Senate GOPers block vote on campaign finance reform

First, a win for corporate interests in the Supreme Court with the Citizens United decision. Now, a follow-up victory in the U.S. Senate.

The Senate Republicans, voting as a bloc, just sustained their filibuster of campaign finance reform. The vote was 57 - 41. All the Democrats present, even Ben Nelson, voted to end the filibuster. (Reid voted no for procedural reasons.) Remember when John McCain used to be an advocate for campaign finance reform, before he flipped on that issue like every other? What a fraud. And, Maine has a Clean Elections law, which passed as a citizen initiative back in 1996. So, this should have been an easy vote for Snowe and Collins, but they must show fealty to Mitch McConnell and the GOP funders, not Mainers.

During the floor debate, Chuck Schumer, who is the sponsor of the DISCLOSE Act, said:

This is a sad day for our democracy. Not only does the Supreme Court give those special interests a huge advantage, but this body says they should do it all in secret without any disclosure. That, my colleagues, transcends this election, transcends Democrat or Republican. It eats at the very fabric of our democracy. It makes our people feel powerless and angry.

It is another sad day for our democracy. And, while Schumer thinks this might transcend Democrat or Republican, the GOPers sure benefit from it. Read More......

John Ensign's 'self-immolation' abetted by Tom Coburn

Jon Ralston is THE political pundit for Nevada. He's become a must-read for developments in the Reid-Angle race. But, he's also got the Ensign scandal in his sights. The first line of yesterday's column kinda gives it away:

John Ensign is dead, one in an occasional series:

Just in case anyone thought the most stunning public crime occurring in Nevada these days was GOP Senate nominee Sharron Angle’s slow-motion suicide since June 8, Politico reminded us last week that Nevada’s junior senator’s self-immolation is even longer and more painful to watch. (http://tinyurl.com/23u2oba)

The Washington publication reported Friday that Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn has turned over e-mails to the Justice Department and has agreed to be interviewed by the feds or the Senate ethics panel probing Ensign’s conduct that sprung from an affair he had with a former staffer, Cynthia Hampton, who was married to the senator’s best friend (who also worked for him).

Coburn was involved in some kind of intervention at the infamous “C Street” House of Ill Repute in February 2008 with Ensign and Doug Hampton, who subsequently asserted on “Face to Face” in July 2009 that Coburn tried to negotiate a deal for “restitution” from Nevada’s junior senator.

That John Ensign is still a United States Senator is just wrong. And, it's just great to know that Tom Coburn's involvement, via the C Street House, is now helping with Ensign's destruction. Read More......

More on MSNBC's hypocrisy and that Scarborough 'scandal'

As John noted today, MSNBC has banned Markos for being mean to Joe Scarborough. Good lord, those conservatives are thin-skinned and they're coddled.

Since MSNBC and Scarborough escalated this thing, we'll help pile on. First, Greg Sargent notes that Liz Cheney has run ads attacking MSNBC talent, but there have been no repercussions:

It's funny. I don't recall the chief of MSNBC publicly banning Liz Cheney from appearing on the network when she cut an entire Web video "publicly antagonizing" Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews for allegedly being too frightened to debate her about terrorism.

Nope.

And, Digby has more background on the scandal that Joe Scarborough didn't want anyone to talk about. It was the summer of 2001 when the traditional media was in a frenzy over the Chandra Levy-Gary Condit story. And, a frenzy it was. Condit lived up the street from me and the t.v. trucks were parked in front of his building 24/7. But, another intern died that summer and it barely made the news. The young woman died in the office of Rep. Joe Scarborough:

Meanwhile, that same summer, star up-and-coming Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough, recently divorced under charges of infidelity, had unexpectedly decided to resign from office six months after being re-elected. Shortly thereafter an intern on his Florida staff was found dead -- in the office -- under mysterious circumstances with allegations of cover-ups by the local authorities and the quack medical examiner. And nobody in DC even raised an eyebrow. The story went largely unremarked upon and he soon found himself a lucrative perch as a highly paid celebrity gasbag.

