Ted Stevens, author of the Bridge to Nowhere has been indicted on seven charges of feloniously accepting bribes from an oil contractor. Excuse me while I celebrate.

Ok, with that out of the way I just wanted to get into the possible ramifications of Stevens bone-headed move.

1. This is the one that makes me most happy. The man who exemplified the Senate pork-barrel politician. Who saw his whole role in the Senate as to bring pork back to his state. Makes one popular at home, but doesn't do much for the state of the nation. He has now been shot down in flames.
2. Basically guarantees that his seat will go to his Democratic challenger,Begich, unless the Republican primary process turns out some miracle dark-horse unheard of before.This also puts the Democrats one step closer to their veto-proof majority.
3. Is yet another assault on the GOP brand, which most of the dedicated GOPers had hoped had hit its low after Abramoff, Congressional Aidegate, and Craig's fondling footsy with a police officer in an airport bathroom stall.
4. One more thing the Obama camp can point to when they try to indicate the change they are getting away from.
5. One last chance for McCain to save his Maverick reputation by running against his party, martyring a man he was never that big of a fan of anyways. It's no secret Stevens and McCain stood on different sides of the use of pork, and they often came to political blows because of it.

That's the analysis so far. Keep watch for more.

-Marc-

North Carolina Senator Elizabeth Dole (R) just wrote a $10,000 check to charity.

Why?

Because $10,000 is how much money her campaign accepted from Ted Stevens' PAC. Today, Stevens was slapped with seven federal indictments on corruption-related charges.

Stevens' Northern Lights PAC has donated money to every single Republican Senator seeking re-election, including:

• Coleman for Senate 08 $10,000 (Norm Coleman, Minnesota)
• COLLINS FOR SENATOR $10,000 (Susan Collins, Maine)
• Friends of Gordon Smith $10,000 (Gordon Smith, Oregon)
• Team Sununu $10,000 (John Sununu, New Hampshire)
• McConnell Senate Committee '08 $7,500 (Mitch McConnell, Kentucky)
• Texans for Senator John Cornyn Inc $5,000 (John Cornyn, Texas)
• Wicker for Senate $5,000 (Roger Wicker, Mississippi)

In addition, John McCain 2008 Inc. received a $5,000 contribution from Stevens' PAC.

You think that, after 2006, the Republicans would have ended their culture of corruption once and for all. But--as the indictment of Ted Stevens shows--old habits are hard to break.

The question is, will the Republicans who benefited from Stevens' corruption give back his dirty money, or will they prove that the GOP is just too far gone to save? Will those 9 faces above be the new look of the Republican Culture of Corruption?

Only time will tell.

UPDATE: Oregon Senate Candidate Jeff Merkley (D) has called on Gordon Smith to return Ted Stevens' dirty money.

And it turns out that Smith's relation to Ted Stevens runs deep--not only did Smith take money from Northern Lights PAC, but Smith's PAC donated $10,000 to Ted Stevens.

There's little "apparently" about it: The National Enquirer has run stories that John Edwards had a "love child" with a woman named Rielle Hunter. The story begins:

Vice Presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards was caught visiting his mistress and secret love child at 2:40 this morning in a Los Angeles hotel by the NATIONAL ENQUIRER.

The married ex-senator from North Carolina - whose wife Elizabeth continues to battle cancer -- met with his mistress, blonde divorcée Rielle Hunter, at the Beverly Hilton on Monday night, July 21 - and the NATIONAL ENQUIRER was there! He didn't leave until early the next morning.

Rielle had driven to Los Angeles from Santa Barbara with a male friend for the rendezvous with Edwards. The former senator attended a press event Monday afternoon with L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on the topic of how to combat homelessness.

But a months-long NATIONAL ENQUIRER investigation had yielded information that Rielle and Edwards, 54, had arranged to secretly meet afterward and for the ex-senator to spend some time with both his mistress and the love child who he refuses to publicly acknowledge as his own.

And the details are pretty well confirmed by FoxNews.

John Edwards was in Los Angeles to do one of his poverty events, and the Enquirer discovered that Rielle Hunter had a room at the Beverly Hilton. Believing that John Edwards - whom their sources claimed was the father of Hunter's child in December 2007 story - would show up, an Enquirer team obtained a room and laid in wait for the former Senator.

Sure enough he showed up. And when the Enquirer reporters began to photograph him and ask him questions at 2:40 A.M., Edwards - who did not have a room at the hotel he was in at nearly 3 A.M. - ran into a bathroom and called security.

So let's just come out and acknowledge the plain fact: John Edwards is a philandering lech who had a long-time sexual affair even as his wife is possibly dying of cancer.

