Bruno was basically guilty of doing what everyone else up there does, only a little more so.

Here's what they actually nailed him on, though:

Bruno was convicted of count four of the indictment of taking 11 payments from companies for consulting work he never performed.

He was also convicted on of failing to disclose his participation in a partnership involving thoroughbred race horses.

Bruno was also charged with "depriving the public of 'honest services,'" which, once again, is vague enough to indict a State Senate quorum.

Bruno faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in jail and $250,000.

Well. What a fast turnaround, right?

"Whatever you have thought of me in the past, I can tell you right now that I am one of your greatest friends and I mean for us to work together," he said in a live interview with Telemundo's Maria Celeste. "I hope that will begin with Maria and me and Telemundo and other media organizations and others in this national debate that we should turn into a solution rather than a continuing debate and factional contest."

Mr. Dobbs twice mentioned a possible legalization plan for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S., saying at one point that "we need the ability to legalize illegal immigrants under certain conditions."

It's great that Lou Dobbs saw the light, and that he now favors liberalization of our broken immigration and naturalization process.

But—and, you know, we hate to do this two days in a row—fuck you, Lou Dobbs.

Mr. Dobbs couldn't be reached Tuesday. Spokesman Bob Dilenschneider said Mr. Dobbs draws a distinction between illegal immigrants who have committed crimes since arriving in the U.S. and those who are "living upright, positive and constructive lives" who should be "integrated" into society. He said Mr. Dobbs recognizes the political importance of Latinos and is "smoothing the water and clearing the air."

The funny thing, Lou, is that you were the one who attempted to create the impression, without evidence, that all illegal immigrants were criminals. You know-nothing prick.

You made your name on one issue, Lou, and one issue alone: that there are too many Mexicans, that the Mexicans are scary, and that they should all go back to Mexico, because they are disease-ridden criminals. You lied about how many immigrants there are, you called them "an army of invaders," you said they wanted to reannex the Southwestern United States, you claimed they were spreading leprosy, you spent hours of airtime openly, blatantly lying, in order to inflame anti-immigrant hysteria. That is what you did. For years. You doughy, lying, sack of shit.

Video via Anyguey.

Original Video- More videos at TinyPic

You know, Ed Meese III, it is nice that you have come around, in some fashion, to the idea that we maybe shouldn't have the largest prison population in the world. Seriously, good for you.

But also, and more importantly: fuck you, Ed Meese.

It was actually Reagan's Attorney General, Mr. Ed Meese, who attempted to criminalize pornography and abortion, and who packed the federal judiciary with reactionary "tough-on-crime" assholes.

Ed Meese, once again as Attorney General, chaired the National Drug Policy Board. And during his tenure, federal spending on drug "enforcement" (arrests and seizures) increased by $700 million while drug prevention and education programs decreased. Ed Meese decided every worker in America should be drug tested all the time.

Oh, Bush-appointed former judge who is now concerned about overzealous prosecution, what is your complaint?

"A joint on a yacht, and the whole thing is forfeited," said Paul Cassell, a law professor at the University of Utah and a former federal judge appointed by President George W. Bush.

Funny! You are mad, as a conservative, that the government is seizing private property. Do you know who pioneered that approach to fighting drugs? Attorney General Ed Meese!

So, Ed Meese, we respectfully disagree with you, when you say that "liberal ideas of extending the power of the state" are to blame for an out-of-control criminal justice system. You are, after all, the Ed Meese who said once said this:

U.S News & World Report: You criticize the Miranda ruling, which gives suspects the right to have a lawyer present before police questioning. Shouldn't people, who may be innocent, have such protection?
Meese: Suspects who are innocent of a crime should. But the thing is, you don't have many suspects who are innocent of a crime. That's contradictory. If a person is innocent of a crime, then he is not a suspect.

But Ed Meese does not actually care about the massive and growing prison population. What he is mad about is that there are too many laws, in general.

"It's a violation of federal law to give a false weather report," Mr. Meese said. "People get put in jail for importing lobsters."

Maybe they do! Maybe there is a guy in jail, somewhere in America, for importing a lobster. But millions more get put in jail for smoking weed. And we think we should probably deal with that before we get to work fixing this "false weather report" zero tolerance policy that you are suddenly so concerned about.