Now I have to assume that Scarborough is either brain damaged or must want people to look at that story again because otherwise he would have let some innocuous, snarky tweet pass by. Now we all have no choice but to rehash the whole thing in order to explain why Markos has been banned from the network.

I'm guessing he's running for office again. After all, in today's GOP if you aren't picking up men in bathrooms, harassing pages by the dozen or hiking the Appalachian trail, you just aren't worth the teabag you're steeping in.

I'm not sure this is the kind of attention MSNBC and Joe Scarborough were expecting to garner after Scarborough had his hissy fit. But, again, they're the ones who decided to turn a couple of tweets into a major battle.

And, you know, tomorrow morning -- and every morning, Scarborough and his fellow pundits can commiserate about how mean everyone is to him. Read More......

Pay-for-Play, the (Right-Wing) Non-Profit Way

In Washington lines are never clear. As we all know, the town constantly moves in the gray.

And that continues to be the case with the ongoing controversy over the Joint Strike Fighter jet engine - a battle that has taken on epic proportions for years.

As ABC News reports in its story A $3 Billion Government Boondoggle?

At issue is the engine for the aircraft known as the Joint Strike Fighter, an all-purpose military jet that is expected to become the backbone of American air supremacy for a generation. The fighter already has an engine – built by Pratt & Whitney and in use as the jet is being tested. Some members of Congress want to pay General Electric and Rolls-Royce to develop a second one….The money involved is not insubstantial. By some estimates, Congress has paid $3 billion to GE and Rolls-Royce since first setting aside money for a second engine in the mid-1990s, and it will take close to $3 billion more to have the engines tested, proven and in full production.

Congressional members are fighting tooth and nail on both sides, depending on their state’s economic dependency on the project, but there is also strong disagreement between non-profit organizations, Defense Secretary Gates and the Government Accountability Office (GAO), about which direction to take.

While Secretary Gates believes it is a colossal waste of money to continue down the current path spending billions more, the GAO -- which exists as a congressional watchdog to investigate how the federal government spends taxpayer dollars -- at a congressional hearing a year ago, testified that according to its analysis, “we remain confident that competitive pressures could yield enough savings to offset the costs of competition over the JSF program’s life.”

And that brings us to the non-profit organizations. Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW), a “good government” organization generally considered on the conservative end of the spectrum, is supposedly fighting for taxpayers like you and me. But, it has been working overtime against the second engine with all its might and resources.

If you live in DC, you may remember CAGW ads plastered in every metro car you could find denigrating the possible GE project as wasteful.

Turns out, as Melanie Sloan of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington helpfully points out, CAGW had an incentive to get the word out.

The conservative blog RedState.com has revealed that CAGW, which was apparently the source of information for ABC’s piece – secretly has been paid by Pratt & Whitney for its efforts. This certainly calls both CAGW’s credibility and the reliability of the ABC story into question.

Harper’s Ken Silverstein and former Congressman Bob Barr have both reported on another organization’s pay-for-play on the issue, this time it’s the Lexington Institute.

Barr explains the non-profit’s role in the debate in the Politico this week.

…The Lexington Institute’s chief operating officer, Loren Thompson, cites as proof that his company’s advocacy supporting certain weapons systems (in this case, Pratt & Whitney’s single-engine proposal) is fair and honest the fact that it “received money from donors on both sides of the issue…”

The Project on Government Oversight reported this in a July 2009 article. Specifically, as reported in 2006, Thompson expressed concerns about Pratt & Whitney’s “monopoly” position as the developer of the only engine to be used in the multibillion-dollar F-35 program.

But now, Lexington vocally opposes Congress’s awarding funding for the development of a competing engine for the multirole fighter to Rolls-Royce and General Electric.

Thompson (incredulously) told Silverstein, "I'm not going to work on a project unless somebody, somewhere, is willing to pay. This is a business." Wow, so much for an independent voice.

The Lexington Institute’s mission, according to its website, reads “We believe a dynamic private sector is the greatest engine for social progress and economic prosperity.”

Well, you most certainly do, especially if that economic prosperity is your own. Read More......

Jindal declares day of prayer over spill, but hasn't called up the Natl Guard

Hmmm. Seems to be one of these could have tangible results and one might not.