Okay. For many who have long-since come to believe that John Edwards was a scumbag par excellance, this isn't so much news as it is confirmation of what they already thought.

Here's where the story really gets interesting. The Los Angeles Times is caught red-handed trying to suppress the story:

LAT Gags Blogs: In a move that has apparently stirred up some internal discontent, the Los Angeles Times has banned its bloggers, including political bloggers, from mentioning the Edwards/Rielle Hunter story. Even bloggers who want to mention the story in order to make a skeptical we-don't-trust-the-Enquirer point are forbidden from doing so. Kausfiles has obtained a copy of the email Times bloggers received from editor Tony Pierce. [I've excised the recipient list and omitted Pierce's email address]:

From: "Pierce, Tony"

Date: July 24, 2008 10:54:41 AM PDT

To: [XXX]

Subject: john edwards

Hey bloggers,

There has been a little buzz surrounding John Edwards and his alleged affair. Because the only source has been the National Enquirer we have decided not to cover the rumors or salacious speculations. So I am asking you all not to blog about this topic until further notified.

If you have any questions or are ever in need of story ideas that would best fit your blog, please don't hesitate to ask

Keep rockin,

Tony

That will certainly calm paranoia about the Mainstream Media (MSM) suppressing the Edwards scandal. ...

P.S.: Is the Times' edict a) part of a double-standard that favors Democrats (and disfavors Republicans like Rep. Vito Fossella and John McCain)? Or does it b) simply reflect an outmoded Gatekeeper Model of journalism in which not informing readers of certain sensitive allegations is as important as informing them--as if readers are too simple-minded to weigh charges that are not proven, as if they aren't going to find out about such controversies anyway? I'd say it's a mixture of both (a) and (b). This was a sensational scandal the LAT and other MSM papers passionately did not want to uncover when Edwards was a formal candidate, and now that the Enquirer seems to have done the job for them it looks like they want everyone to shut up while they fail to uncover it again. ...

P.P.S.: The Times apparently failed to get word of the ban to one of its bloggers in time to prevent her from shocking readers by saying she hoped the allegations against Edwards weren't true. ... 2:55 A.M. link

Another link to the cover-up story.

There are so many reasons to know that the media is WAY, WAY, WAAAAAYYY in the tank for Democrats.

You can add that to the massive media entourage - including all three elite network anchors - that accompanied Barack Obama on his foreign trip.

You remember the "wide-stance" airport bathroom arrest of Republican Senator Larry Craig? The media were all over that story after it surfaced, and had been trying to get dirt on him for months. Though he ultimately refused to resign, the constant media attention destroyed his career, and he is not running for re-election.

You remember the media frenzy over the Repulbican Representative Mark Foley scandal in Florida? It may have been the straw-that-broke-the-camel's-back moment for Republicans in the 2006 elections. The media couldn't get enough of that one. And as much as they covered the scandal, they misrepresented it to make it sound worse than it actually was. One had to work to learn the truth that the media didn't reveal: that Foley was not molesting boys, but rather forming friendships with congressional pages, and then contacting them with sexual advances AFTER they were of legal age. He did not solicit sex with any active page.  He has never been arrested for his conduct since his resignation.

Neither of these men had anywhere NEAR the public profile of two-time Democratic candidate for president and 2004 vice-presidential candidate Edwards.  But it didn't matter to a media that was out to destroy Republicans and influence elections.  The media ignored the Edwards "love-child" story for months and months when they went after Republicans with zeal.

Now, I don't mind one bit that the media exposed guys like Craig and Foley. What they did - legal or not - was wrong, and they should have been exposed.

What bothers me is the constant double-standard of a media that represents itself as being objective while it is clearly in the tank for liberals and Democrats.

On story after story, issue after issue, the media reveals its bias. It reveals it in the stories it covers, the stories that it refuses to cover, the people it interviews or refuses to interview for a given story, and the angle or topic of a story that is covered versus other possible angles. They do it all the time, unrelentingly.

Many liberals believe as they do because they have been made stupid by a media that routinely distorts the truth and misrepresents the facts. They cannot understand reality because they are constantly presented with a lie.

As much of a story as two-time Democrat candidate for president John Edward's infidelity is, the real story is the bias of the media in refusing to fairly and objectively cover a story that would negatively effect Democrats.

If this does turn out to be legitimate then Edwards is certainly a cad of the highest order and he will not be receiving a defense from me, however at this point there is no concrete evidence of any sort and the outlets bandying the information about are dubious at best.

I would caution those who would currently engage in propagating this story with its current sourcing that they must also accept the following as fact:

Yours, Derek.

