Sam Alito

From the bits and pieces I've seen from the Alito hearings, I've sort of formed a personal opinion of the guy. He seems to be to have been a sheltered bookworm who was so traumatized by the hippies he encountered at Princeton he has spent the last thirty some years running away from any sort of freedom. He definitely appears to hold a grudge. What an odd man.

Tom Colburn

Another Supreme Court nominee hearing, another hysterical rant from Tom Colburn, this time bemoaning sodomy and abortion. At least he was a little more testicular than the Robert's hearings where his hissy fit left him in tears. Oh well, others will get to speak and Colburn can go back to his cross word puzzles, probably from Redbook.

Framing The Abramoff Scandal

Mark Schmitt is absolutely correct in his analysis on what the Democrats reform position should be. From TPMCafe:

Democrats and Republicans are falling over each other to introduce "lobbying reform" bills -- requiring lobbyists to disclose contacts with legislators, banning trips, etc. By the end of next week, we will have between two and four lobbying reform packages, and will enter a ridiculous debate about which bill would leave fewer loopholes.

Can I take this Sunday evening calm to plead with Democrats not to go down this road. Where's George Lakoff when we need him??? Please don't reinforce the frame that this is a "lobbying scandal" and the villain a "lobbyist" named Jack Abramoff.

That's the other side's frame. This is not a lobbying scandal. It's a betrayal-of-public-trust scandal. Lobbyists have no power, no influence, until a public servant gives them power. That's what DeLay and the K Street Project was all about. What they did was to set up a system by which lobbyists who proved their loyalty in various ways, such as taking DeLay and Ney on golf trips to Scotland, could be transformed from supplicants to full partners in government.

Exactly, it's impossible to stop every person who wants to bribe a congressperson. There are too many. But in a country with roughly 300 million people we ought to be able to find 538 of them who wouldn't take bribes.

The modern republican party built this machine fully knowing the personal rewards they would reap from it. Now that they've hung themselves with it, we sure as hell shouldn't be there to cut the rope. The republicans blaming the lobbyists is sort of like building your own sports car and then blaming the car when you get caught driving 150 mph on the highway.

The really sad thing is that this is unlike a poor college athlete that takes money to play for a certain university, these guys are all millionaires.

John Cornyn

Yesterday, Tim Russert asked John Cornyn about the $1,000 that an associate of Jack Abramoff gave him. I have to admit, my first reaction was to think was that with all the money that these assholes threw around, this schmuck only got a grand.

It reminded me of one of my favorite all time quotes by a politician. In 2002, during hearings into Enron's collapse, Fritz Hollings was asked if he had received any contributions from Enron. His response. "I sure did, but I got $3500 over 10 years, but our friend Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-TX), she got $99,000. Heck, I'm the chairman of the committee. That wasn't a contribution. That was an insult."

Do you think Cornyn feels insulted? He said he wasn't going to return the money, which is dumb because it's only a thousand dollars. That's piss money.

Double Trouble

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals today shot down Tom Delay's request to have money laundering charges against him dismissed. The court also refused to honor his request for a speedy trial.

Couldn't happen to a bigger asshole.

Zogby

I just completed my first Zogby International online poll. I had signed up for the polling four or five months ago and this was only the second time I have been queried. The first time was on a Friday and I missed the window. So, the next time you're looking at a Zogby poll and wondering what kind of assholes fill these things out, now you know. It's assholes like me.

Marcy Opts To Stay In DC

Marcy Kaptur will not enter Ohio's Gubernatorial race and will run for a 13th term in the US House. I agree with her rationale. From the Toledo Blade:

"I just think it's too great a risk for too little a reward," she said

Hard to argue with that. The republicans have run Ohio so far into the ground that sometimes I wonder why anyone would want the job.

The DomiNoe Effect

The first bunch of names have came out for investigation in the Tom Noe campaign contribution laundering case. Current Lucas County Commissioner Maggie Thurber and Toledo City Councilwoman Betty Schultz will join former Toledo Mayor Donna Owens and state Representative Sally Perz on the hot seat.

Cheney In Hospital

Dick Cheney had to go to the hospital around 3:00AM. Must be getting to old to chase down those babies he likes to feast on.

Outside Abramoff: Who Else Was Buying Congressmen

The LA Times reports today that Charles Hurwitz gave Richard Pombo and John Doolittle some major contributions in exchange for shutting down a FDIC investigation about his role in a failed savings & loan. Doolittle will probably get implicated in the Abramoff scandal as well. Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure he was tight the the Duke too, so his ass might be on tape. Jesus, it's one thing to go around with your hand out, but I think this guy took a butterfly net with him as well.

Doolittle and Pombo sabotaged the investigation by putting sensitive documents into the congressional record thereby making them public record. They inserted so many documents into the record that they had to pay $20,000 out of their congressional accounts to cover the additional printing fees. Sorry kids, no bonuses this year, we gotta bail out a billionaire.

The FDIC's take from the Times:

The FDIC was outraged over the documents' release.

