If You're Not Lying, You Don't Plead The Fifth

The last time we heard from White House State Dinner crashers Michaele and Tareq Salahi (otherwise known as "really bad liars"), they were giving an interview to very hot Matt Lauer and vehemently stating that they had been invited to that dinner and that they had emails and all sorts of compelling evidence that would prove those assertions. Tareq even stated that he was looking forward to sitting on Matt's couch (who wouldn't look forward to that?!) and really telling him everything that he had deemed to be couch-worthy. Well, it's looking like they're going to get their chance to clear things up, as they've been subpoenaed to appear before a Congressional hearing to discuss the matter. Oh, but wait. Matt Lauer isn't going to be there. Maybe that's why they're saying that they're going to plead the fifth. Wait. What now?

That's right. These two dimwits, the same dimwits who couldn't wait to show everyone their emails that purported their invitation to the State dinner, are going to take the fifth. The fifth as in invoking their rights under the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution. That's the amendment that basically gives every individual immunity from having to testify against themselves in a criminal trial. A criminal trial? Granted, there are plenty of criminals in Congress, but that doesn't make a Congressional hearing a criminal trial does it? No, it does not. So, then...how can...why are....what the what?

Probably the instance that you are most likely to have heard of this sort of thing happening was when Colonel Oliver North took the fifth when he was testifying before Congress about whether or not he destroyed documents during the whole Iran-Contra debacle. Colonel North claimed that he refused to answer on the grounds that his answers would incriminate him for obstruction of justice. Now wait a minute.

If you're telling someone that you're not going to answer their questions because it could incriminate you for something, aren't you basically admitting guilt? I think that you are! It's like if you have your mouth full of cookies and someone asks you if you're eating cookies and you mumble out that you're not going to tell them because if you do, they will think that you're eating cookies...when you are eating cookies! What is wrong with these people?

This is, technically speaking and that being based solely on their previous lies, what they've been waiting for. This is their chance to shine! This is their chance to explain how they were, of course, invited to that dinner. It's their chance to explain and prove, once and for all, that they would not do something so audacious (as Michaele Salahi put it when speaking to the super hot Matt Lauer) as to barge into a White House State Dinner uninvited. The nerve of such a heathen who would attempt such a thing! Yeah, whatever. If they're ever going to write a book about this sort of stuff, instead of The Audacity of Hope, they should call it The Audacity of Dopes. What a couple of maroons.

According to a statement that I found over there on MSNBC.com, on December 7, the Salahis made the following statement: "I am aware of statements made by certain members on the Committee on Homeland Security in which premature conclusions concerning my criminal liability have been made. ... The current circumstances warrant invocation of my Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination."

According to their attorney (who had better be working pro bono on this one, because he's never going to see a cent from these two grifters), a one Stephen Best, some of these conclusions included those made by District of Columbia Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton when she stated her characterization of the Salahis on Nov. 30 as "practiced con artists." Best also cited the chief oversight counsel of Chairman Bennie Thompson as telling "...the Salahis' lawyers that if the couple did not testify at the Dec. 3 hearing, they would be viewed as modern-day versions of "Bonnie and Clyde." I see. Seems like a reasonable thing to say. It also seems like something that, if it were not true, that one would be chomping at the bit whilst they waited to be able to explain and clear everything up. That's not what's happening here. Odd, isn't it? Uh, no. Not really.

Let's take a look at what the Fifth Amendment actually says, shall we? Mind you, I'm not saying that they can't invoke their rights at the Congressional hearing. They can, but I don't understand why when I read the context and the content of the Amendment that they're hiding behind. The Fifth Amendment reads as follows:

"No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

They're not being held to answer for a capital or infamous crime. They're not being asked to testify before a Grand Jury. There's no Militia involved. There isn't double jeopardy (or Alex Trebek) involved. This isn't a criminal case. Deprivation of life, liberty or property isn't occurring. Private property has not been taken from them. So how in the heck does this apply to Congressional hearings? "I don't know" is my answer. But somehow (please see the earlier reference to Colonel Oliver North) it's allowed.