WordPress.com Political Blogger Alliance

2006 - A Wisconsin Department of Revenue contractor mailed Wisconsin tax booklets to 170,000 residents with their social security numbers printed on the address label;

2007 - The University of Wisconsin-Madison published the names, e-mail addresses, and social security numbers for two hundred faculty and staff of the UW-Madison's Division of Information Technology in an online database; and,

2008 - The Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services sent a mailing to 260,000 Medicaid participants with their social security numbers printed above their names on the address labels.

Social Security Numbers and Public Property Records

Unauthorized access to social security numbers also is an issue for the geospatial community as public property records are published over the Internet, often in combination with searchable online mapping applications. In 2006, the Public Records Industry Association (PRIA) developed model legislation and a set of best practices for the handling of social security numbers on property records.

• PRIA Privacy  & Access Workgroup
• Privacy and Public Land Records: Making Pratical Policy
• PRIA Model Legislation
• PRIA House Testimony, July 2007

Will Proposed Wisconsin Legislation "Fix" the Problem of Unwanted Disclosure of SSNs?

In Data Privacy Fix Broader Than Social Security Number,  published in Wiscconsin Technology Network (WTN) on May 3, 2008, attorney Mark Foley provides an important critique of proposed Wisconsin Assembly bill AB 771, which is intended to protect our privacy against unauthorized disclosure of our social security numbers by the government; a quick snapshot of his article follows:

 On March 5, the Wisconsin Assembly passed Bill AB 771, which prohibits any state agency from using a Social Security number as an identifier unless such use is required by state or federal laws or regulations, or is otherwise authorized by law. If enacted by the Senate and signed by the Governor, this bill will join many other laws in Wisconsin and elsewhere that limit the use of SSNs, but the issue involved is broader than SSNs alone. The passage of this bill should remind everyone of the need to apply the "Use Limitation Principle" to all information technology activities. ...  If the purpose of AB 771 is to prevent similar disclosures of SSNs in the future, it is not likely to succeed. This is because both state agencies involved are authorized or required by law to collect and use SSNs for their activities. These agencies will still have the SSNs and the data will still be at risk. The problem, and the solution, lie elsewhere.

Useful limitations

Unauthorized uses or disclosures of SSNs often result from violation of the "Use Limitation Principle." That is, to best protect privacy interests, data should be collected only for a specified limited purpose and not used for any other purposes. ... The "Use Limitation Principle" would bar the use of a SSN for anything but its original purpose. Although you might still need the SSN somewhere in your payroll database to report earnings and tax withholding to the government, you would not use the SSN as your primary employee ID and would not use it to link various subcategories of data. Rather, you would develop one or more unique employee identifiers that do not include and are not based on the SSNs. Then, if data containing your identifiers are lost or stolen, the risks of data compromise are limited to your own database, and the risks of identify theft or other misuse are much reduced. And you would not allow, much less encourage, use of a SSN as a user ID or password. ...

Source: Wisconsin Technology Network

For the full text of the article, visit: http://wistechnology.com/articles/4730/
For the full text of Wisconsin bill AB 711, visit: http://www.legis.state.wi.us/2007/data/AB-771.pdf

For more, read Politico.

Barack Obama is favored in Oregon, Hillary Clinton is favored in Kentucky, and Congressman Vito Fossella is going to resign.

As I have made clear in earlier posts (Thongs, Las Vegas, Tits, Negs, The Stalag, Britney, Josef Fritzl, Hot Cars, GGW, Juntas) d-bags loooooove kinky sex. To enjoy sex in itself is not unusual, as most of God's creatures find pleasure in copulation. As the old song goes, "birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it." Human beings, moreover, being more complex than fleas, bees, or even birds, have a more complex relationship with this most natural of acts, and that again is no cause for surprise or alarm. It is not remarkable that men and women feel love, anger, shame or even fear when engaging in sex, and that those feelings can heighten the pleasure -- the thrill -- of sex. It is also not remarkable that human beings, whose tastes are so varied in food, fashion, religious experience, etc., would have equally varied tastes in what pushes their erotic buttons. Pure empirical analysis of human culture and history make plain that there is nothing unusual (which is not to say taboo, immoral or wrong) with every conceivable kink from homosexuality to monk-like, self-flagellatory abstemiousness. Kinky sex makes the world go round.

