+5

Change in the GOP’s unfavorability ratings, according to a new CNN poll in which 59% of respondents said they have an unfavorable opinion of the Republican party, while 35% were still favorable. The numbers were more even for Democrats, with 52% of those polled saying they view the party favorably and 43% seeing it unfavorably. The response to the tea party movement was, as would be expected, the strangest, with 37% seeing it favorably, 45% unfavorably, an astounding 7% reporting that they never heard of it, and 11% withholding any opinion.

I hope NY and NJ senators tell Tom Coburn and Jim Inhofe to suck a donkey dick on disaster relief.

@rudepundit on Twitter, no doubt recalling that most Republicans, even those from the tornado-prone Midwest and prairie states, voted against providing disaster relief to the areas worst affected by super storm Sandy.

It seemed to come as a great shock when it was recently revealed that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) examines some taxpayers more closely than others. Really? Because no one has ever objected to the IRS targeting some tax returns for audit. Among them: Millionaires (in fiscal 2011, the IRS audited 12.5% of them) People [...]

10 of 20

Number of places on the Amazon “Most Well-Read Cities” list that are in the South, including number one, Alexandria, Va.; number two, Knoxville, Tenn.; number three, Miami; and number five, Orlando. The ranking is based on book, Kindle, and magazine sales, and Knoxville might not make next year’s list. It ranked high this year because of the massive quantity of copies of Fifty Shades of Gray its residents bought.

$1,139

What the average family plans to spend on their child attending a prom this year, putting the event out of reach for an increasing number of high schoolers. Custom-made dresses (to avoid possible duplication), new shoes, hair styling, professionally applied makeup, tanning sessions, limousine and tux rentals, flowers, dinner reservations, and after-parties are frequently “required” to enjoy the event.

I think the dam is about to break on Benghazi. We’re going to find a system failure before, during, and after the attacks.

We’re going to find political manipulation seven weeks before an election. We’re going to find people asleep at the switch when it comes to the State Department, including Hillary Clinton.

– Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), posting on his Facebook page in an amazing show of prescience about what the Republican-led Congressional committee would find in its “open-minded” investigations of the 2012 attack on the American embassy in Libya. Graham made sure to single out former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, since the point of the hearings is to ruin the popular Clinton’s chances for president in 2016.

Rush Limbaugh’s big fat feelings might be hurt, and he is considering leaving the distributor of his show over it. Cumulus Media, which contracts with Limbaugh, is blaming reduced company revenues on last year’s boycott of advertisers on Rush’s show. The boycott was called after Limbaugh labled a “slut” the lone female who provided testimony [...]

57.2°F

Average temperature of Atlantic coastal waters last year. The number represented the biggest one-year jump, the highest average recorded since measurements began 150 years ago, and a temperature almost three degrees warmer than the past 30 years.

Sadly, it would take generous definitions of most of the nouns and verbs in that sentence for it to be accurate.

– Tom Laskawy, writing for Grist, about proposed new regulations for the handling of poultry carcasses that would depend even more heavily on chemical washing to avoid contamination. The sentence Laskawy referred to said the new regs would, “further the agency’s transformation to focus solely on public health and help address the challenge we have to reduce foodborne illness” and comes at the same time as a Consumer Reports finding that, despite the carcasses being washed in chlorine and other toxins, all 257 samples of ground turkey tested from different supermarkets showed the presence of fecal bacteria, staph, or salmonella.