State of the Union, blah blah, economy, expectations, legacy … wait, what? MORE »

Every week, our Anonymous Lobbyist answers your questions about how laws get made and why they probably shouldn’t.

In this week’s installment, I bring you the collection of the weirdest, most difficult-to-answer questions I have ever received that don’t have anything to do with my physical attributes. Want to ask something ever so slightly more coherent? Email me.

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* Bill Frist has found a moonshine still, and ain’t comin’ down from rocky top — reckon he never will. [Political Wire]
* Dehmokratz bad, Tom hate dehmokratz. Tom like cigar, mmm, cigar. [Think Progress]
* Barack Obama makes an announcement everyone knew was coming. [YouTube]
* But he won’t be president until he stops dressing so Ahmadinejadily. [Political Animal]
* You want to see Hillary Clinton do icy-bitch? ‘Cause she can do icy-bitch, oh boy can she do icy-bitch. [Freakonomics]
* World dictators get all the teen-aged ass Mark Foley never did. [Radar]
* In Vietnam — as in politics and the bedroom — Jim Webb is using live ammunition. [The Swamp]
* Meet your new Fox analyst: Rick Santorum. [TVNewser]

Son-in-law of a murderous Latin American Banana Republic dictator, husband to that dictator’s right-wing extremist daughter, possible page-fucker and all-around Republican congressman Jerry Weller is a man for our time. MORE »

According to the rumors on an Illinois blog, rumors on many other blogs have not yet been proven to be more than rumors, and the New York Times is having a hard time getting to the bottom of the story, etc. You know, the Jerry Weller story! MORE »

There’s a whole lot of referencing of other websites referencing other websites and we still don’t have the allegedly gruesome details, so for now you can enjoy this press release from Weller’s house.gov site. Congressional pages, Dennis Hastert, Jerry Weller … what more do you want in a government web page?

But Jerry Weller losing his seat in the House is really the least of his worries right now. We’ll explain, after the jump.

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The Illinois Republican (at right, with Kitty Harris) is married to the lovely Zury Ríos Montt (aka Zury Ríos Sosa, aka Zury Rios-Montt de Weller), daughter of the former military dictator of Guatemala. He’s also scheduled (per various rumor mills) to be outed as the newest subject of our beloved Cocktober Surprise. MORE »

The crafty Jew comedian Sasha Baron Cohen continues to derail the White House’s latest dirty dealings with the oil-rich dictatorship of Kazakhstan. Over at the Kazakh Embassy, they are losing their minds. This was not how Dictator Nursultan Nazarbayev wanted his Washington visit to be remembered.

Like Saudi Arabia after 9/11, Kazakhstan took the usual totalitarian-regime route and put a four-page advertisement in the NYT and IHT. We love these things and have often used such sovietesque PR to plan new lives abroad: Hmm, did you know Mumbalumbia has far-reaching leisure touristic possibility and historical culture of timeless contrast, not to mention world’s eighth largest coal mine? But most people are immune to the Kazakh Charm Offensive — because they’re too busy e-mailing the NYT’s funny article about Borat’s DC appearance yesterday, making that goofy story the Most E-Mailed of the Day.

Come with us on a magical tour of the Kazakh Steppe, after the jump.

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• Yesterday was godless Hollywood elite day on cable, as Clooney and Penn battled each other in depth of sincerity contest. [Think Progress; Newbusters]

• The Nancy Grace award for “savage sadism” still searching for a recipient as vicious as the woman herself. [Andrew Sullivan]
• Angelina Jolie’s time is up and the UN needs a new pair of spokestitties for its High Council on Refugees. [Impeccableliberalcredentials]
• Chuck Colson, as clueless about gays as he is about breaking into office buildings. [Good As You]
• Meeting of the Non-Aligned Nations in Cuba this week bears no resemblance to the final scene of Team America: World Police, really. All photos courtesy of the CIA. [LGF]
• Mayor of Gallatin, TN rents city hall out for porno film shoot that’s not really porno, more like late night Spike TV. [Tennessean]
• Unsurprisingly, the new “Night of Bush Capturing” terrorism simulation video game is pretty fun. [The Jawa Report]

Overheard by a reader who was enjoying free Wi-Fi at Open City last night: MORE »