For a d-bag kinky sex has a special significance. D-bags like to take the principle "I deserve it" to absurd lengths. They feel it releases them from the duty to act toward others as they would have others act towards them. Josef Fritzl is a paradigmatic example of this form of d-baggery. Not all d-bags have the inspiration or ability to lock their daughters in a dungeon and rape them for thirty years -- but that is not to say Fritzl was unique! The Marc Dutroux affair in Belgium demonstrates that this extreme perversion is possibly wide spread, and perhaps even institutionalized by syndicated crime organizations. Nor is this unique to the modern age. The Marquis de Sade wrote in the 1700s in his fictional novel 120 Days of Sodom about a group of four powerful men who kidnap children (including their own daughters) and imprison them in a remote mountain castle where they ritually rape and eventually murder them. The men represent the four types of power in France in the eighteenth century: one is a duke (government), one is a judge (law), one is a banker (business), and one is a bishop (religion), but their types are clear and obvious to us today. One needs only think of Mark Foley and Ted Haggard to see that power secular and spiritual is still human and corruptible, and Sade's point was that it is easier for the very powerful to commit crimes than for the poor and weak who are usually its victims.

As horrifying as these crimes are, they are not the end of the d-bag's enjoyment of kinky sex. Though it may seem contrary to common sense, d-bags take this sort of sexual perversion even farther by reveling in the hypocrisy of denouncing others as sexual perverts. The true essence of "I deserve it" cannot be appreciated unless you can self-righteously punish someone else for your own crimes. Take TV talking head Bill O'Reilley for example. O'Reilley obviously gets inordinate pleasure of the kind normally associated with sexual perversion from publicly humiliating people on his show. It is a perfectly Sadean setup that allows O'Reilley to get his jollies by publicly calling into question the sexuality of his guests. O'Reilley controls the medium: he can cut off his interlocutors whenever he feels like it, call his guests perverts and sissies, and he always has the last word. His guests are merely passive faces who must suffer through his lascivious rants and insults until he excuses them to perdition, and they have no recourse to turn the megaphone around. Though it has never been proven that O'Reilley has committed pederasty, incest or rape, his show is a symbolic rape of of the powerless and shows O'Reilley is a d-bag who thinks he is above reproach. (Remember that O'Reilley has been accused of sexual harassment, and his accuser claimed that O’Reilly subjected her to repeated instances of open and explicit talk about phone sex, vibrators, threesomes, masturbation, the loss of his virginity, and sexual fantasies. The same principle is at work when convicted drug addict Rush Limbaugh rants against drug users.) The ultimate sexual perversion for these lords of d-baggery is to publicly accuse others of crimes they feel they can commit with impunity.

Is it any wonder that our media is saturated with hysteria over pedophilia and sex crimes when those who own and operate the media are themselves perverts? In three separate news items today, the 19th of May, 2008 Americans have been told that the Supreme Court has upheld a law that would make the mere insinuation of pedophilia a crime, that a 6-year-old son of polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs did not suffer physical or sexual abuse while living with his mother at the group's Texas ranch (why is this news?), and that Amanda McNamee of Dickinson, N.D (pictured above) is watching over us (or rather, is watching over sex offenders) to protect us from perversion. The ambiguity of her stare from the New York Times web site is no accident either. As we surf through salacious stories of polygamist sects and lenient judges, drooling over secret details of a crime that O'Reilley mentions are unmentionable, we are told by her stare that "justice" sees guilty and innocent indiscriminantly, promiscuously mixed, that we are all already guilty, and that unless we join the shrill chorus of accusers, we will be a member of the accused.

In the end, d-bag philosophy asserts that there is no uninterested party. Either you are vehemently, outrageously, hysterically against the pedophiles -- or you are one.

The Republican Party is making a concerted effort to get real after Tuesday’s crushing special-election loss in Mississippi, but the challenge will be agreeing on how to move forward with a new agenda.

The GOP is in a state of upheaval after Democrat Travis Childers’s stunning 54-46 runoff win over Republican Greg Davis in a very conservative district, and it immediately stopped trying to mask that fact after Tuesday’s result was clear.

But despite the stiff dose of reality — and House GOP Leader John Boehner’s (Ohio) Tuesday suggestion that sizable changes could be on the way at the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) — little changed immediately Wednesday as Republicans moved past what they hope will be their last competitive special election before November.

...snip...

[NRCC Chairman Tom Cole (Okla.)] said the GOP’s recent special-election problems have more to do with a deficiency in the party’s message and a loss of confidence in its ability to deliver.

Ummmm, I think that people got the party's message loud and clear from these guys....

Original DVD cover.

Boehner and Cole both issued blunt and sober statements after the third Democratic takeover in two months Tuesday. Numerous GOPers, including Boehner, were characterizing the result as a “wake-up call” and casting their task as avoiding a fast-approaching rock bottom.

Republicans didn’t offer many excuses for their loss, instead saying it provides an opportunity for the party to take stock of its damaged brand and re-evaluate the difficult six months ahead.

