Fox News has bored us all week with the proclamation that the White House is having a war with them, and it wasn't until tonight that I started listening. I knew Glenn Beck was reenacting Network, Bill O'Reilly frightened us before we saw that Inside Edition clip where suddenly his strong language made us laugh more than cringe, but now it's time to start worrying.

Van Susteren has ventured into the performance hall of the enemy, and probably gotten more love and respect than she's gotten since she used to hang around the Connecticut dive bars armed only with her fake ID back in the late nineteen-seventies. Be warned America, you heard it here first: Our freedom may now truly be at risk.

Image via APimages

Reports the Anchorage Daily News:

An investigator for the state Personnel Board says in his July 14 report that there is probable cause to believe Palin used or attempted to use her official position for personal gain because she authorized the creation of the trust as the "official" legal defense fund.

In his report, (Thomas) Daniel said his interpretation of the ethics act is consistent with common sense.

An ordinary citizen facing legal charges is not likely to be able to generate donations to a legal defense fund, he wrote. "In contrast, Governor Palin is able to generate donations because of the fact that she is a public official and a public figure. Were it not for the fact that she is governor and a national political figure, it is unlikely that many citizens would donate money to her legal defense fund."

Palin's crackpot mouthpiece Meg Stapleton issued the following statement in regards to the matter, claiming that the whole thing still isn't resolved:

There is no final report. The Investigator is still confidentially reviewing this matter. It appears suspect that in the final days of the Governor's term, someone would again violate the law and announce a supposed conclusion before it is reached.

And, naturally, Palin took to her Twitter page to say basically the same thing:





However, Thomas Daniel claims that his report is final and that the case is closed and that Palin is guilty of violating Alaskan ethics laws, so somebody's full of shit and we'll give you one guess as to who we think that person is.

Ethics Investigator Rules Against Palin [Anchorage Daily News]

Adams was all set to misuse the noun that means "Saturday and Sunday" as a verb in Long Island's north fork with Van Susteren and Coale, but Van Susteren had to jet off at the last minute to interview Hillary Clinton in Mumbai. So as Adams and Coale were eating a lot of food for lunch—"John Coale doesn't dine lightly"—Greta called in with some hot gossip: Contrary to hot-and-heavy rumormongering, Chelsea is not getting hitched next month.

So between the Old Mill Inn's rib-eye and cheesecake...his wife rang to say: "Hillary and I are so exhausted. We're sitting at the Taj in Mumbai ordering Diet Coke and coffee — not mixing it together — just to keep awake." I was wildly thrilled with what Greta's drinking, but what I needed to know was what's Hillary saying. Two text messages and cellphone calls later came: "Hillary says Chelsea is not marrying Marc, no matter what's been reported."

That's news! It was also news when Van Susteren wrote it on her blog two days ago, but nobody reads that.

We still expect Chelsea to get married on Martha's Vineyard next month. Just because you didn't get invited, doesn't mean there's isn't a wedding, Cindy.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Greta Van Susteren has heard just about enough of this complaining by US president Barack Obama about her TV show. He complains about it all the time. She hears. "I have been told that he does not like me or ON THE RECORD at 10pm or my network mainly because of our Reverend Wright coverage. I have two things to say about that: 1st, I bet I have as much if not more years working on the street with poor African Americans than the President does." Mmmm.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.ABC News is asking Nielsen for an investigation after the ratings service recorded ABC's evening news broadcast's lowest ratings ever last Friday. That was the first day of the switch to digital TV, meaning all the olds who watch ABC News were too befuddled to make the teevee work, so they didn't watch, QED. What's the big woop?

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.A big ole' government project called "Chronicling America" has now posted one million newspaper pages on the internet. They hope to eventually post 20 million pages, which should happen well after newspapers are history.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.The New York Post ran a "news" story today about their PR man, Howard Rubenstein, getting an award from his school. Come on. If the Post ran a blowjob story on every blowjob award somebody gave Howard Rubenstein, they'd scarcely have room for stories about actual blowjobs.

Lise van Susteren lives in Bethesda, Md. That's her, with Greta, in 2005. She is an assistant professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University and completed her residency at St. Elizabeth's Hospital, a mental institution in Washington, D.C. She's a board-certified forensic psychiatrist and has served on the staff of mental health centers in Alexandria and Fairfax, Va. She was a consultant to the CIA, where she developed psychological profiles of world leaders. In 2006, she launched a failed Senate bid in Maryland.

