They are skipping the Senate, seriously

From when a bill is introduced to when it becomes law it must at some point pass the Senate and be presented to the President.  Well, apparently that is the old America, and your 4th grade textbook needs some updating.  Republicans in the House don’t like the Senate or the White House, because only the Republicans know what is best for America – you see the Democrats don’t agree on slashing spending during an economic recovery so you have to cut them out of the process to protect freedom. Freedom from those they represent, this isn’t socialism, it is a democracy and in a democracy we play it on the fly, ignore the Constitution and illegally cut half of the legislative branch out of the law making process.

I’m talking about H.R. 1255, the Government Shutdown Prevention Act, which was introduced on Wednesday which will be voted on Friday under a emergency closed rule without amendments allowed.

The bill would deem H.R. 1 to be law if the government does not pass a complete FY 2011 funding measure by April 6.  H.R. 1 passed the House but failed by a vote of 44 – 56 in the Senate.  H.R. 1 would cut $60 billion from FY 2011 spending compared to FY 2010.  Clearly, this deem-and-pass plot of House Republican is not Constitutional, so how could any “Read the Constitution!” Tea Party Patriot vote for it?

Talk about an illegal seizure of power by the House, talk about spitting in the face of democracy and cutting out 100 elected Senators and 1 President out of the process.  They many times has the other side accused Democrats of socialism and betrayal of country.  H.R. 1255 would be illegal, unconstitutional, and a power grab of historic proportion.  What if Democrats did this last year?  We’d have the public option, cap-n-trade, and 200 other bills.

Well, we know what will happen, the Republicans will vote for it and no one believes they don’t love America you know why?  Because they are Republicans, that is the party that loves freedom, surely it was a symbolic vote, we know they would never dishonor the Constitution, c’mon!

Sometimes you just have to feel bad for a guy

This poor guy’s life is turning out like a rich-man’s country song. Wife cheats on him with his boss, loses his job, boss gets him a new job, but then gets indicted for taking that job.

I don’t spend a lot of time feeling bad for lobbyists and senate staffers, but good Christ.

Enter Doug Hampton. He was Nevada Senator John Ensign’s chief aide, but some…shady business…ended that career prospect. See, the good senator from Nevada engaged in an affair with Hampton’s wife. I guess he felt sorry about the awkwardness, because Ensign got Hampton a new job with some campaign donors/lobbyists.

Guess that’s the political equivalent of the “Sorry, bro,” a phrase from the popular sitcom How I Met Your Mother, said by a man who is caught sleeping with another’s girlfriend/wife/etc.

Yet, since lobbying rules now prohibit becoming a lobbyist right after leaving politics, it’s more the equivalent of “Hey, sorry I slept with your wife, here’s a paid-for vacation to Mexico,” then, on the way to the airport, stuffing a kilo of cocaine and a handgun into his carry-on.

“Did you pack this yourself? Have you had your luggage with you at all times since then?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Please come with me.”

So, Doug Hampton was indicted for breaking lobbying laws. Yet, Senator Ensign—who even paid off Cynthia’s parents—will be enjoying retirement, and somehow not going to jail.

Sorry, bro.

Update: Ensign will retire Friday, April 22. Not a moment too soon.

Poem of the Week: The Cherry Tree

Just as every winter I’m surprised at the chill, each spring somehow manages to catch me off-guard, even though it comes right around the same time every year.  This week has been cold and rather gray, but I find myself gaping at the sudden bursts of color on trees so recently barren.  It’s a pleasant form of amnesia, this annual surprise at the changing of season for the better.

The Cherry Tree

by David Wagoner

Out of the nursery and into the garden
where it rooted and survived its first hard winter,
then a few years of freedom while it blossomed,
put out its first tentative branches, withstood
the insects and the poisons for insects,
developed strange ideas about its height
and suffered the pruning of its quirks and clutters,
its self-indulgent thrusts
and the infighting of stems at cross purposes
year after year.  Each April it forgot
why it couldn’t do what it had to do,
and always after blossoms, fruit, and leaf-fall,
was shown once more what simply couldn’t happen.

Its oldest branches now, the survivors carved
by knife blades, rain, and wind, are sending shoots
straight up, blood red, into the light again.