Cole admitted late Tuesday night that “voters remain pessimistic about the direction of the country and the Republican Party in general.”

Reps. Kay Granger (R-Texas) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) launched a process intended to change that by introducing a family values agenda Wednesday, and Boehner sent a memo around last week debuting the slogan “the change you deserve.” But nothing concrete has been established as a departure from the party’s past messaging.

Oh, yeah, that family values argument is working so well for you! Ask Vito Fossella....when he sobers up and finishes changing the diaper of his illegitimate daughter.

Tuesday’s loss was particularly painful for Republicans, who blamed previous losses in Illinois and Louisiana on flawed GOP candidates. This time, they had a solid candidate with plenty of money and lots of help, including a Monday visit from Vice President Dick Cheney.

All these factors left the GOP with few excuses to roll out after an eight-point loss in a district that voted 62 percent for President Bush in 2004.

...snip...

Despite the shift in rhetoric, the GOP isn’t ready to abandon its strategy of attaching Democratic candidates to Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), whom it maintains are albatrosses in the many conservatives House districts in play this year.

The strategy didn’t appear to work in either Louisiana or Mississippi, where ads were run linking the conservative Democrats to Obama and Pelosi. Cole said it’s “still a useful tool,” but that it’s not a stand-in for an actual agenda.

(By the way, my dearest Raisinettes, if you are wondering who is pictured above, from left to right, in ANIMAL: Bob Ney, Randall "Duke" Cunningham, and Katherine Harris. From left to right in HOUSE: Rick Renzi, Mark Foley, John Doolittle, and Vito Fossella. Of course, you recognize Boo-hoo John Boner Boehner in front.)

Don't forget, kids, it's Wednesday, and that means I've got something for you over at American Street!

Do you ever get the feeling that it’s just all one big perverted game to white people: their concepts of justice, decency, integrity and honor? Take, for example, the deviant behavior of United States Senators Mark Foley and Larry Craig - influential men in positions of public representation. We might even consider the Weapons of Mass Destruction motive that led them to the attack of Iraq and the murder of its leader. A disturbing pattern unfolds before us: people with personable public personas and dark reprobate agendas and lives. Can we, then, expect anything more of the people who vote for and support them? No. Hence, Channon Gail Christian and Christopher Newsom.

“It appears that white people are consumed with the debased and immoral behavior that leads to situations like that of Mak Foley, Larry Craig and Channon Christian. Much more than a game, they are involved in a perverted subconcious contest to see who can win at playing their game of fraudulent lifestyles. Again the Lord sees how great their wickedness on the earth has become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart are only evil all the time. And as they do not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient,” quoting from the Bible said Ghetto Bragging Rights publisher Kirkland Perkins.

A TALE OF TWO CHANNONS

A GHETTO BRAGGING RIGHTS MEMBER WRITES

DADDY’S LITTLE GIRL, BY GARY CHRISTIAN

I do know that ‘chan’ as she was called by her friends and (a) friend used to meet Black men together for sex. Fact. I know that channon was online and setting shit up with one or more of them.I know the authorities discovered that she, like most white women of breeding age, wasn’t innocent of anything, she liked rough sex, she craved pain, would seek out dangerous situations, liked gang-bangs and crept around like they all do now.She wanted exactly what she got and got what she deserved. It just a shame that quality Brothers got to go down taking these demons down.

“Do you not think that if they would’ve put a gun in her hand, one of two things would’ve happened: She’d still be here to talk to us, or she’d have took one of them with her.” Gary Christian, father of Channon Christian, said in an interview with Volunteer TV Monday..Gary Christian’s statement was in reponse to what Lemaricus Davidson’s girlfriend’s testimony that Channon was forced to shoot and kill herboyfriend, Christopher Newsom.Christian says that’s ludicrous. He says Channon had been trained about guns, and knew how to use one.

SPECIAL FEATURE:

Britney Bombed Knoxville CarjackFlick’s SexScenes

We all owe a debt of gratitude to the Democratic operatives that have risked their lives to bring us this first haunting photo:

Here we can obviously see a seemingly innocent piece of playground equipment that has been twisted by the right-wing propaganda masters into some sort of sick political metaphor...

Undercover operatives for the Democratic Party have told us that Republican parents force their unwilling children up the molded plastic stairs into the GOP's "Indoctrination Machine." These children remain inside for up to 48 hours until they are fully processed. The children, once they are completely transformed into a smelly mass of waste material, will eventually tumble down the chute behind the Indoctrination Machine fully prepared to carry-on the Neocon Agenda.