First, the Day Prayer:

On Thursday, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) issued an order designating June 27 a "Statewide Day of Prayer" for perseverance through the BP oil spill that continues to devastate the country's Gulf Coast region.

That's one "solution" proferred by the Governor of Louisiana. He's also been screaming that the federal government hasn't been doing enough. But, Jindal has one major resource at this disposal -- the National Guard -- and as John noted below, he's not using it. More from CBS News:

Gov. Bobby Jindal's message has been loud and clear, using language such as "We will only be winning this war when we're actually deploying every resource," "They (the federal government) can provide more resources" and "It's clear the resources needed to protect our coast are still not here."

But nearly two months after the governor requested - and the Department of Defense approved the use of 6,000 Louisiana National Guard troops - only a fraction - 1,053 - have actually been deployed by Jindal to fight the spill.

"If you ask any Louisianan, if you said 'If you had those troops, do you think they could be put to good use? Is there anything they can do in your parish?' I think they'd all tell you 'Absolutely,'" Louisiana state Sen. Karen Carter Peterson, D-New Orleans, said.

By all the bitching Jindal's been doing -- and the fact that he's got time to declare days of prayer, one would think that he's done everything he could. Not true at all.

And, now about this:

It's believed officials in Alabama, Florida and Mississippi and are reluctant to use more troops because their presence could hurt tourism. In hardest-hit Louisiana, however, Jindal is pointing fingers.

Stunning. Commander Allen pointed out that Jindal's finger pointing is "just flat wrong." Read More......

Paul Ryan mourns. When it's politically convenient.

Thought for the day:

Paul Ryan, the lead Republican on the House budget committee, couldn't attend the President's debt commission meeting today due to a death in the family. But it hasn't stopped him from twittering budget policy barbs for the last hour.

Read More......

Former Sanford staffer/blogger had affair with GOP governor candidate in SC

A rather juicy story. Outgoing governor had an affair, wife divorces him. Former wife now supports new GOP gubernatorial candidate, who we now know also had an affair - with a staffer of the adulterous governor - and who distanced herself from the governor because of HIS affair. Oh, and it even involves Sarah Palin too!

Haley, who is married and has two children, has yet to comment on Folks' announcement. About an hour after Folks announced the affair, Rep. Haley canceled an interview with WIS News 10 that had been previously scheduled for Monday morning and had been confirmed by the campaign before the FITSNews page went live.

Haley recently rocketed to the front of the polls in the Republican race for governor after being publicly endorsed by Republican icon Sarah Palin and former first lady Jenny Sanford. Ms. Sanford, who divorced her husband after the governor announced an extramarital affair of his own, has not commented on the news of Haley's alleged affair.

Haley was once a close political ally of Governor Sanford, but somewhat distanced herself from him after Sanford's affair came to light, saying the governor had "fallen short" in his behavior.

Here's the blogger's admission of the affair. Read More......

'Family Values' GOP Rep. Souder did abstinence video with his mistress

And the question on everybody's mind after watching this video: WHAT was she THINKING? Read More......

'Family Values' GOP Rep. Mark Souder to resign over affair with staffer

I don't link to FOX News very often, but sometimes it's worth it:

Eight-term Rep. Mark Souder will announce his resignation Tuesday after it came to light that he was conducting an affair with a female aide who worked in his district office, Fox News has learned.

Multiple senior House sources indicated that the extent of the affair with the 45-year-old staffer would have landed Souder before the House Ethics Committee.

Elected as a family values conservative as part of the Republican revolution in 1994, Souder survived a tough re-election challenge in 2008 and survived a contested primary two weeks ago.

Souder, as you can imagine, has long been an outspoken critic of same-sex marriage. This year, he signed an amicus brief in a case against D.C.'s new marriage law. Read More......

Boehner now taking partial credit for health care reform

Steve Benen:

INSKEEP: As you know, Democrats are already pointing to things that are changing in America because of this bill. They will point to the fact that college seniors, who would have been kicked off their families' insurance plans when they graduated, will get to stay on. Insurance companies are now saying they're going to end the practice of "rescission," where they take, or at least modify...

