In the immediate aftermath of a horrific tragedy, it is inevitable that some number of politicians will expose themselves as fools. The Sandy Hook Elementary shooting is no exception. Here, we nominate Oregon State Rep. Dennis Richardson as a strong candidate for "Most Inappropriate Reaction."

Yesterday, Ki Suk Han was tragically struck and killed by a subway train in Midtown Manhattan after being thrown onto the tracks by an angry and perhaps mentally disturbed panhandler. We could spend all day debating the actions of the New York Post photographer whose horrifying photo of Han shortly before his death ran on the paper's front page today. What cannot be debated is this: the New York Post's online commenters are some of the world's most... interesting people.

One thing you should not do, even though it looks like one of the Top Three Funnest Experiences a Human Being Can Have, is ride your jet ski through the flooded streets of your beachfront community during Hurricane Sandy, like this guy. YouTube user Right Coast Surf posted this video of himself tooling around a flooded Manasquan, New Jersey today. (Which, as Gothamist points out, is under mandatory evacuation.)

When we last checked in with internet tech explainer Leo Laporte a year ago, he was accidentally broadcasting screenshots of his sexy Google chats with his business partner Lisa Kentzell by cutting to the contents of his computer screen—"i still smell and taste you. i adore you. (12:13 pm)"—during his show. So what's he up to these days? The exact same thing.

After we published nearly 1,000 pages of Bain Capital's confidential financial records—including audits revealing for the first time that Bain employed a potentially illegal tax dodge currently under investigation by the New York attorney general—we thought we might hear from the good folks at Mitt Romney's former private equity firm, perhaps asking us to take down the documents. Well, Bain finally got in touch yesterday. And they want to explore investing in Gawker Media.

As expected, Fox News aired the 5-year-old video of Obama's speech at Hampton University that conservative bloggers—namely Tucker Carlson—tried (and failed) to make an issue of in 2008. Though there may have been a few previously unreleased segments in tonight's footage, the right-wing discussion was the same old thing: "He sure does talk funny," "But what about white people?," and "Why is he so angry?"

Typical Florida political story of the day: an answering machine captured a call (embedded below) from a volunteer with the Republican Party of Clay County, FL, who was reaching out to potential voters with several important lies about the upcoming presidential election.

At the bigotry-laden Values Voters Summit, former Republican Presidential candidate Rick Santorum inadvertently characterized conservative values as something smart people do not have.

The reviews of Mitt Romney's reaction to the Libya crisis this week were uniformly damning. But Donald Trump, little orange scamp that he is, knows solid trolling material when he sees it. Which is why he just offered up the above tweet, which accuses the President of being friends with terrorists. Because at this point, why not? Your man Romney is getting his ass kicked in the polls, so why not lay all your cards out on the table and accuse the President of virtually everything possible? Terrorism. Murder. Incest. Once you've crossed the line into blatant slander, you may as well go all the way.

Conservative columnist Mona Charen would like to offer a "mild dissent" about Todd Akin, the Missouri senate candidate who claimed that in cases of "legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down." Sure, she acknowledges, there isn't any scientific evidence, at all, to bolster that claim. But doesn't it just feel right?

Remember how BP's relentless pursuit of profits at the expense of safety caused the Gulf of Mexico to be flooded with oil a little while ago? No. I don't remember that. Do you? Hmm. What I do remember is BP's absolutely awesome Olympic spirit!

I'm sure that railroads are a tough business. Probably takes a lot of skill and savvy to turn a profit. I'll give you that. But you know what is not a tough business in which to profit? Selling food and drinks at a virtually unlimited markup to a captive audience with no other options. Amtrak cannot even make a dollar doing that.

Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto has a thought about Samantha Yowler, Jansen Young and Amanda Lindgren, three young women whose boyfriends were killed while protecting them in Aurora. Here's his thought: "hope you were worth it!"

Charming! ;) [Twitter, while it lasts]

Who coud have killed 12 people at a midnight showing of The Dark Knight in Aurora, Colorado? Former FBI profiler Clint Van Zandt, appearing on MSNBC with Chuck Todd, speculates: "is this simply the terrible, terrible collision between some dark Trekkie-like person's fantasy world and reality?" Uh, Clint: no. [thanks to @ArkansasFred]

How did the recent ruling on Obamacare change the American public's opinion on the Supreme Court? Well, the public approval rate of the Supreme Court went down. Who cares?

Influential guy with thoughts David Brooks has some thoughts today, about Chris Hayes' new book Twilight of the Elites. And, to be honest, he raises some good questions! Like, is David Brooks literate?

Rich liar Mitch Albom, once described by H.P. Lovecraft as "a grotesque scaly body with rudimentary wings," has written a column about 50 Shades of Grey. Reading it is like coming across a big shotgun next to a tiny barrel with an enormous, beautiful fish inside, only the fish has already hung itself from a tiny noose.

I don't know about you, but when I think "People who made the wrong career choice," I think "Albert Einstein." Talk about wasting your smarts! Instead of writing papers on math things that the average consumer doesn't even understand, he could have been writing slogans, for Kit Kats™. Missed opportunities.

A few years ago, Sister Margaret Farley, a nun and a teacher at Yale's Divinity School, published Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics—a book that did not say that your sexual urges are nothing more than the shameful pangs of demon penises fucking your soul which should be repressed and repressed and repressed until you are absolutely warped, underneath that church outfit. Burn the witch! Ahh, apparently we don't do that any more? Well... censure the witch!