You know those photo ops where the president is sitting at a cafe in shirtsleeves, yucking it up with the people from work? Here's what those photo ops are really like.
West Virginia lifts its ban on drinking tap water following a catastrophic chemical spill -- but of course, that doesn't mean the water is entirely safe or healthy. "As far as the data and recommendations we have from West Virginia American Water, the water is safe to use," says health officer for the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department Rahul Gupta. "We’re not saying it’s safe. West Virginia American Water is saying it’s safe. We are taking their word for it." The EPA is still trying to figure out exactly how bad the spill actually is.
Virginia begins scrapping a stored-value card-based tax refund system. The system's only real reason for existence seems to be to allow banks to charge taxpayers fees to get their own money. Needless to say, this transfer of wealth from consumers to banks was a Republican idea.
The legal battle over Obamacare just ended. Obamacare won.
The weird thing about the Benghazi!!! supposed scandal is that the reason it's supposed to be a scandal keeps changing. This is because the old reasons keep crumbling.
Fox News Chief Roger Ailes is really quite mad, you know. A new biography shows he pretty much proved that global warming "skepticism" is just a cult. In a meeting with GOP presidential candidate -- and climate realist -- John Huntsman, Ailes said, "You are not of our orthodoxy." Kind of a spooky way to put it, really.
Finally, the Supreme Court will decide just how close religious fanatics are allowed to get when harrassing women exercising their right to an abortion.
[cartoon via Truthdig]
