• For those of you expecting a week-long party to start off the Obama Administration, prepare to be disappointed. There will be one public event welcoming you to D.C. on Sunday afternoon. Monday will be a day of community service, and the Inauguration will occur on Tuesday out in the cold, followed by formal balls you're unlikely to get into without connections. But if you want to rent an apartment anyway, I have really nice towels. [Politico]
• Barack Obama plans to announce the appointment of Clinton-era EPA Administrator Carol Browner to be the White House Energy Coordinator (they hate the word "Czar" as much as we do) and Nancy Sutley, a deputy mayor of Los Angeles, to be a chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Sutley will be Obama's first openly gay Cabinet appointment. [Politico]
• In the meantime, if you need some cheap electronics or office furniture, the McCain campaign has some they'll sell you cheap. [Washington Post]

• As rumored yesterday, law enforcement sources have confirmed that Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. is Senate Candidate 5 from the Blagojevich indictment. [CNN]
• He says he's done nothing wrong. [Politico]
• Congressman Don Young, who is being investigated on corruption charges, is resigning the leadership role on the House Natural Resources Committee "for the good of the party." See, Chairman Rangel? It's actually kind of easy. [The Hill]
• That auto bailout is finally done, but it still might not pass the Senate. [Fox News]
• The Pentagon flew several of the family members of people who died in the September 11th attacks down to Gitmo to watch the tribunals and make Obama feel too guilty to shut it down and try the detainees in civilian and military courts on American soil with, like, rights and stuff. The families "marveled" at the rights the detainees do actually get in the tribunals (unlike in their holding pens). [Reuters]

JASON: Ugh. I am awake.

MEGAN: I feel you there. I was about to say how it gets worse the longer the week goes on, and then I realized it's only Tuesday. I might cry now.

JASON: Both of us are home sick today. It's a Christmas miracle.

MEGAN: Oh, damn, that sucks. I'm glad I didn't ask you guys if you wanted to get dinner last night.

JASON: We would have declined politely, but it's always nice to have someone thinking of you when you're sick.

MEGAN: I have a biohazard suit somewhere in my car, I think, let me know if you need a chicken soup delivery or something. Otherwise, we should probably discuss Caroline Kennedy's tattoo, which I think — despite being published in the New York Post — is another piece of annoying evidence of how conservative D.C. really is. Also, sexist: tell em Ben Nighthorse Campbell didn't have a tattoo or two.

JASON: Well, remember how worked up everyone got about Elizabeth Kucinich's piercing? Didn't she have a navel piercing or something? You note how I barely remember? That's because I lived in Richmond, WHERE EVERYONE HAD A TATTOO OR A PIERCING.

MEGAN: Tongue piercing. At least then the subtext was that Dennis was getting more blow jobs than the average male D.C. political reporter, present company exempted since I'm sure you and your wife have crazy hot sex all the time. Except when you're sick.

JASON: Not tongue studded sex, and I'm fine with that. My wife has a tattoo on her back (of Eve sitting naked bestride a giant apple) and a navel piercing. Both obtained in Richmond. (My friend Amy gets credit for the art of the tattoo. I was at work one day when our manager Dave came in on his day off, and he was all: "I have to SHOW you something!" And I said, "What, what?" And he lifted up the leg of his pants to reveal a tattoo of a flaming spork on his calf. And I said, "It's a flaming spork." And he looked at me and said, "It came to me in a dream!" Capitol Hill's culture is more conservative, yes. But it's also the culture of a unfrozen idiot caveman. Everything terrifies it. About the only thing it's okay to be out of the closet on is sci-fi fandom. And of course, it's not okay to be out of the closet on being gay.

MEGAN: Flaming spork, huh? Is "dream" some sort of Richmond code for "LSD-induced haze"? But, to the point, I know people in D.C. that speak of their love of sci-fi in D.C. in hushed terms more befitting an admission of a love of S&M at a White House Christmas party. Actually, that probably happens a lot.

JASON: At least on the GOP side.

MEGAN: But no one admits to being gay in D.C. — you can catch a Hill staffer with a dick in his mouth and he'll still try to tell you he tripped.

JASON: Generally speaking, yes, most significant Richmond dreams are chemically induced. Well, it's like that dude who paid a cop twenty dollars to have it off. What was his name again?

MEGAN: Bob Allen. God damn, why do I remember these things? Let's not forget Larry Craig, though.

JASON: You remember those things because you used to write for Wonkette. But, yeah, Bob Allen. This guy will take his whole insistence on not being gay all the way to the Supreme Court. He'll be gobbling Alito's dong, and testifying, "I hate this! I don't know why it's HAPPENEEEEENG!" But, look, I think we all got a little covered with spermatazoa yesterday... Can I just mention that we live in a world of HERO PUPPIES?

MEGAN: But what a great transition to the Supreme Court non-case over Barack Obama's citizenship. I'd bet more than a few not-gay Republicans would've gobbled Alito's dong to get that case heard. Yeah, I'd rather talk puppies, too.

JASON: Just leave that link there for the Jezebel Nation (who got a shout out in the Peanuts Christmas Special) to click on when they need to feel like secret, cuddly, heroic forces are at work in the world. The Obama citizenship case proves just how far you can come in life when you have the right motivation. The folks behind these suits are hopeless, paranoid, dumbasses, and Clarence Thomas was there for them in his hour of need. You know Souter, I think, originally denied the petition. Thomas was all: "You know? I'm going to allow this!" Antonin Scalia probably got misty-eyed: "Look at my idiot protege, he's gettin' to be all grown up!" Then he probably babbled a few sentences in Latin to the false gods of his Opus Dei crackpot religion. "Semper ubi sub ubi!" Then he was wracked with Saint Vitus Dance. AND IT WAS ANOTHER TYPICAL DAY AT YOUR SUPREME COURT!

MEGAN: You know what's hilarious? One of my friends was trying to argue to me that if they had just shown the crackpots his original birth certificate, none of this would have happened and I was like, they're crazy. Are you kidding me? They probably would have lit it on fire, run out of the room and begun screaming about how they now had evidence that it doesn't exist.

JASON: Or they would found something, anything to brand it counterfeit. You see, evidence does not shut these dimwits down. Adding exculpatory material to the pile just excites them anew. They need to be ignored, or sent out to sea on ice floes (which is currently illegal, I think, or they'd have solved social security by doing it with retirees).

MEGAN: Mike Madden took one for the team and went to their press conference yesterday. His reporting, I think, proves your point.

Two and a half hours later, as dentist-slash-lawyer Orly Taitz harangued reporters for not investigating whether Obama's mother was actually dead, that hope had been obliterated. It was crushed by a torrent of half-baked legal theories, vague platitudes about the Constitution and sinister "facts" assembled by a collection of true believers so extreme that even Michelle Malkin wants nothing to do with them.

JASON: I'm sure Malkin wavered for a second or two.

