The scorched earth style of opposition does indeed work at dragging down Obama and the Democrats' numbers. But it also keeps approval of Republicans down, and "generic Republicans" still do not poll better than Democrats. They're probably poised to pick up 15 to 25 House seats next year, especially if Democrats again don't bother to get the youth vote out and if the "recovery" continues to be jobless. But the Republican were also supposed to hold on to an upstate New York district they've represented for 150 years, until the tea parties, Sarah Palin, and the Club for Growth got involved.

Maybe the excommunication of moderate Republican Dede Scozzafava was an aberration, and the grownups will rein in the activists and run electable Chris Christie types. But if they do, the disgruntled anti-authoritarian Glenn Beck acolytes will rebel.

Already, the Club for Growth—which threw a lot of money at NY-23 and in doing so gave the seat to the Democrats—has endorsed Marco Rubio for Senate in Florida. Rubio is the conservative challenging popular moderate governor Charlie Crist. As governor, Crist enjoys approval ratings in the high 60s among Democrats, independents, and Republicans. But Marco Rubio enjoys the support of George Will, The National Review, and the aforementioned very wealthy Club for Growth.

Rubio is, at the moment, polling below the likely Democratic nominee, which is a feat, because no one knows who the Democratic nominee is, as a race against Crist was not expected to be winnable.

Meanwhile, out in broken California, the Republicans have decided to launch a real challenge to Senator Barbara Boxer for the first time since she took office. With Boxer facing rising unfavorable numbers, former Hewlett-Packard executive McCain campaign insider Carly Fiorina decided to throw her hat in the ring. Fiorina has a lot of money, good name recognition, and might appeal to moderates and women who are tired of Boxer. So, of course, True Conservatives are beginning to rally behind a crazy man named Chuck DeVore, an Assemblyman who is currently tied with Fiorina in the polls.

What sort of Republican is this DeVore character? Let's look at something he wrote last week in an Amazon review.

American Progressives and European fascist theorists admired each other and exchanged ideas. From William James to Georges Sorel, from eugenics to the militarization of society ("War on Poverty" anyone? It was William James who penned the "Moral Equivalent of War" in 1906), both the American left and European fascists sought to remake society using crises to urge action to justify bigger government at the expense of individual liberty.

Ronald Reagan had it right in 1981, when he remarked that Roosevelt's New Deal had much in common with Mussolini's fascism, including frequent words of praise from Roosevelt's brain trust directed towards Italy in the 1930s.

Good luck becoming a Senator from California, sir!

This is all sort of like if Howard Dean's 50 State Strategy had been to run clones of himself in all 50 states, instead of diverting money to Democrats who actually had chances to win. So there are basically two end games:

• Republican infighting leads to unelectable candidates losing what should've been easy pickups across the board.
• Apocalyptic death cult masquerading as Republican party makes the usual midterm gains, Congress promptly shuts down federal government again, Obama impeached for lying under oath about where he was born.

It's a good thing none of the tangible benefits of health care reform are scheduled to go into effect until 2013! Otherwise the Death Panel lines would be unbearable come 2011.

Update: Alleged shooter Jason Rodriguez has been arrested. One person is confirmed dead, five confirmed shot, and one man was hospitalized with chest pains. Rodriguez was located at his mother's house.

The shooter is described as wearing a "blue shirt and jeans." He reportedly walked into the office of an architectural firm on the 8th floor and opened fire. And according to an unconfirmed local news report, there were bodies found on the 8th and 10th floor of the building. (This has also been reported as bodies the 4th and 12th floors—authorities have only confirmed "six victims" transported to hospitals and list the number of victims at "under ten" still.)

It has been reported that Rodriguez is a former employee of the firm he attacked.

According to the Orlando Sentinel, there were, earlier, people still barricaded in at least one office, unclear on whether or not it's safe to leave. At this point, the search for the shooter seems to have expanded to surrounding buildings and even other parts of the city.

Cops identified the shooter earlier as Jason Rodriguez. He is driving a silver Nissan SUV, and they are asking the public for help locating him. He might in a "perimeter-area building" but the authorities either don't know where he is or don't want anyone to know that they know where he is. The report of "17 victims" is apparently inaccurate: the cops still say the number of victims is "below ten."

There is a Tweeting Haitian rapper on the scene. Seriously.

