O'Keefe's editing technique under fire once again.

​Surprise, surprise: It looks like James O'Keefe's big "gotcha" on National Public Radio was exaggerated by some clever video editing.

This really shouldn't be too much of a shocker to anyone. After all, this is the same guy who cut scenes of himself dressed in pimp regalia into his video "exposing" ACORN. He was also arrested for a scheme that involved his cohorts sporting telephone repairmen uniforms and tampering with a U.S. Senator's phone.

Not exactly shining examples of traditional journalism ethics.

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O'Keefe strikes again.

​James O'Keefe and the other merry pranksters at Project Veritas have a found another target: National Public Radio.

Two of O'Keefe's cohorts, Shaughn Adeleye and Simon Templar, met with a pair of NPR executives last month under the guise of being members of the Muslim Education Action Center, which Adeleye and Templar explained was founded by the Muslim Brotherhood.

Unknowingly on hidden camera, outgoing NPR Foundation President Ron Schiller said a few thing he's probably regretting about now.

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Obama talks to TMJ4

Obama wants to bust Gov. Scott Walker's anti-union chops

​President Barack Obama has stepped directly into the battle over unions in Wisconsin, calling Gov. Scott Walker's move to pass emergency measures that would weaken collective bargaining units an "assault."

Obama's political machine has reportedly been working with union officials to organize  protesters in Madison, where thousands have flooded the state Capitol this week in protest of a union-busting budget proposal.

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From U of M-Morris to Louisiana Watergate

​That's it? Four teabuggers mistaking themselves for crusading journalists fake their way in to a U.S. senator's office to mess with her phones and they get off with a wrist slap?

That's the way they roll down in New Orleans, evidently. Magistrate Judge Daniel Knowles III sentenced Minnesotan Joe Basel and chums Stan Dai and Robert Flanagan each to two years probation, a fine of $1,500 and 75 hours of community service.

Ringleader James O'Keefe got three years of probation, a fine of $1,500 and 100 hours of community service.

Basel & Co. claimed they were performing a form of stunt journalism to expose Sen. Mary Landrieu for dodging constituents' calls.

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Screengrab via Pargon/Teabonics

Behold the creative spelling

​The tour buses of the Tea Party Express rolled into St. Paul for a rally this morning as part of a 48-stop 19-day cross country tour. So who are these guys?

Last month Michele Bachmann complained that the media depicts Tea Partiers "as toothless hillbillies, as rubes from the backwater, who don't know what they're talking about."

And while a perusal of the movement's border-line illiterate protest signs might suggest otherwise, she's got a point -- that description isn't always accurate.

It's certainly not an accurate description of the Tea Party Express, which isn't so much backwater rubes as veteran political operatives. It turns out that the group is actually the creation of a Republican consulting firm. In fact, over a four-month stretch last year, more than three-quarters of the group's reported spending went right back to that GOP consulting firm or their associates.

Tea Party Express has come in for some heavy criticism from other groups in the movement, like the Tea Party Patriots, who say its close ties to Republican operatives sell out the movement's anti-establishment message.

But the Tea Party Express tour rolls on, headed for another rally in Duluth this afternoon, and onwards to make it to Washington D.C. in time for tax day.

Don't these people work? Just asking, because yesterday's Palin-Bachmann-Hannity-Pawlenty rally was at 2 p.m. on a work day. And today the teabaggers roll into St. Paul at 9:30 a.m. Sounds like Bachmann's going to be there. Maybe she'll call for nuking computer hackers again. Anyway, here's the propaganda video:

Read The Rise and Fall of Joe Basel

​James O'Keefe, Joe Basel and two other conservative street theater activists arrested in January at Sen. Mary Landrieu's New Orleans offices will be charged with misdemeanors rather than felonies, The Associated Press is reporting.

It sounds like the four men agreed to plead guilty in return for the reduced charges, according to MSNBC. The misdemeanor carries the maximum sentence is six months in prison and a $5,000 fine.

We've been following Basel's antics ever since the Landrieu incident. Check out our cover profile of him here.

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​Teabaggers take note: There's going to be flood of red-meat Rublicanism in Minnesota come springtime.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has scheduled a private fundraiser for District 6 congresswoman Michele Bachmann on April 7 at the Hilton Hotel in Minneapolis. The Bachmann camp says Gov. Tim Pawlenty, former Sen. Norm Coleman and Reps. John Kline and Erik Paulsen will attend. Some kind of public rally is also planned -- no details yet.

Also, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Pawlenty are both slated to speak on April 9 at a Freedom Foundation of Minnesota gathering in Bloomington. Want to sit next to Mitt? Pony up $5,000 and the seat is yours.

​The Mind takes off on the teabaggers during an interview with Larry King on Monday night: "I think they're kind of a laugh, because they're supposed to defend the Constitution and all this," former Gov. Jesse Ventura tells King. In reference to President George W. Bush, he asks, "Well, where were they when habeas corpus was being taken away, because in our country right now, they can arrest you, they can hold you without charging you, they can keep an attorney from you. All they have to do is say you committed an act of terrorism and they can get away with that."

And he hammers Rush Limbaugh on health care.

"The State of Hawaii has had state-run health care for over 40 years and it works fantastic there. In fact, Rush Limbaugh even got treated there and said how great it was, before he found out that it was state-run health care," Ventura says. "If government-run health care is so bad, then why do we give it to our veterans and have we given it to them since World War I?"

Fair questions? Discuss. And, watch the interview here.

​Robert Erickson, the guy who punk'd the St. Paul teabaggers last November, and tried to get ICE agents to deport a group of Europeans a few weeks later, is at it again.

Erickson and his group, the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Coalition, mashed up a teabagger promo video with a new message: Send the Europeans back to Europe.

"The original Tea Party trailer was too good to pass up on, so I used it as an opportunity to parody the outrageous rhetoric of the right-wing," he said in a statement.