Its chief spokesman, Phil Battey, said in a statement to the Sacramento Bee at the time that the publication of the materials was a "subordination … and a seamy abuse of the legislative process."

The FDIC, which was originally seeking to recover $300 million from Hurwitz had to end up settling for $200,000.

West Virginia

Over the past couple days, one of the things I've repeatedly heard in the media is that the families of the deceased miners from the SAGO mine are preparing to bury their dead "in their own way."

These people aren't some sub species of hominid, they're human beings just like you and me. Just because they work underground doesn't make them CHUDs. If they were anything but poor white people there would be a national outrage over this use of language. And this is coming from someone who makes fun of hillbillies all the time.

Mouse In The House

A recently convicted House republican played the bitch and went snitch before pleading out. Duke Cunningham wore a wire for the FBI. It's yet unclear who Duke was trying to get on tape and some republican House members are scared shitless about it. I wonder how many meetings noted prison food critic Duncan Hunter had with the Duke in his final days.

I also have to wonder how hard it is going to be for Bob Ney to get a meeting with anyone these days.

Found via Atrios

Ohio Gubernatorial Poll

Rasmussen has its first poll out for the new year in the Ohio Governor's race. Ted Strickland leads all three GOP candidates. TS / Blackwell 44-40, TS / Petro 43-38, TS / Montgomery 49-33.

Both Democratic Senate candidates trail Mike Dewhine by a similar margins.

I don't have access to Rasmussen's premium services so I don't know any internals. If someone does have them, please e-mail me them.

Abramoff Fallout: Best Line

Surprisingly, the best line so far in the Abramoff fallout comes from GOP apologist David Brooks in today's New York Times. While referring to the republicans screaming that a few Democrats took money also, (though zero Dems took money directly from Abramoff) Brooks penned this:

That's a great G.O.P. talking point: some Democrats are so sleazy, they get involved with the likes of us.

Saving Souls

Lonnie Latham loves him some cock. Who's Lonnie Latham? He's a senior pastor at the South Tulsa Baptist Church and anti-gay activist who was arrested Tuesday night for soliciting oral sex from a plain clothes policeman.

Latham claims he was set up, and I believe him due to this paragraph from KOCO television 5 in Oklahoma City:

He has also spoken out against same-sex marriage and in support of a Southern Baptist Convention directive urging its 42,000 churches to befriend gays and lesbians and try to convince them that they can become heterosexual "if they accept Jesus Christ as their savior and reject their 'sinful, destructive lifestyle."

You see, he was just befriending. Apparently, the police haven't read Latham's ten point plan to personally suck the gayness out of every cock in the greater Tulsa area. That's community out reach! Or, at least community out reach around.

Beyond Ariel Sharon

It's pretty clear now that even if Ariel Sharon doesn't die, he's through with politics. So, what's next? I'm not sure I have any idea, and I have yet to read anyone who seems to have any idea. My best guess is that the Netanhayu led Likud bloc would absorb most of the Kadima party because Sharon was Kadima and I can't see that party being anything but dead without him.

Just guessing though.

Weird Or Wired?

As has been mentioned around the blogosphere, Andrea Mitchell asked author James Risen if he had found any evidence that the NSA had wire tapped CNN corespondent Christiane Amanpour. An odd question, indeed. But even odder was when MSNBC.com pulled that portion of the transcript. I don't know if you have tried to obtain transcripts online before, but they change a lot, and sometimes you never get a final so I shrugged it off at first.

Today, however, NBC released this quixotic statement to TVNEWSER:

"Unfortunately this transcript was released prematurely. It was a topic on which we had not completed our reporting, and it was not broadcast on 'NBC Nightly News' nor on any other NBC News program. We removed that section of the transcript so that we may further continue our inquiry."

Interesting, is NBC actually investigating whether or not the NSA bugged Amanpour? This statement makes me think they have some sort of lead they're working.

Know Your Hacks

Remember Julie Myers, Bush's nominee to head Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. When she came up for confirmation George Voinovich had this to say while holding up her confirmation:

"I’m really concerned about your management experience,” Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, told her, pointing out that ICE, with 20,000 employees, was the second-largest investigative agency in the federal government.

“I think that we ought to have a meeting with (Homeland Security Secretary) Mike Chertoff … to ask him… why he thinks you’re qualified for the job.

“Because based on your resume, I don’t think you are,” Voinovich concluded.

She just got a recess appointment along with sixteen other hacks, thereby avoiding Senatorial advise and consent.

A word for republicans in Congress. You've went far beyond being Bush's bitches, you're now his cunts, for use only when he wants some tension relief.

Ariel Sharon

Ariel Sharon has suffered a stroke and according to the BBC has sustained "massive internal bleeding." Sharon was taken by ambulance from his ranch in Negev to a hospital in Jerusalem, which is about an hour long journey. The failure to use an evacuation helicopter has probably killed him.

Should Have Read The Post First

Ney isn't going to get to the primary before being indicted. WAPO reports today that the Justice Department is currently deciding which Abramoff investigation will prosecute Ney. I suppose it doesn't matter, prosecutors will have access to related materials from both investigations.