The target of Rodriguez's wrath was, according to police, Renyolds, Smith & Hills, an engineering firm with offices in the building.

Rodriguez was fired last year after a year of work, and he reportedly took it hard. He has no criminal record, but he is deeply in debt and recently filed for bankruptcy. "They left me to rot,'' he told TV reporters after he was arrested.

Reporters shouted out questions as he was being led away by police. They asked if he was referring to his former employer.

"No. No. I'm angry,'' he responded.

When the story first broke, the word from Sheree Silver's Metaphysical Realm was that Richard Heene "would not have done something so alarming simply for attention." But! The spirits have had a chance to rethink. Take it away, St. Augustine Record:

"I still believe that even though he did this, his reasoning behind it, without thinking out the consequences, was because he wanted to be able to do his science and have the money for it," she said.
Now, she said, an unfortunate result may ensue.

For a reasonable fee, Sheree will also predict the winners of yesterday's NFL games.

First of all, you just know that most old white people are birthers. Right? There is probably a poll somewhere, but let's just go with our gut here.

For years now, Old People, who are already naturally conservative, have been listening to Talk Radio and then Fox News, and that has made them go from "cranky mildly racist conservatives" to "radical right-wing conspiracy theorists who are terrified of literally everything."

Also: old people are the only people who vote consistently. They are bored and lonely, so if someone offers them a chance to get out of the house for a bit, they will go. You get a sticker and some brief human contact, it's great!

As we all remember, it was old Jews in Florida who kept accidentally voting for Pat Buchanan, who was most recently heard from defending Hitler, again. And that is why 9/11 happened (BUSH KNEW).

And because they are the only people who vote in midterms, old people live in a government-sponsored socialist utopia. Free health care and guaranteed lifetime pensions and "public television"! It is glorious.

The effect of a bunch of lazy welfare-queen old people being radically conservative in thought is the curious specter of Republicans suddenly fighting against any reduction in Medicare, at all. But they have found one variety of Medicare that they can actually support without compromising their precious ideals (hah): Medicare Advantage, which is a program in which the government just gives money to private insurance companies.

The Democrats have decided that it would be more "fiscally responsible" to just pay the same amount for people with Medicare Advantage as they pay in "Medicare Classic."

Well, most of the Democrats have decided this. Florida Senator Bill Nelson, though, has decided that that might scare the old people who make up almost his entire constituency. So he is fighting to protect Medicare Advantage but pretty much only for Old People in Florida.

Here is Bill Nelson explaining his tough stand:

Throughout it all, Mr. Nelson said he would remember advice he once received from Claude Pepper, a Florida congressman and champion for the elderly: "Bill, I want you to look out for our seniors. Someone has to look out for them."

Someone has to! And that "someone" turns out to be literally everyone elected to a national office because America is a hellish geriarchy.

There are writers/journalists who've lead lives of reckless abandon and then written about it. Think of Marquis de Sade or even Hunter Thompson (writers whose works I have not read, but whose reputations precede them).

And they, uh, what? Go Gators.

There is really no news.

The happy happening will go down at the massive, 800,000 square foot Anaheim Convention Center and will feature all things Disney, including much lauding of Tim Burton's highly anticipated — we can't wait! - Alice and Wonderland. While that's all well and good, Disney president and chief executive Robert Iger hopes the event will help persuade "very ardent" fans to flock to the company's wide-ranging products:

We live in a world where digital communication enables people to express their opinions about things to a much broader set of people. We call it the combustion of digital world of mouth... Their ability to communicate with others is unlike anything we've seen at any time before.

Translation: "We want to make sure the little buggers don't use twitter against us, as they have others." Yes, the D23 Expo may sound simply like a company-specific Comic-Con, but it's far more than that: it's so much more than that. Disney crazed masses can also join "a high-end, elite-level access" fan club.

So, what does membership cost you? $75-a-year. Now, tell us: who on this green planet of ours, in this recession of ours, would shell out that kind of money simply to get into a glorified trade show that doesn't feature comics?

[Image via Getty]

Sweet Jesus, please, allow me to die frozen and alone in a pounding ice storm on the darkest barren Siberian tundra, rather than to pass away in Orlando. The WSJ lists the death toll—may God shepherd the souls of these unfortunate victims far, far away from the eternal mouse house:

• Anislav Varbanov, 30, died this week while practicing a gymnastic move for the "Raiders of the Lost Ark" show.
• Mark Prince, 47, died last week from a head injury while performing in a Disney pirate show.
• Austin Wuennenberg, 21, died last month in a monorail accident.

