THE REST OF THE STORY?

MARK FOLEY


As I'm sure most of you are already aware, Florida Congressman Mark Foley has resigned effectively immediately from Congress and will not seek reelection this November because of the controversy and probable illegal activity involving Foley sexually explicit email and instant messaging exchanges involving an underage boy. The left blogosphere has been all over this and some of the better stuff out right now can be found at Talking Points Memo and Americablog, among other fine sites.

Where the story takes a turn for the surreal is the fact that apparently GOP House leadership was aware of this going back to the beginning of this year and possibly earlier. The fact that members of the GOP knew that a member of their caucus was involved in what amounts to illegal activity and said and did absolutely nothing about it for all this time is what is really going to hurt the party. It is an extreme example of the culture of corruption within the GOP-controlled Congress. Someone in the party does something wrong? Let's just brush it under the rug. In this instance, it appears that the GOP leadership was complicit in covering up a crime. Based on my admittedly limited study of law, I've always understood that a person who helps cover up a murder is just as guilty as the person who commits the murder. Let's hope that the voters finally hold the GOP accountable for their part in this.

UPDATE: Just read this from a commentor over at Think Progress. I think it sums up the state of the GOP nicely: "I always believed that the worst thing you could do was put party before country, but party before all semblance of human decency? Bravo, Mr. Hastert. "

ARE YOU STUPID OR SOMETHING?
JOHN BOEHNER


Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Majority Leader for the United States House of Representatives, John Boehner. On a recent episode of Hardball, Boehner was asked questions about Iraq by an unusually fiesty Chris Matthews. In the interview, Boehner insisted that Saddam Hussein provided what he kept calling "indirect" support for the 9/11 terrorists (though he would never define what the hell "indirect" actually meant after being asked several times by Matthews). He also claimed that Saddam really really really did have weapons of mass destruction, we just "haven't found them yet."
It's just amazing that even after all this time and all the evidence and testimony and other sources of information that have come out over the last three years that Boehner would have the never to appear on national television and insult the American public by pushing the garbage. Underneath a growing mountain of evidence the contrary, assholes like Boehner are still screaming at the top of their lungs to pay no attention to what your eyes tell you. It's disgraceful.
Matthews also questioned why there haven't been any oversight hearings and Boehner incredulously claimed that we conduct oversight every day. What?! I'm no regular viewer of C-SPAN, but I think that I'd remember if some form of oversight hearing had been held. Of course, none have been held. Senate Minority Leader said this on the matter:

"During the Civil War, President Lincoln was faced continually with oversight hearings by his Congress. Of course, we know during World War II, there were a number of commissions. The most famous was that conducted by Senator Harry Truman of Missouri, which led to his becoming Vice President. Some say, but for that he would not have been chosen as Vice President."
What was the Truman Commission? It was to determine what was going on with World War II. Was money being wasted? Were troop levels right? Korean war hearings were also held, and the same for the Vietnam war. But for this war, none--even though this war has taken longer than it took to settle the differences in the European theater in World War II. Soon it will be the same amount of time that we were able to beat Japan."

It's this type of stuff that highlights how important it will be for the Democrats to take control of at least one chamber of Congress this November. Men like Boehner have proven that they have no business leading this country. He and his ilk are nothing but hacks and America deserves better.
Oh, Crooks and Liars has the video. It's amazing to see, I highly recommend it.

MUST BE ELECTION SEASON

MARILYN MUSGRAVE


It's as regular as clockwork this time of the year; in an effort to get their voters to the polls, conservatives bring out the tried and true "God, Guns and Gays" strategy. Well, guns don't get much traction these days, so the Repugs have been going full throttle on the God and Gays part. And this time it was Colorado Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave's turn to carry the torch. Appearing at the Family Research Council's Value Voters Summit (which is basically a gathering of hate-filled anti-gay speakers), Musgrave declared that gay marriage "is the most important issue that we face today." Since Nico over at Think Progress said it best, I'll quote him here:

Nine of the 11 annual laws that fund government agencies have not yet been passed by the current Congress. A long list of critical national security legislation remains unresolved. And yet, thanks to hard-right members of Congress like Musgrave, Congress wasted time this session debating fringe issues like gay marriage, flag burning, and repealing the estate tax.

The statement is just so wrong on its face given the plethora of problems we face as a nation today, shouldn't gay marriage be somewhere in the 40s or so even if you are a freaking psycho winger nut? I sort of wonder if it's not insulting to your audience when you say crap like this anyway. Granted, there are probably wingnuts in attendance that truly believe that given a choice between the U.S. being completely destroyed by terrorist bombings or having gay marriage throughout the nation, they'd probably pick the latter, but to the more sane wingers who simply feel that marriage should be between a man and a woman only, don't you think they hear stuff like this and feel a little insulted? Eh, probably not.

