Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center talks to Keith Olbermann about Tucson shooter Jared Lee Loughner’s textual YouTube videos.

Reading through all of his materials, or the materials purported to be his, he sounds quite mad, out of his mind.

But there is a thread through the material that really seems pretty clear: That thread has to do with seeing the government as an enemy. The books you mentioned, there’s a theme that runs through all of them, particularly the Ayn Rand book: The idea of the individual against the state. There are ideas like the idea of the only legitimate currency being backed by gold and silver. It’s a core idea of the Radical Right in this country.

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Stinque correspondent Jamie Sommers reports from the Phoenix candlelight vigil for victims of Saturday’s Tucson shooting.

It’s difficult to tell from the pictures but there were about 200 people there, mostly Democrats and local activists. I got there kinda late so I missed the first round of introductory remarks. The person I did see (Dem Party Chair Don Bivens) was mostly drowned out by some nutjob (haven’t we had enough of them today) calling Russell Pearce, Jan Brewer and “the White House” a bunch of thugs who are responsible for today’s murders. From what I could hear, his remarks were pretty generic “hearts and prayers go out to the families of the victims” type stuff. That was followed by the bagpipe player. Thankfully, the asshole nutjob shut his pie hole during that.

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Body turns up in landfill, TV plot ensues:

Police in Delaware have discovered evidence that a former Pentagon aide may have been involved in an attempted arson days before his murder, a law enforcement source has told The Inquirer.

Police found evidence linking John Parsons Wheeler 3d to devices planted at the New Castle home of a neighbor with whom he had been feuding, said the source, who is close to the investigation. The feud was over the size of the neighbor’s house, which was under construction in the city’s historic district.

And who is John Parsons Wheeler 3d? Well, among many other things, he was chairman of the organizing committee for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and the first CEO of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. He also worked on a book with The Atlantic’s James Fallows, who posted a remembrance Monday.

Man found in landfill tied to arson attempt [Philadelphia Inquirer]

This is the most sensible thing I’ve read so far on L’Affaire Assange:

The main reason why Wikileaks causes so much anxiety with our journalists is that they haven’t really faced the fact that the watchdog press they treasured so much died under George Bush. It failed, and instead of rushing to analyze this failure and prevent it from ever happening again, instead of a truth-and-reconciliation-commission-style effort that would look at how could this happen, mostly what our journalists did, with a few exceptions, was they just went on to the next story. The watchdog press died, and what we have is Wikileaks instead.

jump to watch Jay Rosen’s video:

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Anyone responsible, civilly or criminally, should be bankrupted and banished from polite society:

Oil firm BP “manipulated” the Bush administration into softening regulation of oil drilling, leading to the environmental disaster unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico, a lawsuit filed in a Florida courtroom alleges.

…

An inspector-general’s report earlier this year indicated that the federal agency charged with overseeing oil reserves, the Minerals Management Service, largely failed to live up to the most minimal expectations of it. The report showed the MMS to have allowed oil companies to fill in their own inspection reports, and at least one MMS inspector had admitted to a methamphetamine addiction that caused him to be high while carrying out inspections.

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Is anyplace safe? Can they crash any event? Oy ….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Al4wt4PkaOU

A selection of GOP temper tantrums, posted for the edification and amusement of my fellow Stinquers, with wry and amusing observations to follow:

Infantile wail: “There is no downside for Republicans,”Michael Steele, the Republican National Chairman said Monday in an interview. “Only for Americans.” (NYTimes 3/23/10)

Observation: We always knew Republicans weren’t really Americans. Read more »