There’s more to be said about the Rand Paul’s insulting suggestion that skilled, unemployed folks should just suck it up and settle for whatever lower-paying job they can get. What I wrote before doesn’t fully expose his moral and intellectual poverty.

Very Serious Journalists, like James Risen, may look down their noses at bloggers, imagining us at our keyboards in our pajamas. They can laugh, but the kind of journalism practiced by FDL is running rings around them. “He said/she said” may work for the Village media, but FDL aims to sort out who’s right and why, and then tries to make things better. If FDL’s version of journalism appeals to you, we could use a little financial support to make things even better down the road.

This is the situation overall: a decrease of only one percent in civilian casualties over the past three months in Afghanistan, with 395 people dying from conflict-related purposes between April and June. 27,000 people were displaced from Helmand in February alone. Although this represents a slight drop over the first quarter in civilian casualties, it’s not clear that Gen. Stanley McCrystal’s goal of significantly arresting overall violence threatening civilians is being substantively realized.

For some twisted reason, this pompous, fleshy, sheltered windbag Rush Limbaugh is allowed to pontificate to the American public over their own publicly-owned airwaves, persuading them that hungry children are simply too lazy to go to the nearest refrigerator to get food, or unmotivated to dive into a dumpster for their next meal.

I think these folks should take a bow. They went above and beyond the call of duty this week.

So, tell me what is your favorite birthday memory? I’m listening.

OK Go — This Too Shall Pass.

H/t BustedKnuckles for the video

Democrats have rediscovered the joys of “Who’s on your side?” rhetoric. As far as actually being on our side, well…

So, out of 10 names, and going all the way back to Marion Crackbarry in 1990 (Traficant, Ventura and Jefferson are not exactly current either), Rosen could only think of one non-South Carolina Republican with a scandal? Really? What about John Ensign’s affair with a staffer and subsequent attempt to pay off her husband? What about the Vice President’s Chief of Staff getting convicted of obstruction of justice? What about the baldfaced corruption of John Doolittle and Tom Delay?

After the first week of the conference committee for Wall Street reform, I would call the verdict middling. Reformers have won some victories – all hedge funds and private equity firms will have to register with the SEC, credit rating agencies will be on the hook for standard liability for negligence, the Fed audit is more robust and ongoing.