The Republicans are corrupt. We know that. We have already seen Randy ‘Duke’ Cunningham (CA-50) go to jail, Tom DeLay (TX-22) resign in disgrace to face trial, Bob Ney (OH-18) cop a plea, and Mark Foley (FL-16) exposed as a pederast. New revelations from Tom Reynold’s (NY-26) chief of staff will probably lead to the resignation of Dennis Hastert as Speaker. In fact, it’s possible he won’t even be re-elected. But, I am not happy that sexual misconduct costs people their careers, but not stuff like this from Vanity Fair.
[Sibel] Edmonds has given confidential testimony inside a secure Sensitive Compartmented Information facility on several occasions: to congressional staffers, to investigators from the O.I.G., and to the staff from the 9/11 commission. Sources familiar with this testimony say that, in addition to her allegations about the Dickersons, she reported hearing Turkish wiretap targets boast that they had a covert relationship with a very senior politician indeed—Dennis Hastert, Republican congressman from Illinois and Speaker of the House since 1999. The targets reportedly discussed giving Hastert tens of thousands of dollars in surreptitious payments in exchange for political favors and information. “The Dickersons,” says one official familiar with the case, “are only the tip of the iceberg.”
Bill Frist engages in insider trading. Rudy Guiliani employed a mob-connected incompetent as his police chief. Cheney’s chief of staff is on trial for obstruction of justice and perjury. Porter Goss filled the CIA with corrupt cronies. If sheltering a pederast is what it takes for America to turn on the GOP, so be it. But I don’t have to like it. They should have turned on them long ago. What is this obsession with sex in our country? We cannot tolerate perversion or promiscuity, but we can tolerate a war sold on lies? This is all sanctified by the School of Higher Broderism, which insists that Clinton deserved to be impeached for lying about a blow job, but clamors not for the impeachment of Dick Cheney for ‘fixing the facts around the policy’. It’s pathetic. Denny Hastert should resign, yes. But he should have been hounded out of office years ago for taking money from foreign nationals to block pro-Armenian legislation.
Not in our DC. In our DC is has to be about sex. If it isn’t about sex, it requires the most blatant evidence. And even that is usually swept under the rug.
Is that like the ‘Cone of Silence’?
A little off base but the GOP lead Congress has just set-aside 20 Million for an “Iraq Victory” Party. The GOP offically have “both oars out of the water”, “playing with half-deck”, and “don’t realize the earth spins around the sun.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061004/ap_on_go_co/congress_iraq_victory
Hastert is also under investigation for the most blatant kind of insider trading, using his knowledge of where a new highway would be built to profit mightily on a quick turnaround:
Unfortunately his Dem opponent, John Laesch, has not yet taken the gloves off all the way. Hastert should be beatable, but Laesch appears to be far behind in the money race — he’s an excellent candidate for netroots support if we want to cut another head off the GOP monster.
Interesting bio:
No fundraiser or concentrated effort in the blog to get Laesch a little money?
It is a sad truth… Steven D pointed it out earlier:
Sex sells!
And if it happens to slam the Senate and House doors shut on many corrupt republicans. So be it!
When watching an illusionist while trying to to understand his techniques, it is always best to look where he does not WANT you to look.
Now it may be the naval buildup around Iran, or it may be something else. In this sex-obsessed nation, the best diversion IS sex. But I will guarantee you…there is something else going on.
Iran, stolen monies headed to safer places, an October Surprise that will make 9/11 look like a little Erector Set accident, a Reichstag Fire to end ALL Reichstag Fires…
It’s on.
The Rats ARE going to lose come November…this Foley thing is the capper…and they literally CANNOT AFFORD to lose. Impeachment will follow, and the crimes here are big enough and plain enough so that they will go to jail.
Sr worse.
They CANNOT lose.
Backs against the wall, cornered rats.
The most dangerous kind.
If i were them, I’d risk it all.
What’ve they got to lose?