By the way, so far, so good in the department of not paying these nimrods to appear on any talk shows. That's gone remarkably better than I had anticipated. So far there's just been the one appearance on The Today Show, but that seems to have been swung through some sort of a contract that the Salahis were already under with Bravo (which is owned by NBC, which airs Today), so they had to talk with them. But other than that, nothing. And thank God for that otherwise, like I had alluded to in a prior post, every day life would have turned into an episode of Jackass with morons from near and far, from hither and yon, trying to pull off a stunt like this.

The only hurdle left to get over for the temporary salvation of humanity is whether or not Michaele Salahi will end up being cast on The Real Housewives of Washington, D.C. If she gets a gig on there, it's over. We're done. Goodbye, sweet America. It will be over if she gets that deal. Do the right thing, Bravo. Don't do it. Don't give every other grifter couple (or solo grifters) in this country any sort of ammunition for their own ego as to why they should start trying to do things that could endanger the life of our President or other elected officials. Granted, there are some elected officials who should fear for their own safety, grifters or not. There are some despicable human beings in lawmaking. But they shouldn't have to fear that two dipshoots are going to be able to make it through security and shake their hands or, in the case of Joe Biden, hump their leg. No one wants an unauthorized, breach of security, leg humpin'. No one.

And in my last slam on the Salahis (during this post, of course. Please! You should know me better than to not expect future slams!), I'd like to point out something. Here are the Salahis. Behold!

And here is super hot Matt Lauer. Behold!

Mr. Lauer is 10 years older than Mr. Salahi and 7 years older than Mrs. Salahi. Not the other way around. Super hot Matt Lauer is older than those two. Wow. Nice job, Matt. As far as the not-aging-well Salahis, perhaps stop trying to weasel your way into State dinners and do something respectable with your lives. Nothing accelerates the aging like being a lying weasel. Clearly.

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His Shirt Was White

I can go on and on (and I have) about how the media sucks. But this is not a case of the media sucking. This is a case of the media lying. And just because something isn't said out loud it doesn't mean that it is not a lie. IN the case of the media, if you are "reporting" and you are editing, altering, omitting or in any other fashion misrepresenting the facts of anything, then you are lying. And the folks over there at MSNBC are reprehensible "journalists" and liars. (Please note that "liars" is not in quotes.)

The other day a one MSNBC newshole, Contessa Brewer, was doing a story with her cohorts, a one Dylan Ratigan and a one Toure. (That's his name. Toure. That's it. Like Prince. Or Cher. Only he's on MSNBC. What does that tell you? We're doomed, that is correct.) It started out going in one direction and ended up in a completely different direction. Perhaps all of the misdirecting was due to someone having their head up their arse. (Quite difficult to accurately navigate from that position I'm told.) I thought it was going to be on the Second Amendment issue, as there have been folks showing up to places where President Barry is speaking and
they have had guns in holsters strapped to their legs or strapped over their shoulders. My first thought upon hearing this was that the folks who were toting arms were way out of line. Upon further consideration, I realized that we can't just trample all over the Constitution of this fine land because something makes us a little uncomfortable or uneasy. I'm a huge fan of the right to bear arms (and to arm bears). Regardless, I thought it was going to be about that.

Turns out, it wasn't about that AT ALL. Here's what Contessa Brewer opened with: "Yesterday...A man at a pro-health care reform rally just outside, wore a semiautomatic assault rifle on his shoulder and a pistol on his hip....And if the scene looks familiar, that’s because it should, last week a guy stood outside Obama’s health care town hall in Portsmouth, New Hampshire with a gun strapped to his leg and police arrested a 62-year-old before that New Hampshire event for carrying unlicensed loaded gun. And the reason we’re talking about this, a lot of talk here, Dylan, because people feel like, yes, there are Second Amendment rights for sure but also there are questions about whether this has racial overtones. I mean, here you have a man of color in the presidency and white people showing up with guns strapped to their waists or to their legs."

