Newt Gingrich is ready to be President.  Now that we’re looking at the prospect of  a  government shutdown,   Gingrich gets to reminisce about the last time he was popular, which was right before the last government shutdown. He’s convinced himself that he maybe can beat Huckabee and Palin and all of the other Fox News Commentators in a primary run.  After this, his tea party will Dress Up as Indians and throw that bad man off of the White House like a big bag of black tea.  Or, that’s how I imagine it playing out.  Anyway, the dude became the first major contender to start an exploratory committee, which is just an early way of saying election committee.

Newt recently said that: “2010 was the appetizer”  and added that “2012 is the entrée”  which means that his presidency will be the delicious truffle at the end of the smörgåsbord of a year that is a Presidential election.  This is just like how his affair with a congressional aide was an entrée after the appetizers and salad that were his first and second wives, and the palate-cleansing sorbet that was his second wife’s cancer.   Of course, Newt might not remember that past meal as well, since he was too busy watching the neighboring table, where Bill Clinton was trying to clean up the stains left after his own kosher feast with Monica Lewinski, or something.

“Sen. Harry Reid on Tuesday called for ‘an adult conversation’ about prostitution in Nevada, saying it is an impediment to economic development because it discourages businesses from moving here. ‘Nevada needs to be known as the first place for innovation and investment — not as the last place where prostitution is still legal,’ he said.” [Las Vegas Sun, via Political Wire]

“Senate Democrats and Republicans have struck a deal to secure passage of a bill to provide health benefits and compensation to 9/11 first responders, Sen. Tom Coburn, R-OK, said today in an exclusive interview with ABC News.”

But justice at last: AUSTIN – A Texas jury Wednesday found Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader and Texas political powerhouse, guilty in a money-laundering trial involving contributions to political campaigns…. Mr. DeLay faces up to life in prison on the money laundering charge. [NYT]

Aung San Suu Kyi was released from house arrest today by the military generals who have brutalized and destroyed Burma.  Her latest round of arrest and isolation was for seven years, and she has been either imprisoned or on house arrest for 16 of the last 21 years.

Thousands of supporters braved police in riot gear and carrying shotguns to joyfully greet the pro-democracy leader known universally as “The Lady” outside her house. Video after the jump.

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Wells Fargo Executives Laugh at Customer/Victim and Whose Been Completely Bankrupted by Engineered Overdraft Fees and Consider Ripping Out His Kidneys and Selling Them to A Kennel When They Can't Get a Broker to Answer the Phone And Sell Them to a Transplant Candidate.

Larcenous scumball financial services racketeer Wells Fargo Bank has been ordered to pay $203 million back to its customers who were victims of an overdraft scheme in which the banketeer engineered its debit clearance protocol specifically to inflict the maximal number of fees possible, turning the bank’s clearance system into a monstrous software mugger programmed to stalk and rob its retail customers.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup of the Northern District of California wrote that he is ordering restitution because Wells Fargo devised “a trap that would escalate a single overdraft into as many as 10 through the gimmick of processing in descending order. It then exploited that trap with a vengeance, racking up hundreds of millions off the backs of the working poor, students and others without the luxury of ample account balances.”

Judge orders Wells Fargo to pay back $203M in fees [Associated Press]

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Yesterday at the gym I read the latest David Sedaris piece in The New Yorker, all about flying in America. My favorite line, which the fashionistas can appreciate, was in regard to how most people dress for flying, and along the lines of: “It’s as if they were all cleaning grease off a pig, stood up and said, ‘Fuck it, I’m going to LA.'”  Sedaris writes about how flight attendants have told him how they get back at disruly and annoying passengers by walking down the center aisle letting out silent but deadly farts.

That’s just child’s play. Steven Slater, a flight attendant with Jet Blue pictured in the above photo, has taken bitchy queen snappiness to a whole new level.

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