"My priorities have always been my faith, my family and my country, and at this stage in my life, and after nearly 12 years of public service in Florida and Washington, it's time I return to Florida and my family," Martinez wrote.

So... someone has his IM transcripts with Mark Foley? Or someone is dying, maybe? Who knows.

Martinez is not very popular in Florida, because he's too conservative, and he's not very popular among Republicans in the Senate, because he's unable to vote to kick the Mexicans out or against Wise Latinas.

Now Charlie Crist will have to appoint someone to the seat that he is running for himself next year.

Reports the St. Petersburg Times:

"Tyranny! Tyranny! Tyranny!" dozens of people shouted as U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Tampa, struggled to talk about health insurance reforms under consideration in Washington, D.C.

"There is more consensus than there is disagreement when you get right down to it,'' Castor offered, immediately drowned out by groans and boos.

She pressed on, mostly unheard among screams from the audience estimated by Tampa police to be about 1,500.

"Tell the truth! Tell the truth!" "Read the bill!" "Forty-million illegals! Forty million illegals!"

So who were these unhinged animals? Where did they come from? Who inspired them? We'll give you one guess.

Hundreds of vocal critics turned out, many of them saying they had been spurred on through the Tampa 912 activist group promoted by conservative radio and television personality Glenn Beck. Others had received e-mails from the Hillsborough Republican Party that urged people to speak out against the plan and offered talking points.

Glenn Beck! Shocking, right? Here's a couple of the videos that popped up on YouTube tonight, one from inside the hall and the other from outside as the angry right-wing mob tries to storm the meeting hall after it was filled to capacity. This sort of nonsense is only going to escalate over the next month, so buckle your seat belts.

Page2Live.com pulled the billionaire money manager and massage fanatic's visitors list. He was hardly lonely. Among Epstein's visitors:

• Nadia Marcinkova—a former realtor who allegedly put on lesbian sex shows with underage girls for Epstein's pleasure. One girl said of Marcinkova: "Epstein had purchased her from her family in Yugoslavia. Epstein bragged he brought her into the United States to be his Yugoslavian sex slave." She reportedly visited Epstein in jail 67 times.
• Sarah Kellen—Epstein's former assistant, who allegedly helped him with the logistics of his massages, etc. from underage girls.
• Igor Zinoviev—"a Russian extreme fighter whose address in New York City, 301 East 66th Street, is the same as Epstein's."

[Page2Live.com. Pic via]

Epstein became a billionaire money manager thanks in large part to a single client, and went on to become "very friendly" with fellow billionaire Ron Burkle and Burkle pal Bill Clinton. But—in addition to allegations that he manipulated a young transgendered girl into sexual favors with promises of a "modeling career"—he had a fondness for hiring underage teen girls for erotic massages. He was sentenced to 18 months for hiring underage prostitutes, but he's served 12, and what with his good behavior of not enlisting any more young teens to come massage him, in jail, he's getting out early. Now he gets to go register as a sex offender and give a DNA sample to the state, so they can check and see if he's involved in any future sex crimes.

Sporting an ankle bracelet and always tailed by an off-duty Sheriff's deputy he paid for, Epstein actually was on "work release" since October. He was free from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. weekdays and even on weekends. According to jail records, Epstein was working 16 hours a day for The Florida Science Foundation, his own science-related non-profit created a few months before he was sentenced.

He's paid a harsh price. Legally speaking, he's no promiscuous slut.
[Page2Live.com]

Disney built Celebration, FL as America's creepiest community: as bland and perfect an imitation of a neighborhood as Disney World itself is of a theme park. Now any jerk can move up in there, including yourself! Houses are available for under $300K. Bring your meth lab and you could have it all paid off in a few months.

Where else would you live? In Gary, Indiana, trash is piling up in the streets. In DC, the most famous hotel in city history is up for auction. In Manhattan, the fanciest parts of Fifth Avenue have extra-stratospheric storefront vacancy rates, and restaurants are going out of business faster than you can say "I never ate in the Rainbow Room and I didn't miss a god damn thing."

So go ahead: move to Celebration, FL, and really fuck it up.