Asshole.

The listing, preserved here for posterity, goes like this:

obama upper west side (West Village)
Date: 2009-11-20, 6:01PM EST
Reply to: job-ub4ww-1475290617@craigslist.org [Errors when replying to ads?]

ATTN: I'm getting a lot of sarcastic emails. Don't bother sharing your wit with me: it's been done. And done. This is an UNPAID internship intended for a STUDENT and is a RESEARCH position that will give him experience and position on a prestige project. If you can't afford to work in a role that offers credit only, but no renumeration, this isn't for you. If you're the sort of person who has the spare time to respond sarcastically to Craigslist postings, this REALLY isn't for you. Thanks.

I'm working on a memoir, set in 1983, when I lived with Obama for a year.

The memoir is about my life and about what New York was like in 1983, and how we lived then, but Barack is obviously a player in the story. This is not a tell-all, it's a friendly, gentle and literate book.

I work full time in a highly visible career and would like to work with a research assistant to help me stay focused.

This is you:

You live in Manhattan and can visit the Village frequently.
Your living situation is stable, as is your personal life.
Your income is stable.
You can work with a six month window. (ok, maybe a year. it depends.)
You are a fantastic and empathetic listener.
You're creative and imaginative and a fine writer. You can shape material.
You don't drink or use drugs. No psychological disorders I have to deal with.
You are in a graduate writing program at NYU or Columbia.
You want an opportunity to work on a visible book.
You are dependable, timely, punctual and highly motivated to succeed.

This is an internship, not a paid position.

I have already begun, finally, this week, after thinking about it for a the last year. Now is the time. My agent is waiting on the first 100 pages. Let's go.

* Compensation: non-paying internship
* This is an internship job
* Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
* Please, no phone calls about this job!
* Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

PostingID: 1475290617

So: who do we have who needs an "intern" who is also in a graduate writing program? Or, otherwise: which Upper West Side asshole friend of Obama's hepcat days is now enough of a square to need an unpaid slave to help write their feeder-fish book and expect to be paid in the form of, maybe, a thank you in a book that has yet to be written on one year of Obama's life?

Have you applied for the job? You got any guesses? Shoot us an email or throw it in the comments. We'd love to know, 'cause, you know: we've got questions, too.

It was during his radio program, so sadly there is no video of Glenn clutching his abdomen, vomiting, and finally collapsing in pain.

Beck is expected to make a full recovery, after his appendix was removed at "an undisclosed hospital."

Let's hope things go better than they did the last time he went to the hospital, when he had to wait for 40 minutes in the emergency room! This was back when he was with CNN, so he blamed the health care industry instead of secret Maoist-ACORN Lizard People.

You know those idiots who don't know anything about politics but think it sounds smart to say "I am a social liberal and an economic conservative?" Bloomberg is the candidate for them, if they love a liberal nanny state and a conservative religious fervor for the eternal goodness of private enterprise.

For all the talk of Bloomberg the power-player who at least gets things done without worrying about the unions and special interests, he's been unable to win any political battle with anyone he couldn't literally buy off. Like Sheldon Silver, who (thankfully) killed the West Side Stadium and (annoyingly) ended all that "Congestion Pricing" talk. And those unions and special interests were just bought off, which worked fine back when the boom whose end Bloomberg never saw coming was in full swing.

And about that stadium: what the fuck was that? And the Olympics thing? After bitching about Giuliani's disgraceful subsidizing of the fucking Yankees, Bloomberg both turns around completely on that particular issue and attempts to build the fucking Jets a stadium, so that New York could get an Olympics that it did not want. And that failed, and everyone forgot about it. Meanwhile: 40,000 people in shelters! Bloomberg could personally buy every single one of those people an apartment in a vacant Williamsburg luxury condo building and still have enough left over to bribe a City Council member into supporting his fifth term.

And those luxury Williamsbug condo buildings, by the way, that stand vacant? Yes, well, that was part of this brilliant plan to utilize rezoning to spur the free market (which always allocates resources more efficiently than anything else in the history of civilization but sometimes it needs government help, like with tax breaks and stuff) to create affordable housing all over the waterfront. This did not work, as developers decided to just not bother to build all those affordable housing units they were supposed to build. More than 2,200 promised new affordable apartments in Williamsburg and Greenpoint have turned out to be 768, 20 percent of which are renovations of apartments that were already affordable. There are lots more of these stories.

