The oft quoted "Witness 40" in the Michael Brown shooting trial turns out to be a racist ex-felon who was nowhere near the incident that day.

Courtesy of the Smoking Gun:  

The grand jury witness who testified that she saw Michael Brown pummel a cop before charging at him “like a football player, head down,” is a troubled, bipolar Missouri woman with a criminal past who has a history of making racist remarks and once insinuated herself into another high-profile St. Louis criminal case with claims that police eventually dismissed as a “complete fabrication,” The Smoking Gun has learned. 

In interviews with police, FBI agents, and federal and state prosecutors--as well as during two separate appearances before the grand jury that ultimately declined to indict Officer Darren Wilson--the purported eyewitness delivered a preposterous and perjurious account of the fatal encounter in Ferguson. 

Referred to only as “Witness 40” in grand jury material, the woman concocted a story that is now baked into the narrative of the Ferguson grand jury, a panel before which she had no business appearing. 

While the “hands-up” account of Dorian Johnson is often cited by those who demanded Wilson’s indictment, “Witness 40”’s testimony about seeing Brown batter Wilson and then rush the cop like a defensive end has repeatedly been pointed to by Wilson supporters as directly corroborative of the officer’s version of the August 9 confrontation. The “Witness 40” testimony, as Fox News sees it, is proof that the 18-year-old Brown’s killing was justified, and that the Ferguson grand jury got it right. 

However, unlike Johnson, “Witness 40”--a 45-year-old St. Louis resident named Sandra McElroy--was nowhere near Canfield Drive on the Saturday afternoon Brown was shot to death.

Witness 40 is of course the ONLY witness that Sean Hannity ever quotes, while he conveniently pretends that the other twenty or more witnesses do not exist.

Not at all surprising that he chose the one that is a fucking liar. 

For those who may have forgotten this is the graphic that shows the numerous inconsistencies among the witnesses.

I have a feeling that this Sandra McElroy is not the only "witness" to have perjured themselves before the Grand Jury.

I strongly encourage you to read the entire article. It is quite eye opening.

The moment that Rick Perry realizes what he said.

(Source.)

The topless militants of Femen have a new target, Fox News and Sean Hannity.

Courtesy of Salon:

Femen’s manner of protesting has not proved to everyone’s liking, to put it mildly, but one thing is certain: In an era of rising political disaffection and apathy, people pay attention. Bare breasts are not incidental to Femen’s struggle. The movement has aimed to wrest conceptions about women’s bodies from the clutches of the three (doctrinally prudish and phallocratic) Abrahamic religions that would shroud them, partly or in full, in cloth as well as in shame. Toplessness is, in Femen’s view, a means of boldly violating gender- and faith-based societal norms; and atheism has formed a part of the Femen canon since the movement’s inception in 2008. 

Atheism has been dear to (Inna) Shevchenko in particular: Her own life has been shaped and even upended by her fight for secularist ideals. In protest against the harsh, Orthodox Church-supported prison sentence Pussy Riot received from the Russian authorities, in August 2012 she chainsawed a towering wooden cross in central Kiev in her native Ukraine. Publicly threatened as a result by Ukraine’s conservative President Viktor Yanukovych (deposed last year) and facing charges of “criminal hooliganism” for her deed, she fled to France and established Femen’s first outpost abroad. There, she soon rocketed to fame (better said, infamy), leading her militants in a multitude of fiercely faithless demonstrations in favor of women’s rights and same-sex marriage that pushed Gallic tolerance of free speech to the limit. Perhaps most controversially, she inspired the depiction of the revered (and bare-breasted) heroine of the French Revolution Marianne now gracing the country’s postage stamps, becoming the only foreign woman to do so. This still infuriates France’s nationalistic (and ascendant) far right, which has called (unsuccessfully) for the stamp to be withdrawn.

The Salon reporter, Jeffrey, Taylor, asked Shevchenko why she is so aggressive in criticizing the new pope, her answer was rather interesting: 

“The pope said he recognized the Big Bang,” she answered. “He sees how his doctrine doesn’t accord with progress, so he says things like this. He also said, ‘Who am I to criticize gay people?’ Just for this, we’re ready to hand over Parliament to him? This is just his strategy so he can come and speak at the Parliament. He says God isn’t a magician and wins great popularity even with some atheists. But if we believe him, we’re twice foolish; we become slaves of the most powerful religious institution, the Vatican, and then we invite him to Parliament. This just shows how stupid we [atheists] are and how clever they are.” She paused. “Not many Americans know that the Vatican received its statehood from Mussolini … It’s highly symbolic that Vatican statehood was created by a fascist.”

Very good points all. Clearly this is yet another Atheist who thinks the Pope is a little too good to be true.

