Some persons more "people" than actual persons

It's a John Roberts wet-dream come to life.

A San Diego man could be found guilty of a series of misdemeanor charges that would land him in jail for as many as 13 years, all for writing down his opinions on a public sidewalk in children's chalk.

Jeff Olson, 40, took his displeasure with the Federal bailout of large banks like Bank of America to the streets when he began chalking slogans like "No Thanks, Big Banks" and "Shame on Bank of America" outside of three separate Bank of America branches in San Diego.

But after a bank security manager called the city repeatedly to complain about Olson's washable messages, the city decided to charge him with 13 counts of vandalism, a misdemeanor. If found guilty however, each count could include a $1,000 fine as well as a year in prison. 

Olson defended his speech to the local CBS station: "Always on city sidewalks, washable chalk, never crude messages, never vulgar, clearly topical."

But I thought he was "moderating" to just mildly crazy

What up Josh Marshall?

This sounds pretty crazy to me.

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, the GOP's 2013 gubernatorial candidate, filed a petition Tuesday with the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to uphold Virginia's anti-sodomy law.

Funny how

FoxNews never sends Brian Kilmeade out to the Southwest in late June to ask "What Global Warming?"

The National Weather Service said Phoenix reached 116 on Friday, two degrees short of the expected high, in part because of a light layer of smoke from wildfires in neighboring New Mexico that shielded the blazing sun.

You know it is too fucking hot when it takes a fire to cool things down.

Yeah, sort of self explanatory

Your biggest worry should be these two assholes showing up in your backyard.

Yes, we all know how irresistable you are...

What.A.Prick!

• Fox's Eric Bolling On Girls Playing Football: "This Is More Of The Wussification Of American Men"

• 
  

• "I Just Long For The Days Where Its Ok To Tell A Woman She Looks Beautiful In That Dress"

   

Yes, much like it's perfectly find to point out how stupid you look all the time.

That perfectly sums it all up...

Richard Posner is no "liberal" judge, thought he is a respected and conservative one.  He had an interesting statement to make about Chief Justice Robert's reasoning in overturning the Voting Rights Act...and it is on the nose:

Shelby County v. Holder, decided Tuesday, struck down a key part of the Voting Rights Act (the part requiring certain states with a history of racial discrimination in voting to obtain federal permission in advance to change their voting procedures—called “preclearance”) as violating the “fundamental principle of equal sovereignty” of the states. This is a principle of constitutional law of which I had never heard—for the excellent reason that, as Eric points out and I will elaborate upon briefly, there is no such principle.

There is no greater condemnation of a legal opinion in our system of jurisprudence than -- THEY MADE IT UP.

Your "outreach" resembles a punch to the face

The GOP's self-anointed intellectuals (they require self-anointment, because nobody else thinks so) continue to show why they are a Party for the future, like the Whigs.

Oh sure a few Republican Senators vote for Immigration reform...but the more than two-thirds of them don't.  And why not keep in the same mindframe as this?

Last week, in an interview with the conservative radio program “The Clay and Marty Show,” Schlafly let fly with a blast of completely unfiltered anti-Latino racism.

“The people that Republicans ought to reach out to are the white voters,” she said by phone. Latino voters, she maintained, will never vote Republican because they don’t “have Republican inclinations at all. They’re running an illegitimacy rate that’s just about the same as the blacks are.”

But hey, they have the modern intolerance of Chris Christie:

On his "Ask the Governor" radio show, Christie made very clear on the "Ask the Governor" radio show that he believes marriage should be between a man and a woman.

That kind of wrong-headed statement, one like Obama would have in 2008, is not going to work at the Iowa Caucuses in 2016.  You have to work in some good slanders.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Twitter response of the day, week, or year

I have a feeling Marcus has heard this in private...all the time!

Well, why not?:

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) encapsulated some of the furor on the right, saying that “marriage was created by the hand of God. No man, not even a Supreme Court, can undo what a holy God has instituted.”

Keep asserting dominance over those couch cushions Marcus!

So, you're sayin' you want to get your freak on then?

Oh the traditional argument of the traditional loon...and one has to say not very Randian:

The bright young libertarian Tea Party star of the Republican party went on Glenn Beck’s radio show and just compared Mary Cheney’s relationship to sodomizing your pet. “I think this is the conundrum and gets back to what you were saying in the opening — whether or not churches should decide this. But it is difficult because if we have no laws on this people take it to one extension further. Does it have to be humans?

Oh, go scourge yourself!

Oh what a legacy Scalia is carving out for himself in his last, bitterest, years:

"When the Court declared a constitutional right to homosexual sodomy, we were assured that the case had nothing, nothing at all to do with 'whether the government must give formal recognition to any relationship that homosexual persons seek to enter,'" he wrote. "Now we are told that DOMA is invalid because it 'demeans the couple, whose moral and sexual choices the Constitution protects,' ante, at 23 -- with an accompanying citation of Lawrence.

Yeah, I think I have a precedent to deal with that right here Justice Scalia, it's the famous case of "Stuff it v. Get Bent", written by Judge Learned Backhand. Great case, lovely fact pattern, one hell of a holding.

But at least he can go on line at "Opus Date" and hang out with these eligible bachelors.

“Today is a tragic day for marriage and our nation," Cardinal Timothy Dolan and Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone said in a joint statement representing U.S. bishops. "The Supreme Court has dealt a profound injustice to the American people by striking down in part the federal Defense of Marriage Act. The Court got it wrong."

"Celibate Men for Traditional Marriage" comments the same everytime.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

I have a feeling

Tony Scalia's gonna put out some ARGRL-GARBLE for the ages right now.

"Taney it up" you old fossil.

Because the internet is awesome

Here's Texas-hero Wendy Davis...with a dragon on her shoulder.

Has any photoshopper...

Completed that Roger Taney, Henry Billings Brown, John Roberts mashup yet?

Speaking of which

Here's how bad the GOP wants to secure "temporary" relevance in favor of becoming a historical footnote.

Just two hours after the Supreme Court reasoned that discrimination is not rampant enough in Southern states to warrant restrictions under the Voting Rights Act, Texas is already advancing a voter ID law and a redistricting map blocked last year for discriminating against black and Latino residents. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott issued a statement declaring that both measures may go into effect immediately, now that there is no law stopping them from discriminating against minorities.

I guess you can go next to Orville Faubus and Lester Maddox in the history books, asshole.

Clowns the creepy kind

Here's to Texas Senator Wendy Davis and hundreds of citizens who kept Texas' conservatives nightmare of an anti-abortion bill from becoming law. 

