In fact, more people "strongly disapprove" (44%) than show any amount of approval for the President's performance:

Overall, 42% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the president's performance. That is the lowest level of approval yet measured for this president. Fifty-six percent (56%) now disapprove of his performance.

No wonder he's getting bitchy at his aides.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:50 AM | Comments (152)
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Stocks are probably going to open sharply lower today on a buffet of bad news coming in from around the world.

Let's just take a quick survey.

Tension in the Korean peninsula.

The Euro crisis shows no sign of improving.

Spain may be facing a wave of bank-nationalizations and strikes as austerity measures are put into effect. This is sure to make the credit-rating companies nervous, and may prompt a downgrade of Spain's debt.

The Deep Water Horizon oil-spill has now washed ashore in Louisiana. Even Obama's allies are beginning to wonder if this might be Obama's "Katrina" moment.

Happy Tuesday, Morons.

Posted by: Monty at 05:15 AM | Comments (173)
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Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 04:53 AM | Comments (66)
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A company which guarantees union pensions is in trouble.

And it will cost a mere $165 billion to bail them out.

Is that all?

Actually, it's not -- the liability is potentially unlimited. $165 billion is a starting point. It won't be the ending point.

Bob Casey (D-PA) is introducing a bill to do just that.

Doubleplusundead has a very profane response to this suggestion.

Via eddiebear.

Posted by: Ace at 10:04 PM | Comments (163)
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Welcome to the Monday after the Sunday.

Some Classic Warner Brother's Bloopers
A collection of screen screwups by Bogie, Cagney, Reagan, and many others including Porky Pig.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:28 PM | Comments (745)
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Will Folks doesn't rise with the dawn. The dawn rises with Will Folks.

Popcorn is sold in four sizes: Small, Medium, Jumbo, and Will Folks' Dick.

Last night Will Folks shot an elephant in his pajamas. What it was doing with in his pajamas he won't say! Oh, right, yes he will: The elephant was blowing him. Blowing him, would be the correct answer.

Will Folks invented half of the spells in Dungeons & Dragons, including the hitherto-secret 9th level spell, I'm Nailing Your Sister Upstairs While You Faggits Are Playing D&D.

Will Folks' car has a bumper sticker reading My Other Car Is Nikki Haley's Car and By "Car" I Mean Vagina. But Ask Me No More.

Will Folks is a ninja, and by a ninja, I mean 1) he's a mammal 2) his purpose is to flip out and kill people and 3) he shoots straight because the people of South Carolina are entitled to a heroic protector with a shotgun for a dick.

Will Folks' right hand has tattoos spelling out "Love" and his left hand has tattoos spelling out "Amor," because he kills motherfuckers in Spanish, too.

Will Folks once date-raped Satan.

(Oh, that second joke is a Drew Carey one.)

Posted by: Ace at 04:55 PM | Comments (326)
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He also announced that, yes, the rumors are true, he shtupped Patty Murray up the squeakhole at a Kiwanis mixer.

But he won't say anything more about that.

He's only saying that much because the press has been hounding him about stories he was spreading about the affair.

And also, they were cutting off pieces of his face with switch-blades.

(Usually called switchblades, but yeah, I should talk about improperly using hyphens, eh?)

Posted by: Ace at 04:23 PM | Comments (54)
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Folks, I'm just letting the chips fall where they may. I'm here to straight-shoot and protect you people. I can't do that unless I tell you about my handjob from Margaret Thatcher.

How was it? Let's talk grip strength: She wasn't called the "Iron Lady" for nothing.

But I shan't be discussing any further details with the media. Please -- leave me alone with my solitude.

No, but seriously, did you hear this crap?

Now, my general belief is "all rumors are true."

But that's a general thing. I'm open to disbelieving rumors.

Like if the guy making this claim is a blogger, who insists he's some kind of incredibly important media figure (despite my never having heard doodly-squat of him), and generally writes like a deranged maniac with a dash of narcissistic personality disorder.

Will Folks: Letting The Chips Fall

Since I founded FITSNews three-and-a-half years ago, IÂ’ve made more than my fair share of powerful enemies in this state.

Right. Like the buffet cashier at the Charleston Sizzler.

