To add to Ralph’s post, here’s an excellent wrap-up of this year’s GOP scandals from Senate 2008 Guru (I usually break-up long posts, but this is front page stuff!).

January 23, 2007: Republican radio personality Scott Eller Cortelyou of Denver arrested on suspicion of using the Internet to lure a child into a sexual relationship

January 29, 2007: Republican former Jefferson County, Colorado, Treasurer Mark Paschall indicted on two felony charges “in connection with an allegation that Paschall solicited a kickback from a bonus he awarded one of his employees”

January 31, 2007: Republican Congressman Gary Miller is named by Republicans as ranking member of oversight subcommittee of House Financial Services Committee despite the FBI’s investigation into his land deals

February 14, 2007: Major Republican fundraiser Brent Wilkes and former CIA executive director Kyle “Dusty” Foggo are indicted by a grandy jury for corrupting CIA contracts

February 16, 2007: Major Republican donor Abdul Tawala Ibn Ali Alishtari, aka Michael Mixon, is indicted in federal court on charges of providing material support to terrorists

March 5, 2007: Ethics complaint filed against Republican Senator Pete Domenici for his role in the Attorney Purge scandal

March 6, 2007: I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney found guilty of obstruction of justice and perjury

March 8, 2007: Republican former U.S. Congressman and Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich admits to extramarital affair

March 23, 2007: Former Deputy Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles, an oil and gas lobbyist who became an architect of George W. Bush’s energy policies, pleads guilty to obstructing justice by lying to a Senate committee

March 27, 2007: Criminal charges filed against Republican Pennsylvania State Senator Robert Regola in connection with the death of a teenage neighbor who was shot with the senator’s gun; he is accused of three counts of perjury, allowing possession of a firearm by a minor, recklessly endangering another person and false swearing

March 27, 2007: Ronald Reagan’s budget director, David Stockman, “indicted on charges of defrauding investors and banks of $1.6 billion while chairman of Collins & Aikman Corp., an auto parts maker that collapsed days after he quit”

March 28, 2007: Robert Vellanoweth, a Republican activist and appointee of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, is arrested on suspicion of gross vehicular manslaughter and felony driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol, after a crash that killed three adults and one child

April 18, 2007: The FBI raids the home of Republican Congressman John Doolittle, investigating his ties to Jack Abramoff

April 19, 2007: The FBI raids a business tied to the family of Republican Congressman Rick Renzi, as part of an investigation into his business dealings

April 23, 2007: The FBI questions Republican Congressman Tom Feeney about his dealings with Jack Abramoff

April 23, 2007: Federal auditors find repeat violations of federal election law from the 2004 Senate campaign of Republican Senator Mel Martinez

April 26, 2007: David Huckabee, son of Republican Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, is arrested at an Arkansas airport after a federal X-ray technician detected a loaded gun in his carry-on luggage

May 4, 2007: Bruce Weyhrauch and Pete Kott, former Alaska state Republican legislators, were arrested and accused of soliciting and accepting bribes from the corrupt VECO Corporation

May 4, 2007: Republican state Assemblyman Michael Cole is censured and stripped of his leadership position after the married father of two spent the night at a 21-year-old intern’s apartment

May 11, 2007: A field coordinator for Republican Congressman Patrick McHenry is indicted for voter fraud in North Carolina

May 12, 2007: NBC News breaks the story that the FBI is investigating Republican Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons for suspicion of accepting bribes in exchange for securing government contracts

May 15, 2007: Connecticut Republican Party Chairman Chris Healy is arrested for drunk driving (he pled no contest on June 1, but didn’t publicly disclose the event until June 11)

May 18, 2007: Republican former South Dakota State Representative Ted Klaudt is charged with eight counts of second-degree rape, two counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, one count of sexual contact with a child younger than 16, two counts of witness tampering and one count of stalking against two foster children in his care

May 21, 2007: Republican state Senate candidate Mark Tate is indicted on nine counts of perjury and two counts of election fraud by a grand jury

June 11, 2007: Republican Senator Larry Craig is arrested for lewd conduct in the men’s bathroom of an airport

June 19, 2007: South Carolina Republican state Treasurer and South Carolina Chairman of Giuliani for President Thomas Ravenel is indicted by a grand jury on cocaine distribution charges

July 2, 2007: President George W. Bush commutes the sentence of former Cheney Chief of Staff I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby following Libby’s conviction on obstruction of justice and perjury

July 3, 2007: A grand jury report declares that the sale of public land to Republican Congressman Ken Calvert and his business partners violated the law

July 11, 2007: Republican state Representative and Florida co-Chairman of McCain for President Bob Allen is arrested for soliciting a male undercover police officer, offering to pay $20 to perform oral sex

July 16, 2007: Republican Senator David Vitter holds press conference acknowledging being on the D.C. Madam’s list and past involvement with prostitutes

