Was that Puffy Killed Tupac Story Written By James Frey?

Turns out the whole thing was a gigantic hoax:

"The Los Angeles Times has acknowledged that it unwittingly relied on fabricated FBI documents, created by a con man, for a report that implicated associates of rap mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs in the 1994 shooting of rapper Tupac Shakur.


"The story's author, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Chuck Philips, said in a statement late yesterday: "In relying on documents that I now believe were fake, I failed to do my job. I'm sorry." Deputy Managing Editor Marc Duvoisin also apologized, saying in a separate statement: "We should not have let ourselves be fooled. That we were is as much my fault as Chuck's. I deeply regret that we let our readers down."


Same here.

Hat Tip: McArdle

Breaking News (For Idiots)

Here's a gem from Msnbc.com under their breaking news category:

"WASHINGTON - Sales of new homes fell in February for the fourth straight month, pushing activity down to a 13-year low as the steep slump in housing continued."

Really? You don't say?

Slow news day I guess.

Surge Update

Goodbye cease-fire. There's bad news and then there's this:

"BAGHDAD - At least 55 people have died in two days of fighting between Shiite
militias and U.S.-Iraqi forces in Baghdad and the southern oil hub of Basra,
officials said Wednesday. Some 300 people were reported wounded in the
clashes, which present the gravest challenge to the Iraqi government in months."

Here's a bit that I don't think the Daily Show could have written up any better:

"Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has taken charge of the effort to rid Basra of
militias, including some which have ties to nearby Iran. Al-Maliki, who is in
Basra to oversee the military operation, said fighters would be spared if they
surrendered within 72 hours."

Right, that'll work. That's sorta like Hillary offering Obama the VP slot when he's ahead...and crazy.

A Crypt Sheet for Team Hillary

Hillary says Rev. Wright is Imus, and now Hillary finance committee member, Niall O'Dowd, says he's David Duke. You know, beyond the fact that Hil's team is kicking a dead dog around, I'm really offended that they're just making bad comparisons. A fiery minister and Howard Stern's arch-enemy? A pastor and a Klansman? I mean gee, trying hard to smear someone team Clinton?

To help them out I decided to put together a little crypt sheet denoting some of the people you can compare Wright to and some you can't.

You can compare Wright to:

Malcolm X (Pre-visit to Mecca)

Huey Newton

John Brown

Sandford (but not the Son dummy)

Chuck D

Ice Cube

Spartacus

Cyrus (From the Warriors--can you dig it?)

Geronimo

Pat Buchannan

You cannot compare him with:

Gandhi

Abe Lincoln

Flava Flav

Ice-T

Cliff Huxtable

A Klansman

A neo-nazi (or Hitler for that matter)

Mum-Ra

Gargamel

He-who-shall-not-be-named

and finally George W. Bush

Review of Obama's Tax Returns

Um, I'm not going over it, that's why I have Ambinder. His report:

"So far, the only points of interest are the income the family received from Treehouse, the Wal-Mart supplier on whose board Michelle Obama sat, and. in 2005, the capital gains reporting from their investements in Skyterra and Avi Biopharma. See here for background. Oh, by the way: Obama did not regularly tithe to Trinity United Church of Christ."

Proof Obama is a bad Christian. How long before Clinton brings that up? Oh wait, that would mean that he is a Christian...

Amping it Up

Hillary injects more Wright into the race:

"He would not have been my pastor," Clinton said. "You don't choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend."...

"The Clinton campaign has refrained from getting involved in the controversy, but Clinton herself, responding to a question, denounced what she said was "hate speech."

"You know, I spoke out against Don Imus (who was fired from his radio and television shows after making racially insensitive remarks), saying that hate speech was unacceptable in any setting, and I believe that," Clinton said. "I just think you have to speak out against that. You certainly have to do that, if not explicitly, then implicitly by getting up and moving."

I guess now you'd have to ask, did she know about Wright before or after he was invited to the White House.

She's really starting to make me sick.

More on House Suit

Democrats actually doing their jobs:

"We knew that the House's lawsuit against White House officials would take awhile. And it turns out that it'll be June, at the earliest, before a judge makes his first decision in the House's suit against Harriet Miers and White House chief of staff Josh Bolten.

