Chris Matthews Admits to Verbally Accosting GOP Delegates at Restaurant

Just hours after a producer for deranged MSNBC host Chris Matthews was accused of physically assaulting Republicans outside the party’s national convention last night, Matthews himself has admitted to verbally confronting several GOP delegates at a restaurant in Tampa, Florida calling them a “douchebag convention.”

According to The Hill newspaper, the perpetually angry liberal television host confronted the delegates early Friday morning following taunting questions they asked about whether he felt “thrilled” following GOP nominee Mitt Romney’s acceptance speech.

The controversy began, according to a witness interviewed by The Hill when Matthews twice refused to acknowledge a New York delegate named Eric Ulrich who had greeted him. This prompted other Republican patrons of the restaurant to begin heckling him for the perceived slight:

He headed back into the restaurant to mix it up with them. “I wanted to confront them,” Matthews said, describing his exchange with the men as “towel-snapping” among guys.

Matthews said he told the rowdy group, “What’s this, a douchebag convention?”

The Republicans became angry and retorted back.

“I told him that’s next week,” said New York delegate Anthony Nunziato, referring to the Democratic convention in Charlotte, N.C., that will start on Tuesday.

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Feds Drop Criminal Case Against Sheriff Joe Arpaio

Federal authorities announced Friday that they’re closing their abuse-of-power investigation into Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Arizona without filing charges against him.

Authorities were investigating America’s self-proclaimed toughest sheriff for his part in failed public corruption cases against officials who were odds with him. Arpaio brought cases against a judge and two county officials in 2009.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Ann Birmingham Scheel released a statement saying her office “is closing its investigation into allegations of criminal conduct” by current and former members of the sheriff‘s and county attorney’s offices.

Scheel didn’t elaborate, saying only that County Attorney Bill Montgomery was advised of the decision “not to pursue state criminal charges related to the investigation.” Scheel, who is based in Arizona, said she was acting on behalf of the U.S. Department of Justice.

The federal probe focused specifically on the investigative work of the sheriff’s anti-public-corruption squad that handled the failed cases against the officials. In a separate probe, the U.S. Justice Department has accused Arpaio’s office of a wide range of civil rights violations, and in an unrelated case, a federal judge has yet to rule in a civil case brought by a group of Latino plaintiffs that claimed Arpaio and his deputies engaged in racial profiling.

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As nation mourns the loss of 40,000 pounds of bacon from an overturned truck on I-74, Muslim leaders demand FBI/DOJ investigation

A semitrailer truck hauling 40,000 pounds of bacon overturned on Interstate 74 near Deer Creek, Michigan, spilling its load.

Pantagraph The driver, Rodney J. Kalman, 57, of Muskegon, MI, was taken to OSF Saint Francis Medical Center, Peoria, with what state police said were minor injuries. He was charged with improper lane usage.

Litigation jihadists from a ‘prominent’ Muslim civil rights group in Dearbornistan plan to ask Eric Holder to investigate the spillage as an Islamophobic hate crime, aimed at preventing Muslim drivers from reaching their intended destinations from I-74.

MSN NOW In the meantime, the nation is reeling from the loss of 40,000 pounds of bacon which ”crossed over” when a semi crashed and spilled its smoky, delicious contents all over Interstate 74 near Deer Creek, Mich. The Eastbound truck drifted into the center median, when tragedy struck.
Luckily the driver was OK, so let us not dwell on the fact that the bacon is no longer with us, but join us now in a celebration of its life. The bacon was known — and loved — by so many. Bacon was an active member of its community and contributed to countless sandwiches, breakfasts, and even a sundae or two. Join us now in a moment of silence as we reflect on the joy bacon brought to all who knew it.

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Government Extortion

Oregon farmers and state officials are furious with the U.S. Labor Department after federal authorities in July put a hold on thousands of dollars worth of blueberries, citing “widespread” record-keeping and minimum wage violations, Eric Mortenson reports for The Oregonian.

“[T]he department invoked a “hot goods” provision of labor law that prohibited shipment of the berries. Labor officials also notified wholesalers that berries from the farms would be subject to the order and should not be processed or shipped,” according to the report.

“Hot goods” orders are used by the department’s Wage and Hour Division to halt the production and/or sale of goods its believes were produced in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

But here‘s what has members of Oregon’s congressional delegation and the Oregon Farm Bureau particularly disturbed: The federal agency told the farmers that they could make everything go away if they paid “a fine and back wages and sign a consent judgment admitting wrong and agreeing not to contest the order even if subsequent information exonerated the farms.”

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Gore’s ‘popular vote’ scheme to ensure Democrat rule?

Al Gore’s claim that an end to the Electoral College will ensure all voters get equal representation in a popular vote is contradicted by a recently released book that documents how the “popular vote” campaign could see only 14 states – those with the largest populations, most of which are majority-Democrat – decide the presidency for voters in all 50 states.

Gore took to his Current TV to push for the abolishment of the Electoral College and its replacement with the so-called popular vote. He claimed that many voters who live outside the dozen or so battleground states are being cheated by the current system that allocates delegates from the state level, reported The Hill.

Stated Gore: “I’ve seen how these states are written off and ignored, and people are effectively disenfranchised in the presidential race. And I really do now think it is time to change that.”

While some have proposed legislation and a constitutional amendment, Gore alluded to a “very interesting” movement to bypass the Electoral College.

