South Carolina Representative Mike Pitts has introduced legislation that would ban money, for being unconstitutional.

Beloved hermaphrodite and pop art whosiwhatsit Lady Gaga finally gets the perfect tribute from artist Craig Gleason [NSFW] who is making dollar bills in her likeness. Yes, the medium is definitely the message, even if may be kind of illegal.

Louis Auchincloss, whose austere novels exposed and defined the cloistered world of white coastal privilege in which he was raised, has died following a stroke.

As predicted by serious financial journalists, the stock market rallied the day Scott Brown became our new Naked Senator. For like a minute! Then they all crashed. Why did they crash after CNBC promised they wouldn't? Because of Barack Obama!

The conservative majority on the Supreme Court reiterated their utterly insane opinion that corporations are people today as they struck down restrictions on campaign spending by corporations in a decision that everyone expected but that is depressing nonetheless.

Would you like a job as an executive at Rupert Murdoch's News Corp? It looks like there's one minor hoop you have to jump through: donating thousands to Fox's PAC.

Most years wait until about May for their required cabbie-returns-valuable-thing story. Not 2010! It's got in there early with the tale of Mukul Asadujjaman, a Bangladeshi cab driver who drove 50 miles to an address he found with the money.

Sarah Palin is skipping CPAC (the annual conservative movement conference) for "The Tea Party Convention"—because the "Tea Party Convention" will pay her $100,000. (Or less! Maybe only $50,000.)

24 year-old NYU film and history student Michael Peaden, who probably pays a lot of money to go to NYU, figured out that the chemistry department's manager had been taking money from the school....via liquor store receipts. His reward?

The New York Times has identified the source of Goldman Sach's image troubles—it used to be a hip bank, one that really cared about the banking, you know? Now all they care about is money. Sellouts.

Uh oh! MTA doomsday budget time again! (Is it already... any time of year, at all?) Farewell, W train! Goodbye, Z train! Hope you didn't need to get anywhere at night or on a weekend!

Democratic Senator Kent Conrad has a brilliant plan to take on the massive federal deficit. It involves a "task force," of course. But not just any task force: he has envisioned a task force of unimaginable uselessness.

One man's annual donation apparently made up 25% of the operating budget of the American Civil Liberties Union. And that guy, David Gelbaum, had a bad year. So... hope you didn't need to sue the government in 2010.

Oh, good, Jonah Goldberg just got a million dollars to write another book. Hooray for the publishing industry!

Politico has a great story (no fooling!) about how people who play on the fears of the old and scared have formed a mutually beneficial alliance. Conservative pundits and gold-selling scam artists have joined forces to rip you off!

"The boos turned to cheers when Vick scored on a 5-yard run in the third quarter for his first touchdown of the season." [AP via NYT]

Glenn Beck's talking up some scary plan for 2010 lately. It's scary because Glenn Beck is talking. And today, Glenn Beck unveiled his 100-year plot to fundamentally change America—and democracy—as we know it. Glenn Beck is fucking insane.

The new $11 billion operating budget is actually just an ominous warning that in a year—or maybe a few months—the Transit Authority will once again cite the need to hike fares in order to strong arm Albany in finding a newer, more regressive way of funding operating costs.

Today in "what on earth is Sarah Palin talking about": is John McCain responsible for all those legal debts she accrued that forced her to stop governing Alaska and instead write a steamy political romance-thriller?