"That relatively rapid pace (for the courts, at least) is the result of the House pushing for quicker resolution of some of the White House's more expansive claims of executive privilege. The court will decide first whether administration lawyers are right when they say that Miers didn't even need to show up in response to the House Judiciary Committee's subpoena and that both Bolten and Miers didn't even need to indicate what sort of documents the White House were claiming privilege for. Thornier issues (e.g. whether certain conversations that do not involve the president are covered by executive privilege, etc.) would be dealt with later. The House has sought this speedier resolution with the hope that it would mean they'd actually get to hear from Miers and see some documents from Bolten before the close of the Bush
administration.

"Last Friday, the judge set a schedule for both sides to submit motions and
set a hearing for June 23rd when the House's general counsel and Justice
Department lawyers will argue before the judge. But whichever way the judge
eventually rules, the decision would likely be appealed all the way up to the
Supreme Court, meaning that regardless of the House's desire for a speedy
resolution, the case is bound to spend a long time in the courts before
Congressional investigators see any of its fruits."

Hat Tip: TPM

Well At Least We Didn't Send Them to North Korea

Pentagon 'accidentally' sends fuses for ICBMs to Taiwan.

Yeah, I Know I'm Cold-Blooded

But this strikes me as a waste of money.

Except for Gib, his dogs are cool.

My Weekly Round Up

My weekly election round up is now posted up over at Allhiphop.com.

Quote of the Day

Yeah, usually I would put this stuff over at Of The Day (and in fact it's posted there as well) but I though Klein's point was so important that it's worth being posted on my 'serious' platform:

"The desire for permanent bases in Iraq dishonors the American dead, and ensures
that many more will die. This is the real horror of John McCain's hyperbolic
statements about another 100 or 10,000 years in Iraq: he thinks the occupation
of Iraq can be like the U.S. occupations of Korea, Japan or Germany--all three
ethnically homogenous, non-Islamic countries. He should both read a little
history. So should Kagan. But then, if they'd been familiar with the history of
Mesopotamia, we probably wouldn't have invaded in the first place."

Listen up Obama--this is almost exactly the argument you'll have to make come fall.

Must Read

Michael Scherer on the evolution of the News.

HEY HILLARY!!!! COME OUT AND PLAAAAYYYYY!!!!

Obama challenges Hillary to a Tax Return showdown. Here's Obama's, but...where's Hil's?

From Obama's Team this morning:

"Obama Posts Tax Returns on the Internet, Calls on Clinton to Follow Suit
Immediately
Clintons’ investment in Cayman Islands firm shows need for full
and prompt disclosure
CHICAGO, IL—Senator Barack Obama today posted his tax
returns from 2000-2006 on his campaign website, demonstrating his continued
commitment to transparency in government and changing business as usual in
Washington. The returns are complete, including all schedules, and are now
available to anyone to view. The Obama campaign urged Senator Clinton to join
Senator Obama in making her returns public."

Oh snap!

PS: Now that Obama's pretty much got this in the bag, don't hold your breath waiting for Hil's returns. And one that note I wonder--maybe she didn't release them earlier when she thought she had the nomination in the bag, and when she started to lose it then she figured, "why should I?" If that's the case she probably never intended to let them out. Ah well, I'm sure they're not important...NOT!

Yet Another Reason Why McCain Shouldn't Be President

Because he takes advice from Bin Laden:

"As you know, I was in Iraq, Jordan, Israel, France and England on my last
visit. And a couple of days ago, as you probably know, an audiotape -- actually
it was last week -- an audiotape was released where bin Laden said, and I have
to quote bin Laden, ... 'the nearest field to support our people in Palestine is
the Iraqi field.' He urged Palestinians and people of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and
Saudi Arabia to quote 'help in support of their mujahedeen brothers in Iraq,
which is the greatest opportunity and the biggest task.' Now my friends, for the
first time I have seen Osama bin Laden and General Petraeus in agreement, and
that is, the central battleground in the battle against al Qaeda is in Iraq
today. And that's what bin Laden is saying and that's what General Petraeus is
saying and that's what I'm saying, my friends, and my Democrat opponents who
want to pull out of Iraq refuse to understand what's being said and what's
happening, and that is, the central battleground is Iraq in this struggle
against radical Islamic extremism."