BOEHNER: Both of those ideas, by the way, came from Republicans, and are part of the common sense ideas that we ought to have in the law.

INSKEEP: Well, are you going to repeal those two specific things?

BOEHNER Uh, what I want to repeal are the other 158 mandates, commissions, boards that set up all the infrastructure for the government to take control of our health care system. [emphasis added]

Read More......

Senator John Ensign: 'narcissistic and reckless — a detached, self-righteous figure'

John Ensign is still a United States Senator. He's still a reliable vote for obstruction in the GOP Caucus. In DC, he's one of the elite. Back home in Nevada, he's getting pummeled in the press. Yesterday, we had Jon Ralston's column about a potential indictment. Today, we've got this brutal, just brutal, article from the Las Vegas Sun:

In interviews with the Las Vegas Sun, more than a dozen friends, associates and Republican allies, some of whom have known Ensign for years, describe him as a politician who has grown narcissistic and reckless — a detached, self-righteous figure with almost no regard for those who helped send him to Washington or keep him there.

Ensign’s actions in the wake of the affair, and the resulting investigations by the Justice Department and the Senate Ethics Committee have bled into the lives of his once-closest aides, associates and friends, as well as largely innocent bystanders and his family.

The sources, most of whom spoke to the Sun on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigations, said what rankles so many in Republican circles is that Ensign seems oblivious to the collateral damage caused by his actions, and unwilling to make the matter disappear by resigning.

Capitol Hill is filled with narcissists. But, Ensign really has taken it to a new plane. He's probably on the verge of an indictment, yet keeps plugging along, seemingly unfazed. We'll never hear a peep from any of his GOP Senate colleagues. Members on the Hill protect each other (although the GOPers did try to throw Larry Craig under the bus, but his scandal was gay-themed.)

One of the best lines from the article:

Ensign was active in Promise Keepers and openly evangelical, gushing with pious intonations.

And, still a Senator. Read More......

Wash Post recaps the lesbian bondage voyeur club saga of GOP chair Michael Steele

He's a saucy guy, that Steele.

Although it is not unusual for either party to spend money in tony settings to cater to wealthy donors, the RNC's latest filings captured widespread attention for one expenditure at a risque nightclub: $1,946.25 for "meals" at Voyeur in West Hollywood, which features topless dancers wearing horse bridles and other bondage gear while mimicking sex acts.

Liz Newcomb posted some Yelp! reviews of Voyeur at AMERICAblog Gay. Read More......

Air Steele: GOP chair Michael Steele wanted a private jet for the RNC

Hey, if the GOP's benefactors all have private jets, why shouldn't the GOP have one of its own? According to Jonathan Strong at the Daily Caller, that idea was actually under consideration at the Republican National Committee:

According to two knowledgeable sources, Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele once raised the possibility of using party money to buy a private jet for his travel.

“I know that … regular ongoing use of planes was something that was looked at,” says one person with direct knowledge. “I can’t speak to how serious those inquiries were.” Both sources say Steele considered purchasing a plane outright, or buying fractional ownership in one, through a company such as NetJets.

Steele’s spokesman, Doug Heye, did not deny that such discussions took place, responding that the RNC never had a “plan” to buy a plane. “I don’t know what somebody might have discussed or might not have discussed.”

While Steele has not purchased a plane, he continues to charter them. According to federal disclosure records, the RNC spent $17,514 on private aircraft in the month of February alone (as well as $12,691 on limousines during the same period). There are no readily identifiable private plane expenses for Democratic National Committee chairman Tim Kaine in the DNC’s last three months of filings.

And, there's this little tidbit about Steele's travels:

Once on the ground, FEC filings suggest, Steele travels in style. A February RNC trip to California, for example, included a $9,099 stop at the Beverly Hills Hotel, $6,596 dropped at the nearby Four Seasons, and $1,620.71 spent [update: the amount is actually $1,946.25] at Voyeur West Hollywood, a bondage-themed nightclub featuring topless women dancers imitating lesbian sex.

Voyeur West Hollywood? Read More......