(Nudity below the fold.)

Taylor also asked Shevchenko if Femen had any new targets in their sites:

There was one other target Femen would like to strike: Fox News. 

“Anyone in particular there?” I asked. 

“Femen doesn’t reject people, it rejects ideas.” 

I pressed her to name names. She ventured one: that of talk-show host Sean Hannity. 

Sean Hannity! An attack on him would earn Femen evergreen laurels in a yet-to-be-erected pantheon of progressivism. A more deserving target of the movement’s bare-breasted ire would be tough to imagine.

Personally I think this is the kind of thing that Hannity will not be unable to resist talking about, and if he does that will only mean that Femen has successfully manipulated him into publicizing their movement on one of the most popular cable news shows in America.

It may be easy for some to dismiss these woman due to their use of nudity to garner attention, but these are certainly not bimbos.

These are very intelligent and driven women, who are making quite a name for themselves in Europe and Russia.

And they certainly had not difficulty getting the attention of at least one world leader.

Personally I welcome any help in taking down Fox News and Sean Hannity in particular.

So where exactly is Sarah Palin going to be on Monday?

I'm sure that none of you have yet forgotten Palin's deer in the headlights response to Hannity calling her out over what job in politics for which she might be willing to campaign.

In order to make it sound that she was much tool busy "protecting the freedom of Americans" by supporting candidates and making public appearances, Palin rattled this off:

"Saturday I'll be in Louisiana, tonight I am very pleased to hear that at the College Inn in New Orleans we have a unity effort going on there right now with Colonel Rob Maness and his supporters, in that race against Mary Landrieu, joining with the..the winner of the GOP you know that open jungle primary that..uh..Louisiana has, we will see Cassidy and Maness, and their supporters come together to make sure that Mary Landrieu, and her participation in this lawlessness, these felled policies of Obama's, that they don't get back to Washington D.C.. We'll have the GOP there and we'll do that by unity. So I want to participate in things like that to help."

Now Palin made those remarks on Friday, November 7th, however in an article written the next day about the event, they listed the attendees as follows: 

Maness will formally endorse Cassidy during a star-studded Republican rally in Baton Rouge on Monday that will feature presumed presidential candidates Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Gov. Bobby Jindal. 

U.S. Sen. David Vitter, state Sen. Elbert Guillory, state Rep. Paul Hollis, 6th Congressional District candidate Garret Graves, former U.S. Rep. Jeff Landry, and LAGOP chairman Roger Villere will also attend the "Unity Rally."

A "star studded" rally demonstrating unity, yet Palin who not only bragged about attending but almost made it sound like the event was her brainchild, is not among the listed participants.

Now why is that?

Could it be that she lied? (Well of course it could she does that all of the time.) OR could it be that she is simply not considered a "star" in Louisiana Republican circles?

Hmm, well I guess we'll know after Monday.

Sean Hannity invites Sarah Palin on to do her victory dance and then shuts her down by asking if she wants a job in politics.

I have to admit that I did not even know that Palin was on Fox last night, I was too busy ignoring my TV and enjoying life.

However our friend GinaM sent me this link so let's see what craziness awaits us this morning.

Hannity leads off by framing the midterm defeat of Democrats as a harbinger of troubles to come for a Hillary Clinton presidential bid in 2016. (Nice try no-neck.)

After teeing it up, Hannity then asks Palin if Hillary is "as big a loser as the President."

"Oh it was the whole ball of wax wasn't it the other night? All the Democrats felled policies, and felled candidates, and felled surrogates. Well that was just..uh..made manifest by  the American people when we all said no to that, and to stop that, and Hillary of course was a part of that. Of course though the Left, Sean will..um..buck up and they will do all that they can to protect Hillary and try to change the narrative, as you already heard I'm sure. Try to make it sound like, well she was the winner in all of this. That she had chosen the right ones, and the right policies to support. Obviously the facts don't support that...but they will...they will support her anyway and prop her up because they participate in this phony and felled war on women, so to compensate for what it is that they accuse the Republicans of engaging in, they make an extra effort to coddle women and to make them fill that they can't independently, and with their own capabilities, rise to the top. That government and politicians have to do things for them. They will do for Hillary to continue to prop her up."

Wait, Hillary Clinton needs to be propped up by the Democrats? Boy does Palin not know Hillary Clinton!

That is one of the worst cases of projection that I have ever seen.

Hannity then makes the case that in order to run successfully in 2016 that Hillary will have to distance herself from the policies of President Obama, and asks Palin if she can do that.