Ok, that's above snark and heading into dicky territory, but the fact remains that McCain is pushing an agenda that Bin Laden advocates. I'm not sure if he thinks Laden is doing some reverse psychology thing, "well he wants me to go here, so he probably doesn't want me to go here, so I guess I'll go there" but if that's it McCain's not showing that card. Anyway, I think that kind of nuance is beyond McCain. Instead I think he's rattling his saber in an irresponsible manner, getting so carried away in the machismo of the situation that he's incapable of thinking with his brain. If he did he'd realize that the strategy above is only a trap to keep the public on Laden side, and the more aggressive the US becomes, the more sentiment in the area will fall to radical Islam. MY has more on this here.

Seriously...

Does any one care about doing drugs in the past? I know I don't--I just ask that our pols don't hit the pipe while in office.

Surge Update

4,000 and counting. It's time to bring our troops home.

Holy Smokes!

Did Chris Wallace just lay the smack down to Fox News?



He did! He did lay the smack down to Fox News! Yet another sign of the end.

Disturbing

Actually what Condoleeza Rice told Barack Obama was that, "I myself would be very disturbed" about the fact that his State Department Passport record had been breached by three contract employees of the State Department:

"WASHINGTON - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday she has
apologized to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama for an incident in
which State Department contractors unnecessarily reviewed his passport
file.

"The episode raises questions as to whether the actions of three
contractors, two of whom have been fired, were politically motivated."

If this story has teeth, and if it is discovered that this fiasco was politically motivated by either of the Clinton or McCain camp then Obama might shore up the election right here and now. This would be the greatest scandal since watergate and just the implication is bound to garner Obama public sympathy. Between Richardson's endorsement and this, Obama is about to get a nice jump in his sagging poll numbers.

UPDATE: To note, right now it doesn't seem that the passport breach was politically motivated but could have been done just out of harmless curiosity (which doesn't excuse the behavior--they still need to be fired), but a full investigation seems proper. On the other hand, it seems that GHWB (Bush's dad) might have done the same thing to Bill Clinton in 92. An honest mistake, or genetics?

UPDATE II: Looks like McCain, and Clinton's passport records were also breached. Looks like this might have been curiosity--or an attack by the Nader campaign? Nahhhh.

Surprising

Turns out Clinton superdelegate, and former candidate for President, Horatio Sanz, er I mean George Richardson is going to endorse Obama:

"SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) -- New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, the nation's only
Hispanic governor, is endorsing Sen. Barack Obama for president, calling him a
"once-in-a- lifetime leader" who can unite the nation and restore America's
international leadership.

Richardson backed Obama despite his ties to Clinton and her husband, the
former president. He served as ambassador to the U.N. and as secretary of the
Energy Department during the Clinton administration. Last month, Richardson and
former President Clinton watched the Super Bowl together at the governor's
residence in Santa Fe."

This is bigger that you might think. As a close ally of the Clintons, Richardson was the one Bill Clinton had tagged when the former president needed some help in getting Lewinsky a job for silence and Richardson who'd been the ambassador to the UN had tried to help him out. Richardson's endorsement might be the first sign that Obama's speech is working, and really motivating and inspiring Clinton defection. Not only that but, now that I think of it, a Richardson VP would do alot to shore up Obama's weakness in the Latino demographic. All and all this is a very good thing for Barack.

Is Bush Advising Hillary Clinton?

A new book by former White House Chief of Staff, Josh Bolten claims so:

"Bolten said Bush wants enough continuity in his Iraq policy that “even a
Democratic president would be in a position to sustain a legitimate presence
there.”

“Especially if it’s a Democrat,” the chief of staff told The Examiner in
his West Wing office. “He wants to create the conditions where a Democrat not
only will have the leeway, but the obligation to see it out.”

So far in reading over the article I don't see that Bolten says that Bush and Hil actually talk directly, but communicate more through the Washington grapevine, and surrogates. Still, this is pretty big, especially since Clinton's view leans more towards hawkishness (and thus Bush's agenda) than Obama, and Bolten has his own problems with the Democratic House, meaning that he's got a reason to spill the beans. I'm grading papers right now, but when I have some more time I'll give this a closer look.