Wonkette

• Charlie Rangel is going on trial! Did you even know that Congress could put people on trial, for ethics violations? Well, they can, but they don’t usually, because most Congressfolk generally just say “Yeah, you caught me” and slink away in shame when the Ethics Committee points out their many moral failings. Not Charlie Rangel, though! He’s positive giddy at the prospect: “At long last, sunshine has pierced through this cloud that has been over my head for more than two years.” The last guy who had a trial like this in the house was Jim Traficant, and you remember how awesome that was. MORE »

  ---

When our friend Ernest J. Pagels, Jr., dropped out of his race for Senate earlier this week, we didn’t know if we could ever love again. But you know what? The universe works in mysterious ways. It started with a simple e-mail subject line in our tips inbox: “It’s okay to laugh at the mentally impaired if they’re running for a public office, right?” Wonketters, you have a new 2010 election boyfriend. His name is Basil Marceaux, and he’s a Republican candidate for governor of Tennessee. MORE »

• After losing strength over what’s left of Haiti, The Deathstorm hit open water, started gobbling steroids, and now has its eye set on breaking Hurricane Katrina’s home run record. The Deathstorm is currently named “III,” or “three” for those of you who aren’t subjects of the Roman Empire. Once it increases in strength and size it will be known as Bonnie. Meanwhile, near the Land of Drug Cartels, another deathstorm is forming, but its current status is illegal until further notice. Admiralissimo Allen has decreed that the Wondercap will remain closed in the event of a major storm. Track the storm with USA Today’s fancy graphic. MORE »

  ---

Its official: Every single up and coming neighborhood in DC has its very own Beer Palace. Logan Circle is home to ChurchKey, H Street has its beer garden, and now Columbia Heights has Meridian Pint. But what makes this beer palace different than all the other Beer Palaces? MORE »

Lindsey Graham told Democrats to “TALK TO THE HAND” and John Kerry freaked everyone out with his desperation, and now Democrats have officially given up on passing a bill that would limit greenhouse gas emissions, as they couldn’t get enough votes. Sorry, Nature! Looks like you’re going to have to figure out how to stop climate change yourself and stop depending on the U.S. government to solve all your problems. Go back to your public housing shack and try to find a job or something. MORE »

The Democratic Governors Association made this video to get the libtard bloggers excited at the Netroots Nation conference that starts today in Las Vegas. That was cool of them! Look, there is something of each of them in this video. David Paterson of New York sat at a computer and did ALL the video editing himself. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania picked this Arcade Fire song that has been his favorite ever since he watched the trailer for Where the Wild Things Are 42 times in a row and cried. And Martin O’Malley of Maryland tallied up a list of all the intellectual property violations, for lolz. MORE »

For weeks now, conservatives have been getting riled up over the proposed construction of a planned Muslim community center somewhat near the World Trade Center site. That is not an acceptable religion, you see, for America. Newt Gingrich finally rolled off his Japanese pillowcase-girlfriend and decided to wade into this with some really good, fresh ideas. “There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia.” Charming! MORE »

• The entire Western Hemisphere is unemployed but surprise surprise, the U.S. Senate is too busy playing grab-ass with hott celebs to even feign interest. [The Caucus]
• Matt published super-private emails sent to him by Jonathan Strong, of Daily Caller JournoList muckraking fame. And now everyone knows Jonathan Strong’s secret phone number, so dial those digits and ask him out on a date. [Matt Yglesias]
• Bobby Jindal insists that Louisiana does not need BP’s money. Uh, it does, Bobby. It really does. [RedState]
• In other Louisiana news: Catholic bishops insist that Louisianians do not need to bring their guns up to the altar when receiving Holy Communion. Uh, they do, Catholic bishops. They really do. [Think Progress]
• LeBron James decided to play sports with the Miami Heat because H&R Block told him he would save a whole bunch on state and local taxes by moving to Florida. [Weekly Standard]