It is no coincidence that on the day the Supreme Court effectively managed to find no reason to protect minority voters in this country that the GOP manifested its craziness so viscerally.

Passive depressive

As the Robert's Court five-conservative majority pretty much guaranteed a future of Voting ID and a new incentive (they needed one?) for the GOP to have absolutely no minority outreach at all...one surprising voice called out:

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) reacted late Tuesday afternoon to the Supreme Court's landmark ruling that overturned a centerpiece of the Voting Rights Act. "My experience with John Lewis in Selma earlier this year was a profound experience that demonstrated the fortitude it took to advance civil rights and ensure equal protection for all," Cantor said in a statement provided to TPM. "I'm hopeful Congress will put politics aside, as we did on that trip, and find a responsible path forward that ensures that the sacred obligation of voting in this country remains protected."

Well, that's nice...and sadly probably the last effort the House GOP will make on the matter. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

B-I-N-G-O!!!!

Good job Supremes

In striking down by law and proclaiming the people of the states that have a pretty visceral history of racial discrimination no longer actually discriminate against African Americans.

Y'know people like Paula Deen and George Zimmerman.

This does undermine his "heroism" more than a little bit

I'm always leery of stories that focus on the individual over the actions and policies being debated...but this is not exactly a statement that places one in a heroic position.

Edward Snowden has admitted he deliberately went to work for the US intelligence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton in order to harvest highly classified evidence of the National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance programs that he hoped to expose.

"My position with Booz Allen Hamilton granted me access to lists of machines all over the world the NSA hacked. That is why I accepted that position about three months ago," he told Hong Kong's South China Morning Post during an interview on June 12 that was published on Tuesday.

That certainly is a comforting fact on how well private contractors do in maintaining security of their snooping operations doesn't it?

The Fraud of CNBC and other business networks in one clip

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And then there's this...

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Cannot say we weren't warned

Sammy Alito has a problem with people not agreeing with him...and his horrible legal analysis:

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito broke from the high court's usual decorum on Monday morning, rolling his eyes and shaking his head as his senior colleague, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, read her dissents in two cases.
Longtime Supreme Court observer Garrett Epps called it a "mini-tantrum" and "display of rudeness."
"Alito pursed his lips, rolled his eyes to the ceiling, and shook his head 'no,'" wrote Epps in the Atlantic. "He looked for all the world like Sean Penn as Jeff Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, signaling to the homies his contempt for Ray Walston as the bothersome history teacher, Mr. Hand."
He added that Alito's gestures "brought gasps from more than one person in the audience."
Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank echoed Epps' admonishment.
"His treatment of the 80-year-old Ginsburg, 17 years his senior and with 13 years more seniority, was a curious display of judicial temperament, or, more accurately, judicial intemperance," Milbank wrote. "Typically, justices state their differences in words -- and Alito, as it happens, had just spoken several hundred of his own from the bench. But Alito frequently supplements words with middle-school gestures."

Ginsburg's dissents were in two employment discrimination cases where the Roberts' Court...continued its nearly 100 percent record of ruling for the greatest "persons" in the world, corporations.

But "we've" already got the "historical" version out there

To any sentient being's understanding it is clear the IRS targeted all manner of ideological political groups in determining whether they really deserved tax exempt status.

But let that be ignored so the tea baggers can feel "special".

Subjective "Treason"

Apparently ONLY certain types of people can be accused of treason. And that "fulcrum" is apparently Erick Erickson's intolerant "gut" (can one be mentally deprived of gluten?) -- how is Glenn Greenwald different than James Rosen?

Ah, I see. Glenn Greenwald must have committed treason because Erick Erickson doesn't like him.

Erickson doesn't really understand what Rosen is accused of (which could very well be bullshit) -- nor does he care. He just knows his team, or more likely assumes he does.

Yeah, that seems like a productive way to preserve trite little things like the First Amendment and privacy.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

I do love a good practical joke

And this does seem the kind I can really enjoy:

NSA Leaker Edward Snowden was supposed to be on Aeroflot Flight 180 from Moscow to Havana. He wasn't. But "dozens" of journalists are. It just took off. And there's no booze service on board. Welcome to the Cuban Whistleblower Crisis.

12-hours on a flight---NO BOOZE---and they have to stay in Cuba for three days.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Hey, your aim is 180 degrees off

Congrats on walking across a gorge Nik Wallenda, despite having no sense of which direction you should pee.

From (here)

May the ghost of I.F. Stone

Get busy on inflictin' a beating:

"To the extent that you have aided and abetted Snowden, even in his current movements, why shouldn't you, Mr. Greenwald, be charged with a crime?" he asked.

Greenwald replied that it was "pretty extraordinary that anybody who would call themselves a journalist would publicly muse about whether or not other journalists should be charged with felonies," and that there was no evidence to back up Gregory's claim that he had "aided" Snowden.

Gregory replied that "the question of who's a journalist may be up to a debate with regard to what you're doing," but added that he was merely posing a question others have asked, and not "embracing anything."

And with that, David Gregory, went back to reliving his dancing moves with Karl Rove on YouTube -- BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT A JOURNALIST DOES!

Cryin' and Nullifyin'

Rule of Law means nothing to the sort of right-wing religious crowd John C. Calhoun would want to hang with.

In a letter released Thursday, more than 200 conservative activists -- ranging from the Catholic League’s Bill Donohue to Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern (R) -- vowed to ignore any ruling in favor of same-sex couples. The group of endorsers, signing under the moniker of Freedom Federation, is composed of anti-LGBT Christian conservatives, many of whom have fallen from prominence in recent years.

Today may be the day the Supreme's finally issue their ruling on the subject. But no matter the result, one thing is certain. Folks like Bill Donohue will keep on sliding into irrelevance no matter the frequency of their cable news gigs.

[Cross-posted at Firedoglake]

The next right-wing media star asshole

FoxNews is reality show 24/7:

A finger-pointing political argument on Fox News Channel boiled over when a male conservative talk show host shouted at a woman to “know your role and shut your mouth.”

The man, Bill Cunningham, later asked Fox contributor Tamara Holder, “Are you going to cry?”

Not that he could see it, but I bet Roger Ailes had a chubby over that one.

Where's Snowden?

To the "shock" of no one...

A former National Security Agency contractor wanted by the United States for revealing highly classified surveillance programs has been allowed to leave for a "third country" because a U.S. extradition request did not fully comply with Hong Kong law, the territory's government said Sunday.

Meanwhile, a crack dealer stays locked up away

God forbid a rich white guy who harmed millions actually get a stiff sentence!