More Reasons Not to Move Back to Ohio

The Ohio legislators have been busy little bees.  They’ve proposed at least half a dozen restrictive anti-choice bills this session, including a creative piece of legislation that would ban abortions “after a fetal heartbeat can be detected.”  In practice, this would mean about six or seven weeks into pregnancy (ie, so early that many women wouldn’t even know they were pregnant by that point, much less be able to obtain an abortion if they wanted one).  The “heartbeat” bill was narrowly approved in a House committee yesterday, despite being opposed by no less than Ohio Right to Life, on the grounds that, um, the legislation is clearly unconstitutional. Great.  Glad to see Ohio’s elected officials are doing everything they can to fix the economy, err, I mean create jobs, nope, that’s not it either… oh right, everything they can to pass unenforceable bills that will prove to social conservatives that when it comes to denying women abortion rights, They Mean Business.  (Of course, Ohio isn’t unique.  Judging by the onslaught of anti-choice legislation throughout the country–dozens of bills in all– Republicans have concluded that banning abortions really will solve all our problems.  See also, Rick Santorum.)

But that’s not all!  No, these bold legislators are multi-taskers!  They can curb abortion rights and bust up those greedy, benefit-hogging unions too!  Not to be outdone by Wisconsin, the Ohio House yesterday passed SB 5, a bill that would weaken collective bargaining rights for the state’s public workers.  After being approved by a 53-44 vote, SB 5 heads to Governor John Kasich, who could sign  the bill as early as tomorrow.  Opponents of the legislation, within and outside the statehouse, were vocal in their disapproval.  Said Rep. Matt Szollosi,

These are not numbers on a page or lines on a graph, they are people with families … and they do not deserve to be slapped in the face and put further into harm’s way because liberty groups or tea party groups or whoever is pulling the Republican strings right now have demonized public workers.

Democrats and union leaders are mobilizing to collect signatures to put the measure on the ballot in November; if they collect 230,000 signatures within 90 days of the bill’s signing, it will not go into effect until it’s voted on.  So at least there’s that.

Republicans band together to ban discrimination

For the first time in basically ever, Republicans have gotten together and passed a law that bans discrimination. Well, kind of, at least. Arizona Republicans passed a law banning abortions that are based on sex or race. Ginger Rough at the Arizona Republic reports:

Gov. Jan Brewer on Tuesday signed into law House Bill 2443, which makes it a felony for a doctor to perform an abortion based on the sex or race of the fetus.

….

The law allows the father of an aborted fetus – or, if the mother is a minor, the mother’s parents – to take legal action against the doctor or other health-care provider who performed the abortion. If convicted of the felony, physicians would face up to seven years in jail and the loss of their medical license.

So, the new law also empowers fathers and parents to take legal action against abortion providers. I super can’t imagine that this will ever be fraudulently taken advantage of.

But, I mean, good on them for the non-discrimination thing? Speaking of: Did anybody actually do that? Enough to spark this crisis that obviously needed fixing? Guess we should be glad they solved that immigration problem so they can get on to real problems.

Tweets of the Day: BronxZoosCobra

If you’re on the Twitter, you might want to be following @BronxZoosCobra, narrating the exploits of the snake who escaped the Bronx Zoo recently.  In actuality, I’m kind of unnerved by the thought of a cobra on the loose, but I’m not in NY, and plus, his tweets are quite funny.  E.g.:

Getting my morning coffee at the Mudtruck. Don’t even talk to me until I’ve had my morning coffee. Seriously, don’t. I’m venomous.

And:

Enjoying a cupcake @magnoliabakery. This is going straight to my hips. Oh, wait. I don’t have hips. Yesss! #snakeonthetown

Rick Santorum blames Social Security problems on women not being forced to have lots of babies

Won’t somebody think of the old people who could be supported if only women had been forced into unwanted pregnancies over the past thirty-or-so years? CNN:

Potential 2012 presidential candidate Rick Santorum said the “abortion culture” in America is to blame for the failing Social Security system.

In an interview with WEZS Radio in Laconia, New Hampshire, Tuesday, the former Republican Pennsylvania senator said abortion rates are influencing the number of children born in the United States and there are therefore not enough children to support the program long-term.

“The Social Security system in my opinion is a flawed design, period. But having said that, the design would work a lot better if we had stable demographic trends,” Santorum said. “A third of all the young people in America are not in America today because of abortion.”