ECHO CHAMBER

J.D. HAYWORTH


Well, the righties are at it again. I've done this song and dance before - according to them, we shouldn't speak out against the government because to do so only emboldens the terrorists. Well, apparently now it is Arizona Congressman J.D. Hayworth's turn to scold us for actually exercising our Constitutional right to criticize our government. Appearing on Neil Cavuto's Fox News program, which I'm sure you're all aware is a true paragon of media fairness, he criticized those who dare to speak out for fear that it helps those we fight against. He claims that "public discussion of the war has moved from thoughtful criticism to just political gotcha." He posits that our "[e]nemies utilize blogosphere to their own advantage" and that "[t]houghtful criticism is always welcome; political posturing and cheap shots are not."
I guess my big question that I'm wondering about is who is the end-all and be-all authority on what is "thoughtful criticism"? Is it Hayworth? Is he considering drafting some sort of legislation in order to monitor the blogosphere in an effort to regulate whether some blog has crossed the line into "public posturing and cheap shots"? If there is a particularly responsible blog that only engages in "thoughtful criticism", will they receive some sort of seal of approval from the monitoring body that they can put at the top of their page?
Those who have been reading my stuff for a while know that I've already taken no less a person than Dick Cheney to task from saying insane garbage like this. Hayworth is just giving us more of the same. And I will repeat now what I said then. The GOP position on criticizing this administration and this Congress basically boils down to, in order to protect America, we can no longer be Americans. By speaking out, we supposedly embolden our enemies, so in order avoid this, we cannot speak out and question our government. Of course, from an guy who penned an imigration/terrorism/security screed entitled, "Whatever It Takes", he would probably see no problem with this.

AND THE HITS JUST
KEEP ON COMING!

JEAN SCHMIDT


I swear to you, this woman is a gift; a gift that keeps on giving. I've blogged about Jean Schmidt about a month ago. There I chronicled a story of how she may or may not have fudged on a story about her ability to run a marathon in certain amount of time. At the time, I griped about how there simply must be more important things to worry about than this pitiful story.
Well, the newest story, probably qualifies as "more important" and it's also a heckuva lot more damning. It seems Ms. Schmidt is a plagarist. The DCCC has all the gory details.

Jean Schmidt added another blatant deception to her long list of publicly-exposed lies this week when she published an op-ed about Medicare Part D in the Community Press and Recorder that is almost identical to a press release issued by Congresswoman Deborah Pryce (R-Columbus) on July 10 of this year.

What I find extra funny about this is that Schmidt cribbed off of a fellow Buckeye. She couldn't go swipe something from some Republican in Wyoming or Alabama, where the chances of reading identical op-eds shrinks drastically compared to the possibility of someone in her state reading op-eds in some Columbus and Cincinnati papers. It's like a boy turning in a paper that his brother wrote a year ago for the same teacher teaching the same class. So not only is she a liar and a cheat, but she's also an idiot. But then was that ever really in doubt?

HORRENDOUS BASTARD

REP. GEOFF DAVIS (R-KY)


Republicans love nothing better than to talk tough about supporting the troops. It's their bread and butter play; a key component in the kanard that the GOP is more suited to national security issues then Dems. But for what this Davis bastard is doing, he should be taken out back and publicly shamed.
As you may or may not be aware, being a soldier is not necessarily the highest paying job to be had in America. Sometimes money can be tight in a military household and sometimes it becomes inevitable that a little help may be needed. Enter the predators. Payday loan operations provide quick cash until a paycheck comes in, but the money is provided at a cost of sometimes 400% interest on the loan. More from Think Progress:

A Pentagon report last month found that as many one in five U.S. service members “are being preyed on by loan centers set up near military bases” that can charge interest of 400 percent or more. Increasingly, soldiers have debt levels so high they are barred from serving overseas; others suffer from “bankruptcies, divorces and ruined careers.” (More facts HERE.)

Bad stuff, right? Well, something is trying to be done to remedy this in Congress. An amendment with bipartisan support from Republican Jim Talent and Democrat Bill Nelson would place a maximum cap of 36% on these types of loans to members of the military.
Enter Geoff Davis. Seems he's got friends in high places who don't like this bill and are looking for him to neuter it for them. Continued from TP:

Davis has proposed his own language — praised by the payday lending industry — that sets no real limits on predatory lenders. One of Davis’s aides admitted last week that he consulted on the legislation with “CNG Financial of Mason, Ohio, one of his top campaign donors and owner of national payday lender Check ‘n Go.”

I gotta wonder how a piece of human waste like this guy actually sleeps at night. He's complicit in ploy to outright steal money from members of our armed forces. The Dems get called traitors because they want a plan for bringing our troops home but this sorry excuse conspires to weaken our military by attacking them in their homes and he's supporting the troops like all good Republicans do. Disgraceful.