MEGAN: Dude, seriously, Latoya and I were talking about this last week! We're not sure whether the other commentators on the right are just so crazy now that her crazy seems reasonable, or if she's actually been becoming somewhat reasonable lately. It's a little scary. I'd ask you to hold me, but you're sick. I mean, when this is the competition:

At one point, [Taitz] asked why the government had fined broadcasters for Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction," but didn't intervene to force the media to report on Obama's allegedly phony birth certificate. She claimed Obama holds passports from at least four countries, compared him to Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver, equated the "controversy" about Obama to Watergate, and finished her tour-de-force presentation by saying that if Obama can claim he's a U.S. citizen and win an election, then so could just about anyone. "If a person can become a presidential candidate only based on his own statement," she said, "then somebody like Osama bin Laden, theoretically, can come and write a statement, 'I'm eligible,' and we should put him on the ballot, too?"

JASON: It's an airtight case! OF UNSHUNTED HYDROENCEPHALITIS, anyway!

MEGAN: You know the world's gone mad when the AP is reporting that Susan Rice is trying to set up her own fiefdom at State, which is just, like, either Susan Rice has gone completely insane or Ron Fournier is typing while giving Cheney a rim job again.

JASON: Wha? Susan Rice?

MEGAN:

As Secretary of State-pick Hillary Rodham Clinton and U.N. envoy-choice Susan Rice separately visited the diplomatic agency's headquarters in Washington's Foggy Bottom neighborhood, persons familiar with the transition said that Rice wants to install her own transition team inside the department.

Such a move by an incoming U.N. ambassador is rare, if not unprecedented, because the job is based at the United Nations in New York, where Rice already has a small transition staff, the sources familiar with the incoming administration.

The push by Rice, an early Obama supporter whose position the President-elect wants to elevate to a cabinet post, is also a signal that she intends to use her influence with the new president to play a more significant role than previous U.N. envoys, they said.

You'd think Rice might know things like that it doesn't work that way, having worked at State before.

JASON: Interesting. I'm afraid I haven't the knowledge on hand to grasp the full implications of that. The Obama administration has a different conception of U.N. Ambassador. The article casts this fundamentally at odds with Clinton. And it may! Of course, I suppose Clinton can do little else than accept the way Obama chooses to set his foreign policy team up. I take issue with "cracks" in that they've actually not yet appeared, figuratively.

MEGAN: Well, but if it's just two people having meetings, there's no story! There must be a fight! They have to still hate each other! What else will they talk about?

JASON: I'm afraid that this probably goes back to what Media Matters calls the Clinton Rules For Journalism. Say, a house burns down in Clinton's neighborhood, but firefighters manage to save everyone inside. The headline the next day is supposed to read, "CLINTONS NO HELP AS FIRE CAUSES EXTENSIVE PROPERTY DAMAGE."

MEGAN: For real, though, what else aren't they going to talk about? Charlie Rangel's new ethics problems? Ha! He paid his son $80,000 for doing nothing? So what!? Not going to step down from his Chairmanship because, he says, "I don't think reporters should be in the position of removing Chairmen.”

JASON: Getting your son money for doing nothing is an ethics violation? For white people, it's called Late Night Shots.

MEGAN: Hey, Doolittle took heat for it. (His wife, not his son). And so did DeLay. From Rangel, even. When did the lions of the Democratic party start emulating the Republicans we all despised 4 years ago?

JASON: When they took power!

MEGAN: Damn Lord Acton for nailing that one.

JASON: Good morning, sunshine.

MEGAN: Harrumph. My mother used to mock me in the mornings like that when I lived at home.

JASON: I'm sure your mother didn't see it as mocking you.

MEGAN: No, you haven't met my parents, mocking one another's foibles is part of our deal. We tend to talk a lot about my father's bathroom habits, too.

JASON: The whole Carpentier family coat-of-arms must be disturbing to look at!

MEGAN: Holidays are fun in my house. One year, after chili was consumed, we forced my father to fart outside, only it was so cold that when he went out there his asshole puckered up too tight to squeeze it out. We still tell that story with glee.

JASON: Wow. Now if that doesn't read like the lost verse of the Little Drummer Boy! "My asshole is frozen shut, pa-rump-pump-pump-pum!"

MEGAN: The real problem is finding a news story to tie to that, which I'm at a loss for, so I'm just going to embed "Jizz in My Pants" at this moment, which is what prompted all my scatological Christmas memories.

Which reminded me of my friend ****, who about 10 years ago around this time told me how he did that exact same thing over Thanksgiving break at a strip club in front of all his friends. And, finally, I can embed a news story. Indian authorities are making the Mumbai terrorist parade around in nothing but his undies to prevent him from killing himself. I'm assuming that, if he were like my friend, keeping him in his underwear might actually provoke suicide.

JASON: "Jizz In My Pants" will be the first single from INCREDIBAD, by Andy Samberg's old comedy group, The Lonely Island, who are the people behind the SNL Digital Shorts.

MEGAN: For whatever reason, I read "Lonely Island" as "Long Island," but that might be because that's from whence my quick-to-the-draw friend hails.

JASON: Look, I'm just glad that someone has a definition of "extreme lengths" that stops at "making him wear nothing but underwear" and doesn't involve the sort of things that make Mike Mukasey jizz in his pants. "I hook electrodes, to a brown man's balls and I JIZZ IN MY PANTS."

MEGAN: You know whom else I'm betting lets loose with a couple of teaspoons-full now and again? Michael Chertoff, when he's listening to illegal wiretap tapes. Also, a ton of liberals when Bush said "Welcome to my hanging" this weekend.

JASON: Oh, no doubt. Though Chertoff mostly spews graveyard dust out of his dessicated ghoul-cock. You know Chertoff is a guy that Baby Jesus hates the most. "Waaah. Living-dead abomination! Jizzing graveyeard dust!"

MEGAN: He is, without a doubt, the creepiest-looking guy in Washington. You'd think that he'd look less creepy in person, that maybe it's the TV lights or something. But, no. He really does look exactly that frightening.

JASON: Yeah. And you know, he's not scary-looking? Like we don't even get any sort of terrorist deterrence out of the fact that he's the creepiest fuck in the world. He'd actually be better off if he drew a mad face on a paper bag and wore it around Washington. I guess after Obama takes office it's back to the Jim Rose Sideshow with that guy!

MEGAN: Nah, his wife might get mad if he wore it outside of the bedroom.

JASON: Does he have a wife? I naturally assumed the man fucked mummies, like Dick Morris.

MEGAN: Looking like Chertoff does have it's advantages, though. Like, he always has a Halloween costume. I mean, who does a better Holocaust victim than Michael Chertoff, really?

JASON: OHHH!

MEGAN: Too soon?

JASON: No, no, this was inevitable! Of course, Janet Napolitano has all those qualities that Ed Rendell finds so fascinating.