The last sentence of that quotation can barely be considered English.

Spring Break Book Reviews

I was on vacation last week, which meant I spent large chunks of each day reading.  After a dreary winter during which I couldn’t contemplate any Serious Fiction and turned instead to Robert Parker’s Spenser detective novels (a great diversion), I came back around and read a few novels.  Now that it’s starting to look like spring, what with the blooming trees and daffodils, I’m ready to handle fictional angst in a way I wasn’t for the last few months.  So, here’s what I read:

The Anthologist, by Nicholson Baker

Quiz to help you determine whether you might like  this book:

a) Do you like poetry?

b) Do you enjoy books where very little in the way of plot actually happens?

That’s it.  It’s a short quiz.  If you answered no to either question, this is probably not the book for you.  If you said yes to both, chances are you might enjoy it.  You might learn something about poetry, too.  And if nothing else, the book is full of these weird and wonderful moments, as in the following two excerpts:

God I wish I was a canoe.  Either that or some kind of tree tumor that could be made into a zebra bowl but isn’t because I’m still on the tree.

There’s something narcissistic in the phrase “collected poems.”  Who’s collecting them?  The poet.  How hard is that?  That’s not a real collection.  Now if he had made a collection of water fountains, or of oven mitts, that would be a collection.  Or if he’d collected editions of Festus, the long mad poem written somewhere in the nineteenth century by a lost soul named Bailey–that would be an achievement.  But collecting your own poems?  What’s so  great about that?  And mixing and mingling them in with some new?  New and Collected Poems?  Oh, well!  Good job.  Nice going.

The narrator of The Anthologist is a schlubby, past-middle-aged, largely unsuccessful poet.  He putters around, and pines after his ex, and muses on rhyme schemes and his favorite poets.  The most dramatic thing that happens is a rather mundane finger injury.  But the character is likable and clever, with frequent enough moments of insight that I didn’t mind at all how little happened over the course of the story.  I read the book in two days (before I went on break actually, so it’s an especially fast read), and I liked it quite a lot.  It’s also put me in the mood for National Poetry Month, which starts in a few days.

Little Bee, by Chris Cleave

Little Bee is a wholly different reading experience from The Anthologist– though coincidentally, both involve finger injuries.  Cleave’s novel is very readable and compelling, but it is by no means a light read; actually, I think “harrowing” would be an accurate descriptor.  The book is told in alternating chapters by two different narrators– a teenage Nigerian girl, and an upperclass British magazine editor, whose lives improbably intersect in what turns out to be a life-changing encounter for both of them.  While at times the book is hard to read because of the dark subject matter, its seriousness is punctuated with levity, particularly in the form of a Batman costume-clad little boy named Charlie (who, for instance, walks in on his parents having sex and asks “Is you fighting baddies?”).  I very highly recommend Little Bee

Good for: a weekend when you won’t have to put the book down much, because you won’t want to.  An entirely absorbing literary experience.

Not so good for: light beach reading, this is not.  I read this on vacation and kind of raced to finish it so I could move on to something a little more frivolous, even though it was a beautifully written, remarkable book.

Imperfect Birds, by Anne Lamott

I’ve mentioned Anne Lamott here before.  She’s wonderful– funny, irreverent, charming, liberal.  Imperfect Birds is her latest book, and her first novel in several years.  I have to say, I like her nonfiction better.  Her honest voice  comes through so strong in her essays that something seems lost through the filter of fiction, but at the same time, this was a very good read.

Selected quotation: “Some of the young men converging at the kiosk had cultivated the look of homelessness, but without the inconvenience and hardship: car keys dangled from their belts as they drank four-dollar lattes. Some looked like star athletes, because they were or had been. But you saw a feral, dark energy in some of the young here”

Themes: teenage drug use, parental worries, non-traditional faith, parent-child relationships

Good for: making you feel better about your own youthful indiscretions, maybe, because at least you weren’t abusing that many different illegal substances?  Making your parents realize they didn’t have it that bad, raising you, maybe?

Bad for: prospective parents, for whom the message seems to be something along the lines of “even if you do your best, your kid will probably hate you and be an ungrateful, dishonest asshole for most of his/her adolescence.”