His record on housing, like his record on nearly everything having to do with the outer boroughs and poverty and human beings who make less than $100,000 a year, has been a ridiculous disgrace. His entire philosophy of development solving everything turned out to be precisely, 100% wrong, and suddenly the city itself was driving the real estate boom, driving up land prices to absurd levels across the boroughs and tearing down neighborhoods only to replace them with vacant lots and half-filled cheaply built hideous high-rises once the bottom fell out of the City Hall-inflated market. But hey, we got the High Line and 311! So you can sleep in that fancy park while you call 311 asking if there is room in a shelter because you can no longer afford your home.

Eight years into the Bloomberg administration, Ground Zero is a still a hole that everyone continues fighting about.

The MTA has raised fares while cutting service (without actually cutting service, officially—it's just that whatever line you happen to ride is suddenly experiencing a whole lot of track work every single goddamn weekend).

The Gays: still not married! And also a lot of them are getting beaten up on the streets these days for some reason?

Bloomberg is also the beneficiary of the most friendly news coverage of any big city mayor in the nation. Easily. It helps that, you know, he is a media mogul, himself, and he is good, close, personal friends with the three publishers who run the newspapers that went after each one of his predecessors for shit they've let slide under this mayor, because they know he's a good, decent guy, at heart, and the only one who can Fix New York, because of his Money.

Can you imagine how the Post would've blown up if David Dinkins lied about taking the Subway to work every day? The Daily News response to discovering that John Lindsay flew to Bermuda every weekend?

Let's talk about the cops, for a second: they are still operating under Giuliani levels of complete disregard for the law. They are getting drunk and running people over and shooting unarmed black people and sodomizing people in subway stations. The Civilian Complaint Review Board has become a joke, unless your case gets a lot of publicity. There's obviously no accountability, whatsoever, and no attempt to recruit and train more cops from the communities they actually police. The NYPD remains, primarily, the home of roided-out white people from outside the city with a great deal of contempt for civil liberties. The Mayor always sounds properly upset when some of them rape someone, but he's never done a damn thing to rein them in or change the culture.

What he has done is Keep Us Safe by never once giving a shit about Civil Liberties. The cops stop and frisk thousands more people every year, your 4th Amendment rights do not apply in the Subway system, and expensive and completely ineffective new rings of cameras are going up across Manhattan.

Bloomberg deserves to be run out of town on an inadequately funded public rail line for the 2004 GOP convention alone. Remember that ridiculous farce? No, of course not, no one does, besides the thousands of people improperly spied on, arrested, harassed, and detained by the NYPD. All of this was completely illegal. No heads rolled.

One more special bonus factoid: New York leads the world in marijuana arrests! Specifically, marijuana arrests of black people!

And he is personally a jerk. He is a thin-skinned, unpleasant, sanctimonious asshole. His company is being sued for a culture of sexual discrimination that plaintiffs say Bloomberg himself contributed to. He is a tremendous dick to reporters whenever he gets cranky. He is fucking race-baiting with Rudy Giuliani again, because why not?

He has been a shitty mayor and he does not deserve the support of anyone who claims to be a liberal. Though what all of his most destructive missteps as mayor have in common is that they do not in any way upset or inconvenience the well-off self-professed liberals who support him. Besides maybe a couple Critical Mass riders arrested in illegal sweeps. (Though he sure does like bike lanes, so it's a wash, right?)

We cannot encourage you to vote for the Democrat in the race, because even we still aren't sure if we'll go for him or the much more delightful Billy Talen. Just don't fucking vote for Michael Bloomberg.

Back when establishment Democrats (like Obama!) were trying to convince us loony internet liberals not to campaign against Joe Lieberman, you heard a lot about how Lieberman is only a conservative on foreign policy, and not domestic issues. (How his full-throated support for any bombing campaign against any Muslims anywhere in the world is supposed to be not as big a deal as the fact that he doesn't want to publicly execute gays or whatever has always been beyond us, but that is what we were told.) Now he's pissed that distinction away.