Former Enron Corp Chief Executive Jeffrey Skilling's near decade-long quest to prove he did nothing wrong at the once high-flying energy-trading behemoth ended on Friday when a federal judge shaved 10 years off of his prison sentence.

U.S. District Judge Simeon Lake reduced his term to 14 years from 24 years, accepting a deal struck between prosecutors and Skilling's lawyers that will end years of appeals.

Under the deal, more than $40 million of Skilling's fortune, which has been frozen since his conviction in 2006, will be distributed to victims of Enron's collapse.

Thank goodness he gets to stay incredibly rich too!

Let's point fingers at everything but the real problem

Sigh:

A former investigator who worked for the firm that conducted a background check on former National Security Agency analyst Edward Snowden has pleaded guilty to charges of falsifying work on background investigations of other federal workers. Ramon Davila pleaded guilty Thursday to making a false statement. He did not work on the Snowden background investigation.

Well, that's comforting.

But more attention gets paid to this...than what the NSA is actually doing.

What I really do not want to know

Is when Paula Deen finally learned it is actually called a "Brazil Nut"? It was clearly sometime after she learned how to kill with a fritter.

The perfect place for him

False reports, bad criticism, lousy journalism? Howie the Putz will fit right in.

A few months after his story about political donations, Kurtz wrote a negative review of Robert Greenwald's anti-Roger Ailes film Outfoxed. He also wrote a related item, quoting Briganti, accusing the New York Times Magazine of "ambushing" Fox News in a feature about the movie. More recently, Ailes turned to Kurtz for an exclusive interview in June 2011 after two damaging stories in Rolling Stone and New York magazine portrayed him as a paranoid lunatic. A few months after that, Kurtz wrote an influential story claiming that Fox News had become more "moderate" under Ailes' strategic guidance. Several months after that, a "senior Fox News executive" turned to Kurtz to express "regret" after (the now moderate!) Ailes called the New York Times "lying scum." Kurtz transmitted the apology, as well as Ailes' "respect" for Times editor Jill Abramson, but did not note that Ailes had called her "lying scum" in the course of telling a bald-faced lie himself. Anyway, Fox News just hired Howard Kurtz to host a Sunday morning show about the media.

As always, "Fuck you Howie, Fuck, fuck, and fuck you!"

He's just a white guy

So "terrorism" is straight out of being a possibility according to modern media definitions.

Since December 2012, the FBI has been intercepting Crawford’s calls and text messages. On April 15, the day of the Boston Marathon bombing, Crawford sent a five-part message to someone who goes unnamed in the affidavit. It read as follows: “Well, tell it to your treasonous bedwetting maggot in chief. He started bringing the scumbags have (sic) wholesale as he got in charge. He directed the ins to start bringing muzzies here without background checks. Your background was scrutinized more to join the army than any muslim scum gets to come here. They don’t have to follow any laws, and this administration has done more to enable a government sponsored invasion than the press can cover up. Be pissed, but get the word out that obamas policies caused this. You watch, they will downplay the muslim angle if they dont cover it up. Be pissed. I am too. I been warning this was coming. Its here.” Crawford and Feight both made initial appearances in U.S. District Court in Albany on Wednesday. U.S. Magistrate Christian Hummel told Crawford he would be assigned an attorney, according to The Albany Times-Union. “Is it going to be the right kind of attorney for this?” Crawford asked the judge.

Crawford and another middle-aged pasty failure were claiming they could build a muslim killing radiation ray.

Behold the future...

Fourth Amendment, what's that -- only the Second exists anymore, per Glenn Greenwald and James Ball:

Top secret documents submitted to the court that oversees surveillance by US intelligence agencies show the judges have signed off on broad orders which allow the NSA to make use of information "inadvertently" collected from domestic US communications without a warrant.

Now these communications were used on foreigners, but the collections came domestically.  That slope is getting pretty slippery.  Here it is, the FISA approval courts are allowing the retention of domestic communications.

So, who is the first small time pot dealer that goes to jail because he made an ill-timed text or phone call abroad...or next door?

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

So little thought, so much misogyny

This is AWFUL -- the fucking worst:

A GOP county chairman in Illinois called a black female congressional candidate a "street walker" and the "love child" of the Democratic party -- and he was referring to a fellow Republican, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Wednesday. Montgomery County GOP Chairman Jim Allen emailed the website Republican News Watch with his remarks about former Miss America Erika Harold, who will challenge incumbent Rep. Rodney Davis (R-IL) in the Republican primary for Illinois' 13th congressional district. "Rodney Davis will win and the love child of the D.N.C. will be back in Shitcago by May of 2014 working for some law firm that needs to meet their quota for minority hires," he wrote. "... Now, miss queen is being used like a street walker and her pimps are the DEMOCRAT PARTY and RINO REPUBLICANS."

Mr. Allen is forever banned from having sex with a partner.

Which is probably just redundant.

Republicans are really reaching out aren't they?

Yeah, that's the problem.

Ugh.

Abortion has to be made funny, the thinking goes, because funny sells on social media, and that’s where one goes to court young people. “You can engage with sarcasm, it’s hard with the abortion issue, but you have to,” said Students for Life president Kristan Hawkins at a breakout panel at the Faith and Freedom Coalition Conference in Washington today on how to win millennial voters. “Unfortunately we have to, because this is the generation that we’ve been dealt.”

Orange Crushed

Oh, if statues could move.

Boehner sure seems excited to honor a black guy.

And none (of the sane) called them "heroes"

Nice trend assholes:

The co-founder of the Minutemen civilian border patrol group that for several years watched for unauthorized immigrants crossing to Arizona from Mexico, was arrested on Wednesday on suspicion of molesting three young girls.

Stunned, I'm sure

A real "drip" off the ol' cock:

After three decades of fighting the culture wars from within the Washington establishment, the conservative Family Research Council decided that it needed a fresh, new face to reach outside and cultivate the grassroots. Its pick for the job is a 25-year-old newcomer to Beltway politics, but he’s already a potent brand name in some circles: Josh Duggar.

Yes, and who better to bash gay marriage than the poster-child of treating a woman like a termite queen.

Austerity (for most)

Well how utterly non-shocking.   While the ever popular George Osborne, the UK's Exchequer, was cutting government expenses on the poor and middle class -- and cutting domestic spending so drastically as to turn recession into depression -- some people were not suffering.

Of course, they are the usual people.

Bankers’ bonuses soared to record levels in April as the Government’s cut in the top rate of income tax came into effect, new figures have revealed.

