Good Lord. When Joe Biden talks about growing up in Scranton with all its hardscrabble charms, is he referring to its feces-scented apartments full of food-hoarding ex-cons or its large population of grifters who parasitize the child welfare system? MORE »

Marcus “Black-Chop” Epstein (someone come up with a better nickname!), seen here with drunk popinjay Christopher Hitchens at one of Reason magazine’s monthly medieval blood orgies, will not enroll at UVA law school this fall, according to the university’s Dean of Admissions in reply to queries from TPM and, more reliably, a Wonkette commenter. And what’s this! And this! [TPM]

YOU SCOOPED US, WASHINGTON POST. We thought the same thing today! When Barack Obama reversed his decision to release photographic evidence of authorized-from-the-top, brutal, illegal detainee abuse that would have compelled the DoJ to prosecute people for crimes (MUST NEVER HAPPEN), we thought about how AWESOME this will be politically, just like that time Bill Clinton didn’t care for a black rapper during a campaign and a few conservative voters mused, “Okay, well, as long as he hates the blacks too…” MORE »

So Iowa is underwater forever, and to the nation’s shock, FEMA has sent out emergency response teams — to help! This is only the second time in world history that FEMA has helped anyone, the other being the time they released that “How To Deal With Satellites That Crash Into Your Skull” manual. Perhaps they could create a follow-up manual now called “How To Deal With FEMA Emergency Contractors Who Arbitrarily Beat The Shit Out Of You With Golf Clubs, In Iowa, After Trying To Hit You With Their Cars.” Because! An Incident! MORE »

An Oklahoma sheriff has quit his post after being charged with committing pretty much every sexual crime in the book against a number of female prisoners. For example, “rape by instrumentation.” If he’s convicted, he may serve up to 467 years in prison. Join us on a terrible sex tour of all the foul horrors former Custer County Sheriff Mike Burgess may have committed! MORE »

The Summer of Cum has roots going back as far as last Blovember. Back in those dark days we told you the story of Mark Olson, Minnesota State legislator, Republican, friend to Michele Bachmann, and crazy-eyed wife-beater. His case finally came to trial this month. Join us as we explore the disturbing details.

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• New bipartisan congressional report shows that the Homeland Security Department abuses no-bid deals, poorly trains managers. “32 Homeland Security Department contracts worth a total of $34 billion have ‘experienced significant overcharges, wasteful spending, or mismanagement.’” [WP]

• Bush’s draft bill for putting terror-detainees on trial excludes defendants from their own legal proceedings, unlike Rwanda and Yugoslav tribunals. [NYT]
• Bush presses Senate Foreign Relations committee to make U.N. Ambassador John R. Bolton permanent. [WP]
• In NSA Senate testimony yesterday, civil liberties advocate James X. Dempsey said “he would prefer to see no legislation at all, allowing the National Security Agency to continue wiretapping Americans without warrants, than Congressional approval of procedures outside the scope of the 1978 law that created the secret court.” [NYT]
• Rice: “I am a student of history, so perhaps I have a little bit more patience with the enormous change in the international system and the complete shifting of tectonic plates, and I don’t expect it to happen in a few days or even a year,” [USAT]

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