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Campaign for Obama, get college credit

A public university in Colorado may have violated state law by offering students course credit if they volunteered with President Obama’s re-election campaign. A blog post on the Adams State University website billed the opportunity as a “12 week long organizing internship for the Obama Campaign.”

Both the blog post and the course are now gone. The course was canceled due to lack of interest, according to the university. The blog post was taken down earlier this week after a conservative student blog, Campus Reform, reported on it.

The course may have been in violation of the Colorado Fair Campaign Practices Act, which prohibits the use of public resources toward “campaigns involving the nomination, retention, or election of any person to any public office.” Oliver Darcy, the editor at Campus Reform who first reported the story, said the course struck him as a likely violation of state law.

“They are definitely using a few professors at least to help these students with the campaign process, so I don’t understand how it doesn’t use public resources for campaign purposes,” he said in an interview with The Daily Caller News Foundation.

A spokesperson for the university said the blog post was mistaken about the nature of the course, and that students would have been allowed to volunteer with any campaign.

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MSNBC Failed to Cover ‘Incredibly Moving’ Story About Romney; Today MSNBCers Lament Most Americans Didn’t See It

Last night, at 8:38 p.m. Eastern, Ted and Pat Oparowski — who attended church with Mitt Romney in the late 1970s — shared their heartwarming story of how Mitt Romney took time out of his busy schedule to visit their cancer-stricken son David and to help him settle his affair and write his will when it was apparent the cancer would take his life. Both CNN and Fox News Channel carried the moving account by the elderly couple. MSNBC, however, skipped the speech, instead devoting that time to discussing how Romney’s religion will play on the campaign trail, if at all.

Fast forward to noon today. MSNBC’s Now with Alex Wagner played a few soundbites of Pat Oparowski before showing host Alex Wagner and her panelists Chris Hayes and Karen Finney lamenting that most Americans didn’t see it last night.

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VP Biden Kisses Supporter on Lips for Cracking Clint Eastwood Joke

Vice President Joe Biden was so pleased with one woman’s anti-Clint Eastwood joke today at a campaign stop in Ohio, he actually kissed her on the lips, according to a pool report.

Biden rolled into Antone’s Italian Grill at around 2:30 p.m. today, “a slightly swankier-than-average food booth,” the report said.

“I just ate lunch,” Biden said, before looking at the menu options and taking recommendation from restaurant staff.

For the vice president of the United States, they chose $6 balls of fried cheese with tomato sauce and pasta. “This is a meal,” Biden said, after getting his plate.

“Holy mackerel,” he added, and gave the waiter a $20 bill and declined change back. “Good recommendation, man.”

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Obama speech to soldiers met with silence

President Barack Obama was greeted with fleeting applause and extended periods of silence as he offered profuse praise to soldiers and their families during an Aug. 31 speech in Fort Bliss, Texas.

His praise for the soldiers — and for his own national-security policies — won cheers from only a small proportion of the soldiers and families in the cavernous aircraft-hanger.

The audience remains quiet even when the commander-in-chief thanked the soldiers’ families, and cited the 198 deaths of their comrades in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The audience’s reaction was so flat that the president tried twice to elicit a reaction from the crowd.

“Hey, I hear you,” he said amid silence.

The selected soldiers who were arrayed behind the president sat quietly throughout the speech.

CNN and MSNBC ended their coverage of the speech before it was half-over.

The president’s speech to the soldiers is part of his constitutional duties as commander-in-chief.

But Obama and his wife are also trying to reach out to military families in several critical swing-states, including Virginia and Florida.

That outreach, however, has been damaged by repeated flubs from the White House, including its public emphasis on soldiers’ wounds rather than on their accomplishments, and Obama’s effort to distance himself from the anti-jihad campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.

For example, Obama gave Vice President Joe Biden the task of developing a post-war agreement with Iraq’s government in 2009. The effort failed, reducing U.S. gains from the campaign that killed almost 4,500 troops, and as well as thousands of jihadis and Sunni insurgents seeking to regain power. The subsequent withdrawal of nearly all U..S. troops has allowed Iran to increase its influence in Iraq. In turn, that influence helps it support Syria’s dictatorship against Sunni insurgents.

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Idiotic Jason Biggs Attacks Ann Romney, Janna Ryan in Graphic Sexually Charged Tweets

The actor whose claim to fame was sticking his reproductive organ into an apple pie proved Thursday night that he can be just as crude and offensive in real life.

Following up on a pair of repulsive tweets about sexually violating vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan’s wife, Janna, that he sent out on Wednesday, Jason Biggs decided to attack Christians, Paul Ryan, Ann Romney, Clint Eastwood, Janna Ryan (again) and offend nearly everyone else who read the string of new tweets the actor posted late Thursday as the Republican National Convention aired on national television.

But let’s start from the beginning. Biggs on Wednesday tweeted this, which was deleted literally as TheBlaze was writing this story:

I‘d totes dip a pinky or two in Paul Ryan’s wife’s bleached asshole (she obvs bleaches her asshole). #RNC

— Jason Biggs (@JasonBiggs) August 30, 2012

And followed up with a Paul Ryan masturbation joke:

I bet there’s footage somewhere of Paul Ryan jerking off to a close-up photo of his widow’s peak. #RNC

— Jason Biggs (@JasonBiggs) August 30, 2012

But Biggs wasn’t done, not even close. Late Thursday, as the RNC was reaching its climax with GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s nomination acceptance speech, the actor decided to also go after Ann Romney’s private parts:

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