John Ensign is still the Republican Senator from Nevada

Amazingly, John Ensign is still in the Senate. But, the leading political columnist in Nevada, Jon Ralston, says it's time for him to go:

But the nagging, all-too-serious question is this: Is Ensign so self-absorbed and delusional that he is willing to bring down folks of varying innocence with him — either people loyal to him now having to hire attorneys to defend themselves because of the senator’s scandal or those whose tangential roles in his life have them under federal scrutiny.

Politicians are notoriously solipsistic, but Ensign’s behavior since his confess-and-run news conference June 16 has set a new nadir. It’s one thing to be exposed as a spectacular hypocrite, a moral crusader with feet of clay, and yet try to hang onto your Club of 100 membership as if it were more important than anything. But it’s quite different to become the focus of criminal and ethics probes and continue to clutch onto the senatorial ring despite the carnage — real, quantifiable human carnage — you are leaving in your wake.

I don't think Ensign is going anywhere. He thinks he can ride this out, just like David Vitter did. And, his GOP colleagues will never turn on him. They only turned on Larry Craig because of the gay angle.

I'm not complaining that Ensign is still in the Senate. If the GOPers want to keep him there, so be it. We'll just point out every day that Ensign symbolizes the corruption and hypocrisy of Mitch McConnell's caucus. Read More......

GOP attacks Dem candidate Carnahan support for stimulus, claims it didn't benefit Missouri 2 weeks after GOP Rep. Blunt touted $1m MO stimulus project

Democratic Senate candidate Robin Carnahan is apparently a vewy vewy bad person.

You see, she supports the stimulus, which CBO says has created up to 2.1m jobs. And even worse, her brother Tom apparently tried to bring some of that money to Missouri by following the legal process to apply for stimulus monies.

Well, the Republicans won't have any of that - Missourians trying to bring their tax dollars back to Missouri. So the Republican party attack dog operation targeted Carnahan's support today, claiming, among other things, that the stimulus didn't benefit Missouri. Well, that will come as a surprise to Robin's opponent, GOP Rep. Roy Blunt, who only two weeks ago visited a million dollar stimulus project in... Missouri!

Blunt, a southwest Missouri congressman, voted against the stimulus legislation last year but has been criticized as hypocritical by Democrats for publicly supporting local projects that received federal stimulus money.

On Wednesday, Blunt toured several Springfield-area projects funded through the Brownfield redevelopment program for contaminated sites. The Environmental Protection Agency has awarded about $1.1 million in stimulus grants for Springfield-area Brownfield projects.

Last July, Blunt attended a groundbreaking ceremony for a new visitors' center at a Neosho fish hatchery run by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The facility received $1 million in stimulus funds to make it energy-efficient, including $100,000 for a solar water-heating system for pallid sturgeon.

With that in mind, check out the GOP now claiming that the stimulus didn't help Missouri:

National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) Press Secretary Amber Marchand issued the following statement in response to these developments:

"It looks like the stimulus that Robin Carnahan supported may benefit her brother Tom, but it will not necessarily benefit the people of Missouri.

We already know that's a lie. But just for fun, here's even more money (and jobs) that the stimulus brought to Missouri:

In Plattsburg, Mo., a $1 million stimulus grant is paired with a $4.3 million low-interest loan to help build a water treatment plant. “Those two things you can’t be upset about,” said City Manager D.J. Gehrt.

In St. Joseph, the stimulus program directed more than $31 million to recipients like the school district, Missouri Western State University, the Department of Transportation and Community Action Partnership.

Gerald McCush, community development manager for the city of St. Joseph, oversees about $4 million aimed at increasing jobs through Downtown renovation and stabilizing housing situations for struggling residents.

And just today, we found out that because of the stimulus Missouri is getting some of those nifty new, and very expensive, full body scanners for its airport. I'd call stopping terrorists a benefit for Missouri. I guess the Republicans don't.