In Gratitude to Geraldine Ferraro

Change is in the air, just as surely as when John Kennedy beckoned America to a new frontier; when Sally Ride rocketed into space and when Rev. Jesse Jackson ran for the office of president of the United States.

By choosing a woman to run for our nation’s second highest office, you sent a powerful signal to all Americans. There are no doors we cannot unlock. We will place no limits on achievement.

If we can do this, we can do anything.

Tonight, we reclaim our dream. We’re going to make the rules of American life work fairly for all Americans again [...]

To those concerned about the strength of American family values, as I am, I say: We are going to restore those values – love, caring, partnership – by including, and not excluding, those whose beliefs differ from our own. Because our own faith is strong, we will fight to preserve the freedom of faith for others.                                       [...]

To all the children of America, I say: The generation before ours kept faith with us, and like them, we will pass on to you a stronger, more just America.

~Geraldine Ferraro, Democratic National Convention, 1984

RIP Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman nominated for the vice presidency by a major party, who died this weekend at age 75.  Even before running for the vice presidency, Ferraro was a trailblazer– she attended law school night classes at Fordham University while working full-time as a teacher during the day, and graduated in 1960 as one of only two women in her class.  Ferraro served in the U.S. House from 1978 until she was tapped to be Walter Mondale’s running mate in the 1984 presidential election.  After that unsuccessful run, Ferraro served as an ambassador to the UN, a commentator on CNN’s Crossfire, and a co-founder of the National Organization of Italian American Women, among other roles.

It’s easy for women of my generation to forget how different things were for our mothers and grandmothers.  From my vantage point, feminism still has a lot of work to do– but equal rights for women have come such a long way in the last half-century.  I am so grateful to Geraldine Ferraro and the other path-breaking women who carved out places for themselves in careers long dominated by men–grateful on behalf of women in general, and for myself in particular.  Thanks to the feminists who came before me, I had the luxury of assuming I would be able to attend college and then pursue whatever career interested me, and the good fortune that when I attend law school, I won’t be a demographic rarity.

Man, rich people have PROBLEMS

More from our continuing series on the TERRIBLE PROBLEMS rich people have:

But just as the human body didn’t evolve to deal well with today’s easy access to abundant fat and sugars, and will crave an extra cheeseburger when it shouldn’t, the human mind, apparently, didn’t evolve to deal with excess money, and will desire more long after wealth has become a burden rather than a comfort. A vast body of psychological evidence shows that the pleasures of consumption wear off through time and depend heavily on one’s frame of reference.

… Among other woes, the survey respondents report feeling that they have lost the right to complain about anything, for fear of sounding—or being—ungrateful. Those with children worry that their children will become trust-fund brats if their inheritances are too large—or will be forever resentful if those inheritances (or parts of them) are instead bequeathed to charity. The respondents also confide that they feel their outside relationships have been altered by, and have in some cases become contingent on, their wealth.

Morning Constitutional – Friday, 25 March 2011

Elizabeth Taylor’s funeral delayed 15 minutes at her request. Now, your morning constitutional.

North Korea is playing Monday morning quarterback on Libya’s nuclear program.

The death toll from Japan’s earthquake and tsunami is somewhere north of 10,000 and people are now encouraged to stay 18 miles, an increase from 12 miles, away from the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) is forming an exploratory commission for President, and is expected to hire a birther from Iowa to help get her campaign off to a good start.  Meanwhile,  her former Chief of Staff is supporting former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty.

Another Tea Party favorite from South Carolina opts not to run for President in 2012.

Some continue to march in Syria, and I imagine bad things are happening to these people’s families right now.

Meanwhile, protest in Yemen may have a shot at working to oust current President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

And, millions of basketball fans cheered, as millions of soul less Americans focused on their blown bracket as 5 seeded Arizona upset 1 seeded, and last year’s National Champion, Duke 93 – 77.

The Big Cheese

If you are the President of the United States, the past two months and especially the past week has been the most empowering time of your presidency.

Obama is limited in America, he has to deal with Congress if he wants to do anything.  The stimulus plan was a package of Congressional Democrat spending priorities slapped together with a huge piece of tax cuts to appease Republicans.  In the end Republicans didn’t even support it.  The health care bill was totally put together by Congress.  The framework of financial regulatory reform was put together by his Treasury Department staff but ultimately named the “Dodd-Frank Act” after the two lead congressional sponsors of the legislation.  While there is a list of important legislative items that could not have passed without Obama, none are truly his own offspring.

