- Say what you will about embattled Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-New York, but my man Chuck is great theater if nothing else. How many octogenarian congressmen do you know who are still every bit as irascible, cantankerous and confrontational as they begin their ninth decade on this planet as they were at any point in their life? In case you haven’t been following Rangel’s case, he is currently facing 13 allegations, include failing to pay taxes on a home in the Dominican Republic, misuse of a rent-controlled apartment for political purposes and improper use of government mail service and letterhead. Those allegations are the premise for his ongoing House ethics subcommittee trial, which Rangel stormed out of on Monday while fuming that he has not had sufficient time to hire a new legal team to respond to corruption allegations. Never mind that his original defense team quit all the way back in September; Chuck Rangel does not assemble a legal team in a mere two months, dammit! He sounded downright distraught as he pleaded with the subcommittee for more time to assemble a new legal team, a request the subcommittee rejected. "Fifty years of public service is on the line. And I truly believe that I am not being treated fairly," he pleaded. "I deserve a lawyer." True, and you’ve had two months to find one, Chuckster. Rangel’s counter would be that he has already spent $2 million defending himself from the charges and would need another $1 million to sufficiently defend himself during the trial. Why he can’t just withdraw some of his illegally obtained funds or the money he saved not paying taxes, I don’t know. But Rangel complained that he was not being given enough time to raise funds to hire new lawyers because the committee simply wanted to complete the trial before the current session of Congress ends. "What theory of fairness would dictate that I be denied due process ... because it is going to be the end of this session?" he asked. The funniest part of the story is that the committee simply went on with the hearing after Rangel left, leading to him releasing a statement calling the committee's decision to proceed without delay a violation of "the most basic rights ... guaranteed to every person under the Constitution. The (ethics committee) has deprived me of the fundamental right to counsel and has chosen to proceed as if it is fair and impartial and operating according to rules, when in reality they are depriving me of my rights. Those arguments did little to sway ethics committee chair Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-California, who insisted it was Rangel's responsibility to assemble his legal team and that the committee had advised him numerous times on how to raise funds for his defense. "Retention of counsel is up to the respondent," she said. Lest you think that the committee is out to tar and feather Rangel no matter what, just know that several committee members have ripped Zuckerman Spaeder, the law firm originally representing Rangel for what they deem the "fundamentally unfair" step of abandoning a client on the eve of a trial. Many of Rangel’s fellow representatives have called on him to resign in light of the allegations against him, called Rangel has ignored. He said in August that nothing "will stop me from clearing my name from these vile and vicious charges." For the same of continuing his suddenly comedic 40-year run in Congress, here’s hoping not………
- And Al Davis wins again. He may or may not be alive at this point, but the man who has turned the Oakland Raiders into the biggest freak show in the NFL in recent years freaking owns Lane Kiffin, the man he inexplicably hired as coach in 2007 and fired on Sept. 30, 2008, after the Raiders' fourth game of the season "for cause." At the time of the firing, Davis held a bizarr-o press conference in which he used an overhead projector from the 1970s, read from a letter he wrote to Kiffin and ripped the coach over his dislike of former No. 1 overall pick and then-Raiders quarterback JaMarcus Russell, who was ultimately released by the team earlier this season after failing to meet Davis’ lofty expectations. Kiffin disputed Davis’ claim of a “for cause” firing and filed a grievance with the league seeking about $2.6 million in salary owed to him. That amount was reduced to a demand for $333,000 after accounting for a salary offset from his next job as coach for the Tennessee Volunteers. Davis also had something to say about UT hiring Kiffin, claiming that he would wreck the school’s athletic department, football program and overall reputation. All along the way, Davis fought Kiffin’s grievance and a source said Monday that the wrinkly, jumpsuit-wearing, bespectacled crypt keeper of an owner has won the case. The source said that Kiffin’s grievance seeking unpaid salary he felt he was owed after being fired by the Raiders has been denied by an NFL arbitrator. The arbitrator also denied the Raiders' countergrievance for lawyer and arbitration fees. Of course, neither party actually needs the money they were seeking. Davis is still filthy rich and far too old to ever spend the money he already has and Kiffin is now making a decent amount of change as the head coach at USC Trojans. He received the opportunity despite his 5-15 record as an NFL head coach and 7-6 record in his one season at Tennessee. Unfortunately for him, Davis’ critical comments about him have proven true for the most part and now the old-as-dirt owner has gotten over on him once again………
- So……let me get this straight: Mel Gibson isn’t welcome to appear in The Hangover 2, but Bill Clinton has the red carpet rolled out for him? Gibson was set to fill Mike Tyson’s role at the requisite crazy guest cast member on the sequel to the wildly popular comedy, but a cast revolt reportedly led by actor Zach Galifianakis led to producers pulling Gibson from the movie, the very movie the troubled actor hoped would help launch a career resurgence. Instead, that guest spot was handed to Liam Neeson. Not content to stop there, director Todd Phillips then invited Clinton to appear in the film and the former president shot his brief appearance on Saturday in Bangkok, where part of the production takes place. Filming for the movie has been going on in Thailand for a few weeks and with Clinton in the country to bang a few interns, er, um, give a speech on clean energy, the timing made sense. No word on who he will share screen time with in the movie, but Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis and Justin Bartha are all back for another run as they try to replicate the success of the first film, which enjoyed substantial commercial success and has also become something of a cult favorite. Knowing the offbeat sense of humor that Phillips can bring to a film and the spirit of the first movie, something tells me that Clinton will have lines and scenes that pay tribute to the fun-loving, troublemaking nature………