The disclosure provoked anger, with Labour accusing David Cameron of giving a “massive tax cut” to millionaires in the City at a time when ordinary families are seeing their incomes shrink.

And, like so many aspects of austerity it worked just as intended and the opposite of how it was advertised.

The surge in bonus payments could also have cost the Treasury tens of millions of pounds in lost tax revenues.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Vaya con Dios

Slim Whitman died at 90. For those of you who thought it had already happened.

I don't know if it is all that terrible a legacy for you to be most remembered as parodied by SCTV, but there you go:

Yeah...I can live without those

I've been dieting for more than four months now (btw for those of you who recall my post about "when does the pain stop?" from protracted walking or running...apparently when the walking on concrete diminishes in favor of carpet and asphalt) and there are naturally some things I miss...food wise.

I walk extensively through the skywalk system in my city and around 7:00 a.m. or so I walk past the cookie-place just to inhale the smell.  I don't buy a cookie of course...just smelling and NOT having a cookie makes me feel like I am really awesome at sacrifice...if you can't feed yourself...AT LEAST FEED YOUR EGO!

But there are some things I don't miss because even when I was inhaling anything I pleased I did not want them. Like deep-fried snickers, and peeps. Basically, while I like sweets, I don't like foods where I immediately get light-headed and can feel my pancreas hurting.

Add another one to the list:

The Watermelon Oreos, available only at Target (TGT) for $3 a package, feature a bright pink and green creme filling between two vanilla-flavored cookies; the creme bears a strong resemblance to Play-Doh. Two cookies contain 150 calories, 7 grams of fat and 21 grams of carbohydrates.

Oh, two small cookies with 5-10% of your daily calorie allowance...with the taste of really sugary and pasty watermelon...what could be wrong?

I'm sure the Oreo Lemon-Cremes are the same...but fuck you...those sound delicious!

Killing it

John Oliver has been terrific filling in for Stewart (of course, the writers remain).

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Really

Sarah Palin is writing a book about the War on Christmas because apparently of all the things she cannot quit, 2005 is not one of them.

With that said, the book will likely fly off the shelves with its inclusion of not only festive recipes, but practical "legalese" aimed at helping those who want to "protect the spirit of Christmas."

That one shoe you may have forgotten finally dropped

I know it seems rather quaint compared to what the NSA can do, but cases against Rupert Murdoch's Newscorp continue to percolate along in regard to the hacking of phone calls. What has been missing, is a suit alleging that Newscorp hacked into phones in America. Until now...and in a rather unexpected manner.

News Corporation is facing its first phone-hacking lawsuit in the US after a former stunt double for Angelina Jolie launched a lawsuit alleging her mobile phone messages were intercepted by the now defunct News of the World and the Sun. The civil claim opens up a potential new frontline in News Corporation's battle to close the scandal, with the Sun accused of phone hacking for the first time.

Granted, this is a new blurb on an old story...but at least it doesn't involve a Republican Congressman fixated on fetuses masturbating. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Here's a story that deserves a look, Priorities

The Conferation's Cup is going on in Brazil at the moment -- a quadrennial warm up to next year's World Cup.

Notably two years after that the Olympics take place in and around Rio.

So it is notable that with the first and least significant of these global sporting events this is going on.

In addition to the increased costs and continued ineffectiveness of social services and issues with corruption and crime, many Brazilians are angry about the billions the government is spending to prepare for next year's World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics.

"We shouldn't be spending public money on stadiums," said one protester in Sao Paulo who identified herself as Camila, a 32-year-old travel agent. "We don't want the Cup. We want education, hospitals, a better life for our children."

It's sort of like the perpetual NFL/MLB/NBA/NHL "build us a stadium or we'll leave" program writ large.

Apparently there were 100,000 protesters in Rio alone.

It will be interesting to see if ESPN covers this to any extent.

"Hypocricy does not apply to me"

Typical, even when he makes a point, he cannot help but fail to point out he got there first.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) criticized the Obama administration in a letter Monday, accusing officials of undermining public distrust in government by using “secret e-mail addresses.” But McCain himself uses a secret e-mail address — as have previous Republican administration officials since the federal government began using email.

Meanwhile...

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has continued to release only select portions of committee interviews with key Internal Revenue Service staffers despite calls to make the full transcripts public. 

It's unfair that I'm listened to!

Right-Wing lunatic and therefore FoxNews media darling E.W. Jackson (the "E" is for "Ewwwww"), the candidate for Lt. Governor is astounded that his actual words can be used against him in the court of public opinion.

But he's right in a way, it is wrong that any thought at all is given to him, given his words.

Awe, and to think we could have bombed them already

It seems it was a few countries ago, but after spending a decade dreaming of bombing Iran into "moderation" it looks like the Iranian government had the temerity of choose a new leadership without being bombed into it.

In his first news conference after winning Friday’s presidential election promising more freedoms and better relations with the outside world, Mr. Rowhani called the issue of nonexistent relations between Iran and the United States “an old wound, which must be healed.”

Of course we've moved on. Iran was like two or three countries that "needed to be bombed" ago. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Perhaps you should just admit you have a problem

I certainly enjoy a drink here and there. I like my LaCrema. But if you are doing this, you are just tacking on the 13th step to the beginning of the process.

FlaskTie™, The biggest thing to happen to the necktie since the PillowTie™. This is a tie you will definitely love to wear! The FlaskTie™ is a fashion statement of thirst quenching proportions. Have you ever been parched while in a hurry to get to your next meeting and don’t have time to grab a drink? With FlaskTie™ you can quench your thirst while on-the-go, arriving at your meeting hydrated and ready to nail that presentation and seal the deal. Each FlaskTie™ comes equipped with a TieBladder™ holding approximately 6 fluid ounces for your drinking pleasure. Located at the end of the back slip is the TieBite™ Valve mouthpiece offering Hands-Free Hydration with ease of use, simply bite and sip! Self-seals after each drink to eliminate annoying drips and embarrassing stains. With various designs to choose from the FlaskTie™ is your chose for both fashion and hydration.

Yeah, I'm sure people who want to drink "water" from their ties will be the "market" for this thing?

Of course, why leave out women?

The Winerack Bra-Flask.

I'm already wrong

The Putin/Super Bowl ring isn't even the most ridiculous story of the weekend...

Pope Francis blessed thousands of Harley-Davidsons and their riders celebrating the manufacturer's 110th anniversary with a loud parade and plenty of leather.

Thundering Harley engines nearly drowned out the Latin recitation of the "Our Father" prayer that accompanied Francis as he greeted the crowd before Mass. Standing in his open-top jeep, Francis drove up the main boulevard leading to St. Peter's Square, blessing the thousands of people in what was a giant Harley parking lot.

