• Barack Obama demanded that Iran turn over blueprints to its underground ex-secret nuclear hideaway, and threatened to take away the US’s gas and oil investment money. Iran responded by test-firing a bunch of short-range missiles and then claiming they were medium-range missiles. Sassy/grim! [New York Times]
• NATO and the US have decided to side with current Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai in his quest to continue to be President of Afghanistan, despite very mean-spirited gossip about how the election was maybe a sham. [Washington Post]
• Angela Merkel and her party, the Christian Democratic Union, have WON THE COUNTRY OF GERMANY for another four years. Well, congratulations. [Wall Street Journal]
• Flighty auteur Roman Polanski was arrested in Switzerland of all places for the his famous sex crime of sex with a 13 year old in 1978. [Los Angeles Times]
• William Safire died this weekend. Before his noted death, he was also famous for writing a bunch of lies for Richard Nixon and as well as the New York Times‘ “On Language” column. [Reuters]
• The more Obama insists that New York Governor David Paterson not attempt to be governor again, the more committed Paterson is to doing exactly that. [CNN]

• Obama’s interference in governors’ races is upsetting to those who think that Obama’s desire to keep Democrats in power is soo partisan. [New York Times]
• Internet service providers are terribly angry with the FCC, which wants “net neutrality,” a concept of unimaginable injustice that would prohibit these Internet service companies from purposely slowing down connections and blocking access to their competitors’ content. [WSJ]
• Fewer troops in Afghanistan will be fighting in deserted actual desert areas and will concern themselves more with defending cities and humans. Except N.B. to the Taliban: this is not because America is weak! [Washington Post]
• Here are your MacArthur Genius Grant winners!  [Los Angeles Times]
• Bank of America just cold refuses to tell Congress all about its consensual hook-up with Merrill Lynch. The SEC is THISCLOSE to just subpoenaing the bank, the judicial equivalent of correctly guessing its Gmail password. [Reuters]
• Nancy Pelosi is going to send a health care bill to the floor by the end of the week. She’s like, “Fucking bet me.” [The Hill]

Are you ready for a dose of injustice this morning?  Ch-ch-ch-check out Obama, David Paterson and Jon Corzine’s Triangle of Racism, brought to you, straight up, from three-dimensional polygon of hip hop, RNC Chairman Michael Steele. See, Obama said that he would not encourage a certain black governor (David Paterson) to run for re-election, as David Paterson is historically unpopular with his own constituents. But Jon Corzine is just as hated by his own state (New Jersey—not even kidding), so why did Obama not include the white Jon Corzine in his grand total (1) of how many black governors he would tell to sit this one out?? MORE »

• The teevee shows Mad Men and 30 Rock LITERALLY WON the Emmy Awards last night. [New York Times]
• President Obama will visit the UN for the first time next week, as will, presumably, some very excited sixth graders from North Jersey. Both will be avoiding Ahmadinejad and Gaddafi. [Times Online]
• The jealous gossips of the SEC might make Bank of America and Merrill Lynch spill all the details about their initial tryst, even though normally this sort of thing is protected under attorney-client privilege and none of anyone else’s business anyway. [New York Times]
• The fellows from Brooklyn who perhaps intended to blow it up are in even bigger trouble now that police unearthed handwritten bombing cheat sheets. [WSJ]
• All the count-y countries are gearing up for the G20, which is being held in Pittsburgh, meaning Obama will have to convince the world’s leaders to follow his economic agenda after he has just forced them to come to Pittsburgh. [Reuters]
• David Paterson is committed to losing the race for governorship of New York despite Obama warning him that as eager as Paterson might be to suffer this public embarrassment, it will be bad for other people (like: the Democrats) too. [CNN]

There are important rumors afoot that prosaic Slate columnist Eliot Spitzer will maybe try to hold an elected position again sometime soon. But which one? Any of them, really! State comptroller, let’s say. That’s a thing. Or maybe Kirsten Gillibrand’s Senate seat, because who even is she? MORE »

NEW YORK HALFWAY TO GAYSVILLE: Governor Paterson’s proposal to legalize gay marriage in New York has passed the State Assembly. Some Republicans even voted for it! Now it just has to be approved by the State Senate, which will be harder. [Politicker NY]

Governor David Paterson is pissed that Iowa and Vermont look more progressive than New York, so he is fixin’ to change that by introducing an exciting and controversial gay marriage bill to the surprisingly conservative New York State Assembly. It is much like the exciting and controversial gay marriage bill that Governor Eliot Spitzer introduced a year before he had to leave office for having adulterous heterosexual sex with a female hooker. What incipient scandal awaits Governor Paterson? [City Room Blog]

DAVID PATERSON IS FINISHED: New York Gov. David Paterson, whose reign started about a year ago in that very auspicious first week when he admitted to cheating on his wife and doing coke all the time, is trailing New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo 61-18 (!) in a theoretical gubernatorial primary poll. In a theoretical general election matchup against RUDY TERRIBLE GIULIANI he is losing 53-32. [Quinnipiac]

Just nine and a half months ago, everybody loved David Paterson for being everything that Eliot Spitzer was not. Instead of a terse, sanctimonious Captain America who kept his socks on when he furtively humped hookers, Paterson was an affable, self-deprecating, pleasant gentleman who managed to persuade a woman who was not his wife to have sex with him for free. Also he was sort of America’s first blind governor, which was cute. MORE »

The Albany Times Union is pretty sure that Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand of New York will get David Paterson’s Senate appointment tomorrow after several painful months of catastrophe, ruin and embarrassment involving most of the Democratic party’s major dynasties. We are looking forward to never posting about this bullshit ever again, thank you. Sooo… Gillibrand, eh? Let’s see what we’ve got in the ol’ Wonkette Archives for “Gillibrand, Kirsten”…. MORE »

Since no one really knows what the hell is going on with these rotten New York Democrats, we’ll accept as fact-ish this latest installment in the New York Post’s successful 24-hour sledgehammering of Caroline Kennedy’s entire life and reputation: “In a stunning revelation, a source close to Gov. David Paterson insisted this afternoon that the governor ‘had no intention’ of picking Caroline Kennedy for New York’s vacant senate seat — because she was ‘mired’ in an issue over taxes, her nanny and possibly her marriage.” Maybe David Paterson should appoint someone right now, what with the escalating twin national embarrassments that are the New York Democratic Party and the entire Kennedy family and all. [NY Post]