House Republicans will give President Obama the vote he requested on a "clean" debt ceiling hike today, meaning one without any spending cuts attached. Every Republican and at least half of Democrats are expected to vote against it, thereby giving Republicans the opportunity to say to the president, See? We told you that a bill to prevent America from defaulting on its debt and the global economy from collapsing wouldn't pass without some fundamental changes to the social contract attached, so now let's, uh, end Medicare or some such. What a world, right?

History suggests that Sarah Palin's Bus Army would be stopped and forced into retreat by lamestream media forces at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, making it her furthest incursion into the Yankee North and the turning point for the larger war effort. But alas, the cowardly reporters have allowed Palin to slip through their lines and continue her march towards the munitions port at Philadelphia.

Say you're in charge of a bloodthirsty dictator's stolen $1.3 billion sovereign-wealth fund. You make some risky investments with that money in the early days of the global financial meltdown, and end up losing 98% (!) of it. Then imagine you're Goldman Sachs dealing with Muammar Qaddafi's money!

Osama bin Laden was many things: Terrorist, mass murderer, psychopath, sociopath, chronic masturbator, poon hound. But for all of his faults, bin Laden was a pretty decent employer, in jidahi terms, at least. Much of that stems from his degree in economics and public administration. From NPR, we have more tales of Osama bin Laden as micro-managing terrorist mastermind:

If you haven't been reading the New York Post's coverage of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, well, then you really should be. The DSK story was tailor made for the Post: Snooty, filthy rich Frenchman allegedly sexually assaults a hotel maid in AMERICA. How does that sit with your Freedom Fries?

The tornado-ravaged citizens of Cordova, Alabama — about 35 miles northwest of Birmingham, pop. 2000 — have lost everything after a series of monster twisters tore through their town on April 27th. With nowhere to turn, scores of newly homeless residents were relieved when FEMA came along with a caravan of single-wide mobile homes they could use as shelter. Not so fast: Mayor Jack Scott has declared that single-wide mobile homes are illegal in Cordova.

The family of Hamza Ali al-Khateeb, a 13-year-old Syrian boy tortured and mutilated by President Bashar Assad's forces, has posted a video of his corpse online that shows "cuts, gashes...burns...bullet wounds...jaw and kneecaps shattered...and his penis chopped off." [NY Times]

America's favorite fried pickle princess has had a car accident! She is okay. But at least two police officers had to go to the hospital, and our Snooki—who was not drinking or drugging, sources say—might be facing some Italian-style law charges.

A team of scientists at the University of Washington have found the place in the brain that makes the sounds that we use to form words and thoughts. By using some fancy computer programs, they believe they could one day interpret these brain signals well enough to identify actual words and thoughts in our heads. Which is basically mind-reading, isn't it?

The Sarah Palin Grifter Bus Tour is officially underway, and it's currently spewing toxic fumes across the Washington, DC area. There are many questions surrounding this family vacation, but so few answers. People need to know.

The Post reports that bourgeois former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn had some patio umbrellas delivered to his $50,000 per month townhouse in Tribeca. So French. This can only mean one thing: He's hiding something!

During an interview with CBS's Bill Whitaker, reforming (reformed?) former heavyweight champ Mike Tyson dismisses his title belts as "garbage" and "nothing." His priorities have changed! Making his kids and pigeons happy is what life's all about now—not golden, shiny things.

Today science told us that Obama is going to have a scandal sometime in the near future. Ruh roh! What will it be? Well, one commenter thinks they know and boyyy is it a corker.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry appears to be changing his mind about a presidential run, for which he'd have plenty of support. He had ruled it out, but today he said he'll "think about it." Don't strain yourself.

Willard "Mittens" Romney is nothing if not America's most generous and dedicated philanthropist, always searching for the newest health research institutes, arts centers, and presidential campaigns for himself to dump all of his old Pratt-Romney family fortune into. Actually, we have no idea if he's a philanthropist. But he did send some leftover pizza to the Obama Campaign yesterday, so that's something, right?

Yesterday, NYPD officers Kenneth Moreno and Franklin Mata were acquitted of charges of raping a drunk woman in her East Village apartment. It was... a shocker, for sure. Here's the latest on the day after:

First she buys a strikingly Abbottabadish compound in Arizona near her would-be campaign headquarters, then we hear about the release of a feature length propaganda film next month, and now we learn that Sarah Palin, the pride and shame of Wasilla, Alaska, is launching a national bus tour lasting "several weeks" this very fucking weekend. Is this all just another elaborate grifter trick to sell more SarahPAC gift shop tchotchkes? Because it looks an awful lot like a presidential campaign rollout.

Remember that thing the Obama administration started a couple of months ago, something about "bombing the shit out of Libya"? No? Well it was right around the start of March Madness; perhaps you were distracted. But the Libya War, and America's military involvement in it, is still quite active. The only thing that's changed is that it's probably in violation of the law now.

Kenneth Moreno and Franklin Mata, the two NYPD officers on trial for allegedly raping a drunk woman in her East Village apartment after being called to assist her, have been acquitted.

A Serbian Interior Ministry official told Reuters today that a man bearing "some physical features" of Ratko Mladić — the former Chief of Staff of the Bosnian Serb Army and noted war criminal — has been arrested, pending a DNA test.