SUBWAY IMPROVEMENTS

Photo: RDinNYC

I'm glad they're constantly fixing it up. You don't want an unpainted door sticking out like a sore thumb. How would that look?

FRESH SECRET SERVICE SEX SCANDAL

From Seatlle's KIROtv.com, the Secret Service apparently whored it up a year ago in San Salvador:

This source witnessed the majority of the men drink heavily ("wasted," "heavily intoxicated") at the strip club. He says most of the Secret Service "advance-team" members also paid extra for access to the VIP section of the club where they were provided a number of sexual favors in return for their cash.

...

"No surprise to me." The owner told Halsne his club routinely takes care of high-ranking employees of the U.S. embassy in San Salvador as well as visiting FBI and DEA agents.

 The source is referred to as a subcontractor, and he's backed up by the owner. Apparently, two of the agents took two women back to the hotel, and boasted that they did that all the time.

See also:
Secret Service Whoring It Up in Colombia

SECRET SERVICE UPDATE - Updated

SECRET SERVICE UPDATE - Updated

Now it turns out there were 20 working women, they all had to show IDs at the desk (and those were taken down somehow, copied, scanned...).

11 Agents and 20 ladies of the evening? A report says that the rest went to MARINES.

So, more to come.

Update to: Secret Service Whoring It Up in Colombia

Update TWO: April 19, 2012. It seems the "stiffer" only offered the woman $30, and she called the police. Yes, it also seems that the other guys were confirmed as from the Pentagon. (Or some other witchy D.C. symbol.) CNN says they number FIVE. Now, wait. 20 women, 16 guys... still not adding up.

Deeeeeeelightful.

Meanwhile, other Secret Service agents are in Turkey, shopping for a rug big enough to sweep this all under.

Secret Service WHORING IT UP in Colombia

These agents were hard at work, and it appears, off-work. The juicy details are just coming out:

Washington Post:

Kessler said he was told that a dozen agents had been removed from the trip. He added that soliciting prostitution is considered inappropriate by the Secret Service, even though it is legal in Colombia when conducted in designated “tolerance zones.” However, Kessler added, several of the agents involved are married.

CNN:

Rep. Peter King, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, was briefed on the matter and told CNN that the government personnel brought prostitutes back to their rooms Wednesday night and "one of the women did not leave the room in the morning."

A hotel manager tried to get in the room, and eventually the woman emerged and said "they owed her money," according to King. Similarly, U.S. government sources said there was a dispute between at least one Secret Service member and a woman brought back to his hotel over a request to be paid.

So, a dozen are dragged home, and another five are on lock-down in the hotel, still! Apparently they'd be drinking a huge amount, then went scrounging for hookers, and after they all or most got them, one of them had a dispute over the fees for now not-so-secret service.

Update: Secret Service Update

Etch-a-sketch Romney the Erasable

Someone actually should turn Mitt Romney upside down and shake him. A lot.

It might cause his brain to snap into place in some way that his foot does not reflexively stick itself into his mouth.

I don't know the neurology here. But there are stories of people being struck by lightning and suddenly knowing Swahili. Perhaps some sort of jolt might cause Mitt to speak Commoner.

There's an undertone throughout most media coverage that seems to repeat the mantra:

Poor Little Rich Guy Mitt. He just can't HELP it. He's been so coddled for s-o-o-o-o long. Can't you just feel for him? Imagine the burden of having to talk to real, actual, smelly people - after years of having everyone massage your ego on an hourly basis? POOR MITT!!!

No one I can think of begged him to run, but I'm certainly enjoying it.

Related: Romney: Russia, Our Biggest Foe

New CFPB Chief Out of the Gate

Finally, a recess appointment when we need one most. ABC News reports on Cordray's agenda-defining speech:

“Consumers deserve to have someone who will stand on their side, who will protect them against fraud, and who will ensure that they are treated fairly in the financial marketplace,” he said. “The new consumer bureau was created to make sure these things are achieved for all Americans.”

 Let's have some more recess appointments. I think they're spelled out in the U.S. Constitution, and I don't think all of Congress is in session when one chamber (the Senate) has adjourned and left the building.

Iceland's 'Open-source Constitution' Handed In

Islandia map by Abraham Ortelius ca 1590

A committee of 25 put its proposals on-line. They the People responded with comments and suggestions.

The committee waded through the suggestions, responded, and then put forth the results of this unique diaolgue. They've now handed in the final draft to Iceland's parliament, called the Althingi - a name I can't even read without chuckling.

Iceland’s constitution was barely adapted from Denmark’s when the island nation gained independence from the Scandinavian kingdom in 1944.

"Since then, a holistic re-examination of the constitution has always been on the agenda, but always halted because of political infighting in the parliament," committee member Eirikur Bergmann, a political science professor at Iceland’s Bifroest Unioversity who also tweeted his way through the committee’s work, told AFP.

But after Iceland’s economic collapse in 2008, which triggered massive social movements, pressure mounted for a revamp of the constitution and for the process to be led by ordinary citizens, he said.

Now, a few months back, could Congress have taken the same approach to this manufactured debt crisis? Could it do this with other needed programs? Yes. It should be happening now to answer the many real crises we face.

The fact that they're still playing ping pong with the economy lets you know that they don't want anything approaching functionality in legislating. That would not allow for all the behind-the-curtains dirty dealing.

Go Iceland!

Greenspan Emerges From Crypt to Utter a Curse Upon Us All

He's decided that the Greeks will default, after which everything else tanks. Even if such a scenario plays out, he knows full well that people take what he says as truth, and act accordingly. Can't he stop himself?

Then in the next interview he'll champion the virtues of no regulations on anything.

Can this man be shipped to St. Helena at long last?

Computer error releases 450 violent offenders in California?

Computer error?

Reading down, it doesn't look like the "computer" had the full information on them to begin with. Tinfoil hats will assume this is a big hit-back against the Supreme Court ruling. Not ready to go there, but it makes you wonder what could be going on... ahem.