What? Dude, how can you have enemies when no one knows who you are?

One reason for that? I call it like I see it – whether you like it or not, agree with it or not, or even believe it or not.

Huh-- well that's a new spin: a blogger who calls it like he sees it.

Well, now I've heard everything!

Clearly, thereÂ’s no shortage of opinions about me, my website or the impact itÂ’s having on South CarolinaÂ’s political process...

Um, I'm short an opinion-- who the fuck are you?

...but I like to think that the stories I break, the debates I drive and the opinions I help shape all speak to the potency of the brand IÂ’ve created.

I like to think my flatulence smells like fresh-baked cinnamon-raisin bagels. Preach it.

At the heart of this brand is telling it like it is – which this website has always done, and which it will continue to do no matter what “Damocles sword” is being held over my head on a personal level by the less savory elements of this state’s failed status quo.

I always "trust" people who "use" quotation marks like "homicidal maniacs."

Preserving my ability to shoot straight – free from threats and intimidation – is essential to my professional livelihood, while being able to look myself in the mirror each day is essential to who I am as a person.

Oh my God. I thought Bill O'Reilly had a hard-on for himself.

At least Bill O'Reilly has a series of bestselling books. And the novel "Those Who Trespass."

The two are inseparable, actually, and to compromise one is to eventually wind up sacrificing both.

I still want to hear about that "Damocles sword."

Beyond these considerations, this website is fighting for several fundamental ideals – academic opportunity for all of our state’s children, the promotion of individual liberty, and the creation of a more prosperous economic climate, to name just a few. These ideals obviously matter a great deal to me – which is why I fight so hard for them – and why I cannot (and will not) permit anyone to compromise my ability to continue fighting for them.

I see him on horseback, face blue with Woad-paint, rallying the flower of Scotland, as he says this. Because he's my new fucking hero.

God I hate self-promoters like this. I really, really do.

In recent weeks, however, a group of political operatives has attempted to do just that. In fact, on a very personal level I have become the primary target of a group that will apparently stop at nothing to destroy the one S.C. gubernatorial candidate who, in my opinion, would most consistently advance the ideals I believe in.

So I'm going to grab the spotlight and announce I shagged her.

Because shagging's an ideal I believe in, too.

For those of you unfamiliar with the editorial bent of this website...

(Hand up) Oooh, ooh! That's me, that's me!

... the candidate I am referring to is S.C. Rep. Nikki Haley.

This network of operatives has made it abundantly clear that in the process of “taking down” Rep. Haley, they will also stop at nothing to humiliate me, destroy my family and take a sizable chunk out of the credibility this website has managed to amass for itself.

This cat -- Braveheart of Charlestown, I call him -- is claiming they are trying to humiliate him by suggesting that he, when single, and a man, had a sexual affair with a woman, who was married.

Really? You're the one who's humiliated?

Are you sure? Because it sounds like 1) she was the only person who could possibly be humiliated in this scenario and 2) you are revealing this gratuitously, or just makin' shit up.

The way he constructs this -- poor me, I got laid by an in-demand married woman when it was perfectly free myself to engage in such dalliances -- as "humiliating" him to the extent he is forced to confess his non-sinful sin, makes me think he's 1) insane or 2) a full-of-shit spotlight grabbing libel artist or 3) both.

What kind of fall-out and repercussions was this asshole fearing, exactly?

Getting an "I Nailed the Governor and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt" as a gag-gift?

Getting high-fived to death?

It reminds me of the joke: "Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. Though I am seventy years old, I have recently taken a young lover, a beautiful girl of 17. And we have been engaged in nonstop carnality of such bestial sinfulness that it would scandalize the Mayor of Sodom. Every day, six times a day, since I met her."

"I understand. And how long has it been since your last confession?"

"Never."

"Never? Not a single confession?"

"No, Father. I'm Jewish."

"Jewish? Then why are you telling me this for?"

"Why am I telling you? Padre, I'm telling everybody!!!"

Such is the blood sport of S.C. politics, I suppose...

"I suppose."

I read the weary sigh of an exhausted hero who can do no more, in that "I suppose."

"And Hercules shrugged his shoulders, weary from the effort of propping up the heavens."