We all know that Vinegar Joe Lieberman is a sanctimonious, thin-skinned, self-satisfied monster. And a pious, amoral scumbag. And a narcissistic, deluded underminer who represents everything that is wrong with the United States Senate. And a war-mongering, concern-trolling religious zealot. And, generally, a bastard. And probably a racist. But why would this weasel-human hybrid who is actually literally slowly receding into his own asshole a little bit every day suddenly pipe up on health care reform with a position at odds with most Connecticut residents and a vast majority of the Democrats he claims to represent?

Because no one had been paying attention to him! (And also because he is owned by the various insurance companies of Connecticut. Like he is literally Aetna's personal offensive Jeff Dunham puppet. Well, they have to share him with AIPAC.)

This is the thing, Joe. The opt-out public option is a conservative compromise. It is a compromise from a non-opt-out public option, which is a compromise from a non-opt-out public option tied to Medicare rates, which is a compromise from a non-opt-out public option tied to Medicare rates and open to everyone, which is a compromise from single-payer. You would like a further compromise, to "no health care reform, at all, unless the Democrats all kneel down and blow me, as I will demand they do whenever they might need my vote, from now until I finally decide to caucus with the Republicans, which will only happen if the Republicans take the majority and the Democrats stop blowing me periodically."

And, obviously, his literal, stated objections to the bill are not based in any way on reality.

So the question basically is, what is his end-game here? What the fuck is he doing?

Whether Joe Lieberman will run for reelection in 2012 is currently a mystery. He has $1.4 million in the bank, which is a lot, but not as much as he had in 2006.

He also is polling rather terribly in Connecticut, where Democrats and independents both prefer real Democrats. He could run as a real Republican, but, as we said, those independent voters he needs to win do not like him, at the moment.

So our "what is Joe Lieberman doing" possibilities are:

• He is just following the golden path of his own of self-delusion, thinking he will be remembered as a mavericky hero who bucked the status quo once he retires in 2012.
• He's going all-in as a Republican in the desperate hope that a 2012 GOP landslide will win him one more term.
• He is just trying to sink health care completely for his insurance company friends, who will give him a lucrative post-Senate job.
• He is just trying to force Harry Reid to pay him fealty once again, because it makes him feel nice.
• He is just a prick.

Weirdly, Lieberman said he'd vote to bring the bill to the floor, and then he'd support a GOP filibuster. A GOP filibuster is decidedly not a sure thing, though it certainly moves one step closer to a sure thing every time Joe Lieberman opens his mouth. Christ, what an asshole.

• "Paul": A 43 year-old "academic who specializes in antiquities," Paul's "partner" (gay) is a law firm partner, and together they bring in more than $2 mil a year, no thanks to academia. They have houses in Hong Kong, NYC, and the Hamptons—and they've poured $1 million into a renovation of the Hamptons place. "There's a perilous, exciting feeling to having zigged when other people zagged," he explains. He's referring to spending lots and lots of money, there.
• "Jon": A 30 year-old commercial real estate broker in NYC, Jon's income has fallen during the recession, but he can't stand to regress from $10,000 watches and $2,000 suits. It's hard not to spend, you see: "Then you go to the pool, and it's another $300 for a cabana-and you want the good cabana, not the one on the second floor where no one can see you."

This "pretending to be George Washington on Twitter" game is actually one of the least embarrassing things about Newt Gingrich, of course. He was also the first Speaker of the House to be forced to pay a $300,000 penalty for ethics violations, he shut down the federal government because the president was rude to him during a plane ride, he left his first wife as she lay in a hospital bed recovering from cancer, and he left his second wife for one of the women he was sleeping with during his impeachment crusade against Bill Clinton. Never in his political career have his favorable ratings outweighed his unfavorables. And he keeps accidentally giving awards to porn producers and strippers.

But he is a dreamer! And we will hear about how he is considering this run for president for years, and no one will bring up all the terrible things about him, besides scumbag bloggers.

Forward men, forward!

[Illustration: Weekly World News]

Heidi and Spencer did not attend Holly Montag's 26th Birthday at Empire Hollywood in Los Angeles on Saturday night after cash demands were not met.

To make matters worse, Stephanie Pratt was arrested for a DUI after the party. It's not the first time she's been arrested either, in May 2006 she was picked up in Hawaii for second-degree theft and drug violations.

