Getting away from the policy, for a moment, and to the politics, today has been a bad day for Republicans. First, the scandal surrounding John Ensign is blowing up, touching not only the GOP Senator from Nevada but also the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which Ensign recently chaired.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee has been subpoenaed by a federal grand jury looking into the aftermath of Sen. John Ensign’s extramarital affair with a former staffer, adding a new political problem for GOP leaders in their response to the dual criminal and ethics probes of the Nevada Republican.
The NRSC was asked to turn over documents related to Ensign’s tenure as NRSC chairman. Ensign chaired the committee during the 2007-08 cycle.
[...]
A Las Vegas TV station, KLAS, reported on Wednesday night that at least a half-dozen Nevada businesses with ties to Ensign have received document subpoenas from the grand jury in Washington, D.C.
KLAS also said that federal agents, including a prosecutor from the Justice Department’s Public Integrity unit, are looking into allegations that Ensign offered to help a Nevada credit card company block new legislation in return for a $28,000 donation to the NRSC.
South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford has agreed to pay $74,000 to settle charges that his travel and campaign spending violated state ethics laws.
The Republican governor is accused of breaking 37 laws, including improperly using pricey plane tickets for a trip to Argentina where he saw the mistress he infamously called his soul mate.
Under a consent agreement signed Thursday, Sanford doesn't admit guilt but does not contest the charges either.
It's going to be pretty hard for Republicans to prove to the American people that they learned the lessons of 2006 and 2008 when they allow the Ensigns and Sanfords to remain in their midst.
by Texas Nate, Sun Aug 30, 2009 at 04:34:08 PM EDT
This is a new video by Mark Putnam and Phil de Vellis (you might remember Phil from this video from the Presidential primary). It commemorates the sad fact that disgraced and embattled South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford still has 500 Days left in office although it is reported that the S.C. GOP is looking to impeach him before his term is done.
Democratic candidate for S.C. Governor Dwight Drake is calling on state officials to use a little known state constitutional measure that could swiftly remove Sanford from office without a lengthy impeachment trial.
Throw another way to rid ourselves of Mark Sanford into the mix.
Democratic gubanatorial candidate Dwight Drake just held a press call in which he called on the state's attorney general, treasurer, comptroller general and secretary of state to act on their own authority to remove the governor from office.
Article 4, Section 12.2 of the state constitution gives a majority of those officers the power to remove a governor from office should he be unable to perform the duties of the office. The lt. governor would assume office.
Should the governor object, the General Assembly must meet within 48 hours to decide the matter.
"It's time for bold leadership to end this nightmare and get back to creating jobs," Drake said.
The constitution does not specify what "unable" means. Drake, familiar with the provision from his work in the 1970's for Governor John West, said the language was deliberately left open to interpretation by legislators.
Asked if he believed Sanford might be mentally incapacitated, Drake said, "Whether it's spiritual, mental or whatever, this fellow is unable to do his job."
"Since July he's taken more vacations than Elizabeth Taylor at her best, and he's gone on an 'apology tour,'" Drake said. "But the number one job for a governor is jobs."
Drake said it's unlikely anyone with a major economic development prospect looking at the state would take that prospect to meet with Sanford.
There is only one explanation for the high level of vitriol and hate assailing Sarah Palin about her kids, her legs, her body, her brain, and her speech. She's a woman. But more than that, she is a Working Class Woman. Mark Sanford gets ridiculed for his behavior, Dan Quayle for his smarts, Richard Nixon for his ethics, Clinton for his zipper, but no man in the history of American politics has taken the beating on so many fronts that Sarah Palin has.
And no public figure that I can recall has been so maligned, misrepresented and just plain lied about.
Excerpted from the infamous Katie Couric interview on CBS early in the campaign this Youtube video's headline screams:
Sarah Palin Explains Why Women Should Be Forced to Bear Their Rapists Babies
No, that's not true, but you have to watch the whole video to see that:
So why has Palin been pilloried and figurateively, if not literally burned at the stake, like the witches of yesteryear?
Do you think it could be because she is only the second woman in American history to be nominated for Vice President?
Do you think it could be because she has dared to say we have a runaway political-media machine who are in cahoots and selling you a load of moosedung?
Do you think it could be because she refused to abort a special needs child?
Do you think it could be because she was a beauty queen?
Do you think it could be because she had the nation laughing with her in the debate with Joe Biden and actually on their feet at her speech to the 2008 Republican Convention?
Do you think it is because she talks like my Mom and Dad talked and like millions of other working class people who don't have health insurance, don't get paid vacations, don't own homes and don't know any better than to like their lives?
Do you think it is because her daughter Had to get married?
This list could go on, but you get the drift. And for the record I want to say that there is not a snowball's chance in hell that I would ever vote for Sarah Palin. Our positions on the issues are different. I support wolves and whales and I believe as profoundly as I believe in anything that a woman has the right to chose and control her own body.
But I am a woman and I say ENOUGH!! This misogynistic orgy must be seen for what it is. Just because you do not like her positions, doesn't give you the right to denigrate her as a female person. If you do not understand how putting a woman down for being dumb, a sleazy stewardess, a bimbo, a breeding machine, a religious kook, a slut, white trash, a scheming bitch, a controlling Mom, uneducated, unethical and quaint, to recall only a few of the words written or uttered about her--then you don't get woman hatred.
