Our guest columnist is Justice Joseph Gordon of the Illinois Appellate Court. The plaintiffs, who grew up in a $1.5 million home, were represented by their father.

Twenty-one-year-old Steven A. Miner II and 18-year-old Kathryn Miner, the children of Kimberly A. Garrity, brought suit against Garrity for “bad mothering.” Both sought damages in excess of $50,000 for intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligent infliction of emotional distress, as well as punitive damages…

Plaintiffs’ complaint alleges that on November 17, 1995, when Steven was seven and Kathryn was four, Garrity and their biological father were divorced. The father was granted sole custody of Steven. The parents had joint legal custody over Kathryn, who resided at her father’s house and had visitation with her mother.

According to the complaint, ever since the divorce, Garrity has “engaged in a course of conduct which has caused both the intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress to STEVEN and KATHRYN.” The complaint alleges that this conduct is fueled, in part, by Garrity’s desire to retaliate against her ex-husband, toward whom she harbors great animosity.

The complaint provides a lengthy list of the many ways in which Garrity allegedly inflicted emotional distress upon the plaintiffs, as follows:

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If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is:

Monday the internet was aflame yet again with an apparent “whitey” tape — this time featuring not Michelle Obama, but Michele Bachmann.

The highly edited video made its rounds through email, Twitter, and Perez Hilton’s site. As you can see below, it appears to show Bachmann taking the stage at a campaign event and asking the crowd, “Who likes white people?”

However, the full version of the tape reveals a rather different story. Bachmann is clearly referencing the weather conditions outside the tent in which she appearing. “Who likes wet people?” she asks, to cheers from the crowd.

With so much good Crazy Eyes material already on the record, we don’t see the need to embellish reality. And all you do in a case like this is give her Martyr Points. Can’t we get back to salacious insinuations about the Mister?

Michele Bachmann’s Very Own ‘Whitey’ Tape Turns Out To Be A Dud [TPM]

“So the gay community said, ‘He’s comparing gay sex to incest and polygamy, how dare he do this,’ and they have gone out on a, I would argue, jihad against Rick Santorum since then.” [The Hill]

Howard Kurtz is pissed that Hurricane Irene didn’t live up to its trailer:

Someone has to say it: cable news was utterly swept away by the notion that Irene would turn out to be Armageddon. National news organizations morphed into local eyewitness-news operations, going wall to wall for days with dire warnings about what would turn out to be a Category 1 hurricane, the lowest possible ranking. “Cable news is scaring the crap out of me, and I WORK in cable news,” Bloomberg correspondent Lizzie O’Leary tweeted.

Yes, well, a violent storm forecasted to visit one in five Americans certainly isn’t something to get excited about.

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Title: “Fed Up!: Our Fight to Save America from Washington”

Author: Rick Perry

Rank: 414

Blurb: “We are fed up with being over-taxed and over-regulated. We are tired of being told how much salt to put on our food, what kind of cars we can drive, what kinds of guns we can own, what kind of prayers we are allowed to say and where we can say them, what we are allowed to do to elect political candidates, what kind of energy we can use, what doctor we can see. What kind of nation are we becoming? I fear it’s the very kind the Colonists fought against.”

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[via Know Your Meme]

First an earthquake, then a hurricane, and now — the dreaded Gambian Pouched Rat:

A photo making the rounds shows Housing Authority worker Jose Rivera minutes after he speared the humongous rodent with a pitchfork at the Marcy Houses.

It’s covered in white fur and looks well-fed. It appears to be about three feet long, including its hideously dangling tail.

And Rivera, 48, says it’s not the only one. He insists that while he was filling a rat hole last week, three came running out — but he was only able to nail one.

The photo is so violent, so disturbing, so Shocking! we insist you sign a release before continuing.

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