Stephanie and Holly better start saving up to pay for Heidi's eventual bridesmaid services.

Seriously, we cannot actually imagine watching this and cheering on the shrieking old white man. Even if we agreed that ACORN was a terrible criminal organization bent on helping all the prostitutes in the world fill out their taxes while registering illegal immigrant cartoon characters to vote, we would still be incredibly uncomfortable watching Tim Jones scream at a couple fucking kids (one of whom he definitely calls "boy" in his charming Boston accent) and their mother.

The crime of these terrible black people? Selling "Don't Tread On Me" signs at the 9/12 rally. Which, you know, got to admire their entrepreneurial spirit! It's just too bad they were at the 9/12 rally selling the flags for ACORN, an organization that does not actually send employees to rallies to sell flags.

But according to ACORN spokesperson Ian Phillips, the only flags any of their members sell would be to their members at conventions. None of their people were at the Sept. 12 rally as vendors or for any reason representative to ACORN, and whomever was being targeted by Tim Jones in the video might have been unfortunate pawns in a rather racist game of his.

"It wasn't us," Phillips told One People's Project. "Unfortunately, you know this better from the work that you do, the kind of bogeymen that they've created over the years of some kind of freeloading person of color. Now they have transferred and said all these folks are with ACORN."

Phillips says this kind of scapegoating is something that the organization has had to deal with, well before the Leadership Institute's James O'Keefe videotaped various ACORN staffers suggesting ways to violate the law. Earlier in the year there were warnings from conservative figures like Fox News' Neil Cavuto that ACORN was mounting a counterstrike against this element. "In Florida, they put it on their list groups that ‘ACORN is going to be there, come out in force and tell ACORN what you think of them or ACORN is going to infiltrate, If you see anyone holding a camera, they're from ACORN,' but we never come to these things," he said. "We never engage these kooks. We don't go and film, none of our staffers do."

But against the word of the ACORN spokesman, we have the word of Tim Jones, hero, whom no one knows anything about, except that he declared that these people were from ACORN, because he heard them say it to a cop. And then Tim Jones whipped up a crowd of people to join in the screaming and chasing.

Once again, these people hate America.

Oh, and here is the Tom Coburn Town Hall, where a weeping woman asks a Republican Senator for government help because her husband suffered a brain injury and then his insurance was canceled, and Coburn suggests that she should ask her neighbors for help, because Government Is Never The Answer, even though in any other industrialized democracy in the goddamn world this woman would not need to beg her Senator for basic medical care for her sick husband.

According to a new probation report, the pop star duo's physical altercations spanned the globe: Rihanna once slapped Brown while in Europe, and, like the real man that he is, he shoved her against a wall. Then, while visiting Barbados, Brown became so infuriated with the "Umbrella" songstress that he broke her cars' windows. Tsk, tsk.

Considering Brown's violent history, the judge insisted today that Brown's community service include hard labor, that he attend domestic violence counseling, and also enacted a 50-yard restraining order that expires in 2014. No more basketball games for these two tough love birds. We bet you're sorry now, Brown.

Derb, I've noticed that President Obama frequently forgoes the necktie - lately, even in public appearances. That reminded me - I have no idea why - that the Iranian regime has shunned the necktie ever since Khomeini pronounced it a symbol of Western decadence.

This is just like when JFK and Khrushchev stopped wearing hats.

You know what you're in for when "Perez Hilton is not sorry" opens up Robin Abcarian's piece on the creature formerly known as Mario Lavandeira, who's now a "tastemaker," according to the title of the piece. Other things you, the reader, are made aware of Hilton's complete lack of repentance for: posting the Dustin Lance Black pictures as a self-proclaimed gay icon, the early speculation on Michael Jackson faking his death, his altercation with Will.I.Am (though he notes he's still only not "entirely" unapologetic for using the word "faggot" in Hilton's fight with the Black Eyed Peas frontman).

"I've built my brand on being a bitch," said the gay celebrity blogger. "So what?"

Truth. His most recent offenses include shuffling over dead boxer Arturo Gatti's grave, and making a mockery of race relations in his Advocate profile when he applauded himself for using a gay slur as opposed to a racist one.