"No, Barack Obama of course has had his boot on the neck of the American economy, and anyone who has participated in shining that boot, that being the people who he surrounds himself with, and helped call the shots for the nation over these past six years of a lot of failures, anybody who shined those boots? No the American public, you can't underestimate the wisdom of, and will be saying no to anyone who participated. Good point too about Mark Begich, Mary Landrieu, all these folks who they supported Barack Obama, and would continue to, of course, when they got back in there 97, 98, 99% of the time. How stupid did they think American voters were?"

Well smart enough to have rejected you and Grandpa Grumpy-Pants back in 2008.

Hannity then asks if Palin has any advice for the newly elected, or newly reelected Republicans going to Washington, and she rattles off a bunch of her usual talking points about stopping Obama, giving us our freedom, and playing hardball.

Hannity then asks if there isn't an "unspoken expectation" that the Republicans will actually work to solve some of the problems facing the country and not just focus on defeating Obama? Which is actually a surprisingly reasonable question coming from Hannity.

Let's see how Palin handles a real question.

"Right, first and foremost is stop Obama and his felled policies, his lawlessness, but also yes that inspiration that we can gain from the GOP, and what it is that we sent them to do there in Washington is to fulfill their campaign promises and stand strong on the planks of the Republican platform. And they can get specific from there. Lower the corporate tax rate, and quit shoving jobs overseas..um..allow competition in the health care system once you repill Obamacare, as you promised to do GOP. And...uh...allow employers to hire more people. Full time jobs, not part time jobs. What's going on right now Sean is the decimation of the middle class because of these high costs of health care, because of these prohibitions just placed upon employers where they're not able to hire people. Open borders of course is another step toward decimation of the middle class because we'll have a flood of illegal immigrants coming in to compete with American jobs. All of that leads to just this atrophying of a foundation of our country which is the middle class, and that is on the Democrat's shoulder."

Holy shit! What the hell is she saying?

So I think the answer is no, that Republicans do not have an "unspoken expectation" to do anything except attack Obama and give lip service to problem solving while doing nothing.

This is where Hannity decides to ambush Palin by asking her if she is thinking at all about getting back into politics.

And this is the look on her face the moment he asks it at the 6:15 mark.

Deer, meet headlights.

Her response?

"I would love to."

Then Hannity follows up, by asking her "what job?"

She looks completely lost, before shaking her head and saying, "I don't know which job, but of course, and in the meantime, I'm out and about doing what I can to support good candidates."

Palin then breathlessly tattles off a bunch of upcoming appearances. Ultimately making it clear that she does NOT really want a job where she cannot do what she wants, when she wants.

Most of this interview was the same old word salad, peppered with Palin brand moosenuggets. But that last question, that one actually seemed to have drawn blood.

Sarah Palin attempting to distract from the brawl on Hannity last night. Nice try lady.

I actually almost did not cover this as I think it the far less important or interesting story about Sarah Palin today. (For that just go down a few posts.)

However it is kind of my thing to talk about her Fox appearances so here goes.

First off she is once again dressed in that hideous yellow pleather jacket, which looks like part of an ensemble from the "Streetwalker Barbie" collection.

Then she starts off with this dismissive tone as she addresses a quote about President Obama by Tina Brown:

"How ironic, Because that little lady, Tina Brown, she is such a big part of the problem. She with her, and her ilk, so uber-uppity, so cocksure of their untouchable elitism."

Say what?

Damn somebody is particularly venomous today.

Palin then goes on to blame liberals for keeping women down by making them dependent on social programs.

About Tina Brown she says, "Chick you're a day late and a dollar short." 

Yes because REAL pro-women women usually refer to other women as "chicks."

For somebody whose entire family was just outed as a bunch of drunken trouble makers, Palin is oddly arrogant and seemingly pleased with herself as she makes statements like this:

 "Because these maladroit fake feminist women, They have such a double standard, so hypocritical as they would support anyone who would have sympathy for Muslims who do treat women so poorly. So inhumanely and not do all they can to stop the rise of radical Islam that would adversely affect America's interests.

(I bet you did not know that not stopping the spread of radical Islam was a failing by feminists now did you?)

Hannity then gets sneaky and tricks Palin, who as we know is always throwing her support behind these far right challengers to Republican incumbents, into admitting that voting for the Republican candidate, even if he is not as ideological pure as she might like, would be better than allowing the Democrats to take that seat.

At the end Palin manages to again make her pitch that Obama's recent remarks that many Democrats currently in tight races voted with him, essentially dooms Mark Begich. (Who she disrespectfully refers to as "Marky-Mark.)

"GOP establishment you better not blow it. You better take this gift as gold and capitalize on it."

You know that's actually good advice.

And that is why I will be using the newly released information about that drunken brawl for weeks to come.