Even worse...

Earlier I noted that Chicago had 36 shootings and 7 deaths over the weekend.

Of course the weekend wasn't over.

Make it 46 shootings with 7 deaths.

Wayne LaPierre's chubby lasted all weekend.

Of all the stupid things

I ever thought would be argued about, whether or not Vlad Putin "stole" a Super Bowl ring, is one the the most unexpected...and most ridiculous.

Hmmm...

On the one hand it takes one to know one:

Cheney: Snowden Is A ‘Traitor’

On the other hand Dick Cheney is a lying sack of shit, who will never pay for his crimes.

So conflicted...

"Yeah, it makes Freedom possible"

Terrible news out of Iraq...again. Boy that place sounds awful, good thing we helped bring that about, huh?

A blistering string of apparently coordinated bombings and a shooting across Iraq killed at least 51 and wounded dozens Sunday, spreading fear throughout the country in a wave of violence that is raising the prospect of a return to widespread sectarian killing a decade after a U.S.-led invasion.

Meanwhile, in just one American city, the blessings of the Second Amendment spread freedoms message at home:

Six people were killed and at least 13 others wounded in shootings between Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning, police said. Other weekend shootings killed one and wounded 16, bringing the bloody weekend total to seven dead, 29 wounded.

Thirty-six shootings in one city in one weekend.

And of course there are all of these all the time in America.

So who are we really to judge?

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Yeah, that makes total sense

Because who would know that "rape" is frowned upon?

Navy Judge Cmdr. Marcus Fulton ruled that President Barack Obama's comments on military sexual assault could affect the sentencing in two cases, according to Stars and Stripes. During pretrial hearings in the cases, Fulton said “unlawful command influence” derived from Obama's remarks could influence a potential sentencing in the two cases, according to according to court documents obtained by Stars and Stripes. The judge's ruling could have an impact on other sexual assault cases in the military. On May 7, Obama said he has “no tolerance” for sexual assault in the military.

Yeah, how dare he be against rape. Next thing you know he'll say he doesn't like pillaging either.

Oh I'm sure this is just fine

Never -- EVER -- would be abused.

The National Security Agency has acknowledged in a new classified briefing that it does not need court authorization to listen to domestic phone calls.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat, disclosed this week that during a secret briefing to members of Congress, he was told that the contents of a phone call could be accessed “simply based on an analyst deciding that.”

If the NSA wants “to listen to the phone,” an analyst’s decision is sufficient, without any other legal authorization required, Nadler said he learned. “I was rather startled,” said Nadler, an attorney and congressman who serves on the House Judiciary committee.

But don't worry woman who dumped that current NSA employee when you were both in college.

That's a trend

I haven't said much about Jeff Flake's stupid bigoted kid because, well, he's a stupid bigoted kid. But now we've got a second in three days.

A Nevada congressman has apologized for his son's racist and sexist tweets, in which he repeatedly refers to women as 'sluts' and 'whores' who belong in the kitchen and calls President Obama a 'slave' who is only good at 'spear chucking and rock skipping.' Joey Heck, 16, is the son of Republican Joe Heck. Among the younger Heck's more than 3,000 tweets, he brags about having insider knowledge of Congress and national security, he ridicules women, refers to homosexuals as 'f*****s' and calls black people 'n***as.'

The Twats of Twitter.

Somebody light up the "Pat Buchanan Batshit Signal"

Somebody needs a defender:

A top commander of a Nazi SS-led unit accused of burning villages filled with women and children lied to American immigration officials to get into the United States and has been living in Minnesota since shortly after World War II, according to evidence uncovered by The Associated Press. Michael Karkoc, 94, told American authorities in 1949 that he had performed no military service during World War II, concealing his work as an officer and founding member of the SS-led Ukrainian Self Defense Legion and later as an officer in the SS Galician Division, according to records obtained by the AP through a Freedom of Information Act request. The Galician Division and a Ukrainian nationalist organization he served in were both on a secret American government blacklist of organizations whose members were forbidden from entering the United States at the time. Though records do not show that Karkoc had a direct hand in war crimes, statements from men in his unit and other documentation confirm the Ukrainian company he commanded massacred civilians, and suggest that Karkoc was at the scene of these atrocities as the company leader. Nazi SS files say he and his unit were also involved in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, in which the Nazis brutally suppressed a Polish rebellion against German occupation.

Just like the Good Ol' Days in England

Y'know the Yorks vs. the Lancasters vs. the Lannisters vs. the Avengers:

Britain’s Austerity Policies Forcing Homeless People To Live In Caves

Good job, this guy.

Good job Spurs

I haven't commented on this because well "low hanging and rotten fruit" but good for the team and its management for doubling down on those assholes.

...the San Antonio Spurs asked Sebastien De La Cruz to do the honors. De La Cruz, an 11-year-old Mexican-American, is a San Antonio resident who appeared as a singer on America’s Got Talent last year, and he didn’t disappoint.

That the Spurs chose a Latino boy in a mariachi suit quickly became a controversy, with social media users asking why an “illegal alien” was singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” and why he was “dressed like such a little Mexican.” One Twitter user posited that “They prolly made this Mexican sing to stay in America.”

De La Cruz was quick to respond , as was San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, who wrote in a Facebook message that De La Cruz “represent[s] the best of our nation’s future!” Spurs coach Greg Poppovich blasted the critics as “idiots” who were for some reason “proud of their ignorance.” But the Spurs organization itself had the best response, because it asked De La Cruz to come back and sing the national anthem again before Game 4 Thursday night. And he killed it:

They can always aspire to go lower

And with the Weepy Tangerine in charge I'm sure they can.

The public’s scorn for a gridlocked U.S. Congress continues to grow, with a new Gallup poll showing confidence in the legislative body falling to 10 percent, the lowest level Gallup has ever found for any institution. 

The poll released today placed Congress dead last among 16 institutions in a survey

Amazing that when you keep voting for a Party that hates government, you get a government you hate.

Forgot the part about him being an eternal vampire

And they said it wouldn't last...accurately.

News Corp. boss Rupert Murdoch and his third wife, Wendi Deng, are splitting, Deadline Hollywood reports (confirmed here). The 82-year-old Murdoch reportedly filed for divorce this morning in New York State Supreme Court, less than two weeks shy of the couple's fourteenth anniversary. Deng, 38 years Murdoch's junior, married the mogul days after his second divorce was finalized and is the mother of his two young daughters, Grace and Chloe.