Lise is no dabbler: She has a deep and varied career in psychiatry. Last month, she wrote in the Huffington Post that mental health professionals must do more to assess and redress the psychiatric effects of dislocation due to climate change.

Her sister Greta, on the other hand, is a member and underwriter of an organization whose leader David Miscavige lauds its "campaign for the global obliteration of psychiatry" and uses terms like "lethal assault," "plague," and "virus of abberation" when discussing his aim of "breaking the dark spell cast across earth" by people like Lise van Susteren. As of 1998, Greta had given at least $100,000 to Scientology; Miscavige's mother was the accountant at the law firm Greta ran with her husband John Coale. She and Coale own a home in Clearwater, Fla., Scientology's spiritual headquarters.

We called Lise to ask her about Greta's views. "These are private matters," she said. "I don't ever discuss them. The reality is, I don't know anything about Scientology's current campaigns. I know that in the past there were a few people who were very vocal about psychiatry, but I don't know enough to reasonably comment."

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.A few very vocal people is a vast understatement. We recommend Lise watch this video, of Miscavige at Scientology's New Year's celebration in 2006, to get a refresher. She could also go to Scientology's web site to learn about how her sister's religion regards psychiatry and psychology as "the stepchildren of...Hitler and the Nazis," and formed "the philosophical basis for the wholesale slaughter of human beings in...World War II." She might take special interest in that last bit, seeing as how her Jewish mother-in-law survived a German labor camp during the Holocaust by passing as a Catholic.

Greta and Lise don't seem to be estranged; Greta lent her support to Lise's Senate campaign and gave $2,100. We wonder what Miscavige thinks of one of his premier celebrity ambassadors palling around with a "psych."

Van Susteren has been buffeted about a bit lately: She came under criticism for stopping reporters from talking to Todd Palin as she shepherded him around D.C. during the White House Correspondents' Dinner, her husband John Coale was revealed to be secretly advising Sarah Palin while tagging along with his wife to Alaska for interviews, and then Palin threw Coale under the bus in a leak to Politico that made him look like a bumbling idiot for trying to set up a rapprochement with Hillary Clinton. On the other hand, she saved Ana Marie Cox's life on a train a couple months ago, so that's good.

In what looks to us like an attempt to shore up her standing—both within Fox News and without—amid all the criticism, Susteren granted an interview with the Times so that it would write that she has an "outsize personality" and ratings that "remain the envy of many a cable news host."

But no mention is made of van Susteren's involvement with Scientology, nor of her husband's well-documented plan hatched in the 1980s to "plug into this MONEY and VOTES formula in order to secure safepoints in this key political power arena" by launching a covert Scientology-dominated political action committee—a plan that sure looks creepy in light of his over-the-top efforts to use his wife's access to ingratiate himself to the Palins.

Maybe its an over-inflated sense of the value of our own reporting, but we're not the only ones curious about van Susteren and Coale's relationship to the Church of Scientology. So it seems like something that the Times would want to ask her about in a story devoted to her answering her critics.

In any case, the Times does raise flags about van Susteren's longevity at Fox: Even though she beats the competition in the ratings, her show is seen as a dead spot in Fox's primetime schedule relative to the viewership of its other shows. Her contract is up next year, and Megyn Kelly is waiting in the wings.

Apparently the lovely Ana Marie was enjoying a nice lentil salad on a New York to Washington D.C. Amtrak train when suddenly she felt her throat begin to tighten in an "indescribably terrifying" way. That's when Greta, who was sitting nearby with her husband, the recently thrown under the bus by Sarah Palin John Coale, noticed the flame-haired blogger in distress and sprang into action.

"She was like 'I think I know what is happening to you. Don't worry about it. We're going to get you a Benadryl,' " Cox remembered a calming Van Susteren saying. A food allergy sufferer herself, Greta was ready with a backup plan: She carries an EpiPen epinephrine shot for her own emergencies. "If she hadn't been there, I don't know what would have happened. It would have been a thousand times worse," says Cox.

Well lookie there! A Fox News personality coming to the rescue of an evil liberal blogger person! (He wipes away a tear) Isn't that a touching little yarn? And why does it not come as a surprise that Greta carries an EpiPen?