“You know, I was reading my newspaper this morning, and it seems Tom Vilsack did something really unfortunate to you, ma’am.” Yes, President Obama has finally called Shirley Sherrod. This may seem like a token expression of common decency after what his administration caused her. But for a long time it didn’t seem he could do this little thing, as it would somehow “connect” him to this whole controversy, his advisors thought. (Guess what? Barry was already connected anyway! And then he just looked like a jerk and even more cowardly for being afraid of his phone.) So what did they talk about? MORE »

People think that Republicans are a bunch of posh country club types, but many of them had hardscrabble upbringings! For instance, John Boehner’s family was so poor that they couldn’t afford condoms, so he grew up in a ramshackle hovel populated by an ever-increasing number of little Boehner children. There ended up being a dozen of them altogether, piled up on blankets in the house’s three rooms, alternately huddling together for warmth and fighting each other tooth and nail for whatever scraps of gristle fell on the floor. With that background, is it any wonder that Future Speaker Boehner can’t keep track of whether his siblings are employed, or even who they are? MORE »

When Barack Obama was born in Kenya 16 years ago, abortion wasn’t legal, so his parents weren’t able to get rid of their child. Jesus smiled, because he likes all babies, even socialist ones who want to destroy America. But now that ObaMao has illegally taken power in the U.S., he has decided to force a new constitution on Kenya that protects abortion, and our government is illegally spending money to get this passed, according to Fox News. MORE »

Remember Laura Bush, America’s onetime librarian sweetheart and wife to the nominal head of the most appalling administration in U.S. history? Turns out she’s written a massive memoir titled Spoken From the Heart (because that’s what these political memoirists do: write from the heart, by speaking from it). We figured that a Laura Bush memoir wasn’t going to come close to the infamy and ignominy of, say, Henry Kissinger’s “Years” trilogy, or a soul-shredding Affront to Everything like Sarah Palin’s best-selling aerial-wolf-massacre manual. All we expected from the former Ms. Welch was a typical political-celebrity memoir: indifferently written, banal beyond belief, an apologia for various horrors. Little did we know it would be a mind-enlarging psychedelic masterpiece/cautionary tale that manages to depict the fabulous highs and sickening lows of addiction to that notorious drug, George W. Bush. MORE »

Tom “The Sack” Vilsack has finally finished going through the Agriculture Department’s HR files, looking for some kind of job he could give to Breitbart victim Shirley Sherrod, to make everyone stop saying such mean things about him continuously. Obviously he couldn’t simply give her the old job back, as this is what’s known as a “lateral move” and it would look bad on her résumé, and obviously Vilsack cares for nothing more than the health of Sherrod’s career. What sort of job could he give her that would really be a step up … think, Sack-Man, think … wait! What if she were promoted to a gig where she fought the very racism that caused all this trouble in the first place? I’ll bet she’d love that! MORE »

You know how at the end of Top Gun, Iceman (Val Kilmer) still doesn’t agree with Maverick (Tom Cruise) on just about anything, but he has a renewed respect for his wild and woolly unorthodox style, plus everything is very gay? Today, like every day, we are all Val Kilmer. And surprise! Your new Tom Cruise is Glenn Beck. (Because of Shirley Sherrod.) MORE »

Things are heating up in the GOP primary race between diaper-lovin’ David Vitter and his opponent Chet Traylor, who sure seems to enjoy sipping on that fruity drive-thru daiquiri called “romance,” hoo wee. Democratic state Rep. Noble Ellington says Traylor, a Louisiana Supreme Court justice, stole his wife right out of his lovin’ arms and married her. And then when the wife died, Traylor started making out with Ellington’s daughter-in-law while she was still married to Traylor’s stepson. Family values, indeed! This race will go down in the history books as “Home-wrecking Judge Battles the Poop Monster.” MORE »

Sharron Angle is dead! Oh, wait, that headline, which is on a confusing “Nooz you can yooz” sidebar element on the Washington Post’s website, just links to some liberal Las Vegas paper which is talking about her political hopes. These aren’t doing so hot, because of Harry Reid’s terrible negative campaigning (i.e., describing Angle’s political opinions to those considering voting for her). How did this once-promising candidate come to be such a terrible loser, three months before any votes are cast? MORE »