Um, what now? I'm sorry, I mean, WTF?!

Racial overtones?! Racial? Overtones?! So just because there was a white guy carrying a gun outside of where Obama was speaking, THAT implies that there are "racial overtones" to the story? What?

What's that?

Who wasn't?

Who wasn't white? The guy with the gun? Well, that wouldn't make any sense! How could the guy with the gun not be white?! She specifically mentioned that particular guy. And though she didn't say he was a white guy, when she got to her shpiel about the "racial overtones" she didn't NEED to! Everyone thought that the reason that there were "racial overtones" is because she told us that there was a white guy wearing a gun at a town hall meeting where the half-white president was speaking. How can he NOT be white?!

Oh. Well....his shirt was white.

What. The. Hell.

Not only did the trio of false reporting idiots fail to make the viewers aware of the fact that the man with the rifle slung over his arm was a black guy, they also failed to make the viewers consciously aware that they had edited the tape of this particular individual so that you could not tell that he was black.

Now, just because you can't tell that he's black doesn't mean that you wouldn't have been able to tell if he were white, either. IN what I would assume was the only unintentional part of the editing process, you do see the arm of a white guy in such a fashion that you don't consciously think about it, but the arm kind of looks like it could go to the guy with the guy. But that wasn't intentional. I'm positive of it. What WAS intentional was to take the footage which clearly shows that this was a black guy and edit it so that you couldn't tell what the race of the person was and so that newshole Contessa Brewer and her faithful sidekicks, Dylan and Toure, can make this issue about race instead of the Second Amendment. Nice job, newsholes.

What was the purpose in that? Why did they feel the need to MAKE it about race? WHY couldn't it be about the Second Amendment? Was Toure not up on his pop-culture 2nd Amendment references? I've never even heard of that guy until I learned of this atrocity, but he angers me. It wasn't enough for him to back up newshole Contessa Brewer and her reasoning that people were bringing guns to places where President Barry was speaking was because they were angry that there was a black President. No, he had to go just a bit more and suggest that:
"I’m not going to be surprised if we see somebody get a chance and take a chance and really try to hurt him or really-You know, and I mean it’s up to the Secret Service to make sure that it doesn’t actually become history, but, you know, I think we’re going to see somebody, you know, some sort of Squeaky Fromme, some sort of Mark Hinckley figure, because there’s so much anger in the country about him, about what’s going on with government."

:::: sigh :::: (He's pretty skinny looking. I think I could take him.)

First of all, it's John Hinckley. Perhaps he was thinking of Mark David Chapman, the tool who gunned down John Lennon. John Hinckley was the one who shot President Reagan. Squeaky Fromme was a delusional follower of Charles Manson. Is he suggesting that another Helter Skelter awaits us, but this time, at the White House? (Yes, I know she tried to shoot President Ford.) In all of these cases however, there is a common theme. The first one being that they are idiotic comparisons to what is being talked about. The second one is that I don't believe that any of those people had a valid permit for their weapon. But really, neither one of those is the point. The point is that IT'S NOT THE SAME!


Contessa the Newshole EVEN specifically made it a point to make this story about race by asking Toure "...do you think if Barack Obama were white, though...let’s say if it were Bill Clinton – you would not see people showing up with weapons strapped to their legs?" (Does Hillary count for the evaluation of that question? I'm quite certain that after MonicaGate, she probably DID have something strapped to her leg for a while. She probably strapped something to Bill's leg as well, but I don't think it was a gun.) His eventual reply, after Dylan suggested that it was unknowable, was "...that’s hard to say. It is unknowable. But you do see a rise in hate group activity throughout the country."

Oh. My. God.