Said one Republican mother after her child was expelled from the Indoctrination Machine: "Oh, he's still the little stinker he always was...." where she snickered and waddled away.

UNICEF, Save the Children and Sally Struthers have begun nationwide media campaigns to save these poor little children before they've become indoctrinated into the little GOP shit's that's expected of each and every one of them. So please: If you can give anything, please give to Sally Struther's Christian Children's Fund. Because Jesus, and only Jesus could love these little Turds.

I found it on Bartcop Nation... So it must be true!

Má companhia

O então deputado republicano pela Califórnia Randy “Duke” Cunningham foi encontrado acompanhado por prostitutas em um hotel de luxo no Havaí, segundo a rede de TV ABC. O deputado foi acusado de receber propina, já que as mulheres e o hotel eram pagos por um empreiteiro norte-americano. Ele foi preso depois de confessar culpa por corrupção. 

Caso Foley

O deputado republicano Mark Foley anunciou sua renúncia em setembro de 2006, após 12 anos no Congresso dos EUA, por causa das acusações de que enviou e-mails de conteúdo sexual para menores de idade. Foley presidia na Câmara dos Representantes um grupo que defende menores desaparecidos ou explorados. A decisão dele foi tomada após a emissora "ABC News" afirmar que o congressista tinha enviado, para menores, mensagens eletrônicas de conteúdo sexual.
Pouco tempo depois, um ex-estagiário da Câmara revelou ter mantido relações sexuais com Foley. 

D.C. Madam

O senador republicano David Ritter confessou ter sido cliente de um serviço de acompanhantes na capital dos Estados Unidos, coordenados por uma mulher conhecida como D.C. Madam. Ele pediu desculpas pelo que disse ser “um pecado muito sério do meu passado”.  

Conduta lasciva

Senador republicano pelo Estado de Idaho há três mandatos, Larry Craig anunciou sua renúncia em setembro de 2007 por causa das acusações de que teria assediado um policial à paisana no banheiro de um aeroporto dos Estados Unidos. Desde que o caso ganhou destaque na imprensa dos EUA, o senador perdeu o apoio da população e do próprio partido, onde muitos defendiam sua renúncia. O policial que prendeu o senador sob acusação de “conduta lasciva” no banheiro de um aeroporto nos EUA acusou o político republicano de mentir durante o interrogatório. O senador admitiu ter encostado no policial por baixo da divisa da cabine do banheiro, mas disse que foi um acidente. Oficialmente, Craig admitiu culpa no caso, mas ele disse que só o fez para evitar um processo, e que se arrependia.  

Monica Lewinsky

O então presidente democrata Bill Clinton chegou a passar por um processo de impeachment, no qual conseguiu manter seu mandato, depois de mentir sobre suas relações com a ex-estagiária da Casa Branca Monica Lewinsky.
O caso foi revelado em 1998, e Clinton a princípio negou ter se relacionado com Lewinsky. Com o crescimento das acusações, Clinton acabou confessando e enfrentando o julgamento, o que marcou o restante do seu mandato.
A então primeira-dama Hillary Clinton perdoou o presidente, que atualmente é um dos principais cabos eleitorais na sua campanha em busca da candidatura democrata à Presidência do país.  

Capixaba Andréia Schwartz

O governador de Nova York, Eliot Spitzer, conhecido pelo apelido de "Eliot Ness" por sua cruzada contra o crime, anunciou sua renúncia ao cargo após a revelação de que ele era cliente de uma rede de prostituição de luxo. Segundo blogs norte-americanos que investigam o fechamento do Emperors Club VIP, o bordel oferecia 50 prostitutas em Nova York, Paris, Washington, Miami e Londres. Os encontros entre as mulheres e os clientes eram todos feitos principalmente através da internet. As garotas cobravam entre US$ 1.076 e US$ 5.921 por hora (algo entre R$ 1.800 e R$ 10 mil).

O mais novo do momento é sobre o prefeito de Detroid!

Ainda não tive tempo de me informar muito bem sobre o assunto, então entre no site do

g1 e confira!

Craig, who came to fame when he was arrested in the men's room of the Minneapolis airport for soliciting sex from an undercover police officer, became a giant liability to republicans who had been shaken by the Mark Foley scandal in October 2006.

I’m trying to figure out if Spitzer beats Mark Foley, the anti-gay molester of teenage congressional pages, on the cognitive dissonance meter. I give Foley a 10, and Spitzer a 9.6. You could make an argument that at least prostitution is consensual by of-age adults, but then we’d have to get into a much more complex discussion of misogyny in our society and the complexities of human commodification, and Cassmaster’s post already did that (although the post does not address Spitzer's clear hypocrisy on the issue). I don’t know, maybe it’s just because I’ve never been even slightly tempted by the whole pay-for-sex game. Sex is either something that's happening, or is not happening. That's the nature of cyclical existence. And if it's not happening, you have two choices: masturbate or meditate. Or both. And I didn’t even need to be Attorney General to figure that one out.

