Last Call: Roll The Tape

And the strange tale of Who Recorded Mitch The Turtle's Meeting continues...and takes a right turn straight into Insaneoville.

A secret recording of a campaign strategy session between U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell and his advisors was taped by leaders of the Progress Kentucky super PAC, says a longtime local Democratic operative.

Mother Jones Magazine released the tape this week. The meeting itself took place on Feb. 2.

Jacob Conway, who is on the executive committee of the Jefferson County Democratic Party, says that day, Shawn Reilly and Curtis Morrison, who founded and volunteered for Progress Kentucky, respectively, bragged to him about how they recorded the meeting.

Oh yes lawd, the same Wonder Twins who took a big flying crap on everything "progressive" in Kentucky (making my job ever so much harder) by tweeting at best stupid and at worst racist crap about Mitch McConnell's wife are apparently the braintrust behind giving McConnell everything he needs to assume the air of aggrieved victim for the entire rest of the campaign.

Oh, and it gets worse.

Shortly after WFPL broke the story on Thursday afternoon, Conway told Fox News Channel's Megyn Kelly that he didn't want the actions by Reilly and Morrison to inflict damage on Democrats in Kentucky.

"The only reason that I came forward with what I knew was I was trying to protect the Democratic Party," Conway said. "I believe in our party's values, and I was doing what I thought was best for the party because I did not want their bad behavior, their poor mistakes — I shouldn't say "bad behavior" — their mistakes, their lack of judgment to hurt our party's efforts here in the state Kentucky and in Jefferson County, here in Louisville."

And worse...

The county Democratic Party official who outed two Democratic super PAC operatives in the Mitch McConnell secret tape case has been contacted by the FBI.

Jacob Conway, who sits on the executive committee of the Jefferson County, Ky. Democratic Party, told TPM on Thursday that he was going in to be interviewed at the bureau's Louisville, Ky. office.

And even worse...

The treasurer of Progress Kentucky, a liberal group accused of recording a private campaign strategy session held by aides of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, resigned soon after Mother Jones published the audio on Tuesday.

"At this time based on advice of both friends and counsel, I will be not be making a public statement available until everything has been reviewed by an attorney at this time," Douglas L. Davis told NBC News on Thursday. "I have resigned my position as treasurer and did not and do not condone any allegations of illegal activity that might have taken place."

And if possible, even worse.

In October 2003, Louisville was shaken to its core when 20-year-old Zachary Scarpellini was gunned down outside his Highlands apartment. The tony and quiet neighborhood of victorian mansions – home to residents like Ambassador Matthew Barzun and prominent businessman-turned-politician Bruce Lunsford – was rattled awake by gunfire, left terrified and in shock over such a violent crime.

The only witness at the scene other than the alleged gunman was Scarpellini’s roommate, Shawn Reilly, now Executive Director of Progress Kentucky. Reilly’s claim at the time of the crime was that he and Scarpellini were merely following someone they thought was breaking into cars. According to a report in the Bellarmine University (where Scarpellini was a student) newspaper, The Concord, investigators believed the shooting was random and the victim did not know his killer.

And even worse than that...

Thru atty, @progressky Shawn Reilly denies taping McConnell meeting, at most a witness, says if anyone's responsible it's Curtis Morrison
— Joe Arnold (@joearnoldreport) April 11, 2013

And God help me, even worse.

Atty for @progressky's Shawn Reilly: Reilly went to US attorney when Mother Jones broke tape & has been cooperating in federal investigation
— Joe Arnold (@joearnoldreport) April 11, 2013

It's...crazy.  Shaw Reilly is now throwing his friend and Progress KY co-founder directly to the Feds at near light speed.  More tomorrow...

Air Farce, Or Into The Wild Blue Slander

The USAF general who unilaterally overturned a lieutenant's conviction for sexual assault last year is speaking out about the case, and frankly, yeah he's just as awful as you could imagine.

