Wonkette

• Total body count was 13—with another 30 injured—at Ft. Hood yesterday. The gunman survived after being shot four times. [New York Times]
• Speaking of the gunman, Army psychiatrist,  Maj. Nidal M. Hasan, here is a lengthy biographical portrait. [Washington Post]
• An important Afghan governor and his militia and their rocket launchers are challenging the legitimacy of new president Hamid Karzai.  [WSJ]
• British PM Gordon Brown—and his soldiers and their implied rocket launchers—also threatened Afghanistan to just, you know, it’s enough already with the corruption. [AP]
• The Pakistani Army invaded a Taliban alcove in lawless, mountainy South Waziristan, presumably also a stop on Sarah Palin’s book tour. [Reuters]
• So apparently a giant wall (of symbolism?) was blocking everyone’s view at the Jay-Z/Beyonce/U2 performance at the Brandenburg Gate at last night’s fall-of-the-Berlin-Wall-themed concert. [Daily Mail]

So that horrific killing spree put a real damper on the day’s comedy prospects, although we’re sure Wolf Blitzer’s trying his inadvertent best to make us all laugh again. But know that before the sadness in Texas, God painted the teabaggers a rainbow. And then someone in an office took a picture of the Teabaggers’ Rainbow and e-mailed it to K-Lo, the end. [The Corner]

Now that Bob McDonnell is governor of Virginia, who knows what’s in store for blacks and women?!?! So, before the new leadership goes and names more streets after its Civil War heroes, you should visit it on a day trip. It’s just lovely in the fall, what with the leaves and all. MORE »

We have been drawn, via our referrals, to some new thing called the Atlantic Wire, which tells you what every pundit and blogger is writing about at all times! It is the anti-porn. But “incoherence” is our goal here, so thank you weird new hyperspeed Atlantic thing! [Atlantic Wire]

• JUST TO ACKNOWLEDGE IT: The news out of Fort Hood keeps getting worse: 12 people have now been confirmed dead, with 31 injured. The two gunmen were soldiers stationed at Fort Hood and “the shootings took place at a readiness facility, which is where soldiers go before deploying overseas.” It started just before a 2 p.m. graduation ceremony. UPDATE: Uh oh: “The suspected gunman was identified as Major Malik Nadal Hasan.” The Internet will give this one another 45 minutes or so, out of respect, before a veritable World War II of furious accusatory typing begins. We’re getting out now. [NYT]

• Yeah yeah alright, the mighty elephant “ballot boxed” (pun!) the snot out of the scrawny little donkey. But check out the guns on that elephant, and his extremely agitated facial expression. ‘Roids. Textbook case. [RedState]
• Everyone gets access to affordable health care? Isn’t that what happened to the Jews at Dachau? The latest scholarship — and some dude with a sign — would suggest so. [Think Progress]
• Delete your Gmail account, pound a two-liter bottle of Robitussin and head for Mexico. You have been way too productive lately, and it’s time to take it easy. [Matt Yglesias]
• Wall Street gets first dibs on the swine flu vaccine! Let us weep for Matt Taibbi. He is still without an FDA-approved vaccine for his uncontrollable rage. [AMERICAblog]

This one is a beauty. Congressman Todd Akin, speaking before the Bachmaniacs at the Super Bowl of Retardation, delivers a glib lecture about the Pledge of Allegiance, its history, and its awesome inclusion of “Under God.” He asks the crowd to join him in the Pledge, because it “drives the liberals crazy.” And then he screws it up. MORE »

Hooray, America is free! Unless Steny Hoyer memorized the House health care bill verbatim — AS WAS YOUR JOB STENY — and can transcribe it by votin’ time Saturday night, Pelosi’s AbortionCare is gone forever, strewn about on the floor outside her office. Independent and moderate voters must be so impressed with the Republican leaders’ professionalism today. [TwitPic/Mike Madden]

A top secret operative sends us this video of the line of folks looking to get into Longworth, which is super lengthy. Clearly the guards are ACORN thugs trying to slow down the security process, the bastards. But hey there’s another House office building right across the street, so they will just run back and forth between the two buildings all day trying to find the shortest lines, as one would do at the supermarket check-out. [YouTube]

Michael Steele was so enraged by RNC Chairman Michael Steele’s original endorsement of Scuzzlebutt, the Maoist “moderate Republican” candidate in the NY-23 special election, that he has killed that Michael Steele and invented a new Michael Steele to dress up and run around on television as. This Michael Steele despises any semblance of moderation and promises to go Stalin on those moderate motherfuckers he’d already selected to run in various 2010 races. Moo moo, baby, motherfuckin’ cow on the tracks, can’t catch me, I’m on fire… MORE »

NICE TRY bored irony thrill-seekers in all major U.S. cities, Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue book tour is characteristically going rogue and will be avoiding the large urban areas of New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia, and others like them. According to this extremely patronizing CNN story—in which Jacksonville, FL. and Rochester, NY are essentially characterized as nothing more than some dirt paths strewn with human bones, maybe six trailer homes and a Starbucks—the GR Tour will instead be hitting mid-size cities in more traditionally conservative parts of the country. Oh but despair not, cosmopolites! Very decent chance that the Nation and Slate all-stars of Going Rouge will be incidentally touring Whole Foods or some party in Park Slope or whatever. [CNN]