Only what remains of a sane and honorable military stands between them and a nuke hit somewhere.
And if they have done their dirty job thoroughly enough…there is not ENOUGH honest military left to stop them.
We shall see.
Soon enough.
How far away from easy strike range of Iran is that naval convoy again?
Let us pray.
Richard Perle recently said words to the effect that the only problem Donald Rumsfeld has REALLY had is that he has not been allowed to paint on a broad enough canvas.
The batshit crazies still have their mitts on IMMENSE weaponry.
We shall see…
AG
I fear you are right.
if the scandal shifts the numbers overwhelmingly, than the chances are good. But if pollsters stay in line and continue to say “too close to call”, then they will take the less expensive way out and simply steal the election like they always do.
Yesterday on c-span’s journal, Paul S. DeGregorio , R, U.S. Election Assistance Commission told every caller opposed to electronic machines with no paper trail that everything is FINE. He lied through his TEETH and had the audacity to say that paper ballots and number two pencils were problematic because it would be too much to ask people to count votes into the wee hours of the night
Every single caller — republican and democrat — disagreed.
Do NOT believe the published polls.
The Rats know that they are in trouble.
Bet on it.
Those polls are to reassure the electorate that THEY are all right.
Plus or minus a few percentage points.
That the daily dose of media pap they force-fed is indeed correct.
But the REAL polls…and believe me, they are being run…will most assuredly say something else.
Bet on it.
Just go down to the corner…ANY corner…and listen.
The Rats are toast if they do not do something spectacular.
AG
A snippet more from the statement released by Kirk Fordham
Wow. This is just wild.
Btw – someone just told me that Randi Rhodes just said GOP stands for Grand Ol’ Pedophile!
That Vanity Fair article is chilling.
9/11 changed everything? Only the GOP rhetoric it appears.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvmfYHnH_ec
my latest video to the tune American Idiot.
William Rivers Pitt | The Tipping Point
The generic term, I believe, is “crotch politics”.
if you think the Foley ‘affair’ is about sex. Sex is a perfectly healthy activity required for the continuation of the species and something everyone needs to be healthy.
I would submit to you that this is about power and perversion not sex. Your consistent misframing of this is starting to piss me off.
And whining about how ‘Americans’ only get upset about ‘sex’ is bullshit. The citizenry got upset with Clinton because he lied and he punctured their image of him a good man. There was also a real concern that he took advantage of his powerful position to seduce Lewinsky. But even when the ‘impeach him’ hysteria was at it’s most virulent a big majority of Americans still approved of him. It was the Right Wing Noise Machine which attacked him for the Lewinsky affair not the citizenry yelling about ‘sex’ as you have repeatedly mistated on this blog. Parroting ReThug memes is not very progressive.
People are upset about Foley for some of the same reasons. Power being used to corrupt but the difference is that the 10th graders Foley was trying to fuck are not considered by most people, Drudge excepted perhaps, to be capable of dealing with such advances. What Foley did is considered immoral and wrong by most Americans.
Are you saying it’s wrong for people to be pissed and upset that a powerful mature man was having sex, vicarious and otherwise, with children?
Git yer head out.
this is nothing new. From the emporor to the barber, everyone can relate to the scandal of illicit sex. Why? Because no one is immune from the thought of it at one time or another in their life. It’s a basic human instinct. No education is needed for it. It can be explained and understood in a sounbite. Not so much with a scandal that involves , say, Choctaw Indian Tribes and sweatshops in the mariannas islands or paying sleazy character “a” to rally support against an already established law in Texas while robbing blind the very Indian tribe one is promising to help. <—And even that sentence is vague without the details which can take upwards of two hours to explain in detail, as Bill Moyers did last night on PBS’s “Abramoff” documentary (which was positively riveting and most excellent)
“Rep Mark Foley seduces underage pages in text messages!”
“The House that Jack Built”
which one are you gonna click first?