In a state where you CAN carry a gun out in the open like that, if you have a permit, how does that constitute "hate group activity"? How does that NOT constitute exercising your rights under the Second Amendment? How? Where did they find this guy? 1961?I have no idea what the point of this stunt was, other than to ignore, disregard and blatantly dismiss every single rule of reporting that there could be in order to fabricate (yes, LIE) a story to fit a particular narrative that you have in mind. They simply created their own truths by taking the truth and making it into a lie.

I'm not one to go around and suggest that folks boycott something. Do you know how many successful boycotts of things there has actually been? Ever? Not many. The Montgomery bus boycott is the only one that comes to mind at the moment. Calls for a boycott are generally useless. (Most people have the attention span of a gnat is why they're not more successful.) And I'm not usually one to go around advocating for people to be fired. These folks and anyone else who was involved in the production of that segment should be fired.

This isn't a "I don't like what they said" issue. They're not Don Imus (who, by the way, shouldn't have been fired. He shouldn't have said what he said, but he shouldn't have been fired.). They lied. They purposefully and willfully misled the viewer into believing something that wasn't true AT ALL. It's more than just irresponsible journalism. It's rogue reporting. The media is supposed to be neutral. They are supposed to be presenting the facts without a slant so that people can know what's going on without having to sort through someone's opinion to get to what the issue is about. For some reason, Contessa Brewer and Toure (poor Dylan pretty much just sat there, but it's not like he wasn't aware of the situation) wanted to make the issue of people bringing LEGAL firearms to a public event an issue about racism. Personally, I'd like to know why. I'd like to know why they felt that it was imperative that they not only go that direction with the issue, but do so in a deceptive manner. I'd like to know the answer the that and then I'd love it if they were fired.

Look, when you hire someone for your business, you want to make sure that the person you have in whatever position can do the job. If they can't do the job, are you going to keep them at your business? I don't think that's likely. What if they were lying to you while doing their job? Would you keep them then? I think that's even less likely. Contessa Brewer and the Newsholes (which isn't that bad of a name for a band)cannot do the job that they were hired to do AND they lied to us. If they can't do the job, which they obviously can't, they should be fired.

And if I thought that was going to actually happen, I probably wouldn't have mentioned it until it did happen. But I don't think that's the case. The good folks over there at Politico contacted MSNBC about this issue and they responded that the claim was "utterly ridiculous" and that "Contessa was speaking generally and not about that specific person with the automatic weapon." Yeah. That's why the cropped footage. That's why the not mentioning that there were black people with weapons also. That's why not mentioning that the guy with the gun strapped to his side shown in the cropped footage was black. That's why only mentioning that white people were coming to these public meetings wearing firearms. Yeah, she was speaking generally.

The footage of Contessa and the Newsholes is below. And it frustrates the hell out of me.

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X-Fact-or Fiction?

Yep. I knew that there was something about those folks over there in England, the Chawner family who, for the past 11 years, has received benefits because they are too fat to work. That's right. Too fat to work. Fat, perhaps. Too fat to work? I don't think so. From what I can tell, these folks are scamming the system over there across the pond and people must be buying it because they've been receiving $26,000 a year for the past eleven years. I'm not buying it. Here's why:

Closer Magazine ran an article about the Chawners on March 19, 2009. That article paints a slightly different portrait of this family than an article that ran in The Telegraph on March 17, 2009. Granted, in The Telegraph article, there were definitely holes in the Chawner's story. Their claim that their enormous weight is caused by heredity, yet they eat bacon sandwiches every day for lunch. It's things like that which make me question their entire story. (It's also things like that which make me wonder where I can get a bacon sandwich. Yum. There's always room for bacon.)