We emailed Ana Marie earlier to request a comment on this, hoping for some sort of tie-in to her well-documented love for ass-fucking like, "Thanks to Greta, I live to be sodomized another day!" but we didn't hear back from her. Oh well.

Be careful out there Ana Marie. Don't fuck around with this and go see a damn doctor! And watch out for those dang Amtrak lentil salads!

Greta Van Susteren Saves Ana Marie Cox's Life [US News Washington Whispers]

Coale proposed the idea in February, while tagging along with his wife, Fox News' Greta van Susteren, to Alaska to shoot a promo for the Palins. He wanted Palin's political action committee—the creation of which Coale had masterminded—to make a symbolic $5,000 donation to the Clinton campaign to help her retire her debt.

Coale also tried to set up a meeting between Palin and Bill Clinton, which seems like an insane thing to do if the idea was to get Hillary to like Sarah. The meeting never took place, which is just as well, because the Palins are preposterously fertile and she would almost certainly have gotten pregnant.

After repeated nudging by Coale, who describes the Alaska governor as a friend, Palin directed a staffer to turn him down via e-mail: "While we appreciate your efforts and recognize that a friendship with the Clintons is appropriate, the governor believes (and I concur) that using SarahPAC to pay down Hillary's debt is not a prudent use of the money. Contributors who chose between heating their homes and sending in a contribution because they believe in Sarah would be crushed."

Politico's account certainly looks like a deliberate attempt by Palin to distance herself from Coale—whose history of attempting to infiltrate and co-opt the political system on behalf of Scientology might make the Republican Party's Christian base uncomfortable—and from van Susteren, whose close relationship with the Palins has been attracting some unwanted attention of late. The story obviously came from the Palin camp: Her aides are quoted on the record speaking dismissively of Coale and seem to have provided Politico with e-mails, and Coale comes out looking like a bumbling dreamer with no political acumen. The story also blames Coale, by implication, for a series of scheduling snafus shortly after the election in which Palin accepted mainland speaking engagements and, after being accused of trying to spend too much time in the spotlight and not enough in Alaska, reneged on them.

Indeed, the story describes Coale as a "onetime" adviser to Palin in the lead. Ouch!

See, Greta was taking rugged Alaska "First Dude" Todd Palin to the White House Correspondents' Dinner, because of her weird obsession with that entire family. And, in her role as "Todd Palin's date," she apparently forbid some Politico reporter from asking Todd any questions. The Politico reporter was all, "ok, Greta, whatever, we won't bug your precious boyfriend Todd Palin," and this became "gossip on the internet" (which is "viral") and thus necessitated a response, written entirely in blue run-on sentences.

The On The Record host was responding to a Politico story that quoted some anonymous person claiming Van Susteren and her husband John Coale were giving Sarah Palin ruinous advice.

Coale, the national-domination-plotting Scientologist politico, is said to be shadow-operating former Republican VP nominee Palin's political action committee. In her post, Van Sustern listed a bunch of other female TV news personalities with politically active husbands, implying it's entirely possible to be journalistically ethical and have a partisan spouse, particularly if the other keeps a safe distance. Sure.

But then, being something of a rage hoarder, Van Susteren had to go on and on, until finally she was digging herself into a journalistic hole, even as she tried to defend her journalism.

Her husband's advice to Palin apparently isn't an issue because... it came after the 2008 election. And the PAC he set up isn't, like, a real PAC:

Yes, he advised her - after the election - how to set up a PAC (big deal - it is common - routine - for politicians to set up a PAC - virtually every politician has one set up and there is nothing wrong with them.. and incidentally, the PAC was created to pay travel bills she had accumulated and would accumulate in the future and to contribute to other candidates …and the Pac was not to be her chief political advisers which is what the article accuses.)

Emphasis from the original.

Also, Palin got a bum rap in the media. Saying so proves Van Susteren is fair and balanced, or something:

My husband helped with the PAC - I did not - AFTER the election when she was not running for office but trying to dig herself out from lawsuits, ethics complaints and unfair attacks by the media. Big deal. So he was nice to her and wanted to help her and did help her.

Again, emphasis from the original.

The Palin-Van Susteren-Coale relationship is going to be hours and hours of entertainment.

