Who could have anticipated?

Global price-fixing of the oil market?

Other than anyone?

How is this guy not deported down here to join the Tea Party

Toronto has a right-wing Mayor named Rob Ford -- who apparently really loves to smoke crack.

But he's got a sweet alibi, says his self-proclaimed lawyer on his hotmail account with the excuse that is essentially 'how do you know he's smoking crack?'

THIS SCANDAL IS TOO AMERICAN FOR CANADA PEOPLE!

So apparently

The "real" Benghazi scandal is the Benghazi "scandal" scandal?

Earlier today, CBS News reported that at least two of the Benghazi e-mails that were leaked by Republicans last Friday were altered. The GOP leak of the altered Benghazi e-mails came five days before the White House released 100 pages of e-mail correspondence regarding the September 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi.

Of course they will not

Stunned, I'm sure.

Wal-Mart Stores said it won’t accept an agreement “at this time” to improve fire and building safety in Bangladesh that is supported by labor monitoring groups and was signed by several retailers this week.

Meanwhile...

Part of a shoe factory has collapsed in Cambodia, leaving at least two people dead, officials say.

The concrete roof at the factory in Kampong Speu province, west of Phnom Penh, crashed on to employees as they were working, a police spokesman said.

At least six people were injured, police said. Rescue workers combed through the rubble for several hours before finishing operations.

The never ending walking tour of cemeteries to whistle through

The usual cheerleaders are out to sing the blessings of increased levels of carbon monoxide:

“The Earth has had many-times-higher levels of CO2 in the past,” said Marc Morano, former spokesman for Republican Senator James Inhofe and executive editor of Climate Depot, a blog that posts articles skeptical of climate change. “Americans should welcome the 400 parts-per-million threshold. This means that plants are going to be happy, and this means that global-warming fearmongers are going to be proven wrong.”

Marc Morano, the 21st Centuries Lysenko, here to encourage as much pollution as a smokestack can bellow.

Meanwhile, in reality:

For years, scientists have worried about the impact of climate change in the invaluable Himalayan region. Recent research seems to confirm worries that a warming world is melting one of Earth's most iconic, not to mention tallest, summits: Mount Everest.

Of course, the elimination of glaciers in the Himalayas is no big deal -- they are only the predominant source of fresh water for about one in every four people in the world.  

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

I for one would like to state for the record

That Louis Gohmert's asparagus makes your pee smell like shit.

Literally.

How's that for an aspersion?

"Always be the bigger asshole"

Your archetypical National Review contributor ladies and gentlemen.

Well, at least he's taking it well

I'm sure the 27 other people that voted for him are proud:

D Magazine on Tuesday published a shockingly not safe for work voicemail from Dallas City Council candidate Richard P. Sheridan who said that the publication had not done enough to inform voters that his opponent was gay. 

In the voicemail left over the weekend, Sheridan tells reporter Dan Koller that he’s “extremely happy” that “Sodomite” Leland Burk lost to Jennifer Staubach Gates.

“You know, you didn’t post the fact, communicate to voters that he’s gay, and I think I did a pretty good job of communicating to voters,” Sheridan, who only received 28 votes, opines. “You, sir, are cunt, bitch, coward, Mr. Koller. Dan Koller is a cunt, bitch, coward. And I don’t think you have one testicle, sir. You’re a sorry-ass, you’re a disgrace to our city, you’re a propagandist to the Sodomites.

Finally able to dwell in her own alternative reality

Michele Bachmann wears Google Glass, where Marcus wants to have lots of hetero sex and those with one "L" instead of the normal two rule.

Pretty Cool

The I-35W bridge (get more creative bridge names Minnesota!) in Minneapolis after Minnesota made it a dozen states to legalize gay marriage.

Perhaps my favorite poll excerpt

Ever.

A whopping 41 percent of Republicans polled think the Obama administration’s handling of Benghazi is the greatest scandal in U.S. history. “One interesting thing about the voters who think Benghazi is the biggest political scandal in American history,” PPP adds, “is that 39% of them don’t actually know where it is. 10% think it’s in Egypt, 9% in Iran, 6% in Cuba, 5% in Syria, 4% in Iraq, and 1% each in North Korea and Liberia with 4% not willing to venture a guess.”

Greatest.Scandal.Ever.  Say the living embodiments of Comic-Book Guy.

Yeah, it's like 12 Benedict Arnolds; 9 XYZ Affairs; 88 Nullification Crises; 35 Mexican-American Wars; like 55,000 Civil Wars; 3,000 Credit Mobiliers; 875 Spanish Flus; 300 Teapot Domes; 84,000 Great Depressions; 9 Million Pearl Harbors; 3,400 Tonkin Gulf Resolutions; 4 billion Watergates; 9 Trillion Iran-Contras; a mere 1.05 Monica Lewinskis; an infinity of Iraq War Resolutions over WMD; and 456 Bankster Induced Economic Collapses -- ALL WRAPPED UP INTO ONE.