MEGAN: Tits? Tell me Ed Rendell isn't a titty-fucker. Girls with big boobs recognize 'em a mile away.

JASON: He said: "Janet's perfect for that job. Because for that job, you have to have no life. Janet has no family. Perfect. She can devote, literally, 19-20 hours a day to it."

MEGAN: And, in context of titty-fucking, that statement becomes truly hilarious. If Ed Rendell had a bigger dick, I'd say she'd need a chin guard to prevent bruising. But he doesn't, so I won't. 19-20 hours, though, he'd' best buy stock in Astroglide.

JASON: It's important to point out, AGAIN, something I pointed out throughout the election. And that is that Ed Rendell is the dopiest dumbass in politics. I have no idea how this goober-fuck became Governor of Pennsylvania. It certainly doesn't speak well of Pennsylvanians, and I'm almost sad that Chris Matthews looks like he's gonna re-up at MSNBC, because the Pennsylvanians would have a good chance to prove just how inane they are by putting his dumb ass in the Senate.

MEGAN: Now, let's be fair. Rendell wouldn't even rank in the bottom 10 of dope-y Senators.

JASON: Well, he ranks well among Governors.

MEGAN: He might be number 11, sure, but I don't even think he's stellar enough at being a dumbfuck to rank that high in the Senate.

JASON: He's just such a side-splitting ass, and like Matthews, he's got all these pretensions of knowing what it's like to be working class.

MEGAN: Well, speaking of assholes who like to pretend they're down with the average Joe, Bill Jefferson finally lost re-election in Louisiana. To a Republican community organizer.

JASON: I feel like the Dems in Congress got lucky, there. Now they don't have to make excuses for why they never gave that shitheel Jefferson the mad shun when he was in office.

MEGAN: Nope, now they can focus on not talking about why they won't do anything about Corruption King Charlie Rangel, whose stupefying corruption in office makes Jefferson's bribes seem tame by comparison.

JASON: His legislative director was named one of The Hill's Fifty Most Beautiful People in 2008. They said she had "a mysterious kind of beauty - the kind that unfolds by the minute." I said, "But she works for Louisiana Representative William Jefferson, so hidden in those folds are thousands of dollars in bribes." Yeah, they like, uncover something new and shady about ol' Charlie everyday, don't they? He's become an embarrassment, too.

MEGAN: It's sad, actually, some of his staff were really, really good and they all got completely fucked by his bribe-schemes. Hell, even his colleagues he worked with on African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) saw their accomplishments tarnished by Jefferson's use of the act to gin up money for himself and his relatives.

JASON: Yep. For the 300,000 people applying to put the change in change.gov, I recommend you vet your prospective boss at least as thoroughly as they're vetting you.

MEGAN: Charlie Rangel is beyond embarrassing. You have the chairman of the committee in charge of taxation — including a push to close the tax gap, i.e., reduce cheating — cheating on his fucking taxes. Let alone keeping multi-million dollars in tax breaks afloat for big donors to his library, let alone hitting up every lobbyist in his office for said donations. Let alone using affordable housing units for his offices to avoid having to put his Harlem office in a less ritzy part of Harlem when there's a crisis in affordable housing in New York City.

JASON: I mean, take a walk through his Wikipedia page, and it's a long list of embarrassing offenses. He's probably got one of the safest seats in the goddamn world, though.

MEGAN: Charlie Rangel puts Dollar Bill Jefferson's penny-ante "pay me money and I'll introduce you to African dictators" scheme to shame. But, yeah, he's not going anywhere in his district. And I guarantee the "Ethics" Committee's "investigation" will result in a light tap on the wrist — the kind these very Democrats castigated them for when they did it to Tom DeLay — and they'll hope everyone forgets about it.

JASON: They need to find his fridge full of money.

MEGAN: Bitch, please. Charlie Rangel's probably got it in the floorboards of his house in the Dominican Republic. Too bad you can't ask his wife, since he halted their divorce so she couldn't testify.

JASON: True that. Look, this is why I tell people: send your incumbents home! This is what happens when people never lose their seats, ever. Give them a taste of that undeserved immortality...

MEGAN: Another thing to tell people: do not make Fran Drescher the Senator from New York.

JASON: OY. Whatever the opposite of jizzing in my pants is, I just did it.

MEGAN: Well, then, the thought of George Bush kissing Barbra Streisand can't make it any worse.

JASON: Yep. Basically, my left ball is now off on a merry adventure in my bowels.

MEGAN: Hopefully, it will re-emerge by the time your extremely cute wife gets home from work. Otherwise, please apologize to her from me. I don't try to ruin other women's sex lives.

JASON: Hey, he'll just re-emerge stronger.

MEGAN: Is it weird that I'm having a vision of a Lemmiwinks-like quest for your nut?

JASON: Yes. Yes it is.

MEGAN: Sorry. It's been that kind of morning. I just hope you don't cough it up.

JASON: I'm just going to remember touching Kate Beckinsale last week, and I'll be fine.

• The fighting that began Wednesday in Mumbai is continuing today. Nearly 200 people have been confirmed dead so far, with almost 300 others injured. Militants are still fighting and holding (and killing) hostages in the Taj Mahal hotel and in a Jewish community center. [NY Times, Huffington Post, NY Times]
• Barack Obama has issued a statement condemning the attacks. [Washington Post]
• The Iraqi Parliament has passed the Status of Forces Agreement, which could have us out by 2010, but will have us out no later than 2012. [Washington Independent]
• In other news, former First Lady Barbara Bush has been moved out of the ICU following surgery to repair a perforated stomach ulcer. [CNN]

• The Vatican says that cell phones and the Internet are killing our souls. Fuck, seriously, is there anything fun you're allowed to do as a Catholic anymore? (Click through for a bonus picture of Pope Benedict in a funny, non-Pope hat.) [Telegraph]
• Iowa's Supreme Court will hear an equal protection challenge to its gay marriage ban, which may or may not invalidate the marriage of the 2 people who managed to get married in the 9 business hours the ban was struck down before the court issued a stay. [LA Times]
• The police have charged someone in the murder of Arkansas reporter Anne Pressley, who was beaten to death in her home last month. Despite the extreme level of violence that police initially said indicated it could be someone that knew and hated her, it turns out it was a random attack by a violent psycho named Curtis Lavelle Vance. [MSNBC]
• Mitchell Wade, the former defense contractor who bribed the shit out of former Congressman Duke Cunningham, apparently bribed other people and is singing like a canary. He's implicated at least 5 other thus-far-unnamed Congressmen and various other government officials. [Washington Post]
• The Congressional probe of all of Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel's (D-New York) shady business dealings will be done before the new Congress is sworn in, according to Nancy Pelosi. This means, in all likelihood, that he'll get a slap on the wrist and continue on as Chairman, which is how it always worked when the Republicans ran Congress that Pelosi promised to change when she came to power. [Washington Post]
• Now that Democrats have voted to keep Joe Lieberman in his position of power atop the Senator Homeland Security Committee, someone bothered to notice that he gave a bunch of money to Republican Senatorial candidates, too. [Washington Post]
• Jill Biden might keep teaching at a D.C.-area community college as Second Lady, which would make her the first Second Lady to carry on with a paying job after moving into the Vice Presidential Mansion. Also, she's probably cooler than you even thought she was. [Politico]
• And although Hillary Clinton hasn't officially been offered or officially accepted a gig as Secretary of State in the Obama Administration, let alone resigned her Senate seat, New York State Attorney General (and enormous asshole) Andrew Cuomo has already begun a whisper campaign to make himself the front runner in the race to be appointed to the seat. Earlier this year, Andrew Cuomo referred to Barack Obama with a racial slur, which his staff rushed to cover up and intimidate bloggers and reporters from covering, swearing that the racially-loaded term "shucking and jiving" was no such thing. Hopefully, someone reminds Governor David Patterson of this every time he gets a damn phone call encouraging him to appoint Andrew Cuomo to anything. [NY Times, Pam's House Blend]