July 16, 2007: Story breaks that Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski was involved in a sweetheart real estate deal

July 19: Republican former state legislator Coy Privette is charged with six counts of aiding and abetting prostitution

July 24, 2007: Michael Flory, former head of the Michigan Federation of Young Republicans, pleads guilty to sexual abuse

July 26, 2007: Media report that Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski will sell back land purchased in a sweetheart deal, following close scrutiny of the shady transaction

July 29, 2007: Glenn Murphy Jr., recently-elected Chairman of the Young Republican National Federation, is accused of sexually assaulting a sleeping man

July 30, 2007: The FBI and IRS raid the home of Republican Senator Ted Stevens following investigations into Stevens’ dealings with the corrupt VECO Corporation

August 2, 2007: Bush administration senior adviser Karl Rove disregards a Congressional subpoena and refuses to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee

August 6, 2007: Investigation called for after House Republican Leader John Boehner leaked classified information regarding a secret court ruling over warrantless wiretapping

August 8, 2007: Republican Senator Larry Craig pleads guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct following his June 11 arrest

August 9, 2007: Major Republican donor Alan Fabian is charged with 23 counts of bankruptcy fraud, mail fraud, money laundering, obstruction of justice, and perjury

August 15, 2007: Republican state House candidate Angelo Cappelli is arrested for perjury and grand theft

August 22, 2007: Republican political consultant Roger Stone resigns his role with the New York state Senate Republicans after reports surfaced that he made a “threatening, obscenity-laced” phone call to the 83-year-old father of Governor Eliot Spitzer

August 27, 2007: Story breaks that Republican Senator Larry Craig was arrested and pled guilty - he had not publicly disclosed the events to that point

The Republican Party has long been fond of saying that their values are as American as apple pie, but I think they have their pies mixed up. It should be humble pie. Together the Republicans in Congress and the Bush Administration are rapidly reaching –if they haven’t already–a record number of scandals.

When I was younger the Republicans I knew used to preach that the problem with Democrats was that they always drew America into wars. The comeback to that is that the Republicans always seem to get us into scandals.

Think about the last 100 years. Of all the Republican presidents we have had only Theodore Roosevelt, Coolidge and Eisenhower had administrations largely devoid of major scandals. It prompts the question: Is there something about the Republican Party that fertilizes this sort of activity? (more…)

I watched Senator Craigs statement live this afternoon, and I must say that the very first words to pass his lips can only be described as unfortunate given the circumstances.

Senator Craig opened the event by saying “Thank you all for coming out today”. Initially I thought this may be some type of Freudian signal as to what Craig would announce. I anticipated Craig baring his soul to the world, describing how he struggled with his public persona even as he lived a secret life. Maybe he would even apologize for being so insufferably holier than thou on the issue of homosexuality, and call for others who once looked up to him to change their approach on the issue… (more…)

As you likely already know, tens of thousands of U.S.-supplied weapons have disappeared in Iraq, including 14,000 discovered MIA in the last month.

Interesting, then, this report at Cernig’s Newshog about a former senior aide to our man in Iraq, General David Petraeus being investigated for Iraq weapons corruption.

Fyi to all you lefty bloggers out there - I’ve assembled a new listing of fun and useful freebies for your lefty blog or site.  They’ll add fresh content and color to any blog.

I’ve also included a handy link to view a live demo of each freebie.

If you know of more freebies to add to the list, leave me a comment in this post or send one via the Contact link.

The more I hear that, as if without any doubt, that Hillary Clinton and Rudy “I spent more hours at ground zero after the towers went down than the rescue workers except I was really at Yankee games for twice more hours than that” Giuiliani, the more the 2008 presidential election concerns me.

Giuliani is another Bush who stands to get his pockets - and the pockets of his defense contract pals - lined by creating wars on dubious reasoning. How any Republican could be so blind as to consider him still some hero of 9-11-01 astounds me. Yet he’s currently the GOP frontrunner.

Hillary? Well, she ain’t Bill… and Bill was more to the right than many of us felt comfortable with. If the election were tomorrow, I’m not sure which candidate I would vote for (Edwards and Obama are my favorites currently, though I’m still hoping for a Gore resurgence).

Color me perplexed why these two candidates are the frontrunners so early on.

Is anyone else not just deeply concerned but massively pissed that the longer things continue to spiral out of control in Iraq, the longer we hear our troops will be on the ground there?

Now we’re hearing estimates that we will indeed still be there by the presidential election in 2008 (and very likely, still there when the winner is seated January 20th, 2009). This on the heels of the report by Time last week which quoted a senior Bushie as saying we WILL attack Iran as part of the Neocon/Far Right wet dream.

Oh dear lord!

Has the tide turned? Finally?

