Call it Fate, call it Karma, call it Phil Knight Crapping Millions Upon the Innocent Citizens of Eugene, but somehow the University of Oregon Webfoots have finagled their way into a national football championship, which leaves us bewildered to host this Incredibly Awkward BCS Open Thread/Duck Season-Rabbit Season Recital. If you see any Tiny Green Fingers in crowd shots, we take no personal responsibility — they must be recycled from last year.

A Texas judge has sentenced former GOP majority leader Tom DeLay to three years in prison for his role in a scheme to launder corporate money to Texas candidates in contravention to state law.

AUSTIN, Texas —Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader, was sentenced to three years in prison on Monday after convictions for money laundering and conspiracy stemming from his role in a scheme to channel corporate contributions to Texas state races in 2002.
…
After listening to Mr. DeLay say he felt he had done nothing wrong, Judge Pat Priest sentenced him to three years in prison for the conspiracy count and 10 years’ probation for the money laundering count. The judge rejected arguments from Mr. DeLay that the trial had been a politically motivated vendetta mounted by an overzealous Democratic District Attorney.

“Before there were Republicans and Democrats, there was America, and what America is about is the rule of law,” the judge said just before pronouncing the sentence.

Amen!

Oh yeah, Fox News is running a story on this event, too. I’ll give you one chance to guess what word does not appear once in the article… Read more »

It took us a couple dozen clicks to confirm that this is one of the rotating background images on Glenn Beck’s website, but yes, it’s there.

[via StopBeck]

Sarah Palin:

Our children will not have peace if politicos just capitalize on this to succeed in portraying anyone as inciting terror and violence.

Michelle Malkin:

The progressive “climate of hate:” An illustrated primer, 2000-2010

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… because the Supreme Court has just denied another appeal by lawyer-dentist, real-estate agent, Birther Queen, Orly Taitz.

Eugene Register-Guard, Sunday, November 18, 1979:

Khomeini orders some hostages freed

No, not that.

Showers

No, not that either. Lower.

Dismal day

If you were among the standing-room-only crowd of 41,235 fans at the University of Oregon-UCLA football game Saturday at Autzen Stadium, you know how wet it was. If you weren’t there, this gives you a good idea of what you missed. For Duck fans, the game was as bad as the weather. The Bruins broke on top early and sloshed their way to a 35-0 victory over Oregon…

Okay, fine. It rained and the Ducks sucked, neither of which was news in 1979. So what are we doing with a generation-old newspaper clipping in the files?

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An editor’s note: this post was researched and drafted late Saturday morning (CT), with the tweets on which they were based sent by me around noon.  And then, after a dash to the laundry room, I turned on the TV and heard the news.

The title you see here was initially chosen because of the fact that — as the first draft put it — “a Nor’easter full of wind, snow and stupid is due next week when they bring up the (oh, dear) ‘Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act.'”  But, of course, that vote isn’t going to happen next week, given what has happened.  And yet the title remains on this post, unchanged; to some extent, it still seems apt, in a very odd way.

The Psychometer was launched in the last week as a way to call attention to the fact that House GOP members sometimes lose their grip, in a way that allowed for audience participation, and was fun in general.  But maybe, now, it will serve as one of thousands of canaries in a coal mine.  (If it continues at all — that discussion can also happen, and perhaps should.)

Everybody is swearing-off hyperbolic, emotionally-loaded language now.  They’re saying that they’re going to be more civil, to “disagree without being disagreeable.”  But you watch how long that lasts.  And, in its way, the Psychometer will watch too, if in fact it remains a going concern.

Will, for example, Ted Poe (Tex.) take it down a notch?  If you don’t know him yet, he’s entering his fourth term, and was a judge from the Gulf Coast north and east of Houston.  He was one of those judges who handed out Scarlet Letter sentences — sandwich boards saying “I’m a thief” and such.  Also, he has this adorable habit of closing every speech he gives by saying: “…and that’s just the way it is.” Perhaps it is an homage to Jim “BEAM ME UP!” Traficant. (Or, perhaps, he’s just a fool.)

Anyway: he had several rants this week — a couple about border security, and one on the plight of a guy who flew the American flag but got hammered by a homeowner’s association. (To be fair: homeowner’s associations are a bunch of suburban busybodies who are obsessed with perfection. Screw ’em.)  But, those comments didn’t make the cut in my eyes.  What did get nominated?  This:

T Poe calls HCR “totalitarian” act of “oppression,” placing “chains on the American people.” CR 1/6, H50

Now that’s some Grade A Crazy.  Slavery and dictatorship in the same breath, almost.  So the question is this: does this sort of statement get made after what happened yesterday?  If so, how soon from now, and to what level?

That discussion continues post-jump, together with Mike Pence giving himself a stump-speech talking point at the expense of ladybits, and Steve King, twice, on health care, and a possible expansion of the criteria beyond House GOPers to cover clueless press hacks.

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