And I'm sensing a pattern.

...the story of Deng's first marriage, at the age of 21, to Jack Cherry, the 53-year-old man who sponsored her student visa after the two had an affair.

 Ms. Deng apparently has a fetish...for money.   And that's hardly rare I suppose.  I imagine she opposes immigration reforms too?

Is there an 88 year old rich asshole around for her?

Well, she was good for attacking pie-throwers.

The Pot calling the Kettle predisposed to crime

Once upon a time, when the Senate voted for Appellate Court nominees, even when a President of another Party nominated them you would get somebody on the Federal Bench that should not be there.

Case in point Right-Wing ideologue Edith Jones, who has been on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals since 1985 and has done such sterling work as demanding Roe v. Wade be overturned and stating machine guns for all, especially all you fetuses out there. And Judge Jones, having been confirmed BUT criticized wasn't happy about the confirmation process even a few years ago...when a white Republican was in charge.

In a recent interview with the American Enterprise Institute, she bemoaned the Senate treatment of several controversial appeals court nominees. "Nominees are accused very unfairly of things that they didn't do," she said. "For someone like Judge [Charles W.] Pickering to be called a racist is a vile lie.

And she should know racism:

...at a speech at the University of Pennsylvania Law School in February she said that blacks and Hispanics were more prone than others to commit violent crimes and that a death sentence was a service to defendants because it allowed them to make peace with God.

And that apparently is just the tip of the whiteburg.

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on Wednesday took the rare step of ordering a review of a powerful federal judge accused of making denigrating statements against minorities and people with mental disabilities. Roberts formally ordered the District of Columbia circuit court to review the complaints against Judge Edith Jones of Houston, who sits on the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

It's all really based on a small troll living in our stomach

We now have proof that someone is dumbest person on the Supreme Court.

Justice Antonin Scalia agrees with his fellow Supreme Court justices that naturally occurring genes can't be patented. Where he appears to differ: The existence of genes, the basic science of genetics, molecular biology, and evolution. He just dissented from all of the above.

My "only" claim to a bit of rock history has now been undermined

Considering the paucity of rock concerts I have been to, which I can count on my hands with more than a few fingers to spare...including the most important ones...the fact that I was present for the last Replacements performance has been at the top. But so much for that. Still, pretty cool.

The outreach is going fine

Ugh.

A Republican state representative from Maine said Wednesday that he and most of his GOP colleagues are against accepting federal funds to expand health care coverage because, well, men and women think differently. "From the other side of the aisle I hear the conversation being about 'free this is free, we need to take it and it's free and we need to do it now' and that's sort of the fundamental message that my brain receives," Ken Fredette said in a speech on the House floor. "Now, my brain being a man's brain sort of thinks differently, because I say, well, it's not if it's free is it really free because I say in my brain there's a cost to this."

Apparently, the very thought of good policy that actually lowers overall health costs and y'know helps people is beyond the male brain...or more specifically that male.

Running out of eyes to have blackened

While we deal in the "glories" of the NSA/Prism matter and the usual cast of suspects reaffirm their asshattery, some other shames reappear:

A group of senior American doctors has called on military physicians at Guantánamo Bay to refuse to work in a mass force-feeding programme that is being used to keep hunger-striking detainees alive. Writing in the prestigious and influential New England Journal of Medicine, the three doctors called Guantánamo "a medical ethics free zone" and said that medical staff had a moral duty to allow the prisoners to go on hunger strike without coercing them into treatment. They also called on doctors to refuse to take part in force-feeding.

166 of the inmates at Guantanamo, uncharged yet a decade on also unreleased, have been force-fed for several months. What a glorious tribute to the "Land of the Free" in its modern iteration, quite Antebellum of us. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

An Asshole Tradition Like No Other

It should be said that Australia at least has HAD a female Prime Minister, but this bit of offensive behavior sadly would be comfortable (and will be found) in a Republican Party dinner reference to Hillary ("Iron My Shirt!") Clinton in the next three years...repeatedly.

A Liberal National Party fundraiser menu which served up Julia Gillard quail with “small breasts, huge thighs and a big red box” has been labelled tacky and scatological by the opposition leader. Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey was the guest of honour at the fundraiser which was held in Brisbane in March for LNP candidate Mal Brough who has apologised for the menu and admitted it was sexist, according to the ABC. A spokesman for the Queensland LNP has since said Brough will not be speaking again on the issue on Wednesday.

My feeble understanding of Australian politics is that the "Liberal National Party" are actually liberal like North Korea is really the "Democratic Republic of Korea".

I look forward to the future Gillard fund-raiser featuring the "Mal Brough Cocktail Weiner, Small, Pink, Insignificant, fashioned out of Pig Snout and hasn't been seen by owner in several decades".

BTW, Joe Hockey? It's Australia shouldn't that be "Joe Australian Rules Football" or "Joe Ashes" or something more patriotic? I at least hope his middle name is "Field".


...feel free to add your own rim-shot to that quality joke.

Wankers gonna wank

The most important thing about people like David Brooks is that they always remain the most important thing.

Best Season Ever

Season 38 of Girls!

We're Nummer Eins!

For years right-wing legal scholars have proclaimed there was no "right to privacy" as enumerated by the Warren Court beginning in Griswold v. Connecticut. Over the years the jurisprudence has come to support the findings of the Warren Court about fifty years ago. Of course, it turns out the government has been making this argument all very irrelevant.

German outrage over a U.S. Internet spying program has broken out ahead of a visit by Barack Obama, with ministers demanding the president provide a full explanation when he lands in Berlin next week and one official likening the tactics to those of the East German Stasi.

You know it's bad when the German's start comparing your present to their past. Former NSA Official Thomas Drake said in an interview that the present NSA data mining makes the Stasi seem quaint. Which is a phrase you don't see applied to the East German Secret Police very often. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Yes, perhaps in 30 years or so from Type-II Diabetes

FoxNews, once again your go-to source for the multiple ways a black man can kill you:

Fox News Speculates Trayvon Martin Could Have Killed Someone With Skittles And Iced Tea

Or he might knock a cross you set on fire over on you.

Good

Looks like the Obama Administration has given up on their lamely measured allowance of the morning-after-pill.

Hey, go outside

If it's clear...and do it right now.

The expected time of the meteor outburst is 4:28 a.m. EDT (0828 GMT), 3:28 a.m. CDT, 2:28 a.m. MDT, and 1:28 a.m. PDT. This timing is favorable for all the Americas, extending west to the Hawaiian Islands. If you live in the Eastern Time Zone, you should start watching around 3:30 a.m. and continue on up until the predicted peak at 4:28 a.m. Thereafter the sky will be getting much too bright thanks to the dawn twilight and approaching sunrise.