The Telegraph article said that the Chawners claimed to eat cereal for breakfast, bacon for lunch and microwave meat pies and some sort of potato for dinner. That article also had Mrs. Chawner claiming that she only spent £50 a week on food (which might be true if all they bought was bacon. And there was only one of them.) The closer article makes the same claim, only it also includes that the family "spends their time watching TV and scoffing biscuits, crisps and sandwiches." (You've really gotta love a publication that isn't afraid to use the term "scoffing", don't you? That's truth in reporting right there!) The Closer also mentioned that the Chawners go through "...18 bags of crisps, 30 eggs, 12 rolls, 10 burgers, 12 crumpets, four large pies, two packets of biscuits, two packets of chocolate bars, 1kg of potatoes and a litre of wine." Ah, yes. Drown your "too fat" sorrow in that litre of wine. That'll help your diabetes, Mr. Chawner, I'm sure of it! What is wrong with people?

Speaking of Mr. Chawner, he explained how he ended up not working (he used to be a truck driver). "The diabetes was making me fall asleep at the wheel. I haven’t bothered looking for another job because driving is all I know. I’m not good at English so I couldn’t work in an office, and I’d get too tired standing in a factory." You'd get too tired? Standing?! I'm guessing that you'd probably be doing something other than just standing there, sir. See, that's the thing about dozing off. It rarely happens while you're in constant motion. And I've seen factories, mostly in cartoons, but still! Those cartoon factories have the little mice or cats or whatever they have working there always on the go! Stuff keeps coming off of that conveyor belt (candy, tires, mops, you name it) so fast that those little guys can hardly keep up! They usually end up running around quite a bit in order to prevent some sort of chaos that inevitably happens anyway. So you should really look into that factory work, as I don't think you'd be able to doze off as easily as you think.

Mrs. Chawner "...last worked in the ’80s at a horse-riding school for a few months. (Worked as what? The horse?) But she hasn’t worked since she developed epilepsy and asthma over 16 years ago, both a result of being overweight." She says, "I can’t work because I could have an epileptic fit at any time. I could work from home, putting stamps on envelopes or something, but I must admit I’ve actually never looked into it.” Yeah, why bother when the government will give you money to do absolutely nothing. Now, she can't work because she could have an "epileptic fit at any time" (a condition that, if you're prone to, can be quite frightening and extremely inconvenient), but she can go to the store to pick up that litre of wine! What if she had "an epileptic fit" whilst wine shopping? That doesn't seem to concern her as much as the working part does. Shocking, I know.

Now, if that's not enough, we can look to an article in The Times from March 22, 2009 states that "The family...spend their days in front of a TV borrowed from a friend. Said Philip Chawner: “We love TV. It’s on from the moment we get up. Often I’m so tired from watching TV that I have to have a nap.” And from Mrs. Chawner: "We all love nibbling on biscuits. I once bought some pears, but they tasted funny." Funny? Funny how? Like fruit?!

But here is where I've managed to certify these folks as freeloaders. Over there at VoteForTheWorst.com they have an article from October, 2008 which reports the Chawners were evicted from their home after "dozens of complaints about 'loud singing' keeping them (the neighbors) awake late at night." Wait. What? They were "...evicted after 130 complaints were made against them in less than a year over playing loud music, singing late at night and foul and abusive language directed towards neighbours." Um, I thought they got tired from watching TV? But wait! There's more!

In a reference to Emma, the article reads, "The 19-year-old trainee hairdresser, who famously appeared on the TV talent show wearing a wedding-style dress made by her dad..." The what made by who for what? Huh? "Emma, 19, was notoriously rejected from the X Factor last year after singing Celine Dion's Titanic 'like a baby' and wearing a 'wedding dress' handmade by her father." A 'wedding dress' made by Naps After TV guy? What? Behold!

Oh, Lord. OK, that's it! Thaaaat's it. I've had enough of these folks. They can trot around auditioning for X-Factor (which would appear to be an American Idol for England and a bunch of other countries that are not the US) and/or spend time tailoring very long dresses. They can stay up late at night singing and playing music. They can haul their stuff out of their apartment that they were evicted from because of said late night singing and music playing. But they can't work?!

England? You've been had.

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