More Support Than an 18-Hour Bra

From THINK PROGRESS:

Conservative billionaire David Koch, co-owner of the $110 billion dollar Koch Industries chemical and petroleum conglomerate, provided a “lengthy” interview to Boston Globe reporter Stephen Smith yesterday. Smith asked about Ian Murphy’s prank call to Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI). Walker, who thought he was speaking with David Koch, bragged about his union busting campaign, joked about using a baseball bat against his opponents, and confessed that he had considered planting trouble makers in the protest crowd. According to Smith, Koch was both “amused and bemused” by the prank, but said he has “no relationship with the governor and didn’t directly support him.”

And why in the world would we get that mistaken impression?

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The Hammer Comes Down on the Hammer

From Technorati:

“It’ll never stand up on appeal,” a defiant but obviously shaken Tom DeLay told reporters moments after his recent conviction for money laundering and conspiracy. […] DeLay’s crime ripped a hole in Texas democracy. It’s serious. His conviction carries a penalty of up to life in prison, though no one really expects him to do hard time. As a politician, however, he’s deader than a truck-squashed armadillo.

DeLay spent his early life as an exterminator. He entered local politics in 1978, eventually rising to become Republican House Majority Leader and earning the nickname, “The Hammer.” In 2005 he resigned in disgrace after close ties to another politics felon, Jack Abramoff, and after this set of charges was filed. He has pompously proclaimed his innocence ever since, while quietly using trick after trick in a cowardly attempt to put off the trial.

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Cereal Liars

I’m watching the Food Channel at the moment, so I thought we’d continue on with our exploration of Rethuglican cuisine.  I thought we could take a look at cereal.  After all, everyone loves cereal, just ask Mikey!

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I bet it tastes even better when topped with Chuckleberries.

Maverick? Who’s a Maverick?

From Newsweek:

Late last month, at a dusty fairground outside Tucson, John McCain stood behind the person who is, at least for the next few years, surely his most important legacy to American politics. And speaking to the adoring mob, Sarah Palin stood behind John McCain, repaying his inestimable gift to her in the most compelling possible fashion: by helping him to survive.

…snip…

Many, many years ago she’d competed in a beauty pageant, Palin declared, as women howled (and a few men growled) approvingly. McCain would surely win the talent and debate portions of any such contest, she went on, but no way would the Washington elite and “pundints” and “lame-stream media” ever crown him “Miss Congeniality”! “He’s never been a company man, he’s never been one to just ‘go with the flow,’?” she crowed. For there was at least one thing she’d learned in her years of commercial fishing in Alaska: only dead fish do that.

…snip…

Much as the crowd ate up her every word, Palin had apparently missed the real message this electoral season in Arizona: for his three decades in Congress, McCain hadn’t gone with the flow enough, at least not enough to satisfy many Arizona Republicans. Why else would his rival, former congressman J.D. Hayworth, be billing himself as “the consistent conservative”? Many of the GOP’s most faithful, the kind who vote in primaries despite 115-degree heat, tired long ago of McCain the Maverick, the man who had crossed the aisle to work with Democrats on issues like immigration reform, global warming, and restricting campaign contributions. “Maverick” is a mantle McCain no longer claims; in fact, he now denies he ever was one. “I never considered myself a maverick,” he told me. “I consider myself a person who serves the people of Arizona to the best of his abilities.” Yet here was Palin, urging her fans four times in 15 minutes to send McCain the Maverick back to Washington.

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For the Love of Pete

From TALKING POINTS MEMO:

Intrigue. Deceit. And forbidden love on a sun-kissed tropical island — with billions of dollars on the line.

No, this isn’t a Danielle Steel bodice-ripper. Or Mark Sanford’s latest confession about crossing “the ultimate line”. Instead, it’s the story of the tangled, high-stakes relationship between Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) and accused Ponzi schemer Allen Stanford.

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Brand Spankin’ Ewww!

Hey kids, sorry, but just another old American Street post. Oh well, it’s kinda fun to see what was going on a while back and remind ourselves when the present troubles in this country really started. Besides, I miss Larry Craig. This post is from May 20, 2008.

Brand Spankin’ Ewww!

Hey, kids! Did you hear that the Republicans are a bit worried about their party these days (well, except for John Boo-Hoo Boehner)? I’ll let Tom Davis (R-VA) tell you about it:

The House Republican brand is so bad right now that if it were a dog food, they’d take it off the shelf.

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More from Rep. Davis…

It’s no mystery. You have a very unhappy electorate, which is no surprise, with oil at $108 a barrel, stocks down a few thousand points, a war in Iraq with no end in sight and a president who is still very, very unpopular. He’s just killed the Republican brand.

Well, kids, you know that I am always ready to help out our friends on the other side of the aisle. If they need a new brand, I will help them look!

Something Stinks on the Links

From POLITICO:

By all public estimations, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) is a pretty good golfer.

He should be, given the $82,998 his political action committee has spent on golf outings so far this year, according to Federal Election Commission filings.

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(In the golf cart, left to right:  Joseph Bruno, Jack Abramoff, Steve Buyer, Salvatore DiMasi)

Oh, the Horror!

From THE GAGGLE at Newsweek:

The last time we saw Tom DeLay, he was a scandal-ridden leper slinking back to Texas with nothing left but that giant, threatening smile that made even people who liked him kind of hate him. He had lost it all─his post as house majority leader, his congressional seat, his standing reservation at Signatures, Jack Abramoff’s expense-account lunchery for Republicans headed for ignominy, or prison, or both. Perhaps worst of all, DeLay had lost his mojo as “The Hammer,” the one guy you didn’t dare cross on Capitol Hill and expect to survive. Until the end, he cast himself as a victim of power-hungry Democrats, even though it was Republicans who ultimately threw him overboard. He knew how it worked—after all, he’d done the same thing to Newt Gingrich. And so DeLay went, but he didn’t like it, and like a character straight out of a Sergio Leone spaghetti Western, he promised to get justice and clear his name. “I’ll be back,” DeLay vowed.

Turns out he was right. Last night Tom DeLay made his comeback, and truly, it was a low moment in our nation’s long and stormy history, by which we mean it was totally and completely awesome in every imaginable way.

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