Then comes the unraveling of dictators in the Middle East.  When Obama sent envoys to Egypt and the U.S. began its attack on Libya he never addressed the nation, he never asked Congress for their opinion, he simply gave orders to the State Department and the Pentagon.  Fuck Congress – why bother with them?  Seriously, why would anyone want to involve 535 men and women with 535 opinions on how to move forward with a pancake breakfast, let alone a multi-state coordinated attack on a sovereign nation?

You just have to imagine that despite the nostalgic feeling of taking the oath of office, all the birthers, the entire health care debate, failure of cap-n-trade, Guantanamo, there lack of thanks from a tea party patriot nation who fails to see the economic growth and 14 months of private sector job increases that it all would make the President feel a little powerless.  Now, all of a sudden Obama realizes he can snap his fingers and order a $100+ million a day assault on an asshole that oppresses his people in the name of justice. The decision on Afghanistan might have been more important, but given the public and congressional scrutiny the President would have felt a lot of pressure on all sides .  With Libya,  he had the opportunity to act well before the majority of the nation had any opinion at all.

It must be a good feeling to act before people start to judge, and I imagine that for the first time Obama might feel like the President of the United States of America.

Hump-Day Song of the Week: The Impression That I Get by The Mighty Mighty Bosstones

It’s been that kind of week. Fuck.

Morning Constitutional – Monday, 21 March 2011

Good morning, ladies and germs. Lindsay Lohan went bowling. Now, your morning constitutional:

American and European forces attacked forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi this weekend by air to enforce a no-fly zone over the country. A four-story building in Qaddafi’s compound is reported to have been damaged, possibly from a cruise missile.

“When the president announced yesterday that U.S. military action ‘has now begun,’ he also was unveiling the outlines of an emerging foreign policy in which the U.S. stood ready to participate in, but have others lead, a multinational military response to a humanitarian crisis when Americans didn’t have an overriding national security interest.”

Egypt held a historic referendum on constitutional amendments that would speed Egypt’s transition from military rule to democracy. The referendum passed with 77 percent of the vote, according to judicial officials.

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh dismissed his cabinet Saturday after officials close to the president resigned in protest over two months of unrest.

Television coverage of international news at its highest levels in a decade, many new organizations have cut back on personnel, and technology has made reporters out of tourists.

AT&T plans to buy T-Mobile USA, a deal that would make AT&T the largest mobile carrier in the U.S.

Two officials who worked for President George W. Bush are in the running to be asked to lead the FBI.

The Federal Transit Authority wants to rewrite safety rules for city buses to account for more overweight passengers.

Utah has become the first state to declare an official state firearm, in this case, the Browning M1911. Related: Girls making gun sounds.

Nissan will be the first Japanese auto company to resume production after the 11 March earthquake and tsunami.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chair Darrell Issa may have made a name for himself calling for investigations into the Obama administration, and he is now promising to dig into the already scandalous administration of new D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray.

The ten things everybody should know about science.

Could you remove your own appendix? This guy did.

When movies ruin great songs.

Finally, Steve Stevens (what) broke the disco-dancing world record by dancing for 131 hours straight (what).

If you outlaw being poor, only outlaws will be poor

What is it lately with upper-midwest Republicans?

St. Paul, MN – Minnesota Republicans are pushing legislation that would make it a crime for people on public assistance to have more $20 in cash in their pockets any given month. This represents a change from their initial proposal, which banned them from having any money at all.

And, of course, as Freak Out Nation points out, this will basically leave those on assistance unable to take public transportation because, well, the bus tends to take cash.

Morning Constitutional – Friday, 18 March 2011

Happy Friday, friends and strangers.  Earlier this week, a Great Dane in Poland gave birth to seventeen puppies.  And now, your morning constitutional:

Libya’s government declared an immediate ceasefire, after the UN Security Council authorized a no-fly zone for the country.

Dozens of people were killed in Yemeni protests today, as security forces opened fire on demonstrators in Sana.

Japan’s nuclear safety agency raised the severity level of the deepening nuclear power plant crisis to 5, the same level as the 1979 meltdown at Three Mile Island.  Engineers at the Fukushima Daiichi plant struggled to make repairs as new problems continue to accumulate.

