Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

Try to contain your tears:

Bill O'Reilly's baffling fans will, starting in a few months, just have to settle for his weekday television show, his books, and his weekly newspaper column. His radio show will be no more.

Bill O'Reilly has formally confirmed he's giving up one of the most successful syndicated radio shows in the country, saying he has just run out of hours in the week.

O'Reilly said the radio show, which he launched in May 2002, will end "in the first quarter of next year." Most of the time he saves, he said, will go into his top-rated Fox News Channel show.

"The media business is getting more and more intense," O'Reilly said Thursday. "We've got to keep the TV show at the level we have it now, and that means more and more time to keep it competitive and fresh."

Wait, does this mean Olbermann is actually making O'Reilly worried?

He just might be.

If any Seattle-area readers want to get together next weekend to toast the demise of O'Reilly's radio career, I'm completely open to the idea.

Afterward, we should probably start thinking of what sort of broom to get Obama for Christmas. He's going to need a fairly powerful one to clean out the Bushies:

Mary Beth Buchanan was appointed by President Bush to serve as U.S. attorney in Pittsburgh in Sept. 2001. Buchanan has held several significant posts within the Bush/Ashcroft/Gonzales Justice Department, most notably serving as director the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys.

Just last month, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that Buchanan’s reign was expected to end. Indeed, when a new president is elected, U.S. attorneys of both parties generally submit their resignations to make way for the new appointees. But Buchanan has other plans:

Despite a new administration coming into power, U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan said she plans to stick around.

“It doesn’t serve justice for all the U.S. attorneys to submit their resignations all at one time,” she said yesterday. […]

More than that, she said she would consider working in the Obama administration. She would not discuss what her future might hold beyond the U.S. attorney’s office.

“I am open to considering further service to the United States,” Ms. Buchanan said.

[snip]

During her tenure, Buchanan has been criticized for bringing politically-motivated investigations and charges against politicians in Western Pennsylvania, none more famous than the public corruption case against a local high-profile Democrat Dr. Cyril H. Wecht. Former Attorney General Dick Thornburgh told Congress that the Wecht prosecution is “not the type of case normally constituting a federal ‘corruption’ case brought against a local official.”

Buchanan hired Monica Goodling, and she hand-picked a Pittsburgh attorney to serve as the U.S. prosecutor in Alaska, going over the heads of Sens. Ted Stevens and Lisa Murkowski.

Her "further service to the United States" should consist of her leaving to spend more time with her family, although that's a horrible thing to wish on a child. I can't determine if she has any, so perhaps my conscience will be clear.

As Blackwater tries to reinvent itself as pirate-hunters, justice finally nips at their heels (h/t):

Five Blackwater guards have been told to surrender to the FBI by Monday to face federal manslaughter and assault charges connected to the shooting deaths of 17 civilians at an traffic circle in Iraq last year, ABC News has learned.

Law enforcement officials say the grand jury hearing the case was in session Thursday in Washington, D.C. and was expected to have voted on the indictments.

The federal investigation revealed that two of the Blackwater guards did most of the shooting and are expected to face either murder or manslaughter charges, law enforcement officials said.

Here's hoping we finally get a chance to show that indiscriminate murder is not exactly an American value, at least when it's mercenaries hired by our government doing the murdering.

I'm sure Greater Wingnuttia would have plenty of - ahem - insightful things to say about that, but they're too busy chasing conspiracy theories to notice:

Some of the more unhinged factions of the far-right have been hyperventilating for months that Barack Obama, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, is not actually a natural-born U.S. citizen. The ridiculous conspiracy theories are pretty easy to ignore, but as long as one of the many right-wing lawsuits will get some Supreme Court attention today, it's probably worth acknowledging the lunacy.

At the outset, let's pause to note how wrong these conservative activists are. Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961. It's been confirmed by Hawaiian officials, a 1961 birth notice in a Honolulu newspaper, and a certified document from the state his campaign obtained 18 months ago. This has not, however, stopped hysterical Republican activists from filing more than a dozen lawsuits, and launching an organized campaign to harass members of the electoral college.

Indeed, the unhinged detractors have even taken out full-page ads in major newspapers to demand "proof" -- in addition to the existing proof, of course -- that Obama is constitutionally eligible for the presidency. For the activists, the co-conspirators include election officials, the judiciary, mainstream news outlets, Obama's family (who apparently had the foresight to plant a bogus birth announcement 47 years ago), and officials in Hawaii, including its Republican governor.

The bizarre lawsuits haven't gotten anywhere, but one will get at least perfunctory attention from the high court today.

Justice Clarence Thomas distributed to his colleagues a request that the high court weigh in before the Electoral College makes Obama's victory official later this month. The justices may decide in a Friday conference whether to hear or cast away a lawsuit dismissed in a lower court and appealed by a retired New Jersey lawyer named Leo C. Donofrio, who also has his own Web site.

As for the definitive takedown of the whole mess, Reason's David Weigel has a terrific piece in Slate, explaining in detail who's driving this bizarre story.

I think Obama's election broke what little was left of their minds. Ah, well, at least we have the comfort of knowing they'll be spending their short supply of cash on useless endeavors, and it'll be adorable to watch them litigate themselves into the poorhouse in battles they have no hope of winning.

Speaking of unhinged, delusional fuckwits, Newt Gingrich joins the growing chorus of voices singing "Bomb, Bomb Iran:"

Last night on Fox News, co-host Alan Colmes asked former House Speaker Newt Gingrich about a Jerusalem Post article yesterday reporting that Israel is preparing options to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities. At first Gingrich gave a measured response, saying “I don’t think we’re prepared to sanction an attack on Iran.” Yet just moments later, Gingrich said the Israelis should set a deadline for an attack on Iran:

GINGRICH: I think that the Israeli government probably would be best served if they created a deadline of sometime next fall and basically told the new American president that they’re willing to do anything they can to help him achieve a non-nuclear Iran prior, say, to September or October, but that there is a point at which they will not run the risk.

What is it about Iran that makes these fuckwits salivate for war, even if they have to let another country start it? This is ridiculous.

How fast do you think the war cries would stop if we made it a legal requirement that those who advocate for a particular war must fight on the front lines, regardless of age, health, or occupation? I get the sense that we'd hear a sudden, deafening silence. That, alone, would be worth passing such a law for.

Let's end with our daily installment of "hypocrisy knows no bounds," shall we?

A top homeland security official has been accused in federal court of hiring multiple illegal immigrants as cleaners for her home, reports the Associated Press.

Lorraine Henderson is the regional director of Homeland Security, Customs, and Border Protection. She is responsible for stopping illegal aliens from entering the U.S. through the port of Boston.

But, reports the AP:

[A]ccording to an affidavit, for several years Henderson employed a Brazilian housekeeper who was an illegal immigrant. She also allegedly hired two other illegal immigrants, even after fellow agents warned her it was against the law.

Henderson was arrested after one of the women wore a wire and recorded Henderson telling the woman to "be careful" because once you're deported, "you will never be back."

Magnificent. You almost have to admire the chutzpah.