MEGAN: Hey, Jill, only two days left until we stuff our faces with turkey and most of the known universe has seen one slaughtered behind Sarah Palin. How many people do you think will be eating something else this year?

JILL: I'm guessing that seeing those poor birds killed on TV will boost Tofurkey sales at least a little bit. I'll still be eating the real thing, though. You?

MEGAN: Yeah, I'm fine with being omnivorous. I had a pet chicken in college and I still happily eat chicken. My problem is more finding a restaurant that will be serving it that won't douse it in gravy and plop it down over mashed potatoes because I am not into gravy and I don't like mixing my foods like that because I am still 5.

JILL: See, I say, slather the otherwise-healthy turkey in everything bad for me — especially gravy and mashed potatoes. Doubly on the potatoes.

MEGAN: There is, however, one supposed carnivore among us that will not be eating turkey this year: Ann Coulter.

JILL: ...is it wrong to feel a little Schadenfreude over the fact that Ann Coulter has her mouth wired shut?

MEGAN: If it is wrong, than I'm not sure I want to be right. I believe irony might be my new favorite Thanksgiving side dish.

JILL: Seriously. Although I'm sure we'll all miss her on Thanksgiving day when we turn on cable news and there's no one to tell us that it was good for white settlers to kill off Native Americans, and that's what we should be celebrating. Or something along those lines. Maybe Michelle Malkin can fill in.

MEGAN: We did forcibly convert lots of them like Ann suggested we do to Muslims in their countries, so that is probably exactly what she is celebrating. On the other hand, I'll be giving thanks that the economic downturn, while fucking with my 401(k) and minimal stock portfolio is fucking dozens of hard-core, right-wing Republicans out of their jobs as Freedom Watch goes down in flames.

JILL: That's the best news I've heard all day. And it looks like Republican lobbyists are out of jobs, too. It's a little concerning, since now I'm not sure who's going to protect us from the Islamofascists under our beds...

MEGAN: Or from the tyranny of environmental and financial market regulation that threatens to stifle innovation and harm our economy...

JILL: I believe we call that "socialism," Megan. Except when a Republican president spearheads it. Then it's just good common sense, to help poor, downtrodden hedge fund managers.

MEGAN: That's just good governance! And, at least those hedge fund managers aren't bribing for the favors, unlike that oil executive and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel.

But Congressional records and interviews show that Mr. Rangel was instrumental in preserving a lucrative tax loophole that benefited an oil-drilling company last year, while at the same time its chief executive was pledging $1 million to the project, the Charles B. Rangel School of Public Service at C.C.N.Y.

JILL: Whoops.

MEGAN: "Drill, baby, drill," said the Democrat from atop the most powerful committee in Congress, "Just as long as I get mine."

JILL: And he was raising money for a school for public service. What did you say about irony earlier?

MEGAN: Charlie Rangel says that serving Charlie Rangel's ego and sense of personal self-importance is serving the public because Charlie Rangel is America and so can you.

JILL: Well, the school is supposed to be named after him. Doesn't that kind of imply, "I do what I want"? Who can blame the guy?

MEGAN: It's the functional equivalent of his Presidential library, only he's not President and he's raising money for it from lobbyists and companies with business before his committee while still in office. I hate when Democrats do this shit, mostly because then other Democrats move to protect them and I'm like, god damn it, didn't you assholes run on change and cleaning up corrupt official Washington in 2006 and 2008? Do you really think people won't notice? But then no one does notice and I'm forced to admit that there is no accountability in our system. And then I crack open a bottle of wine.

JILL: I find that's an appropriate response to most situations.

MEGAN: Anyway, onto slightly less depressing news, or not, depending on how one views nepotism and political dynasties, Joe Biden has found a way for Beau Biden to have his deployment cake and eat his Senate seat, too, and that way is Senator-to-be Ted "Seat Warmer" Kaufman.

JILL: You know what would be a great career? Professional Congressional Seat-Warmer. All the benefits of being in Congress (like getting to call yourself a Congressman or a Senator), none of the icky stuff like actually having to make important decisions.

MEGAN: No 3 am phone calls for you! You're just there to let the leather cradle your ass for a couple of years, collect your health insurance, ensure your pension, and get the fuck out.

JILL: Exactly. They get pretty good health insurance, too. I'd take it.

MEGAN: Yeah, mine's going up 15% next month despite the fact that I've used it exactly one time in the last year. That's an inflationary increase, if you consider 15% something like 3.8%, which is the current rate of inflation.

JILL: Damn. I just got off student insurance and started on private, and it's not fun. Students: Milk that shit as long as you can.

MEGAN: Financial independence is totally overrated, kids. Just ask Citibank or AIG.

JILL: It's true. They're much happier now that Big Daddy Government is back in charge. So just live in your parents' basement for a while. It works for us bloggers.

MEGAN: Yeah, who needs things like "accountability" and "facing the consequences of your actions" when you can just ask Big Daddy for a 20 (billion) dollar "loan" and go back to doing what you were doing? Which definitely involves screwing up. Hey, if I am about to go bankrupt, do you think Hank Paulson will pay my debts in exchange for a half-hearted spanking?

JILL: Well, when you put it that way... He might just say yes.

MEGAN: So, the following things should not be mixed: champagne, mai tais, rum & cokes, random shots, tequila and whatever else I drank last night. I was so dehydrated when I woke up this morning that it was hard to brush my teeth.

SPENCER: (Autoreply) only if you're Megan

Hahahaha my away message actually gains a new context thanks to what you just wrote. I was in bed by 10:30 and feel fantastic!

MEGAN: Are we deliberately alternating hangovers? Should we?

SPENCER: That's an interesting experiment. Kind of like a cap and trade system? The objective is to limit the world's aggregate hangovers by creating a market for them. Yet, as we all know, markets fail, and fail epically.

