This is quite a week for exposés. The most brilliant journalistic gambit of the year so far was pulled of by Buffalo Beast editor Ian Murphy when he taped a phone conversation with Wisconsin governor Scott Walker while pretending to be billionaire right-wing sugar daddy David Koch. During the conversation, he got Walker to admit that the governor had consider planting agitators in the crowd of demonstrators at the state capitol in Madison to help sabotage the union protests. Listen to part one below (part two prompt pops up at the end of the video):

Me and Johnny McCain

This morning, Rolling Stone published a story about how the U.S. army had a team of soldiers trained in “psy-ops” (psychological operation) to manipulate U.S. senators like John McCain, Joe Lieberman, Jack Reed, Al Franken and Carl Levin who visited Afghanistan into providing more troops and funding for that war. Operatives trained to work on the hearts and minds of local leaders were ordered to turn their coercive skills on elected representatives of the American people.

Roger, Judy, and Rudy

Finally, this afternoon The New York Times published bombshell revelations that in 2006, Fox News chairman (a/k/a Minister of Propaganda) Roger Ailes encouraged Harper Collins editor Judith Regan to lie to Federal investigators about her affair with since-disgraced former New York police chief Bernard Kerik. Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani’s right-hand man (and police commissioner), Kerik was being vetted because Giuliani had recommended George W. Bush nominate him as Secretary of Homeland Security. Ailes believed any negative information about Kerik would harm Giuliani’s planned run for the presidency. Apparently Regan possessed a tape of the conversation and conveniently received a $10.75 million confidential settlement from News Corp in 2007!

Qué bochinche!