Lt. Gen. Craig Franklin drew headlines and outrage in March for overturning Lt. Col. James Wilkerson’s sexual assault conviction, nullifying his remaining prison sentence and returning him to service in the Air Force. In his letter to Air Force Secretary Michael Donley defending his decision, Franklin explained that he was acting fully in compliance with the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and that he would be “entirely remiss in [his] sworn military duty and responsibility” if he had not overturned the jury’s findings.

Franklin’s memo listed 18 points of contention he saw in the evidence presented during Wilkerson’s court-martial, including several points that either were ruled inadmissible in court or specifically shifted the blame of any assault on the victim.

Yeah, because the victim deserved it, so he had to overturn a conviction by jury.  Among the general's reasons:

• The victim turned down three offers of a ride and seemed to have differing reasons why she wanted to stay.
• The victim had trouble identifying and describing parts of the house, didn’t remember the attacker’s mustache and didn’t correctly describe her path out of the house.
• Wilkerson’s wife’s account of the events differed in some details from her husband’s, but Franklin said the conflicts suggested that the two didn’t collude on a manufactured story.


• Testimony from the friend who took the alleged victim to the hospital the next day was not admissible in court, but Franklin said it indicated there could be a reason the woman might be less than candid.

Yeah.  His mustache.  That must be totally exculpatory evidence.  Luckily, Chuck Hagel is fixing this idiocy:

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel on Tuesday proposed a change in the current law that would strip the convening authority of their ability to overturn verdicts in most cases as the first step in correcting the military’s sexual assault problem. Currently an estimated 19,000 instances of military sexual trauma take place in the U.S. armed services every year, the vast majority of which go unreported for fear of reprisal or scorn. 

US Air Farce strikes again, but all the armed services need a long, hard serious look at sexual harassment policies.

Death By A Thousand Budget Cuts

Let me point out the obvious:  Republicans plan to make sure Obamacare can't work by cutting funding for it, and then blaming the President.  Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands if not millions of Americans will find themselves in limbo with no health insurance, and at the tender of mercies of GOP governors slashing Medicare.

Don't get sick, America.  It could kill you.

The landmark health law may have survived the Supreme Court, countless repeal efforts and a presidential election — but none of that required Republicans to shower money on Obamacare. And with at least 33 states refusing to build the critical health insurance exchanges, the federal government is unexpectedly on the hook to set them up — and short of money to do so.

The White House requested $1.5 billion more for the health law implementation in its budget Wednesday, but health officials know they’re not likely to get it.

As past funding requests have been spurned, Health and Human Services officials contend they’ve been able to cobble together the funds and won’t miss the Oct. 1 start of open enrollment in exchanges. Any big delay, or major hitches would be a huge blow to Obamacare and reopen the law to political warfare before the 2014 mid-term elections.

“The Supreme Court has ruled, there has been an election, we intend to implement the law,” HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told reporters Wednesday. She acknowledged that without an infusion of new money, she’s probably going to have to keep juggling and scrambling to keep it all on track.

HHS to date hadn’t been very specific about how it’s been moving ahead — even when lawmakers asked. But Sebelius told reporters that the department hadn’t yet spent the full $1 billion that was initially allocated for implementation — a figure that was decided on long before the states balked at exchange-building. Sebelius said the department had been “judicious” in spending it, and officials said approximately $235 million is left in that fund.

Nice.  Meanwhile, let's keep giving $4 billion a year to oil companies who are making tens of billions in profit and keep screaming how we can't afford to make government work.

Assholes.

StupidiNews!

• Japanese automakers, led by Toyota and Honda, are recalling 3.4 million cars due to airbag inflation problems.
• A gunman in Atlanta who held four firefighters hostage was shot and killed by police late Wednesday afternoon.
• New government figures show as much as $5 billion are stolen yearly by identity thieves through false tax returns.
• The Boston Red Sox's record of consecutive sell-outs at Fenway Park came to an end this week at 794 games.
• Microsoft is working on a new 7-inch version of its Surface tablet to compete with the Google Nexus 7 and the iPad Mini.