The Senate passed a stopgap budget bill that cuts $6 billion and will keep the federal government running through April 8, and President Obama is expected to sign the legislation today.

Meanwhile, the House voted to defund NPR in a piece of legislation unlikely to be taken up by the Senate.

The New York Times announced a new digital subscription plan requiring those who view more than 15 articles per month on their website to pay a monthly fee.

53% of Americans support same-sex marriage, up from 36% just five years ago, according to a new poll.

In an early upset, 13th-seeded Morehead State beat Louisville 62-61 on the first day of the NCAA tournament.

Tomorrow night’s full moon will be the biggest in almost twenty years.

Finally, a woman in New Mexico is suing Chili’s after she pierced her tongue on a sewing needle in a plate of ribs and mashed potatoes.

Poem of the Week: Because You Left Me A Handful of Daffodils

I have some daffodils in a vase in my apartment, and they are so cheerful, so sunny and spring-y.  Here’s a poem.

Because You Left Me A Handful of Daffodils

by Max Garland

I suddenly thought of Brenda Hatfield, queen
of the 5th grade, Concord Elementary.
A very thin, shy girl, almost
as tall as Audrey Hepburn,
but blond.

She wore a dress based upon the principle
of the daffodil: puffed sleeves,
inflated bodice, profusion
of frills along the shoulder blades
and hemline.

A dress based upon the principle of girl
as flower; everything unfolding, spilling
outward and downward: ribbon, stole,
corsage, sash.

It was the only thing I was ever
Elected. A very short king.
I wore a bow tie, and felt
Like a third-grader.

Even the scent of daffodils you left
reminds me. It was a spring night.
And escorting her down the runway
was a losing battle, trying to march
down among the full, thick folds
of crinoline, into the barrage of her
father’s flashbulbs, wading
the backwash of her mother’s
perfume: scared, smiling,
tiny, down at the end
of that long, thin, Audrey Hepburn arm,
where I was king.

Social Security is already means-tested

Means-testing Social Security, or changing the way Social Security benefits are handed out by taking into account wealth and income, has been a popular proposal to help balance Social Security’s budget (which isn’t really as out of whack as many suggest, and isn’t nearly has problematic in the long-term as Medicare/Medicaid). Yet, it’s not a terribly helpful solution, because most benfits already go to those in the lower and middle classes, and the wealthy get  very little of the pot. As Kathy Ruffing at Center on Budget and Policy Priorities notes:

Social Security benefits are modest even for the highest-income retirees.  The averageretired-worker benefit is only $1,175 a month (about $14,100 a year).  And because the program has always capped the amount of earnings — currently $106,800 — on which workers pay taxes and accrue benefits, even its top benefits aren’t lavish.  Someone retiring at age 65 in 2010 could get, at most, $2,192 a month (about $26,300 a year); only5 percent of retirees collected more than $2,000 a month.  So although some rich peopleget Social Security, nobody gets rich from Social Security.  That limits how much we could save by taking it away from them.

Hump-Day Song of the Week: Thugz Mansion by Tupac & Nas

We love you, Nate Dogg. After the fold, his hit “Nobody Does it Better” featuring Warren G.

Continue reading »

Morning Constitutional – Wednesday, 16 March 2011

Good morning, everybody. We love you, Nate Dogg. Now, your morning constitutional:

At least six are dead after government forces cracked down on protesters in Bahrain. Tanks, helicopters and jeeps with machine guns were used to expel demonstrators.

A Pakistani court has acquitted CIA contractor Raymond Davis, who is alleged to have shot two men, after relatives of the dead pardoned him.

The Obama administration has begun using drones for gathering intelligence on drug smuggling operations in Mexico.

The House of Representatives passed another stop-gap spending bill Tuesday that will last three weeks with $6B worth of cuts.

Speaker of the House John Boehner’s difficult position between the center and the far-right tea-party flank.

Looks as though the founding fathers were actually in favor of “spreading the wealth around.”

Studies showing that dog owners are more active than those who do not have a dog.

Ed Milliband, the new head of the UK Labour Party, finds his party torn on the upcoming alternative vote referendum.

Why is it called “March Madness?”

Scottish teenagers getting sleep training.

Finally, a Florida man has been accused of stealing his boss’s “big bag of dildos.”