Second, Barack Obama gave by far the best speech on race I’ve ever heard by someone in my lifetime.

Third, the speech wasn’t about race. It was about human perception, unity, division, family, anger, oppression, corporate media distraction tactics, and the real meaning of community. Yet according to the Mainstream Media, it was a really good speech about race. Just like Dr. King was a only a civil rights leader (do you think it’s ironic that politicians who vote for war still get to celebrate his holiday, and don’t have to answer any questions about their total failure to practice nonviolence?) Ah, the need for soundbytes and headlines. To make stories simple. I reject the idea that Americans need things put in soundbytes for us. I reject the idea that Americans are dumb or have short attention spans. I reject that Americans need narratives shortened to one sentence. Hell, we watch 3-hour-long Lord of the Rings movies, why can’t we watch a 37 minute speech? Only the advertisers need the soundbyte versions to prevail. So there’s room on screen for the ads. Ergo, a 37 minute speech that covers – with poetry and nuance – the entire psychological landscape of American identity history, is just about race. More room for the Continental Airlines banner ad on CNN.com that way.

Maybe to combat this tendency, I will also stop trying to summarize things that cannot be summarized. If anyone asks me what the novel I’m writing is about, I will say, “It’s about IT. It will take you about 7 hours to read. Do you want it?” Of course, you need to get your pitch together to get published, I know, I know. I have a good pitch, too. I'm such a goddamn hypocrite.

Fourth of all, I think I’m addicted to political blogs. At first it seems deeply communal and insightful (holler at me, netroots) but it gets pretty samsaric in a hurry. I am seriously considering another weeklong internet cleanse.

Fifth of all, it’s very hard not to get mildly depressed on Sunday night. Even if you finished all your homework already. As a Buddhist, I am depressed about Tibet, but honestly, not nearly as depressed about Tibet as I am about Darfur. Did you guys see the craptacular hack job editorial that the NY Times published against the Dalai Lama this weekend? Apparently the dude who wrote has worked on the Tibetan cause for a long time, but apparently not long enough to know that a bodhisattva is not a god. Jeez, you learn that after studying Buddhism for about four seconds.

Can’t wait to see everyone Monday Night! That always cheers me up.

When the weathers unfair

Pass the cup of despair

There’s something I’ve seen moving fast from behind

In the rear view mirror, of a bothersome mind.

A frail specter of truth from the news in the know

On the day of malaise out of sorts long ago

It was an up to the minute report from the front lines of some war.

Some war somewhere, out in the severely unfashionable parts, of the small, small world

In a pitched battle over thiefdoms, a couple of fun loving warlords had reduced a squalid, desperate little town to smoking rubble.

As I lay on the sofa gazing half awake a shaky camera on the shoulder of an obviously terrified reporter pans scenes of destruction. In the near distance You hear explosions and sporadic gunfire

For a short while the camera settles on a small pile of filthy rags mixed in amongst the rubble.

On closer inspection these rags become a small boy of perhaps but never more than ten. In his arm he cradled a smaller boy presumed his brother.

They seemed to be.............they seemed to be…… conversing.

A few words recorded before the reporter quickly moves on to safer ground

It was at this point in pointless prime time, that a smartly dressed news room reporter delivers translation with a crisp English accent.

Smaller nameless boy “are we going to die here?”

Nameless older boy “maybe we’ll get to go to the hospital”

Curse what gods you vain enlist

Wail down the high

Shake futile fist

Bring endless night

All light dismiss

No day, should dawn

On such as this

No day, should dawn

On such as this

After short commercial break the news moved on to more pressing matters.

Something I believe .....I believe….I…..I........about a dog that could growl “I love you”.

I heard no more news of the boy’s plight or the war in the days to come .

It was as I’ve said a very unfashionable part of the world, of little consequence in the greater scheme, of western things, and peaceful dreams.

Still I like so much to believe the boy’s made it somehow.............someway far away….

To whatever passes’s for a hospital in that forsaken third of the small small world.

Though I know better for worse………………

What’s the frequency Kenneth?

Can it be so?

Por Miranda Simon 

Los escándalos sexuales parecen ser un tema reincidente en la trama de Hillary Clinton – y nunca juegan a su favor. El gobernador de Nueva York, Eliot Spitzer que recientemente ha renunciado por haber tenido conexiones con una cadena de prostitución, era uno de los superdelegados a favor de Clinton, y  partidario de su campaña, aunque, como nota Slate magazine y el New York Daily News, entre otros, su ‘apoyo’

resultaba a veces más perjudicial que beneficioso.