I suppose.

... – particularly in the wake of the scandal that consumed my former boss, Gov. Mark Sanford.

Specifically, within the last forty-eight hours several pieces of information which purportedly document a prior physical relationship between myself and Rep. Haley have begun to be leaked slowly, piece by piece, to members of the mainstream media.

"Have begun to leak"?

You mean... you leaked?

I am told that at least one story based upon this information will be published this week. Watching all of this unfold, I have become convinced that the gradual release of this information is deliberately designed to advance this story in the press while simultaneously forcing either evasive answers or denials on my part or on NikkiÂ’s part.

And he's not going to resort to that -- he's here to shoot straight no matter whose feathers it ruffles, goddamnit!

Whoever he is.

I refuse to play that game. I refuse to have someone hold the political equivalent of a switch-blade in front of my face and just sit there and watch as they cut me to pieces.

Again: Being "accused" of sleeping with a woman when you were free to do so is... a melodramatical switch-blade in this guy's face.

I haven't seen this much jumped-up drama since I was a writer on Melrose Place. And had an inappropriate sexual relationship with Heather Locklear.

But of that-- I shall speaketh no further! Damn you for compelling me to reveal this with your vile switch-blades of iniquitous inquiry!

The truth in this case is what it is. Several years ago, prior to my marriage, I had an inappropriate physical relationship with Nikki.

ThatÂ’s it.

And that's it. Just that I banged the married candidate for SC's Governor. And that's all I'm saying.

Out of respect for this woman, whom I support, I shall not say another word to besmirch her. Certainly I shan't be revealing her favorite sexual position (reverse missionary -- just somethin' I made up one day which she went all crazy-eyed over, because I'm so fuckin' awesome... Ladies, when I say I "shoot straight," I ain't just talkin' policy, you know?).

I will not be discussing the details of that relationship, nor will I be granting any additional interviews about it to members of the media beyond what I have already been compelled to confirm.

Uh-huh.

Bonus: And He Was The Original Bikini Inspector No. 69, Too:

Ladies... would you?

Related Flashback: "Impossible is Nothing."

I haven't heard a reluctant, painful confession like this since Humpty Hump tearfully admitted "I once got busy in a BK bathroom."

Posted by: Ace at 03:20 PM | Comments (256)
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The sorority Pi Beta Phi is covering itself in all sorts of glory.

And also -- vomit and human feces.

For the second time in recent weeks, a chapter of the Pi Beta Phi sorority is being accused of drunkenly trashing a facility during a formal dance. At a March 6 party sponsored by the group's Ohio University chapter, attendees engaged in sex acts, used plates as "missiles" during food fights, vomited on carpets, defecated in urinals, and tried to tear off the clothes of a female bartender, according to a letter written by the director of the West Virginia art center where the formal was held.

In her April 6 letter to the sorority, a copy of which you'll find below, Abby Hayhurst, head of the Parkersburg Art Center, reported that catering staff witnessed "a couple engaging in sexual congress, while surrounded by a cheering throng," and that a bathroom sink was broken as a result of "one of your members and her date attempting to have sexual relations on it, an act which was witnessed by the event's caterer, who walked in on them." The art center, which reported the damage to the Parkersburg Police Department, is seeking about $47,000 from the sorority...

Maybe TSG has it right, but I think they're wrong to say this is the second problem with Phi Beta Phi in two weeks; the other complaint is about Phi Delta Phi at Miami (of Ohio).

That letter, too, complains of the stankwhore trinity of vomiting, public sex, and human feces. It's good to know the future ladies of America are now willfully engaging in behavior one previously could only find in a John Thomas German extreme-porn video.

Don't sororities and frats have differing names, though, and yet are part of the same organization? I dunno. I wasn't in one.

All I know is that if I had a daughter, and she wanted to join a sorority, I'd send her to Saudi Arabia's religious police for semester of beat-downs.

Posted by: Ace at 02:52 PM | Comments (101)
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There's the political class, then there's everyone else.

...An overwhelming majority (88%) of the Political Class are confident in members of Congress to handle current economic problems. Nine-two percent (92%) of Mainstream voters don't share that confidence...

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 02:33 PM | Comments (27)
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