Well, I'm glad we can be clear on that

This is quite good to know. Last week when pressed on whether or not the NSA was reading American's emails Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told Senator Wyden that the NSA doesn't do so. Meanwhile, in a few days later reality Clapper said:

"I responded in what I thought was the most truthful, or least untruthful, manner by saying 'no,'" Clapper told NBC News on Sunday.

Comforting to be sure. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Say what you want

This guy has guts.

The individual responsible for one of the most significant leaks in US political history is Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former technical assistant for the CIA and current employee of the defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Snowden has been working at the National Security Agency for the last four years as an employee of various outside contractors, including Booz Allen and Dell...

In a note accompanying the first set of documents he provided, he wrote: "I understand that I will be made to suffer for my actions," but "I will be satisfied if the federation of secret law, unequal pardon and irresistible executive powers that rule the world that I love are revealed even for an instant."
Despite his determination to be publicly unveiled, he repeatedly insisted that he wants to avoid the media spotlight. "I don't want public attention because I don't want the story to be about me. I want it to be about what the US government is doing."

He does not fear the consequences of going public, he said, only that doing so will distract attention from the issues raised by his disclosures. "I know the media likes to personalise political debates, and I know the government will demonise me."

Well, maybe not too much.

Gee, I dunno

This sounds too accurate to be completely credible.

"I worked at ABC Radio with Sean {Hannity}," Bey told host Ricky Camilleri. "He doesn't know anything about history. He knows what they give him on the talking points."

The Time Bomb

I really cannot say what the long-term consequences of this are...but they are most probably not good.

U.S. employers added 175,000 jobs in May, a better net gain than expected. And while the jobless rate ticked up to 7.6 percent from 7.5 percent, that was because more people joined the labor force, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday. But not enough of the new jobs are going to young adults. In the 20-24 age group, the jobless rate was 13.2 percent - floating about where it's been stuck for over a year.

And the U.S. is hardly alone. Throughout the developed world the story is the same. The young are underemployed and underpaid at an increasing level.

As usual our economic geniuses have the solution.

Raise the retirement age.

Yeah, that will really help.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

The "awesome" 6 to 1 bad guy vs. good guy with gun kill ratio

Yes, the only viable solution via Wayne LaPierre:

A gunman with an assault-style rifle killed at least six people in Santa Monica on Friday before police shot him to death in a gunfight in the Santa Monica College library, authorities said.

Hey look at those bunch of socialists!

Why these countries with their strong union movements, high wages, higher tax rates on rich people and government run health-care systems!

But overall employment in the United States remained 2.1 percent below where it was at the end of 2007, according to the statistics bureau. By comparison, over the same period, between December 2007 and March 2013, the number of jobs was up 8.1 percent in Australia; Germany, the biggest economy in the troubled euro zone, has managed a 5.8 percent gain in employment...

 While several European countries have fared worse, Canada, Sweden and even Britain, which is trapped in yet another recession, have enjoyed healthier job gains than the United States.

Meanwhile in the opposite of Nelson Mandela

Poor (period) Sad (period) Asshole (exclamation point) [Thanks Veep]

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio turns 81 next week, and he's taking the time to recognize a victim of discrimination -- himself. 

Never mind the recent federal court ruling that said the Phoenix-area sheriff was unfairly targeting Latinos in his notorious "crime suppression" sweeps. 

Arpaio says he'll increasingly focus on age discrimination as he continues his fifth term as sheriff, and as he plans for a sixth. 

He counts himself among the people looked down upon because of their age.

It will happen someday

And probably someday soon, and it will be a tough day.

Nelson Mandela has been admitted to hospital with a lung infection.

The former South African president is in a "serious but stable condition", a spokesman for the current President, Jacob Zuma, says.

Mr Mandela, 94, has been ill for some days but deteriorated overnight and was transferred to a hospital in Pretoria.

Self-Deluded Hypocritical Douchebags for $100 Alex

He sure is a classic Republican:

This pits the ability of poor people to eat — not well, but sort of enough — against the production of agricultural commodities. That would be a difficult choice if the subsidies were going to farmers who could be crushed by failure, but in reality most direct payments go to those who need them least.

Among them is Congressman Stephen Fincher, Republican of Tennessee, who justifies SNAP cuts by quoting 2 Thessalonians 3:10:  “For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat.”

Even if this quote were not taken out of context — whoever wrote 2 Thessalonians was chastising not the poor but those who’d stopped working in anticipation of the second coming — Fincher ignores the fact that Congress is a secular body that supposedly doesn’t base policy on an ancient religious text that contradicts itself more often than not. Not that one needs to break a sweat countering his “argument,” but 45 percent of food stamp recipients are children, and in 2010, the U.S.D.A. reported that as many as 41 percent are working poor. 

This would be just another amusing/depressing example of an elected official ignoring a huge part of his constituency (about one in seven Americans rely on food stamps, though it’s one in five in Tennessee, the second highest rate in the South), were not Fincher himself a hypocrite. 

For the God-fearing Fincher is one of the largest recipients of U.S.D.A. farm subsidies in Tennessee history; he raked in $3.48 million in taxpayer cash from 1999 to 2012, $70,574 last year alone. The average SNAP recipient in Tennessee gets $132.20 in food aid a month; Fincher received $193 a day. (You can eat pretty well on that.) [4]

And speaking of how awesome patriarchy is...

We have this "lovely" story:

On June 23 of last year, Lakisha Briggs’ ex-boyfriend, Wilbert Bennett, went to find the 33-year-old mother of two at her house in Norristown, Pennsylvania, which she rented with a Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Section 8 voucher. Bennett, who was just released from prison, wanted to get back together, and he refused to take no for an answer.

“You are going to be with me or you are going to be with no one,” he allegedly threatened.

Even though Briggs was terrified Bennett would hurt her or her 3-year-old daughter if she forced him to leave, there was something she feared even worse: calling the police for help. If she did, she could be kicked out of her home, and that wasn’t a risk she could afford. Feeling defenseless, Briggs succumbed to his intrusion and demands, allowing him and the friends he invited over to stay.

Norristown had a three domestic police calls and you are out policy...and thanks to her ex-boyfriend Ms. Briggs was out of calls or would be evicted.

Cue Lee Greenwood.

Texass!

Hey, some lives are just less valuable than others in Texas.

A Texas jury acquitted a man for the murder of a woman he hired as an escort, after his lawyers claimed he was authorized to use deadly force because she refused sex. 

