Every time you do something like this I damn near fall on my knees to give thanks for the Sunshine State, because between you and Arizona people might actually forget what a misbegotten place Mississippi is.

Chuck Colson, a Watergate felon who spent his later years spreading all manner of hate under the banner of “Christianity,” is dead.

More on Colson’s legacy of hate and intolerance at MeFi and at two posts at Slacktivist.

Fred sums it up:

What’s remarkable about Colson’s legacy is not just how angry he managed to make the enemies that he bore false witness about and harmed for so long. Their anger is understandable and wholly appropriate. What’s really remarkable about Colson’s career is how very many such enemies he chose to make and how much damage he was able to do.

and further:

As “one of the leading spokespersons of evangelical Christianity in America today,” Colson helped to identify Christianity with a vicious, mean-spirited, and thoroughly dishonest culture war against women and LGBT people. He worked, passionately, to make that the core and the bedrock of American Christianity.

I don’t think that counts as living without scandal. I think that counts as being at the center of one of the worst scandals of this generation of the church.

It turns out that a whole lot of forensics is more or less bullshit, and that the Justice Department has known this for a long time and not told anyone but prosecutors, even when flawed evidence had put people in prison.

As Radley notes, this is dangerously close to “pitchforks in the streets” stuff:

I mean, think about that. Taxpayer-paid employees of the Justice Department had direct and exclusive knowledge that there may be hundreds of innocent people in prison, they knew that flawed forensics in these cases needed to be reviewed, and their justification for not doing more as these people continued to rot in prison was, Hey, we did the bare minimum required of us by law.

…it appears that Newark’s Cory Booker may be a superhero:

Newark Mayor Cory Booker was taken to a hospital Thursday night for treatment of smoke inhalation he suffered trying to rescue his next-door neighbors from their burning house.

The Magnolia State will really have to step up its game if they want to stay ahead of Arizona, which has a bill pending that declares pregnancy to begin two weeks prior to conception.

It’s really ridiculous how often I have to say so, but: No, I am not making this up.