- Nothing brings the voters in any country out quite like the possibility of casting a vote for secession. No, we’re not talking the United States in the 1860s; the setting here is southern Sudan, where years of war, financial struggles and a beaten-down populace have pushed residents of the country’s southernmost region to the precipice of independence. That process took a large step forward Monday as thousands of Sudanese registered to vote in a referendum that early next year could split Africa's largest country in two. Registering that many voters is no small task in Sudan, where violence and political hijinks have beset the process at every turn. Still, the voter registration drive began at about 2,700 centers around Sudan and as expected, the majority of the turnout was in the semiautonomous south. The region, which is heavily populated by animists and Christians, is expected to secede from the mostly Muslim government in the north on Jan. 9. President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir’s government is viewed as unresponsive to the needs of the region by both Christians and animists, meaning they want to pull a Confederacy and start their own country. “A referendum happens only once," independence leader Salva Kiir proclaimed to a crowd at a registration station in the southern capital of Juba. "People must come out en masse; otherwise, it would mean people fought and died for nothing." Bonus points for using the term “en masse” correctly, by the way. The possible secession is on the minds of not only the Sudanese government, but also the entire African continent and the Obama administration, which opposes the referendum on the grounds that it could spark renewed bloodshed along the oil-rich border between north and south. Just five years ago, a 21-year-old civil war that killed two millions people came to an end with a peace treaty that promised the south a vote for independence. Bashir has promised that he will allow the referendum to happen even though analysts doubt the he will relinquish his grip on a south that generates nearly 500,000 barrels of oil a day. Losing 80 percent of the country’s oil output could cripple what would remain of Sudan, but officials from both sides have done their part to push toward secession by accusing each other of attempting to provoke hostilities along the border before the vote. The Obama administration has attempted to bribe Bashir with a number of incentives, including accelerating Sudan's removal from a U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, if he does not spoil the referendum. If the vote does go forward, it will be monitored by international monitoring organizations including the Carter Center, founded by former President Jimmy Carter. In a nation with a population of 41 million, 9.7 million of which reside in the south, such a vote will be a massive undertaking. Here’s hoping this vote does happen because the world just doesn’t have enough quality secessions these nowadays…………
- Facebook is growing, diversifying and looking to put a chokehold on the social networking world and Monday’s unveiling of a new messaging system that will envelope e-mail, instant messages, Facebook messages and SMS should be a boost to those efforts. Even though Facebook insists that its new messaging system is not an attempt to take the place of email, many of the system’s features seem designed to do just that. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg took time away from telling people how wrong a portrayal of his life and business that The Social Network is to launch what he calls a "modern messaging system" to handle messages across several different media and gather them under one social umbrella. The system, 15 months in the making, will save all messages in order to provide users with a comprehensive history of their communications. Under the new system, users will also be able to have a facebook.com e-mail address. Still, Facebook software engineer Andrew Bosworth was quick to point out that that the new system will work with other e-mail systems, such as Gmail and Yahoo mail. "People should share however they want to share," said Bosworth. "If you want to send me an e-mail and I want to get it in a text message, that should work." The only obvious omission from the system at this point is voice chat, but Zuckerberg promised that feature will be added I the future. For now, the messaging system -- code-named Titan -- will hopefully fix many of the oft-uttered complaints about Facebook’s chat and messaging services, namely that entire chunks of conversations are lost and that users are sometimes knocked offline with no explanation. At present, about 350 million people use Facebook each day to message their friends and family members. Zuckerberg explained that the idea for Titan came to him after talking with a group of students who told him that they rarely use email because it’s too slow. "I was kind of boggled by this," Zuckerberg said. "I remember having a similar conversation with my parents about why e-mail was good and regular mail was slow.... At Facebook, we're all so used to using e-mail. It's interesting to see that all kinds of folks don't see it that way." Thus, the emphasis of combining all sorts of electronic communications - email, Facebook messages, IM and SMS - into a single system. As with all changes to anything related to Facebook, the new system is sure to spark plenty of complaints and angry Facebook groups demanding things return to normal. Now, those complainers will have a new messaging system to facilitate their efforts…….
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