While the increasing likelihood that someone has eschewed new music in favor of retreating into the nostalgic coziness of her iPod has made the idea of a genre-spanning "summer jam" less and less likely through the years, New Yorkers do have a somewhat dubious advantage when it comes to songs of the hottest season: Our lack of reliance on cars, which results in us actually having to hear ambient noise that we haven't picked after endless scouring of file-sharing sites our completely legally acquired musical libraries. Below, seven tracks that you will likely be subjected to should you decide to spend headphone-free time in the city's agora.

1. Flo Rida, "Sugar"

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The Sunshine State-repping MC has figured out a way to escape one-hit wonderdom: Egregiously "interpolate" the most annoying hits of the past, and employ singers almost more anonymous-sounding than Flo while doing so. Mr. Rida has followed the success of "Right Round," which rode the hook of Dead Or Alive's "You Spin Me Round" to record sales on iTunes, pretty ingeniously, releasing a track will have sane people everywhere on an as-instant-as-possible hunt for its hook's source material, so as to eradicate it from their brains / answer their synapses' incessant braying of "what was that?" And you thought you'd never have to think of Eiffel 65 again.

2. Kris Allen, "No Boundaries"

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Sure, the American Idol coronation song is dreck that newly minted judge Kara DioGuardi probably penned in hopes of finally severing ties with the show, which put her through a season-long hazing that ended in her revealing her ribcage to America on Wednesday night. But the playlists of the adult-contemporary stations that blare into your local Duane Reade are notoriously sclerotic, and new songs have to generally have a non-musical hook—hello, shiny crown sitting on the head of this year's sweetly smiling Idol victor—to even make it onto even the wee hours' playlists. Get ready to climb hurricane mountains and travel nowhere roads every time you need deodorant!

3. Jeremih, "Birthday Sex"

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R. Kelly's recent efforts have been subpar—hey, he's distracted—but this track from R & B newcomer Jeremih, which centers on the idea of giving good loving in honor of one's natal anniversary, can certainly, ahem, slide into the "Ignition (Remix)" void.

4. Black Eyed Peas, "Boom Boom Pow"

You are probably already sick of the Black Eyed Peas' minimalistish new single—and its remixes, and its attendant HP-advertisement video, and Pepsi's insistence that lead Pea will.i.am is our generation's Bob Dylan, and Fergie's crazed eyebrows, and that whole dumb hologram thing. But that's the whole point of the Black Eyed Peas, really. In that way, they represent America in 2009 better than any other pop-cultural entity.

5. Cobra Starship feat. Leighton Meester, "Good Girls Go Bad"

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Previous efforts by these dayglo-drenched synth-rockers have been too smart for the degraded landscape of late-decade pop by half, but the presence of Gossip Girl's Leighton Meester on this track should at least attract the ears of people waiting for her star vehicle's season-three premiere. (Personally, I prefer her co-star's efforts, but I also thought L7 was better than Roxette back in the day.)

6. Passion Pit, "Sleepyhead"

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Sure, it's more likely that you'll hear this in a bar than at your local Fresh-blaring bodega—but then again, it's only been 10 years since LeN's "Steal My Sunshine" ruled the pools, and it sure would be nice for a similarly left-fieldish hit to make an inroad or two into the black pits of yarl that are rock radio's everyday playlists.

7. Cage The Elephant, "Ain't No Rest For The Wicked"

Anyone who has nostalgia for the 1990s to the point where they wish that the decade would "come back" would do well to listen to this effort by Kentucky outfit Cage The Elephant, which sounds kind of like what would happen if the Butthole Surfers' "Pepper" were rewritten by members of Asher Roth's frat. Between this and the double-barrelled reunions of Limp Bizkit and Creed, we might be better off looking toward the future as a rule.

Honorable Mention: Journey, "Don't Stop Believing"

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What was that about looking forward? Oh, right. Well, this track was just resurrected by the cast of Glee—and let's face it, it pretty much trumps every other song on this list.

Crist is the governor of Florida, where he is wildly popular. He will basically win in a walk, even though he's facing challenges from more Conservative Republicans.

So the thing is he was totally just one of those "whatever, I'm gay, just don't tell anyone" conservatives, for years, hanging out in gay bars and things, until he became a Bigger Deal, at which point he was fabricating girlfriends, and then he married a woman. An actress. This is when he thought he was going to be John McCain's vice president. That didn't happen, and he already got that wife, so... let's run for the Senate, maybe?