Coale is a prominent Washington power broker and husband to Fox News' Greta Van Susteren. According to the Washington Post, he is running Palin's political action committee behind the scenes and "guiding [her] political image in Washington."

In 1986, he masterminded a plan—which was never executed—for Scientology to get into the "MONEY and VOTES game" in order to "create power" for Scientology and win influence Washington, D.C.

[You can read Coale's complete memo and other documents outlining his scheme here.]

Reached this morning, Coale confirmed that he had launched the plan for what he called the FLAGG PAC. "I thought it was a brilliant idea," Coale said, "but no one else did, so it never went anywhere. I was looking at ways to move a new religion forward. I looked at the history of Mormons, who had a lot of people in office, and I looked at the Jews, who were very successful and influential. But the church didn't want to be part of it. They didn't want to be misconstrued. There was one small meeting with parishioners in DC. Maybe 9 or 10 people showed up."

Coale denies playing any role in Palin's political career aside from that of a friend who e-mails her once a week or so. And he insists that he has never used his political influence—in addition to Palin, his friends include the Clintons and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, among many others in Washington—to advance the aims of Scientology. "I don't think I have ever said, to the Clintons or Nancy Pelosi, or anyone else, a word about Scientology. Not a word."

The idea was to launch a political action committee that would attract donations from Scientologists but could be plausibly distanced from the cult, which claims to be a church and therefore barred from engaging directly in political activities.

The PAC was to be called FLAGG PAC, which stood for "Freedom, Liberty, and Good Government Political Action Committee," but would act as a sort of dog whistle for Scientologists, who would hear an echo of "Flag Land Base," the group's international headquarters in Clearwater, Florida.

Its goal would have been to advance the Scientology creed, which calls for an end to "insanity" (good idea!) and the abolition of psychiatry.

But Scientology also had a more concrete problem that a PAC could address. In the mid-1980s, it was in the midst of a 26-year battle with the Internal Revenue Service, which involved bugging IRS offices, infiltrating the Department of Justice, and breaking into federal buildings, to secure tax-exempt status as a church. According to a document outlining FLAGG PAC's "Production Targets," Coale hoped that the IRS could be brought to heel.

In January 1986, Coale spoke at a Scientology "government awareness seminar" in Washington, D.C., to pitch parishioners on the idea and begin raising money. Attendees were given detailed surveys from the church's Office of Special Affairs—the arm that handles public affairs and conducts covert operations—asking for personal data on any powerful political, media, or financial figures they may know so that the OSA could "better coordinate our activities."

The documents identify Coale as the force behind the PAC idea, and as the point man for people interested in contributing.

Out of the goodness of his superhuman, OT VII heart, Greta Van Susteren's husband John Coale has "helped" everyone from Hillary Clinton to Nancy Pelosi to, yes, Palin, Susteren wrote in a post to her Fox blog "GretaWire."

He has fun doing it. He happens to enjoy helping them with advice. He likes to see women succeed...

...He has also met many of my professional women friends over the years (they have become his friends) and has gotten a good understanding of the challenges women have met and continue to meet.

Van Susteren, herself a Scientologist, said Coale "has given Governor Palin advice and helped her" — right, by running her PAC? — but has not been paid. Not that Gawker or the Washington Post ever said he had; wishful thinking about drawing the former vice presidential nominee into the Church of Scientology is likely a much more powerful motivator for Coale than mere dollars.

Coale met the governor when Van Susteren interviewed her, Van Susteren said. How cozy. Let's see how long this tight little circle holds together once the evangelical Christian base of the Republican Party figures out it's rife with non-believers.

Bristol scheduled an interview with mom's pandering BFF Greta Van Susteren of Fox News. But she didn't tell mom until 24 hours before, probably because she was planning to personally insult Jesus, and the former Republican vice presidential nominee would not like it.

After describing the difficulty of being a teen mom, Britsol told Van Susteren abstinence is the best policy, but is not realistic because it's not the 19th Century any more, not even in Alaska.

She said she didn't "want to get into detail about" other reasons abstinence is unrealistic, though we're guessing it might be because Bristol failed to control her teenaged hormones and, being without ready access to condoms, got pregnant at 17 to an ill-tempered failed hockey player  who has yet to finish high school or, judging from what Bristol told Fox, secure employment of any sort, other than doing odd jobs for his father.

