1.) Casey Anthony found not guilty — You might not have heard about Casey Anthony, because maybe you’ve been trapped in a mine or something. It turns out she didn’t do it, at least according to a jury of her peers. Associated Press: “Casey Anthony’s eyes welled with tears and her lips trembled as the verdict was read once, twice and then a third time: ‘Not guilty’ of killing her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee. Outside the courthouse, many in the crowd of 500 reacted with anger, chanting, ‘Justice for Caylee!’ One man yelled, ‘Baby killer!’ In one of the most divisive verdicts since O.J. Simpson was acquitted in 1995 of murdering his ex-wife, Anthony was cleared Tuesday of murder, manslaughter and child-abuse charges after weeks of wall-to-wall TV coverage and armchair-lawyer punditry that one of her attorneys denounced as ‘media assassination.’ Anthony, 25, was convicted only of four misdemeanor counts of lying to investigators who were looking into the child’s June 2008 disappearance.” When is she announcing the search for the real killer?
2.) Ron Paul doesn’t like the TSA — Ron Paul (who is never going to be president, but don’t let that stop you) is calling for the Transportation Security Administration to be disbanded. TheDC’s C.J. Ciaramella reports: “Speaking in his weekly address, ‘Texas Straight Talk,’ the congressman and Republican presidential candidate decried the recent TSA actions that have made headlines across the country, such as when TSA agents forced a 95-year-old woman to remove her adult diaper. ‘The press reports are horrifying,’ Paul said. ’95-year-old women humiliated, children molested, disabled people abused. Men and women subjected to unwarranted groping and touching of their most private areas, and involuntary radiation exposure… If the perpetrators were a gang of criminals, their headquarters would be raided by SWAT teams and armed federal agents,’ Paul continued.” But then, if Ron Paul had his way, there’d be no such thing as federal agents in the first place.
3.) DSK’s accuser fights for her good name, which we still don’t know — NYT: “The hotel housekeeper in the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case filed a libel suit against The New York Post on Tuesday over a series of articles it published during the Fourth of July weekend claiming that she was a prostitute. The housekeeper argues in the suit that front-page headlines such as ‘DSK Maid a Hooker,’ ‘DSK Refused to Pay Hooker Maid for Sex’ and ‘She Saw Johns While in DA Protection!’ — and the articles that went with them — were false, and that The Post knew or should have known that they were false. The suit states at various points that the articles subjected the woman to humiliation, shame, scorn, emotional injury, embarrassment, loss of standing in the community, loss of self-esteem, public disgrace, severe and extreme emotional distress and ‘ridicule throughout the world.'” Do you ever just get depressed?
4.) Mother Jones reporter finds surprising cure for PTSD — ABC News: “Mac McClelland, a civil rights reporter who has seen the impact of sexual violence around the globe, couldn’t shake the image of Sybille, a woman who said she had been raped at gunpoint and mutilated in the aftermath of Haiti’s catastrophic 2010 earthquake. While on assignment for Mother Jones last September, McClelland said she accompanied Sybille to the hospital when the woman saw her attackers and went into ‘a full paroxysm — wailing, flailing’ in terror. Something snapped in McClelland, too. She became progressively enveloped in the classic symptoms of post-traumatic stress — avoidance of feelings, flashbacks and recurrent thoughts that triggered crying spells. There were smells that made her gag. McClelland, 31, sought professional help but said she ultimately cured herself by staging her own rape, which she writes about in a haunting piece for the online magazine Good. The title: How Violent Sex Helped Ease My PTSD.’ Her sexual partner mercilessly pinned her, beat her about the head and brutally violated McClelland — at her request.” So depressed, it’s like nothing you do could ever possibly matter?
5.) Michaele Salahi still doing stuff — TheDC’s Amanda Seitz: “White House party crasher Michaele Salahi won’t need to break into her latest event. The Washington, D.C., socialite has been invited to judge the fashion show during the Victory Cup Polo Match in Greenwich, Conn., Sunday. Salahi ‘will be judging who is hot, and who is not at the prestigious Greenwich Polo Club,’ her representative said in a statement. The reality star’s latest pop hit ‘Bump It’ may be suggestive of Michaele’s judging ability. In the song, released this May, Michaele boasts her hot looks. ‘Like, I’m so hot and like, you’re so not,’ the 45-year-old starlet croons in her song.” You just feel like the whole world is a big joke, but you can’t imagine ever laughing again? Do you ever feel like that?
6.) Today’s words of wisdom from Alec Baldwin’s Twitter feed — “169,763 followers. Hey, that’s exactly the same number of neuroses I have.”
VIDEO: TheDC’s Jamie Weinstein talks to David Brooks for some reason
To receive TheDC Morning daily, click here.