Por otro lado, Eliot ‘la aplanadora’ Spitzer, no sólo arrasaba con todos los que podía, si no que se vanagloriaba de ser un verdadero aparato destructivo: aludiendo a la canción de James Taylor, gritó por teléfono al republicano Jim Tedisco; “Soy una pinche aplanadora, y te aplanaré a tí y a cualquier otro.”

Y parece que las aplanadas podría ser Hillary: al comienzo de las primarias, cuando los candidatos estaban tratando de ganar los estados más conservadores, Spitzer propuso una ley en la que se otorgaría a los indocumentados una licencia de conducir. Hillary, no supo que decir y fue ampliamente criticada por su falta de compromiso con una postura. Puede que, en este incidente, Spitzer haya pasado por alto la fortuna de su candidata elegida pero, esta vez, aunque renunció contra su voluntad, la falta de un superdelegado podría dañarla más concretamente.

 La noticia de que Eliot Spitzer había destinado 80,000 dólares a un servicio de prostitución para élites, fue recibida con risa y entusiasmo en Wall Street, donde el gobernador había hecho lo imposible para traer a los bandoleros bursátiles a la luz. Spitzer no carece de enemigos, sin duda, con cierto deseo de exponerlo. También debe destacarse, sin embargo el ahínco que han demostrado los medios estadounidenses por enfatizar los antagonismos de Spitzer. Pero, como demuestra el Huffington Post, Spitzer había estado usando la empresa de prostitutas ‘Emperor’s Club’

por más de seis años y hace ya mucho tiempo que se había estado monitoréando el flujo anormal de dinero en su cuenta bancaria. La pregunta surge, ¿Por qué se revela el escándalo sexual de un gobernador demócrata justamente cuando la elección por el candidato demócrata a la presidencia resulta cada vez menos predecible? ¿Por qué ha salido esta historia: por los enemigos de Spitzer o los de Hillary?

Esta historia se compara muy bien con el famoso escándalo del senador Craig de Idaho quien, tras una imagen profundamente moralista y homofóbica, escondía una tendencia que, bajo sus propios términos, se consideraría pervertida. Spitzer, por otro lado, persiguió a, por lo menos, dos cadenas de prostitución, reporta el New York Times, una de ellas, cuatro años antes de él ser acusado por estar ligado a una cadena de prostitución. Lo que conecta a Spitzer y Craig, evidentemente, es la doble cara, y muchos periódicos, uno de ellos el New York Post, no dudaron en traer a colación al senador republicano Larry Craig.

Otros periódicos, sin embargo compararon el escándalo con la infame saga Bill Clinton – Monica Lewinsky. El comediante David Letterman, en una parodia de las excusas de Spitzer, exclama en voz del gobernador: “Yo pensé que Bill Clinton ya lo había legalizado!”

Pero no es por nada que Freud y Jung usaban la asociación libre para descubrir el verdadero objeto detrás de los sueños: en la comparación hay tendencia. Además de que un cotejo de este tipo no puede si no beneficiar los intereses republicanos, es injusta; Mark Foley, Larry Craig, Karl Rove y Paul Wolfowitz son sólo unos de los nombres de republicanos en escándalos recientes. Si quiere más información, la revista electrónica Slate presenta un juego interactivo llamado "Bushies comportándose mal" donde se presiona la cara de un republicano y aparece su respectivo escándalo.

Dude. Ouch. So NY governor Eliot Spitzer got nabbed on a wiretap ordering up some tenderloin from his local meat market. For a while I figured that Republicans had a monopoly on outrageous behavior (see: Larry Craig, Mark Foley). In fact, this may be the biggest scandal on the Dems side since maybe Gary Condit chucked his intern into Rock Creek. So what's this mean for the Democrats? Probably won't matter much with regard to the presidential race; it's not like Spitzer did anything that would mark him as a 'degenerate', just a plain old run-of-the-mill asshole.

New York, on the other hand, will prove to be a different story. Spitzer's gonna have to call it quits after this; marital infidelity doesn't typically bode well for the constituents; and it sure doesn't help that, as far as first ladies go, Silda Spitzer's kinda smokin'. So now what? Mike Bloomberg for Governor? I'm betting that Spitzer's gonna have to call it quits pretty soon and hold a special election or something, after the Lt. gets his shot; there's gonna be a lot of people out for his blood after this, and finishing his current term probably just ain't gonna happen.