The LAT's reporting still doesn't get to the root of who his third writer is (besides his sister) other than "a recent college graduate..he declined to name."

"Why do you want to know that?" he said "It's all about me!"

And the Hilton show it most definitely is. The good question is what Abcarian actually got, which amounts to pretty much nothing. And there's almost a pattern of kindness on the part of the L.A. Times to Hilton; their coverage of him doesn't extend past a Q & A that also lets Hilton flaunt his brand. The most significant thing the Times managed was Hilton's obvious insecurity and distaste for a gay community that couldn't care less about counting him amongst their numbers, while riffing on his Advocate cover story:

He was furious about the Advocate piece, in which the writer was dismissive of his intellect. ("He's not a deep or nuanced thinker and seems generally unwilling . . . to look critically at himself. . . . He doesn't strike me as all that intellectually honest," wrote Benoit Denizet-Lewis.) "He basically called me stupid," said Hilton. "I am not stupid. I don't think I have to prove that to anyone."

Or maybe it's just an insecurity about aptitude. There's no doubt that Hilton might be, if not deep or nuanced, at least an intuitive thinker into what some people want to read. But as he prepares to launch his "nicer" site, it'll be interesting to see what kind of person develops based on the success or failure of the new venture.

An out-and-out failure might be an affirmation that his only asset is his willingness to forgo considerations of any stripe of moral fortitude, while a success might prove to Hilton that bigots can file down the lowest common denominator on their way to possibly less lowbrow ventures. Whatever the case is, it's almost relieving to see Hilton's one-dimensional nature move forward, because it makes him easier to understand. There's a great line from psychiatrist Aaron Lazare's 2004 book On Apology, in which Lazare writes: "(The apology process)...illustrates how the phenomenon of apology can be a window into the human emotions and behaviors that maintain and restore human dignity," something Hilton doesn't seem to long for. Maybe there's just nothing else there. Sometimes, an asshole's just an asshole. It's easier to leave it at that.

Back in the golden era of the culture wars, the abortion issue was debated by screaming morons chaining themselves to things, mailing fetuses to presidents, and generally trying to make moral, legal, and ethical questions into hysterical pissing matches. That is when Randall Terry was king.

Now, though, it's much quieter. Pro-choicers have maintained a stable plurality of public support. And anti-choicers discovered that they're much better off fighting abortion by making it completely unavailable instead of illegal. It attracts way less attention! Until some nut goes and shoots a doctor, and some other nut celebrates that shooting with wings and beer.

And also things did not go so well for Randall Terry, for a while!

Terry's personal life got messy, too. In 2000, he divorced his first wife, Cynthia, with whom he'd had a daughter, adopted two more children and taken in a foster child. The following year he married Andrea, a young campaign volunteer. His actions earned him a public reprimand from his longtime minister in Binghamton and condemnation from some in the evangelical community.

Then there were problems with his children. His adopted son Jamiel came out as gay in 2004, and Terry renounced him. (They've since reconciled.) His adopted daughter and his foster daughter got pregnant out of wedlock; the foster daughter converted to Islam.

Yes, that sounds like a weird couple years for him.

But now Randall Terry's living in DC, trying to get a reality show, and training his cult followers to interrupt Al Franken during Supreme Court confirmation hearings. He's back on top!

[Photo: AP]

Yesterday, the House voted on a bill that would put "a plaque acknowledging the role of slave labor in the construction of the Capitol" in the new Capitol Visitors Center. The vote was 399-1 for. Oh, silly Ron Paul, we thought, you don't even think the Federal Government has the jurisdiction to erect plaques on its own buildings, or something, based on your generally logically consistent (with certain glaring exceptions) but entirely nutty philosophy of government.

But hey, look at this. Ron Paul voted for the plaque, honoring the slaves! Which means some other asshole didn't!

And that asshole is Rep. Steve King, Republican of Iowa. He is a fairly standard-issue House conservative, which means is a fucking loon. He called Joe McCarthy "a hero for America," said terrorists would "dance in the streets" when Obama was elected, claimed DC was more dangerous than Iraq, and called the abuses at Abu Ghraib "hazing." But, still, being the sole vote against a kind gesture to long-dead slaves is a little much, even for this prick!