Don't worry about him, though—only the trashy Florida alt-weeklies and blogs like this will ever tell his terrible secret! Like when NPR aired their review of the documentary about outing hypocritical closeted politicians and, oddly, removed all references to Crist and even Larry Craig, who was arrested for soliciting bathroom sex.

"NPR has a long-held policy of trying to respect the privacy of public figures and of not airing or publishing rumors, allegations and reports about their private lives unless there is a compelling reason to do so," Dick Meyer, NPR's executive director of Digital, told Indiewire.

And, hah, the guys at Movieline immediately went out and found the NPR piece on how American Idol contestant Adam Lambert is probably a big gay gay person. He is not even a hypocritical politician—he's never said gay people shouldn't get to adopt kids or get married!—he is just a flamboyant dude on a singing show. There is just as much "proof" that Crist is gay, even if he doesn't wear guyliner.

Anyways, as long as Crist remains precariously closeted, he will be a ticking time bomb of hilarity waiting to happen. Good luck with that Senate run!

Were you under the impression that only poor people are being evicted, because they can't pay their meager rents on their even more meager salaries/ bottle collection earnings? Not the case. In fact, lots of people who got laid off from good jobs are getting evicted, too. It's a lot easier to not be able to pay your rent when it's high!
"It's kind of dehumanizing," one laid-off law firm clerk said of losing his apartment. "They see you as a certain kind of person [ED NOTE: He's talking about a "poor" person here]. We've never been that certain kind of [Poor] person."
So sure, you may be like "Fuck these non-poor people, let them feel the pain!" But that very well may be your future, and ours! Also there's the story of the lady whose kid died and she had to borrow clothes for the funeral because her stuff had been put in storage and ugh, Jesus, no.

So, just another reason to leave New York in shame. But luckily for you, in all those states where housing was REALLY hot and then TOTALLY CRASHED: the market's coming back! Arizona! Florida! Nevada! And other sun-bleached swamps and wastelands! Buy now, before everyone else rushes in! It's a great time to get into real estate "flipping," we hear.

Face it: When 72 year-old women are getting mugged at gunpoint for $2 in Long Island K-Mart parking lots, it's time to get out of New York. You can't afford your apartment, anyhow. Hellish Central Florida development, ho!

Limbaugh bought the big mansion there on in 1998 for a paltry $3.98 million, and picked up all the rest of those buildings bit by bit by the end of the decade. (All this before Rush's eight-year, $31 million contract in 2001 and eight year, $400+ million extension in 2008!) His neighbors have never really cared for him, because they're snooty elitists who look down on things like prescription drug abuse (at least, public prescription drug abuse).

So—this post is our gift to Rush, and to Harry Reid, and to James Carville. Rush and the Dems have stumbled into a mutually beneficial relationship: after years of hoping he'd go away if they ignored him, they now embrace his virulent babbling, and they especially appreciate his version of conservative ideology, which is "anything that gets Rush's name out there."

He feeds on the hatred and insults of people like, you know, us, so hey, look at how tacky his stupid houses are! And while our previous policy was that the rotund broadcaster was totally irrelevant, now we'll amend that: he's relevent purely as a symbol of a Republican party that appeals only to aging white men.

"His positives for voters under 40 was 11 percent," Carville recalled with a degree of amazement, alluding to a question about whether voters had a positive or negative view of the talk show host.

Paul Begala, a close friend of Carville, Greenberg and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, said they found Limbaugh's overall ratings were even lower than the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama's controversial former pastor, and William Ayers, the domestic terrorist and Chicago resident who Republicans sought to tie to Obama during the campaign.

So while Rush holds no sway over things like policy and even Republcian strategy, his worth as a symbol is, for the moment, incalculable. He is Reverend Wright. Or Barbra Streisand! Or, most importantly, Jane Fonda, with the entire Republican party as John Kerry. The Wright distractions didn't work on Obama because he was a charismatic candidate with a compelling pitch. Jane Fonda had precisely nothing to do with John Kerry, but she stuck on him, because he was not a coherent and attractive response to the first Bush term.

As long as Republicans remain in the wilderness, Rush can feed off their misery. He's a secret liberal! Let's all help him build another wing on his hideous mansion!