Wonkette

Like every American city these days, Denver is filled with tragically insane homeless people. But what will happen when downtown Denver becomes a terrifying Green Zone of a million cops surrounded by a million hippie protesters? Will this make the starving, mentally ill, drug addicted people living on the streets uncomfortable? Maybe! So they’re going to be rounded up and sent to the Denver Zoo. MORE »

While the economy continued to melt down over the weekend, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke spent a few hours hiding from his life at a Washington Nationals baseball game! Alas, he could not escape his horrible, horrible sadness: “Like at every other professional sporting event, a couple minutes is devoted to throwing out free t-shirts and Ben went after a free t-shirt last night like a man possessed. I have rarely seen such intensity in the eyes of a human being. …Yet, the look of agony upon Ben’s face when the t-shirt slipped through his finger tips struck me as odd.” It’s just one thing after another for this guy, right? [The Foodandbeermonger]

NATION OF RETARDS IS BETTER: John McCain’s advisers are more brilliant than you or me or me or you; we know this. That is why — in an election where massive economic despair is easily the biggest issue on unemployed, homeless, bankrupt voters’ minds — McCain economic adviser Phil Gramm said we are in a “mental recession,” not a real one, and we are also a “nation of whiners.” Savvy. Politics at its best. [WP/The Trail]

ELECTION DAY OF THE APOCALYPSE: “What hellish skeleton of the American Dream will remain when we finally drag ourselves to the polling place on November 4?” [Political Machine]

Disgraced whore-fucker Eliot Spitzer is done with this “help people with their lives” nonsense, now that he doesn’t have to govern New York or shut down prostitution rings while patronizing those same prostitution rings. He is ready to earn ONE BILLION WHORE DIAMONDS by becoming a “vulture” real-estate flipper. MORE »

• BUT ENERGY STOCKS ARE DOING OK! Remember how all the government economists said the second half of ‘08 would be better? They lied. [Newsweek]

The Dow is down 370 points (2.5%) while the NASDAQ and S&P500 make similar terrible plunges, unemployment shot up the most since 1986, oil hit $138 and gasoline costs $4.50 a gallon at the start of summer, teen-age unemployment hasn’t been this bad since 1948, the housing collapse is really just beginning, foreclosures are at another new record high, even 3.5% of “prime” mortgages are now heading into default, and the dollar is worth a mumbled “Fuck you” in French. Things are looking up! MORE »

Are you reading this at work? Lucky you! The national unemployment rate saw its biggest month-to-month jump in 22 years, and is now at 5.5%. Department of Labor numbers show 49,000 fewer jobs in May, due to General Economic Horror and the Growing Panic. When you’re done screwing around with the political news, here’s a fun article about how to survive unemployment. [Wall Street Journal]

ECONOMY MADE PERFECTER: What is wrong with the Federal Reserve?! Today they cut the fed funds rate another .25%, bringing it down to 2%. Don’t they know that we have already achieved perfection and our economy is growing licketysplit? Meh, whatever. Let’s run with it and REFI REFI REFI! [NYT]

That 0.6% bit of economic growth in the first quarter of 2008 was just the pathetic result of $3.50-a-gallon gasoline, but there is one sector of the U.S. economy that’s truly booming: Desperate Americans are selling off their last possessions on Craigslist and other online flea-market sites, just so they can buy a little food and gas. MORE »