Still, Bristol wants all teens to try really hard not to have sex of any sort, because you'll end up like her, sitting across from Greta Van Susteren and explaining that "eventually" you'd "like to get married" to your the father of your child, to whom you are supposed to be engaged. And that you'd especially like to get married to that person if someone in your family needs to run for a federal office of some sort. (OK, she never said that last part. But it was implied.)

Apparently CNN put Palin on a list with Spitzer and John Edwards and assorted other scandalized political characters and everyone was scandalized by this and then CNN scandalously had to take Palin off this made-up, unimportant list, and apologize to her, for fuck's sake, because this is journalism in America, these days. Greta, who still feels indebted to the Palins for being allowed on the snowmobile, feels their apology efforts fall scandalously short:

1/ why didn’t CNN PUBLICLY apologize for this one? they sure unfairly trashed her publicly on that list….should not exposure of the apology equal the round the world exposure of the unfair trashing? That is what is done in court - you do what is necessary to make the person whole in the damage done to the person…and then it is over.

2/ a producer? why did she get stuck doing the dirty work on this one? why didn’t someone higher up the corporate food chain send the message of apology if CNN really means it? the job stature of the person making the apology can mean much. This IS the Governor of the largest state…a former candidate for VP….and the trashing went world wide and was really lousy….

Yes the CEO of CNN is now responsible for PUBLICLY APOLOGIZING for offending any politician through LISTICLE. Clowns. Everywhere, there are clowns.

If Palin had addressed the wardrobe issue during the campaign, it might have defused the charges of hypocrisy and significantly helped her ticket's chances. But by talking publicly like this now, she's just depleting her still-considerable balance of political capital. Palin's own accounting makes her look like a pushover who agreed to put on the airs of a folksy, small-town mayor while wearing fancy duds that, as she told Susteren, she was relieved to trade in upon her return home. It was only then, Palin said, that she put on "my own clothes." (See video above.)

This clothes thing shouldn't matter, as Palin herself said in the interview. And if she'd just left it alone, it wouldn't. But by talking out of both sides of her mouth about it — first she told Susteren she didn't wear her own clothes on the trail, then that she did — the Alaska governor not only revived the controversy but also reminded her remaining fans of what they liked least about her, about the fumbling duplicity of her ticket in its final weeks.

It doesn't help her credibility that Palin claims no Democratic nominees were slammed over who did their "hair and makeup," or that she also falsely claimed to Van Susteren that Harry Potter hadn't been published while she was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, and that she therefore couldn't have banned the book from local libraries. This was exposed (at Huffington Post) as an awful lie just minutes after Palin said it.

The governor repeatedly acknowledged she might like to run for the Republican nomination for president in 2012, 2016 or beyond (see video below). A more tactful politician might wait until the body of her last campaign was cold before engaging in such a discussion. On the other hand, everyone knows Palin is a (sometimes irrationally) confident and ambitious politician, and nothing if not plainspoken, so trying to deny the possibility of a run would have just looked silly and out of character.

Palin at least managed to deny those rumors she didn't know her continents, and to work in a cute story about a phone call with Barack Obama (also below). Fox: Put the quality material at the front of the broadcast when you air Part 2 Tuesday night. Having to watch another full hour of Palin is just going to give us more terrible flashbacks to last month.

EXCLUSIVE PALIN KITCHEN PHOTO!!!!!

EXCLUSIVE PALIN YARD PHOTO!!!

Who is this masked journalistic pair?

Lo, it is Greta Van Susteren and Piper Palin, a pair of journalists!

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Piper.

We can't wait for the thrilling finale! [GretaWire]

The North-bin Ladin story is an email hoax that began circulating right after Sept. 11, 2001, and was almost immediately debunked by North himself. (Scoff all you like, Americans, but email forwards also happen to be how Sarah Palin gets her foreign policy news!)

Van Susteren, however, failed to correct the Pakistani president, the Times' Brian Stelter notes in this morning's paper.

But give the on-air lawyer some credit: Van Susteren did post an ALL CAPS corrective email from North on her blog late last night, shown below. As Stelter said, "Hold your breath for the on-TV correction." And if you want to influence global leaders, skip the Fulbright scholarship and bone up on your viral email skills.

Click here to listen to the voice mail.