I’m thinking it may be so after seeing Keith Olbermann do his “Countdown” show live on NBC - not MSNBC - Sunday night. Olbermann, for those who don’t have cable or don’t watch, is about the only intelligent voice found on the so-called cable news networks. But considering how contemptuous many of his “Special Comments” are regarding our government’s many egregious failings (and he hits Dems who do wrong equally as hard as Republicans), I was surprised to see his show make the network this weekend.

We desperately need voices like Olbermann. And the more “common” his show gets in terms of who can find and see it, the better.

If you caught it on Wednesday, you were probably as nauseated as I was… and not just because Bush the former history major revised history AND called the scary death group left in place in Vietnam after our departure sound like “Camera rouge”.

Let’s forget for a moment that Bush spent the years when he SHOULD have been in Vietnam fighting alongside other men (women were largely kept to supporting roles, though often under very dangerous conditions) getting drunk, coked out of his mind (and we know his mind is a terrible thing to contemplate as it is), and dodging his cushy guard service in Texas. With it, let’s also be nice and forget that while he dodged the draft, he probably never took a single second to read anything about that war.

Now see what David Gergen, so often an apologist for Republicans, says about Bush’s nerve at lecturing the rest of his countrymen and women on the issue of Vietnam and the similarities between Vietnam and Iraq. Gergen, in his rejection of Bush’s comparison, has reason to know: he was a senior advisor to Richard M. Nixon during the Vietnam years.

And our troops are supposed to provide the guts (and for too many, to spill them) while Bush keeps basking in his glory; this recommendation comes from Wesley Clark on a book I already have on order as a must-read:

I have just finished reading a book that was so compelling and moving that I wanted to urge you to buy a copy, while helping a worthy cause. “The War I Always Wanted: The Illusion of Glory and Reality of War,” by Iraq and Afghanistan Veteran Brandon Friedman, captures the feelings of war with uncanny perception. Among the many excellent war memoirs by Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, Brandon’s stands out as the best. I couldn’t put it down.

This is very, very, very bad. It’s no longer an IF on Iran with them, but a GO.

Insane and megalomaniacal simply do not begin to describe Bush anymore.

Our military is broken, our coffers are empty, and yet the Bushies say Iran is not just in their sights, but a definite strike zone.

Support our troops in the best way possible: demand treason charges be leveled against the Bush Administration not next week, not next month. NOW.

The iconic imagery of children playing cops and robbers may be closer to coming true in adult life than one would ever have imagined, thanks in large part to the war in Iraq.

Imagine this scenario: You are in some downtown area and are startled by the sound of glass shattering. A shrieking siren immediately alerts the world that something untoward is causing a commotion near-by. You reflexively look in that direction and see a masked man who, caught in the act, grabs a nearby bystander produces a pistol and holds it to the hostages head.

A nearby police officer draws his weapon and commands the criminal to drop his pistol. The masked man refuses to do so and screams that he will kill his hostage if the police officer doesn’t disarm. The actions of the kidnapper are erratic and everyone watching is convinced that without decisive action from the officer on scene that the hostage will be killed. In response to this desperate situation… to your unbelieving ears comes the following triumphal shout from the police officer.

“Bang Bang… You’re DEAD!” (more…)

Gallup is reporting that Congress is at its lowest approval rating since they began tracking this.

After reading a few sources, it’s unclear whether there is any major difference between Congressional Dems vs. Rats here.

Figure this: not only did we learn last week that the Bushies (once again) are going to cheat the entire system by reporting (for Gen. David Petraeus) on their own ill-advised and even worse implemented surge, in complete and utter disregard for any even attempt at honest analysis.

Nope, now we learn that the general’s oral testimony will be delivered up on September 11th.

Gee, the Bushies’ wouldn’t use that hallowed 6th anniversary for political gain. Would they?

It’s happening again. And we should not allow it.

Remember in 2004, when Howard Dean was the hot new face on the Democratic presidential campaign trail and the Repugnants kept winking and saying, “Run Dean because John Kerry would be too scary a candidate for us!” So Kerry got the nod and, of course, the Karl Rove Crime & Slime Machine ate him alive, helped by rigged voting in Ohio overseen by Bushie’s black male version of Katherine Harris, Blackwell.

Now they’re doing it again. They keep saying, “Oh, run Hillary!” And Karl Rove - who should be doing the rest of his life in prison for nothing less than treason - leads the way yet again, spending more than the past week badmouthing Hillary especially.

Is their agenda to be sure Barack Obama is the Dem choice for 2008? Not sure.

But I’ll tell you one thing: the GOP is NOT the best “decider” of whom the Democrats, along with the rest of the country, need for president. Just look at the imbecile in the White House now, if you have any doubt. Oops, wait…. sorry, the imbecile is usually on vacation. Look under a rock then.