You don't like her, fine. You don't agree with her on the issues. Fine! But we not only hate Palin and all her parts, we lie about her positions. And then we refuse to correct the lies. For the record Sarah Palin has never insisted on abstinence-only sex education, did not slash funds for special-needs children and she never demanded creationism be taught in public schools.
The fact is the media has lied with impunity about her. And today's so-called feminists are a joke. There are no feminists writing in the media today. There are women who call themselves feminists in order to ridicule other women like Sarah and Hillary and encourage you to vote for those they trust: "qualified" men.
I feel angry about this latest orgy of misogyny in the media. It is demeaning to women. What if Palin did actually resign as she told us in part to stop the state being hijacked by eithics complaints against her. More than a dozen at last count have been lodged, all brought by political adversaries, and most of them patently frivolous.
No matter how frivolous, it has cost Palin more than half a million to defend herself. Alaska has a new political strategy--you ethically complain your opponent to death. And no one in the media seems to get the price in human life that these complaints are costing. Neither has anyone bothered to say that it does seem as if the complaint process in Alaska--where anyone can file an ethical complaint--- has run amuck, has become a travesty and a means of waging a political vendetta.
And very few pundits remind us that every one of these complaints appeared only after she rose to political prominence.
Who knows what Palin's plans are? She did not resign in a manner that suggests she is actually contemplating more politics and more of the same. Palin wants her life back. That's the way working class people are. Hard as it may be for middle class people to understand.
Update [2009-7-7 20:1:39 by linfar]: IMO Palin Is running for President in 2012. And like Richard Nixon before her when he told the press you won't have Tricky Dick to kick around anymore, she is following his playbook. I don't feel tooooooo had--but I ain't going home with the woman who brung me to this post. All that said--woman and class stuff still holds. :)
I have tried to stay away from the Mark Sanford story as best I could over the past week, but with the South Carolina Governor continually stepping in it, it's getting increasingly hard. Looking through the latest news, it's difficult to see how Sanford isn't done.
South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford has backed out of a promise to release personal financial records to the media proving he did not use state money for trips to see his mistress.
Charles wrote, "Governor Sanford should resign not because he is having an affair but because he misled his staff as to his whereabouts and breached his duties." I think that's about right, particularly on the last point.
When this story was just about moral turpitude, it looked like Sanford was going to be able to survive. Though such news probably foreclosed the possibility that he could run for President in 2012, it did not implicate the type of broader legal issues that had forced previous politicians to step down as a result of sex scandals.
However, once Sanford dangled out in front of the press a promise to prove that he did not misuse state funds -- only to rescind the offer -- he made this story significantly bigger. Now the scandal is about a potential abuse of office, even if also an affair. The press isn't going to let this story go until they find out whether or not Sanford properly paid for the trips to see his paramour, and apparently even the South Carolina GOP is beginning to get antsy. So I think he's just about done.
by Upstate Dem, Mon Jun 29, 2009 at 06:58:04 AM EDT
[I got tired of obsessing about health care on my little blog (http://partisandawn.wordpress.com/) and succumbed to some sort of Colridgean trance. It's more or less the same wingnut bashing I always do except I got to use cool words like "eftsoons."]
It is an ancient Governor,
Who, at the wedding feast
Of Piper Palin, grips the arm
Of a Republican high priest.
The priest quick blanches, stark with fright;
His lips go ghastly pale. "I fear thy skinny hand," quoth he. "I hate thy gruesome tale."
Whereat the ancient Governor
Replies in steely tones: "Listen you will to my tale, until
Its dread doth invade thy bones.
I was a Solon, great and good
(So should we all fain be!) -
But idly did I twin my `Self'
To John F. Kennedy.
O cursed` be that awe-full name!
I acquired his roving eye:
Whence women - whom my fancy struck -
O'er me might wail and sigh."
The priest crieth, "Stop! I'll brook no more!
Thy tale is so oft-told,
That men crouched here do quake in fear
Of aping your sins so bold."
The ancient Governor grows now stern. "The People have spoken loud.
They cherish not our Candidates:
You men of your `virtue' proud."
The priest looks down - "Carry on," saith he -
For he kens the diamond truth:
Whispers of hypocrisy
Are plague in the voting booth.
And so the ancient Governor,
Resumeth his tale of woe,
As if to cauterize the wound
His Party doth vainly show.
"Emails! Innocent and pure!
With such my doom began:
Eftsoons their subject lines did turn
To Maria's golden tan,
And to her wond'rous fleshly globes,
And to her celestial kiss,
And to her curves, and to her soul -
Thus born: my desperate bliss!
Short-lived my bliss, short-lived indeed,
My lies compounded so:
Tall tales of Appalachian Trails
Vanished in the truth's warm glow.
Humility - I've learned it hard.
Take heed, stout friends of mine:
On my gray headstone wags will scrawl -
'He shagged the Argentine!'"
* * *
The wedding feast went forth as planned;
The high priest took his place.
He nothing thought of aught he'd heard
Of a sad man's sad disgrace.
jeromearmstrong Our Polarized and Money-Driven Congress: Created Over 25 Years By Republicans (and Quickly Imitated by Democrats http://bit.ly/ewXlXI #bblue
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