MEGAN: Yes, I believe WaMu shareholders are finding that out.

SPENCER: And their failure can yield political failure that also attains epic proportions, yielding spectacles like this:

In the Roosevelt Room after the session, the Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., literally bent down on one knee as he pleaded with Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker, not to “blow it up” by withdrawing her party’s support for the package over what Ms. Pelosi derided as a Republican betrayal.

“I didn’t know you were Catholic,” Ms. Pelosi said, a wry reference to Mr. Paulson’s kneeling, according to someone who observed the exchange. She went on: “It’s not me blowing this up, it’s the Republicans.”
Mr. Paulson sighed. “I know. I know.”

Holy shit! You wonder if Paulson started singing Boyz II Men.

MEGAN: That would've been kind of awesome, though I think the person Paulson needs to ass-kiss is John Boehner, whose name is technically pronounced BAY-ner but after fucking up the bailout at John McCain's request yesterday, I think we can just pronounce it how it looks.

SPENCER: You know what's perfect about Boehner? He has an aide named Kevin Smith. As in the Kevin Smith who fucks up everything he touches and cheapens our love for such beautiful things as comic books and the New Jersey Turnpike. And I'm unconvinced Boehner/McCain's gambit will work.

MEGAN: Dude, I think it makes John McCain look like his whole purpose in coming back here was to fuck this up. Other people agree.

SPENCER: No no no I totally get that. The scenario would be like Obama starts to hold his non-debate town hall in Mississippi, it gets five minutes in and then all the networks cut away to a McCain presser in Washington where he announces that his tireless work has yielded a deal. Right? But it's only actually a deal if the Democrats go along with it, and after yesterday's acrimony, they're not going to assist McCain in torpedoing their candidate. Well, maybe Hillary.

MEGAN: Well, Hillary's totally not involved in it. And, yeah, I mean, McCain's backing the Boehner plan which is to provide tax breaks to companies that buy up bad debt and provide government insurance for it all because, as WaMu and IndyMac proved, insuring bad debt doesn't cost taxpayers any money whatsoever!

SPENCER: So the Democrats get to be on the right side substantively and politically, and McCain reinforces the narrative of his unforced error. How is this bad for Obama? I remember how yesterday's liberal conventional wisdom was how McCain was setting himself up to vote against the bailout!

MEGAN: Only if Chuck Todd is right and no one televises the Obama debate.

SPENCER: That's where I have no insight. What else are the networks going to broadcast?

MEGAN: Let's hope not reruns, because I don't have cable up here.

SPENCER: It costs money for them to have to upend their scheduling for a re-done presidential debate, I imagine that they're going to just give Obama the time since at least some fraction of the audience will tune in anyway. JUST LIKE THE LIBERAL SHILLS THEY ARE. Clearly McCain has his cock in the pooch's ass here.

MEGAN: Yeah, I also love how he's all like well, if Obama had just agreed to my town hall meetings then the debates wouldn't be necessary or important. He's never going to fucking let that go, and no one gives a shit. That was a blatant political move as much as coming back to DC to "save" the bailout plan.

SPENCER: The people I feel bad for are, like, Tucker Bounds. He needed McCain to win, just really really needed it, because no one else is going to hire a flack who ruined his own credibility. I was in the Austin gymnasium where Ari Fleischer told a goggle-eyed press corps that "Palm Beach County is a Pat Buchanan stronghold" and if Bush hadn't pulled that shit out, Ari would never have been able to get another job here at all. Well, maybe that's wrong, because there's the whole spirit of "he had to lie for his boss" in DC, but still, you see what I'm getting at.

MEGAN: The problem is that Tucker Bounds is bad at it, not that he's a liar. But, yes, if McCain loses, he'll be in trouble job-wise because of his basic incompetence.

SPENCER: And Tucker Bounds' people. Basically the whole McCain communications shop. The Weekly Standard can't hire all of them. Some will have to get jobs doing things like sucking GOP staffers off in the Union Station men's room. This economy, it's tough.

MEGAN: As though GOP staffers have to pay other staffers to suck them off in the men's rooms of Union Station. Only Lindsay Graham has to do that.

SPENCER: Hey, that's never been proven.

MEGAN: That's the kind of discretion that Lindsay Graham is paying for!

SPENCER: You know what sucks about DC? If there's no debate tonight, I don't know what my plans are. I'm supposed to have people over to watch the fucking thing.

MEGAN: I'm supposed to be live-blogging the stupid thing after my sister's rehearsal dinner, so tell me about it.

SPENCER: You, you're going to a wedding, with your family, you're set, there's nothing excruciating about that. I'm at the mercy of twitter-whims.

MEGAN: You and your sarcasm.

SPENCER: Jesus FUCK there's a bunch of construction workers in my office knocking out a wall. I wish someone would have told me not to come in today.

MEGAN: Oh, if you didn't know, we do know how Treasury arrived at the $700 billion figure.

"It's not based on any particular data point," a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. "We just wanted to choose a really large number."

And that's not even why John McCain wants to scuttle the motherfucking thing.

SPENCER: Now that's how the professionals do it! I read that and just think, what these people need is $700 billion without strings attached.

MEGAN: Hey, what Republican doesn't want that?

SPENCER: So there was this event last night where my friends Ezra and Yglz held forth on where progressivism is at these days, and Ezra said something that's haunted me all night. It's probably totally obvious to anyone who isn't an economic illiterate: Liberals are about to (PROBABLY HOPEHOPEHOPEAUDACITYHOPE) take power, on the headwinds of promises to restore a sensible balance between government and the market. There will be expectations, naturally, of doing... stuff. You know, delivering on promises about health care and education and the sort of robust safety net that distinguishes liberalism from its alternatives. But there's no money for that stuff anymore — the crisis has wiped it out. So now liberalism is in an awful dilemma: power, but without the means to use it; a consensus around nationalizing huge swaths of the market, but without the ability to get it to deliver on the purchase. Later he and his fellow panelists qualified the idea to death or dismissed it, but shit, you know?

MEGAN: I think Boehner proves there isn't necessarily a consensus around nationalizing vast swaths of the market, but I think it's hilarious that it's not because of the idea of nationalizing anything but because of taxes. And, yes, this financial crisis fucks up pretty much every major expenditure program the Obama camp had on its agenda — Pelosi's already talking a wealth surtax to pay for the bailout, which then screws Obama's tax plans, which screws health care, etc. The only thing it might prompt would be a major tax system overhaul, which we need anyway. But Charlie Rangel's too deep in the shit right now to be able to put that together.

SPENCER: I can't tell if what you're saying is reassuring! Dumb it down.

MEGAN: Um, no, it wasn't reassuring. I don't have The Hope.

SPENCER: Speaking of hopelessness, have a good wedding

MEGAN: We toasted the End of Fun last night. And then annoyed a gay bar by singing "Going to the Chapel."

SPENCER: I see from your Twitter feed that your gay karaoke friends inserted SUCK MY COCK into the "Sweet Caroline" refrain. How to get Fenway Park to do that? Come on Boston fans, out of the closet with ALL of you.

MEGAN: It was way better than shouting "BUH BUH BUM" but I'm betting they just did it because they were Yankees fans.

• A group calling itself "Blacks Against Obama" interrupted Obama's speech today in Coral Gables, Florida. Their main beefs appear to be his support for child support, reproductive rights and marriage equity, though they're also not fans of, well, all African-American women, so we're guessing it's really "Black Men Against Obama". [Stereohyped, Over The Rockies, For Obama]
• Time's Karen Tumulty points out that McCain's new ad about Obama's economic advisers' ties to Fannie Mae don't feature white former Obama adviser Jim Johnson but do feature African-American non-adviser Frank Raines — and one very sad looking little old white lady. No race-baiting here, folks, they swear it was just an "honest" mistake. [Time]
• In yet another advertising fuck-up for the McCain camp, they've received a cease-and-desist letter for Fox News for using Major Garrett's voice over in an ad. Seriously, when Fox News doesn't want their guys associated with your Republican campaign for the Presidency, you got problems. [Politico]

• Now that the government is taking over everything, the Dow rebounded nearly 400 points. Apparently, people in the stock market hold the Bush Administration in higher esteem than pretty much anyone else in the country. [LA TimesIf elected, Sarah Palin plans to continue the Grand Old Tradition of pretending she's not a part of the Executive Branch to avoid subpoenas when her office commits illegal acts. She's got some experience in that, after all. [Think Progress]
• In yet another poll of stupid things Americans would do with the candidates, they'd rather Obama teach their kids (he'll never call their daughters "cunts") and they'd rather watch football with him. But who would they rather get shitty drunk with? Who? Who? Americans demand real answers to real questions except when they don't. [Breitbart]
• New York Congressman and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-NY) may face an election-year investigation of his many, many shady dealings, led by the Democratic chair of the House ethics committee. He claims that his tax fraud, illicit use of rent-controlled apartments, use of his position to solicit funds for an outside group and (now) wrongful use of the House parking garage to store his car are part of a Republican "guerrilla war." Maybe it's just because you did some bad stuff, Charlie? I often find that refraining from doing illegal things generally keeps people from investigating me. [Washington Post, New York Times]

MEGAN: Morning! People has this stupid teaser on its webpage for its cover story on Elizabeth Edwards' feelings told by other people as though people like you and I are going to run out and buy the magazine? I'd be tempted to make an appointment with my acupuncturist who has a description and gets it in the office, which costs a hell of a lot more money but is more useful than a magazine. Anyway, apparently, it hurt to hear that her husband was sticking his penis in other women. Has your curiosity been satiated?

DAVID: I don't feel like I'll have a real handle on the story until Mike Allen at the Politico has interviewed Elizabeth about her Hollywood crushes, though.

MEGAN: I'll be she thinks George Clooney is cute.

DAVID: Well, clearly the lesson from all this is that we shouldn't vote for John Edwards in November. Now, can we move along, people?

MEGAN: Wait, though, can we go back to Rush Limbaugh for a second? Because I think I might be allowed to crush on Keith Olbermann after he went after Rush last night. (Skip to minute 3, if you want to see it.)

DAVID: Oh, sweet. I need to watch that. Olbermann is uneven for me. Sometimes he's awesome and then other times he goes so far over the top. Whereas my love for Rachel Maddow is unconditional and all-consuming.

MEGAN: Yes, I have to agree about Rachel, but, um, Keith could, say, call me in Denver and yell about how awesome smart women are for a while.

DAVID: So, what do you think about Arkansas? Do you feel like the shooting was politically motivated?

MEGAN: I mean, if it wasn't politically motivated, why Gwatney in particular?

DAVID: Most reports I'm seeing are refraining from speculation about motivation, but I have a sinking feeling in my stomach that this is exactly what I was talking about yesterday with the Limbots going insane and lashing out at Librull Amurrka. Of course, the fact that Righty screamer Michelle Malkin felt the need to issue a denial of involvement before the body was even cold speaks volumes to me.

MEGAN: Some Internet troll types think it's another Clinton conspiracy. For real.

DAVID: Conservatism, I am starting to believe, is a form of mental illness. Malkin is up to her old tricks again of publishing the contact information of people who challenge her. If you go down that thread and look, Malkin published some detractor's email address and full name and her commenters are bragging about looking up the guy's mother's name and threatening her.

MEGAN: Hey, you know, that shit got some dudes a NY Times Magazine cover story, so...

DAVID: Delightful people. Funny how much her denial of blame yesterday reminds me of her denial of blame in the death of UC Santa Cruz administrator Denice Denton.

MEGAN: Yes, we get it, Michelle, you are not personally responsible for all the evil in the world, not even the evil committed by your fans. Speaking of pissing off Michelle's fans, did you see that the Census Bureau came out with new figures that say white people won't be the majority by 2042? Interesting timing on that one.

DAVID: Except that she is. But speaking of trolls, did you see Larry King last night? Larry King and Paul Waldman handed Obama-bashing Jerome Corsi's his ass on a pizza.

HA! Segway jinx! Yes, 2042 is when Mark Penn's target voters will no longer be the top dogs. To tell you the truth, I'm a little disappointed because I thought that white people were already outnumbered.

MEGAN: I mean, is it just a little interesting to you that the government comes out with these figures that we've all know for ages now that prompt headlines like White Americans no longer a majority by 2042 a mere 11 days before the start of the first Democratic convention which will make Obama (an African-American) the first major- party candidate for President? Or am I just that paranoid?

DAVID: When it comes to the perfidy of corporate media, I don't think you can ever be too paranoid, can you?

MEGAN: Possibly not.

DAVID: I mean, you've got Karl Rove's buttboy in at the top of the AP, GE owns NBC and MSNBC, then there's ClearChannel and Pox News. Even public radio and television are beholden to big money donors like BP and Wal-Mart.

MEGAN: You know what's really funny?

DAVID: Really, Megan, it's all down to you. You alone can tell the world the Truth. What's funny?

MEGAN: A good friend of mine used to work at Alticor, which owns Amway (which, of course) doesn't advertise AND is heavily Republican... and they complain about the perfidy of the corporate media and the influence of advertising dollars, too.

Aaaanyway, back to topical stuff... Want to talk about how this might be the first convention since 1984 that Jesse Jackson doesn't speak at? Or that he'll watch D.C. mayor Adrian Fenty (kind of a cutie) and House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn but not House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel speak (though, the latter might be because he's had a couple of easily-foreseen ethical scandals crop up recently)?

DAVID: Oh, well, I think that might be for the best, don't you? Maybe he has a pressing gig talking about spaying and neutering at a veterinary convention. Honestly, I think it may be time for Reverend Jackson to spend some more time with his families.

MEGAN: I'm actually kind of disappointed in Charlie Rangel. It's like when people in D.C. said, "No one could be a bigger, more condescending prick who abuses the power of his office than Bill Thomas" he took that as a challenge.

DAVID: Everybody needs goals in life. Charlie was just reaching for that rainbow, living the dream. Can we really fault him for that?

MEGAN: Sort of like the owner of the gay cruising site that's maxed out to McCain.

DAVID: Well, I have a theory about that.

MEGAN: Self-loathing? Or straight entrepreneur?

DAVID: Your gay Republican types thrive in an atmosphere of repression and secrecy. They want their gay sex dirty, shameful, and totally secret. They don't want to have stable gay marriages or adopt kids. They want to get down on it Larry Craig style.

MEGAN: And so he thinks in a McCain administration his cruising site will do better? Actually, given McCain's incredibly gay entourage, that might not be too far off the mark.

DAVID: I've thought about this a lot. I never could understand why someone would be a gay Republican. It's like being a chicken for Col. Sanders.

MEGAN: God, reading that just made my stomach growl.

DAVID: But then the more I thought about it, and as more and more and more twisted gay sex scandals came to light in the GOP, I started putting together my Unified Field Theory of Gay Republicans. For them it's all about The Forbidden.

Well, that and racism.

MOE: Yo, sorry, I have been working on this freelance piece that is disrupting my normal function. I haven't looked at Drudge in a good 24 hours. I just felt so undernourished I bought a Starbucks Vivanno. WHOA what the fuck???

MEGAN: I know, I saw that! What's even worse is that he was a colleague of the guy the FBI totally thought did it and leaked to the press about and finally had to declare innocent and pay millions of dollars to. Kinda makes you wonder what his motives were, right?

Also, his little escapades contaminated half the building, which he totally tested off-the-record and in secret.

MOE: Yeah, Hatfill. Hatfill, who that Vanity Fair linguist pegged.

MEGAN: Well, the FBI pegged him to everyone.

MOE: Right. My mind is still blown here.

After the government's settlement with Hatfill was announced in late June, Ivins started showing signs of strain, the Times said. It quoted a longtime colleague as saying Ivins was being treated for depression and indicated to a therapist that he was considering suicide. Family members and local police escorted Ivins away from the Army lab, and his access to sensitive areas was curtailed, the colleague told the newspaper. He said Ivins was facing a forced retirement in September.

MEGAN: I dunno, the subtext there is that he did it as much to frame Hatfill as anything else, right? Am I just being too suspicious?

MOE: So the whole thing where IT HAS TO BE HATFILL BECAUSE HE WENT TO SCHOOL NEAR A RHODESIAN TOWN CALLED GREENDALE... apparently not! Do you think he just hated Hatfill? This is seriously the most awesome twist to a seriously awesome story. As you can tell, I am at a loss for words. Will you do the intro today?

MEGAN: Sure. And I'm just going to throw this in there even though no one but me and Charlotte Corday probably care, but the wife of the former Prime Minister of Thailand that the military deposed in a coup whose supporters still run the post-military government was convicted of tax evasion yesterday. But none of their supporters particularly care and that's sort of why it's bad to depose a Democratically elected government in a coup and then go after all the corrupt people because she may have not paid her taxes BUT YOU PUT TANKS IN THE STREETS.

Also, I miss my lobbying days this morning. The one time I went to a Chamber afterparty (with Alex Pareene!), I had to pay my own bar tab but I did share a cab to my neighborhood with some random guy that I thought drunkenly was part of the group and wasn't but he was really hot.

MOE: Um, yeah, I don't know what to say about Thaksin, really, can we stay on task here? The Thai military might have put tanks in the street over THERE, but they also let elephants run free and never even got a cool colonial name like Rhodesia. This guy killed like 6 AMERICANS, MOST OF WHOM WORKED FOR THE POSTAL SERVICE. And rendered every editor in America terrified to open the mail.

MEGAN: And Hill staffers! Don't forget the Daschle intern he poisoned.

MOE: With brothers like these!

The eldest of his two brothers, Thomas Ivins, said he was not surprised by the events that have unfolded. "He buckled under the pressure from the federal government," Thomas Ivins said, adding that FBI agents came to Ohio last year to question him about his brother. "I was questioned by the feds, and I sung like a canary" about Bruce Ivins' personality and tendencies, Thomas Ivins said.
"He had in his mind that he was omnipotent."

Feds before bros I guess. Remember when the Right was telling everyone the anthrax came from IRAQ? Motherfucker.

MEGAN: Well, Ted Kaczynski's brother turned him in, actually. I mean, when your brother is a sociopathic mass murderer, I think it's cool.

C'mon, here's something you'll like: GM lost more money last quarter than Exxon made.

MOE: Here's a news organization that really doesn't deserve any stray spores:

In a nation in which 66% of the voting-age population is overweight and 32% is obese, could Sen. Obama's skinniness be a liability? Despite his visits to waffle houses, ice-cream parlors and greasy-spoon diners around the country, his slim physique just might have some Americans wondering whether he is truly like them.

MEGAN: Oh, God, really? That's what the WSJ has to say? Obama's not fat enough to lead?

Um, sorry, new brief tangent, Daniel Craig is going to play some (hot) bisexual Roman king or something. Is it too much to hope that he'll be shirtless the entire movie?

MEGAN: And, switching gears again, John Rich of country music band Big and Rich penned a new song for John McCain and it sounds sucktastic.

He stayed strong, stayed extra long til they let all the other boys out. Now we've got a real man with an American plan, we're going to put him in the big White House.

MOE: Okay, that Times story reminds me of a thing that I think about earnings stories which is that they should just all come with little graphics so you know exactly what they're talking about. Like, I don't think that story lists a revenue figure for the quarter, though here

The company lost $4.4 billion in North America in the period, and its revenues dropped 33 percent, from $29.7 billion to $19.8 billion. That compared with a profit of $92 million in the quarter a year ago.

it looks like they list a North American revenue figure. I'm not sure. Anyway, the point is, net profit figures exist mostly to win the sympathies of the IRS and thus, when you see that one company's "losses" exceed another company's earnings, you kind of have to look a little closer at like how $83 billion in OIL earnings became $11 billion on profits. And that's where you learn that EXXON actually also lost money in the united states, due to the same commodity prices that earned it so much in its "upstream" exploration business. Which is to say, I throw up my hands. I'm still smarting from this Ivins dude.
"Why isn't this story the lead story in every newscast in America?" that blonde Fox anchor just asked.
GUESS WHAT IS.

MEGAN: Barack Obama "playing the race card"? Charlie Rangel not getting censured for doing shady shit? The Pakistani government cooperating in bombing the Indian embassy in Kabul? Oh, wait, hahaha, yeah, Americans don't give a shit about that.

McCain being senile? Rielle Hunter's baby's birth certificate not listing a father because under California law if there's not a husband she needs the father to sign a bunch of legal paperwork agreeing that he is?

MOE: Oh Jesus. That's what you get for not sufficiently appreciating Musharraf? Or what?

The government officials were guarded in describing the new evidence and would not say specifically what kind of assistance the ISI officers provided to the militants. They said that the ISI officers had not been renegades, indicating that their actions might have been authorized by superiors.
“It confirmed some suspicions that I think were widely held,” one State Department official with knowledge of Afghanistan issues said of the intercepted communications. “It was sort of this ‘aha’ moment. There was a sense that there was finally direct proof.”

MEGAN: Or it was in the works before Uncle Pervy left? Who knows. I thought when India and Pakistan both got nukes they were done being mad at each other.

But what, is the Fox News girl sad isn't the lead story? Inquiring minds want to know...

MOE: What do you think it is really direct proof of? Like, direct proof the universe is completely fucked? Direct proof civil liberties are overrated?

Oh, and the story was this a-ha moment Lots of a-ha moments today!

MEGAN: Oh, for Chrissakes. We've become so fat and so lazy that we want a pill to make it all better? Like, we'll spend untold millions of dollars researching and then paying for a pharmaceutical product to prevent having to go for a freaking walk?

MOE: But think of the countless BLOGGER LIVES IT WILL SAVE.

MEGAN: Until they discover the side effect that using it in conjunction with Movable Type causes seizures and brain damage, not that that's not already a side effect of Movable Type.

Hey, so, like, wanna address the elephant in the virtual room? Because I won't get to say it other than in the comment threads and shit, but I'm going to miss doing this with you. It was fun even when I was hungover and depressed and it and you were the reasons I got out of bed in the mornings the weeks after I got fired from Wonkette. Well, I mean, woke up anyway. I wrote a lot of them from bed.

MOE: Uhhhhh I don't do goodbyes very well. And somehow I don't think this will be the last time I'm on the Crappy Hour. I actually have a lot of ideas for how you should improve it in my absence that I'm going to write you a memo about. But yeah, like, I learned a lot of stuff doing this! Like how having a hangover doesn't always help one's writing! And how much I hate memes. Also, we are going to get that Bloggingheads ripoff idea worked out if I have to send you a fancy camera. That will be soooooo fun.

MEGAN: Yeah, I sort of suck at goodbyes, too, and I'm glad to hear you're not completely opposed to the idea of doing this again because, well, I mean, it's kinda weird contemplating doing it without you ever. Also, my dad mostly fixed my other computer with which my camera is more compatible, so I think that's totally do-able. And I look forward to your memo, which I will proceed to get stinking drunk in your honor before I read.

MOE: And yeah, Spencer? You should try to enlist Mike Madden of Salon some mornings. Pressler owes us an IM or too. I mean shit, I could do it once a week. But I like the ones where there's a focus, like OIL or PEDOPHILE FUNDAMENTALIST MORMONS or ANDY SAMBERG AND HIS $300 MILLION ALBANIAN AMMUNITIONS whatever. Or, like that one day when we were all set to join the Iranian resistance! Or that charming KBR gang rape story! So much, so much we have been through together.

MEGAN: Shh, Spencer will be hurt when he finds out that we're thinking about opening ourselves up to other men! But, um, yeah, I'm got some ideas in that regard, too, I mean, I'm rarely a one-man woman, intellectually speaking. I have been a one-woman woman for a bit, now, though, except for that one time with Sinister Rouge but she tempted me so! But the ones where we stayed with one topic were pretty cool.

MOE: Yeah I think I'd like to do a one-topic one every so often. Maybe once a week! And commenters can decide the topic! We can poll them! And challenge them to present us with appropriate reading materials so we don't have to do all the work! Hahaha remember when I wanted to poll them as to which job I should take? Good times. I was going to try and find "I Hate You, I Love You" by the Dead Milkmen to express my commenter gratitude but I can't so you'll have to make do with this. God if the Dead Milkmen would write a song about Alycia Lane that would be like our anthem. The dead milkmen and Santogold.

I miss Philly.

MEGAN: So, here we are again, Crappy-ing without Moe who is on vacation because you and me are suckers, possibly. I've heard vacations are nice, though. Through the grapevine.
SPENCER: speaking of vacations, i need to put out an open call to the Jezebels who live in Austin
on Saturday 5/17 i'll be there to see the reunion show of classic 90s Chicago punk band Los Crudos
and i have nowhere to stay and no one to hang out with now that my travel partner has abandoned me for such frivolities as "finding a place to live"
so if any of you guys live in austin and can put up with a respectful houseguest for like a day, holler at sackerman-at-washingtonindependent-dot-com
ok what is in the news
MEGAN: Oh, that sucks about having nowhere to stay! I'd offer up someone but the only person I for sure know in Texas is in Dallas and it's this douchebag lobbyist I used to date and I wouldn't subject anyone to his company. And if you were a girl, he'd mack on you something awful.
SPENCER: so, HRC not dropping out despite our awesome reconciliation-filled comment thread yesterday?
MEGAN: Nope, not in the slightest. She's in it to win it, even if she cannot, mathematically speaking, win it. I am counting down the minutes until she mentions again that "pledged" delegates are not actually obligated to vote for whom they were elected to vote for...
SPENCER: this baffles me
how the press treats her candidacy like it's still viable, even as they're pointing that out
MEGAN: Well, she is a candidate. And she could win if she did manage to convince like 80% of the supers to support her and continued to get at least decent margins in the primaries. It's just unlikely to happen.
Very, very, very unlikely.
SPENCER: i was watching the detroit-orlando last night and was thinking about what would happen if sportscasters started saying things like, "orlando is up by over 20 with 30 seconds left in the fourth, but detroit could still pull it out in the unlikely event of overtime"
MEGAN: Actually, that might make it worth it to me to watch a basketball game. I fucking hate sports commentary, but if it was actually Dadaist in its absurdity...
SPENCER: ok and so not to pick on HRC, because yesterday's CH comments were a beautiful miracle, but the longer this goes on the more it makes her say things like this:

"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

a strong prima facie case can be made that Ajmi didn't "return" to the battlefield. The experience of being hooded and goggled and flown half a world away in the belly of a C-130; of being caged under the hot sun in the chain-link-and-wood sarcophagus of Camp X-Ray and then the panopticon of Camp Delta — and I have seen it with my own eyes; of being always at the mercy of the Quick Reaction Force and the Joint Detentions Operations Group and the interrogators; and never having a clear and open and fair path to argue for your freedom for years — that is the sort of thing that makes a man plot revenge. To deny that is to deny human nature.

I'm not saying Ajmi was an innocent. I'm not saying Guantanamo gave him a license to murder. And I'm certainly not saying that his victims deserved to die because he spent three years in Guantanamo.

What I'm saying is that a completely forseeable consequence of Guantanamo Bay is the creation of terrorists.