But just as important, Robin Carnahan didn't vote on the stimulus, she couldn't - she's not yet a member of Congress. But someone who is a member of Congress, and who did use his vote to help enrich a member of his own family - that is, if you call the woman you're secretly screwing behind the back of your longtime wife "family" - is Congressman Roy Blunt:

In 2002, Blunt attempted to insert a provision in support of tobacco corporations into the legislation that created the Department of Homeland Security. According to the Washington Post, "The provision would have made it harder to sell tobacco products over the Internet and would have cracked down on the sale of contraband cigarettes, two practices that cut into Philip Morris's profits." Blunt said that he pushed for the provision after speaking with John F. Scruggs, vice president of government affairs for Altria. At the time, Blunt was dating Altria (the parent group that owns Philip Morris) lobbyist Abigail Perlman, whom he later married. His son, Andrew, also works as a lobbyist for Philip Morris in Missouri. In contrast to House tradition, the rider had not been cleared by the House leadership. It was removed from the final bill by an anonymous Republican member.

Roy Blunt for Missouri: Bringing new meaning to the word pork. Read More......

Rachel names the GOP hypocrites

This is Rachel at her best. Most of the traditional media types just accept the GOP talking points and criticisms of Obama without question. But, it's quite stunning how many of them are hypocrites -- saying one thing one day, something else the next. These are the people with whom the White House wants to work in a bipartisan manner. Right.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

There's a lot of fodder for t.v. ads in this piece. If there's one thing the American people don't like, it's a hypocrite. Read More......

Sen. Ensign (R-NV) under investigation by FBI over fallout from his affair with a staffer

A GOP sex and money scandal involving Senator John Ensign is now the subject of a criminal investigation:

The Justice Department has begun a preliminary investigation into actions by Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.), who arranged to provide money and career assistance to the husband of his mistress, sources familiar with the case said Tuesday.

The tentative investigation is being run jointly by the Justice Department, the FBI's Washington Field Office and the U.S. attorney's office in the District, one federal law enforcement official said.

Ensign acknowledged last year that he had an extramarital relationship with former staffer Cynthia Hampton and that his parents paid nearly $100,000 to Hampton and her husband, Doug, as a gift. Doug Hampton has also told reporters that Ensign knowingly ignored ethics restrictions by helping him get a lobbying job and access to federal officials, according to news reports.

There's probably some secret Senate rule that would allow Ensign to keep filibustering even if he's in jail. Read More......

Mrs. Robinson's chocolate balls

You may remember the story from the other day about the 60 year old wife of the conservative leader in Northern Ireland who was having an affair with a 19 year old young man. (She's also a conservative British MP herself, and once compared homosexuality to child abuse.) Well, the story just got juicier on so many angles. Seems she was sleeping with father and son. Read More......

GOP has new legislative strategy: Lawsuits

All those years of stacking the courts with conservative judges may finally pay off for the GOP. They're new legislative strategy is to sue:

Republicans and allied groups say they will spend millions to oppose healthcare reform and other Democratic initiatives in the courts, which they see as a last line of defense against President Barack Obama’s agenda.

Republicans claim that healthcare reform is subject to challenge on various constitutional grounds, and conservative activists say they are willing to raise millions to wage that battle.

So, Republicans now love suing. They've tried to limit access to the legal system for decades. One more example of It's Okay if You're a Republican (IOIYAR). Read More......

Party-switcher Griffith's staff quits

No one likes Parker Griffith these days. Democrats loathe the party-switcher. Lots of Republicans in Alabama have been dissing him. And, today, we learn his staff quit:

Rep. Parker Griffith's (Ala.) staff has resigned en masse after his recent decision to switch parties and become a Republican.

In a sternly worded statement, Griffith Chief of Staff Sharon Wheeler announced the exit of herself, along with legislative director Megan Swearingen, senior legislative assistant Brian Greer, legislative assistant Will Crain, press secretary Sean Magers, legislative correspondent Arinze Ifekauche, legislative correspondent Chase Chesser, staff assistant Mary Lou Hughston, congressional fellows Anjali Shah Kastorf and Leslee Oden and intern Andrew Menefee.

Griffith's political consulting team has already parted ways with him since he announced over the holiday break that he would switch parties.

There are probably lots of job-seeking Republicans ready to fill the now-vacant slots. But, long-term job prospects might not be so good. Griffiths could have a serious problem trying to win the GOP nomination in the June 1st primary. Read More......