Ezekiel Gilbert shot Lenora Ivie Frago in the neck on Christmas Eve, after she denied his requests for sex and wouldn’t return the $150 he had paid her, according to the San Antonio Express-News. Under Texas law, an individual is authorized to use deadly force to “retrieve stolen property at night,” and Gilbert’s lawyers cited that provision as justification for Gilbert’s action, reasoning that Frago had stolen $150 from him by taking his money without delivering sex. In a police interview played for jurors, Gilbert “never mentioned anything about theft,” a detective told the San Antonio Express-News. Frago, who was 21, was critically injured and died several months later.

Continuing Texas (and sadly most other States) not-so-proud tradition of devaluing women, and especially women who have (or in this case will not) sex.

Awful.

Surprising, but it shouldn't be

Amazing bit of news about Stephen Fry, from whose personality -- as you see it presented -- would never make you think he was troubled.

Stephen Fry tried to commit suicide a year ago, he confessed during a podcast taping. During an interview with comic Richard Herring on his popular Leicester Square Theatre Podcast, Fry said that he "took a huge number of pills and a huge amount of vodka. The mixture of them made my body convulse so much that I broke four ribs – but I was still unconscious." Fry was on location at the time

Fry's actually always been open in interviews about his battle with manic depression, but still he's brave in being open about it.

Mental Illness is such a insidious thing.

Your dispare was misplaced

So Bachmann is gone, the idiot bench is self-replenishing with the GOP:

E.W. Jackson, Virginia's GOP lieutenant governor candidate, is no stranger to controversy. A conservative pastor, Jackson has previously come under fire for comparing Planned Parenthood to the Ku Klux Klan, calling gay rights "ikky" and saying President Barack Obama has a "Muslim perspective."

This week, Jackson is being skewered yet again -- this time for saying that doing yoga may leave unsuspecting people vulnerable to satanic possession.

Of course it is.   It improves flexibility...truly anathema to your typical right-winger.

Well let's let bygones be bygones then

Whoops!

The International Monetary Fund is to admit that it has made serious mistakes in the handling of the sovereign debt crisis in Greece, according to internal reports due to be published later on Wednesday. Documents presented to the Fund's board last Friday will reveal that the Washington-based organisation underestimated the damage austerity would cause to the eurozone country, which has required two bailouts in the past three years.

If only us hippies starting with well-known bleeding heart Paul Krugman had been listened to things might have been a good deal better -- and Greece might have a few less neo-Nazi parties, like Golden Dawn.

Oh yeah, and a lot less suffering -- and this. But when have the hippies ever been right -- other than consistently and in retrospect?

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Just a meaningless set of new statistics -- another day in America!

The Founders blessed us with an Amendment we can only read half of:

A 10-year-old boy died Tuesday in San Diego after he and his friend were playing with a gun, NBC 7 reported.

Police said the boy and a 9-year-old girl were playing with a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun when he was shot in the chest.

Blood nourishes the tree of Liberty:

Las Vegas police said a teenager died in a local hospital after being shot Tuesday afternoon at a home, according to TV station KVVU. 

Metro police spokesman Sgt. John Sheahan told the Las Vegas Sun that the shooting involved two 13-year-olds; KVVU reported that there were three juveniles inside the home when the teen was shot. It's not clear if adults were present at the time of the shooting.

Police said the shooting appeared to be an accident.

Gory Gory Hallelujah:

A Benton, Louisiana three-year-old was admitted to a hospital Monday after being shot by a .22 rifle, KSLA reports. 

Authorities are describing the incident as an accident that happened when the rifle was knocked over by a door after it was bumped by another child.

(pic via Salon) 

How are they supposed to stand up to "terrorists" then?

Poor babies, out of excuses...and ready to make nonsensical ones:

On Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) argued there was another problem with moving Obama's nominees: a "culture of intimidation" being fueled by Democrats. 

"There's a culture of intimidation throughout the executive branch of the federal government," McConnell told reporters in response to a question about nominations and listed a number of agencies. "There's also a culture of intimidation here in the Senate."

There's only one thing that Mitch McConnell is afraid of...other than chins...and that's losing his precious seat.

The Republican philosophy..."We've made Washington ungovernable...so elect us for deliberately fucking things up".

Speaking of "droning" on

Rummy...still an asshole.

Speaking at a conservative gathering late last month, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he didn't know if President Barack Obama had switched sides in the War on Terror.

Yeah, how dare he kill Bin Laden or drone the shit out of things.

Hey Donny, why don't you fly overseas and check it out yourself?   Oh that's right, you can't.

As their passive aggressive apology was saying

The other day "Teen Beat on the Hudson" reported that a group of "young Republican Activists" unleased a study demonstrating that the GOP needs to get over the bigotry so they can move on to the important task of grinding the poor into a fine paste.

The "tomorrow belongs to Me" faction noted in particular:

Big reason for the image problem: The “outrageous statements made by errant Republican voices.”

The problem is those errant voices are pretty much the majority of prominent Republicans in the House or Senate. To wit:

Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) on Tuesday suggested that the “hormone level created by nature” was to blame for rapes in the military and that all pregnant servicewomen should be investigated to make sure their condition was the result of consensual sex.

Yes, oh those women making men all rapey -- it's just nature. I'm sure the younger demographic is wild about that logic.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Oh, this is comforting

You always can spot the crazies with one simple little test:

The leaders have come under intense scrutiny. Barely 36 hours after the caustic New Year’s Day vote, Boehner faced a coup attempt from a clutch of renegade conservatives. The cabal quickly fell apart when several Republicans, after a night of prayer, said God told them to spare the speaker. Still, Boehner came within a few votes of failing to secure his speakership on the initial vote, an outcome that would have forced a second ballot for the first time in nearly a century.

More evidence that God either doesn't exist, or is kind of a dick.

You see now why I'm an agnostic...although I know Congressional Republicans are uniformly dicks.

Oh there's nothing over-the-top about this...

Now we'll just wait for Waffle House to come out with the Waffle stuffed with Pancakes and a Cruller:

Even as fast-food chains tout their healthy offerings, they're also coming up with fatty new treats to keep customers interested. Case in point: Dunkin' Donuts is adding a doughnut breakfast sandwich to its national menu this week.

The sandwich, which comes with fried eggs and bacon between a split glazed doughnut, will become a part of the permanent menu starting Friday, which the chain claims is "National Donut Day." Dunkin' Donuts had tested the sandwich in select stores in eastern Massachusetts in April, creating considerable buzz online.

Finally accuracy in media

Especially, comedy media: