Rep. Michele Bachmann's "psychologist" husband, Marcus Bachmann, is apparently starting to feel like a liability to his wife's political prospects. Either that, or he just likes talking to the papers! Because he's now going on the record to defend his Christian counseling business against charges of being anti-gay.
Last November, veteran Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen was shot and killed for no apparent reason while driving her car (pictured) in Hollywood. After a couple of weeks of conspiracy theorizing, police pinned the crime on a random guy named Harold Smith, who shot himself dead as the police closed in on him. Now, police are officially closing the case. But uh... hmm.
Charlie Gilmour, the son of Pink Floyd guitarist Dave Gilmour, was sentenced to 16 months in jail today for attacking a royal Jaguar that was part of Prince Charles and Camilla's motorcade during a student riot in London last year. The riot resulted in the best photograph of British royals ever (above). The court watched video from the attack, where Gilmour yelled:
Foreign hackers made off with 24,000 sensitive documents in what the Pentagon is calling one of its worst breaches in history, including data on spy gear, missile tracking systems, and warplanes. But hey, at least it prompted Defense Department bureaucrats to write up a very very strong plan.
In your lawless Thursday media column: the FBI's investigating News Corp, the Murdochs agree to talk to the Brits after all, a model journalism apology, a CNN reporter escapes a gunfight, and layoffs at PBS.
Do you know Allen West? If not, you should. A lot of folks think he'll be president someday.
President Obama, who deservedly hates his life right now, extended congressional leaders an invitation to his swanky mountain retreat at Camp David as a way to finish debt ceiling negotiations in private. But maybe also as a way to get drunk and party in the mountains? We're just trying to figure out a compelling reason to allow so many assholes into your vacation home. But no one wants to go, anyway. Ouch!
Another day, another overwhelming tidal wave of scandal emanating from all corners of the News Corp media empire! Today: defiance! Arrests! And more!
The idiots who decided to extort the debt ceiling for their ideological demands, because they're incapable of making their non-arguments persuasively enough in the usual court of public opinion, are not getting nearly enough shit for their psychotic, economically illiterate actions. Now the United States has the credit rating agency Moody's on its ass and is placing the government's debt rating under review — not over the manageability or size of the debt, but thanks this completely artificial statutory number.
The ongoing Minnesota government shutdown is dragging the state into a new phase of No Fun Whatsoever, due to the shuttered state offices and programs that aren't handling day-to-day matters as usual. Do you Minnesotans like to drink beer or smoke cigarettes or not see poopy everywhere? Then for now, at least, you'll have to pack up your bindles and migrate down Iowa-way.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is in the process of writing rules to protect manatees, the fat monsters who occasionally get lost and dominate media coverage for weeks, from boating and other "activities" that constantly kill them in Kings Bay, Florida. So, is the local Tea Party chapter okay with this? Ha ha, no, not at all.
Staffless, broke anachronism Newt Gingrich is still running for president, hoping in vain that his campaign can save face and survive until Labor Day. Is there any good news for Gingrich, for whom there hasn't been any in at least 16 miserable years? Yes! Many people follow him on Twitter.
Do you hear that? It's the sound of another shoe dropping. News Corp, besieged by a strange and unfamiliar phenomenon called "bad publicity that can't just be ignored," just announced that it's abandoning its lengthy (and extremely important, at least in the context of European media) quest to take over British Sky Broadcasting.
Neptune day! Lyme disease! Solar dearth! Towel robots! Leg transplants! Runaway elephants! Owl vision! Ocean heat! And the utter failure of the US space program continues! It's your Tuesday Science Watch, where we watch science—extra-terrifically!
There's been what appears to be a seismic shift in ye olde debt ceiling developments this afternoon, thanks to the Senate's in-house turtle, Mitch McConnell. We're still waiting to hear the "catch," since Mitch McConnell is a brilliant, mischievous sociopath who ruined much of Obama's first two years in office. But he's released a new proposal this afternoon that looks a lot like, well, caving with a lame attempt to save face.
