeanor”. Now, even once-respected polling agencies like Gallup have been welcomed into the corporate fold. The largest polling agencies can – and often do – provide polls that show any desired result. They use tricks; samples that are too small, statistically invalid error rates (+/- 5%), or “push-polling” in which questions are asked in such as way as to elicit a certain “desirable” outcome. Against McCain in 2000, Bush-supporting pollsters phoned “likely Republican voters” and asked, “If you knew John McCain had a black baby, would you be more or less likely to vote for him?” John McCain’s very dark-skinned child is a) not “black”, and b) adopted, not illegitimate but the polling question alone did more damage to his campaign than he was able to counter, in part because the media had already anointed George Bush the GOP nominee and then “President” and so did nothing that might allow McCain to counter the false charges. People will readily point out how it’s the largest polling agencies that tell us George the Lesser has a favorable rating of twenty-some percent and if they were crooked, wouldn’t his favorable rating be higher? Perhaps, but I don’t think so. In this country, at least the pretense of honesty must be maintained. If polls show Bush with a high favorable rating, people might figure out the polls are rigged. Since his approval rating is irrelevant, it hurts nothing to tell the truth and it gives the polling agencies “plausible deniability”. That way, when exit polls – once the gold standard of polling - come out exactly the opposite of election results, pollsters can claim errors in the exit polls, not in the election results. The same corporate-owned mainstream media that picked the “nominees” in the first place by selectively reporting which candidate would be great to have a beer with and which candidate is, say, wearing white after Labor Day (oh, the horror), backs the poll results. In the Ukraine (ironically once a Soviet satellite), when exit polls didn’t match the actual election outcome, people took to the streets in outrage, knowing the election had been fixed. In the U.S., we’re treated to a parade of “experts” telling us how exit polls aren’t really all that accurate. The successful attack on the free and independent media has severely crippled our Democracy. People - well intentioned or not - simply cannot make sound decisions based upon faulty information. To me, the only potential solution to our current state of affairs is a return to regulations that limit media outlet ownership and the return of the Fairness Doctrine. We don’t hear much about that from the “hallowed” halls of Congress and even less from the self-same, corporate-owned media. But it’s a constant buzz in the blog-o-sphere. Many people understand that the lack of an independent media is a more critical problem than any other our nation currently faces. Is it more critical that George’s occupation of Iraq? More critical that the lack of health care inflicted upon millions of Americans? Is it more critical than global warming? Yes, yes, and yes, because the shill media provides propaganda and mis-information that allows the “debate” to continue on those other issues. We, the people, cannot be expected even to understand the problems (or the potential solutions) when we’re fed a constant diet of falsehoods. These days I hear media personalities, like Rush, suggest that a return to the Fairness Doctrine is simply an attempt to shut down his show. That’s just another “Limbaugh Lie”, of course. I live in the greater San Francisco bay area where KGO radio has had a successful all-talk format for as long as I’ve been aware. In the days of the Fairness Doctrine, they had Ronn Owens in the morning with the liberal viewpoint (yes, he was a liberal back then) and Jim Eason in the Afternoon with the conservative viewpoint. During the noon news, they would play Paul Harvey News and Commentary (conservative) followed by Jim Hightower (liberal). See? Simple. Provide balance in the programming, the Fairness Doctrine is served as are the listeners, the owners of the common airwaves. So is Democracy…

Well, it appears the Christian "right" doesn't like America's Mayor Rudy Giuliani. No, it's not because he's just another utterly wrong candidate like all the rest. It's because he has the audacity to be pro-choice and support gay rights. So let's help him win the nomination!

Evangelicals are threatening to back a third-party candidate if Rudy wins the nomination. Gee, that'd be really too bad. Some hyper-religious fuck like Brownback or Huckabee would be more to their liking I'm sure.

So I think we should help them really get the candidate they want. I propose we all register as Republicans (yes, hold your nose and go through with it) and then vote for Rudy in the primaries.

Let the backward-ass anti-evolution, anti-science, flat-earthers choose someone else to support and take votes from the GOP.

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BartCop.com Volume 2059 - War Ache. In Today's Tequila Treehouse...

	Bush Spying Abroad
	Dodd Screws Up!!
	Corrupt Hastert Out
	Allies Kill Post Reporter
	GOP retiring in droves
	Stop Apologizing!!!!
	Suicide is not Painless
	The Clinton Surprise
	Kristen Bell on Heroes

First question: Is this any of our business? Since Randi is arguably the best guy on our team, I'd say yes. If she was attacked by a right-wing loon and we said, "This isn't our concern," I think Randi would feel abandoned and betrayed, so in that context, yes. To some degree, all lefty bloggers "have her back," and when she sends a two sentence e-mail to AAR saying "I was mugged," and then Joe Elliott says, "This wasn't your ordinary knock-down, grab-her-purse mugging," what else could we think? But who knows what happened? Last Monday, I got an e-mail asking if I knew anything about it (I didn't) so I put her name in Google and clicked "News" to see what popped up. First thing up was THIS, a column at themoderatevoice.com (never heard of them) and they quoted Air America late night host Joe Elliott (never heard of him, either) who said Randi had been "badly beaten" and she sustained serious mouth injuries. Elliott suggested she was the deliberate victim of a mugging, but nothing was stolen so it seemed more of an assault than a mugging. Add to that the injuries to her mouth and one must wonder if that wasn't to send a message - "shut your mouth." Then it came out that no, it wasn't a street mugging, Randi apparently fell and hurt herself, which certainly doesn't fit the first reports. So I gotta ask, where did Elliott get his erroneous information? Like I said, I never heard of the guy, but it's unlikely that he fabricated this story out of thin air. He MUST have been fed bad information by someone - so I wonder who that someone was? Is Elliott being chivalrous in keeping quiet? Why would Elliott take the fall after being fed bad information? Is there a cover-up here? In case you don't know, I love and respect Randi, so this isn't a vendetta by any means, but our side took some hits for being fly-off-the-handle hysterical and too-eager to blame the oh-so-innocent Republicans, so we all have a small stake in this story and how it got turned upside down. In the first hours after the story broke, I read a few reports that mentioned the "incredible firestorm" that went burning thru cyberspace, but I didn't see any of that. I looked and looked for more information, but all I could find was re-hashes of the original reports and some super-mean-spirited comments by the right. I had to wonder - what if this had been the vulgar Pigboy? If the news hit that Rush was beat up by some left-wing thugs who broke his teeth so he couldn't speak for awhile, trust me, all the networks would've lead their newscasts with that story, but when did the left ever get equal coverage in the whore media? So Thursday, Rrandi was back on the air with what I'd call a "wild" recap of events. Had she said what she said on a witness stand, both lawyers would've interrupted to get clarification because she was (let's blame the pain pills) not making a lot of sense. Hear Randi's 7-minute statement that ends with "So I'm done with this," meaning she doesn't want to talk about it again, which sounds odd to me. As I said, I love and respect Randi, but we're not getting the real story - and maybe that's OK. Remember when Uber-Christian Michael Delgiorno talked about his casino arrest and closed with, "And that's the last time I'll ever mention this," ? That's what you say when you did something wrong or embarassing and you want to drop the subject. Is that our only option here? If she had what they called "a bad moment" in The Omen, and there's nothing else to the story, then maybe we don't need to know any more. But how do you go from "I was smoking a cigarette" to "I woke up face down with a metal grating in my face?" I gotta tell you - Ol' Bart has been extra drunk a few times in my life, but I never lost track of any time. There's never been a time when I had to ask other people what happened to me when I was drunk in public - so what happened? Again, I'm not out to "get" Randi, who has my love and respect, but all lefty bloggers became involved in this story the second the erroneous news went out that Randi was mugged suspiciously - so what happened? Do we deserve any more information? I'd like to read your comments.

 Evangeline Lily would be eligible, because Lost will be here in January,  but Jamie Lynn Sigler would not be, because The Sopranos is in the past.  Kelly Ripa would be eligible, because she's on TV every weekday,  but Alyssa Milano would not be, because she's just a guest star on Earl.  Who will you nominate?     You must be registered to reply - register at right under "Meta." 

  Paul Krugman, The New York Times, October 22, 2007 Mr. Greenspan was wrong in 2004, when he sang the praises of adjustable-rate mortgages. He was wrong in 2005, when he dismissed the idea that there was a national housing bubble, suggesting that at most there was some “froth” in the market. He was wrong last fall, when he suggested that the worst of the housing slump was behind us. (Housing starts have fallen 30 percent since then.) But his latest pronouncement — that the market rescue plan being pushed by Henry Paulson, the Treasury secretary, is likely to make things worse rather than better — looks all too accurate. To understand why, we need to talk about the nature of the mess. First of all, as I could have told you — actually, I did — there was indeed a huge national housing bubble. What even those of us who realized that there was a bubble didn’t appreciate, however, was how much of a threat the bursting of that bubble would pose to financial markets. Read More Here