More reality to ignore

One would hope this would stop the kicking of the poor and downtrodden...but we know that won't happen until the powers that be made poor and downtrodden jelly.

According to new CBO projections out today, assuming no changes to current law, this year’s deficit will be $642 billion, the lowest since 2008. Chart after the jump …

That comes out to 4.0% of GDP compared to the high of 10.1% in 2009. CBO projects that it will fall to 2.1% by 2015.

Stupidity is all over -- "and they couldn't prevent Jack from being happy"

Still too sophisticated for Leno though:

Legislation to outlaw homophobic discrimination in Isle of Man to be accelerated after lesbian couple prevented from renting a house

Rim-shot optional.

And yes, I'm aware there's an available island joke in there already. I went with the obscure song lyric instead.

Oh, the humanity

I guess the Wurlitzer shall never die:

The Internal Revenue Service, under pressure after admitting it targeted anti-tax Tea Party groups for scrutiny in recent years, also had its eye on at least three Democratic-leaning organizations seeking nonprofit status. One of those groups, Emerge America, saw its tax-exempt status denied, forcing it to disclose its donors and pay some taxes. None of the Republican groups have said their applications were rejected.

But at least there's no passive-aggressive race-baiting going on.
Now on to a bipartisan scandal we can all get behind. As opposed to the bullshit ones.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

That's some outreach!

Only fitting that the man the Florida GOP appointed to reach out to Hispanics has resigned and registered as a Democrat.

Next up, Republicans just claim that Marco Rubio is nation's ONLY actual legal Hispanic.

Good for her

It took some guts for someone in her position, not necessarily to do this (it would be nice if more people HAD the resources to have this option), but to come forward and say she had done so.

And hopefully it will help others.

Well, this should go over well

There is some real tone-deafness (at best) at work here:

A prominent Japanese politician has described as "necessary" the system by which women were forced to become prostitutes for World War II troops.

Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto said on Monday that the "comfort women" gave Japanese soldiers a chance "to rest".

On Tuesday, Japanese ministers tried to distance themselves from his remarks.

Some 200,000 women in territories occupied by Japan during WWII are estimated to have been forced to become sex slaves for troops.

Ugh.

Now they notice

While made up or imaginary scandals (man that Ben Ghazi guy is really getting twitter hits now, huh?) are all over the place...

Nice of the AP to notice what the rest of us have been complaining about for years.

The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative's top executive called a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into how news organizations gather the news.

...

...the government seized the records for more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to AP and its journalists in April and May of 2012. The exact number of journalists who used the phone lines during that period is unknown, but more than 100 journalists work in the offices where phone records were targeted, on a wide array of stories about government and other matters.

And why exactly?

Officials have previously said in public testimony that the U.S. attorney in Washington is conducting a criminal investigation into who may have provided information contained in a May 7, 2012, AP story about a foiled terror plot. The story disclosed details of a CIA operation in Yemen that stopped an al-Qaida plot in the spring of 2012 to detonate a bomb on an airplane bound for the United States.

If the U.S. had just dispatched a drone we'd have two constitutionally disturbing uses of power in one.

Give it another Administration or two and it'll happen.

The land of fuck you, honey

Glorious, huh?

Half the jobs in the nation pay less than $34,000 a year, according to the Economic Policy Institute. A quarter pay below the poverty line for a family of four, less than $23,000 annually. Families that can send another adult to work have done better, but single mothers (and fathers) don’t have that option. Poverty among families with children headed by single mothers exceeds 40 percent. 

Wages for those who work on jobs in the bottom half have been stuck since 1973, increasing just 7 percent.

Only the already wealthy have seen their incomes grow generally...and they've grown A LOT!

Look who's "God-damning America" now?

Hey, at least Reverend Jeremiah Wright is interesting.

Minnesota Congresswoman and former Republican presidential contender Michele Bachmann has been conspicuously silent since her nail-biter of a congressional re-election, but was back at her sound bite machine ways this week, calling 9/11 and the Benghazi consulate attacks “judgments from God.”

I think the only "judgment" that will ever be associated with Michele Bachman will be the one rendered over her use of campaign funds in Iowa.

What could be more American

Than this headline?  

It is unclear what sparked the shooting, which happened in the city's 7th Ward on Sunday afternoon. Police say two or three suspects were seen fleeing the area. Police said that, as well as the 12 people with gunshot wounds, one person was injured in the ensuing panic.

It is all part of a typical week of gun incidents in this country, which the NRA would like to have you completely ignore.

Cue Lee Greenwood.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

I wonder who

The first Republican candidate will be to change their names to Ben Ghazi?

Well, there's always a future in Chuck Hegel look-a-like contests

(Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon said he may consider leaving the bank where he has held the top post since 2005, if shareholders vote to split his duties, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. Shareholders will vote later this month at an annual meeting in Tampa, Florida, on a non-binding proposal to separate the chairman and chief executive roles after a more than $6 billion trading loss last year raised questions about risk oversight.

Boy I can hardly wait until this September 11th

When Republicans ignore 2001 and just celebrate "memorialize" 2012.