-- A serious record drought has hit the Southeastern and Western United States, right in the Red State breadbasket. That's a shame, but it got me to wondering why ditzoid holy roller Pat Robertson isn't calling this a judgment from God for those areas voting Republican? - Huckabee Horse-pucky: David "Dum-Dum" Brooks, writing in the NY Times yesterday, offers up this pile of piffle in his adoring take on Mike Huckabee: "He tells audiences that [he was so poor] the only soap his family could afford was the rough Lava soap, and that he was in college before he realized showering didn't have to hurt. 'There are people paying $150 for an exfoliation,' he jokes. 'I could just hand them a bar of Lava soap.'" This is some homespun BS by Huckabee -- back in the day, I used to buy Lava soap and you could find much cheaper brands at the store -- Palmolive was less expensive, for example. For that matter, real poor people even made their own soap, cheaper yet. Why do politicians lie about this kind of stuff? And why don't infatuated maroons like Brooks check on it? The shower probably hurt because any politician is in pain when they have to come clean. -- Laughable: How many attendees of today's Values Voters Convention of the Damned do you think were shoppers just out looking for a good deal on tube socks? "What the hell's Rudy Giuliani doin' here makin' a speech, Madge?" "Oh, forget him and help me find the Halloween candy aisle." -- Speaking of 'values voters': Kansas Sen. Sam 'Lizard of Oz' Brownback has thankfully Deep Sixed his silly campaign for president that couldn't find enough 'family values' bats in the far right reaches of the fundy GOP belfry to keep it afloat. Likewise, I think Tom Tancredo will be 'spending more time with the fam'bly' right after Iowa, along with Duncan "Cover" Hunter. Tancredo's single issue -- "Kill the f*%kin' illegal aliens" -- didn't work to stir up enough of the mouth-breathers, and Hunter reading his resume to voters somehow failed to ignite a wildfire of excitement for his candidacy. Fred Thompson will sl-ow-ly quit, I think, right after his sorry ass stinks up fourth place in New Hampshire, leaving the field to Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Ron Paul and a barely-breathing John McCain. Giuliani and Romney have enough cash to stay in the game even if they don't hit in the top three in Iowa or NH; Huckabee and Paul will do much better than expected in both states and McCain -- McCain will limp into South Carolina but, if he doesn't finish in the money there, he's gone, and I don't think he'll finish in the top three. My dartboard says the big winners in the Plantation state will be Romney, Huckabee and Paul, in that order. By then, even slow Republicans will have figured out liberal New Yawker Giuliani, sliding by so far on name recognition, is not for them and Romney has a ton o' bucks, lies with ease, and will spend freely to nail the top slot; Huckabee, a Baptist preacher, is acceptable what's left of the Christian Coalition types and, rather than jump ship to some store-front third party, the Christopublican leadership will instead decide to turn out the faithful for a Southern boy who hates abortions, loves Gee-zus, and doesn't truck with Romney's hell-bound LDS crowd, and they'll still maintain some influence in the GOP at the same time. Paul will be the candidate for all of the classic conservatives disgusted with the nimnulls who voted for the top two, and don't be surprised if Paul gets a good portion of the all-important SC military vote. (Sidebar to Dan Bartlett, former Bush WH aide: He recently called Huckabee's last name redolent of the 'hick' -- shows how long Danny boy's been inside the beltway -- who does he think the average GOP primary voter is? Sure, there are a handful of wealthy plutocrats, DAR flaghags, and genteel sons and daughters of the Old South lined up for their tax cuts and to keep 'the Colored' at bay, but the largest bloc of Republican primary voters are slit-eyed-mean white trash hicks and starry-eyed Jesus-uber-alles yokels.)

Since Stephen Colbert announced his candidacy for the Presidency on his show a few evenings ago, fans everywhere have been rejoicing. As of 6:45 pm on Oct. 20, the Facebook group "1,000,000 Strong for Stephen T. Colbert had 300,068 members. Even more impressive, my unscientific observation yesterday afternoon (involving sitting in front of the computer and hitting F5 to refresh the page about once a second) showed that there were between five and ten people joining the group per second. Maybe Colbert is the answer for the Democratic Party, if he can be convinced to run only as a Democrat instead of for both parties as he is attempting to do. His young fan base will bring the 18-24 year olds out to the polls, and the fact that he is not a Clinton may placate some of the older members of the party. Whether he's joking or not, Colbert has connected with American voters.