Countdown to November 7th:

[Ninong]

The Republicans and their propagandists have been busy lately warning Americans that if they vote for Democrats, the world as we know it will come to an end. Well, they're partly right. The world as they know it will come to an end.

Newt Gingrich urged Republicans to remind the voters that "Republicans are right to favor traditional American conservative social values, and the left is completely wrong to put San Francisco left-wing values third in line to be President by electing Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to speaker of the House."


Nancy Pelosi's "San Francisco left-wing values":

"Upon graduation in 1962, she married Georgetown University graduate Paul Pelosi." "Pelosi and her husband, Paul Pelosi, a native of San Francisco, have five children: Nancy Corinne, Christine, Jacqueline, Paul and Alexandra, and five grandchildren."

Newt Gingrich's "traditional American conservative social values":

In 1981, Newt dumped his first wife, Jackie Battley, for Marianne, wife number 2, while Jackie was in the hospital undergoing cancer treatment. Marianne and Newt divorced in December, 1999 after Marianne found out about Newt's long-running affair with Callista Bisek, his one-time congressional aide. Gingrich asked Marianne for the divorce by phoning her on Mother's Day, 1999. [Source: New York Post, July 18, 2000, Newt's Ex Wife Aiming to Pen Book by Bill Sanderson, available on lexis].

Newt (57) and Callista (34) were married in a private ceremony in a hotel courtyard in Alexandria, Va. in August, 2000...

"He famously visited Jackie in the hospital where she was recovering from surgery for uterine cancer to discuss details of the divorce. He later resisted paying alimony and child support for his two daughters, causing a church to take up a collection. For all of his talk of religious faith and the importance of God, Gingrich left his congregation over the pastor's criticism of his divorce."

P.S. -- Jackie Battley was Newtie's 24-yr-old high school math teacher. Newtie was banging her even though she was several years older because none of the girls in his class would have anything to do with him. One night while banging away in the back seat of the car, they got stuck in the mud and had to call a tow truck at 3:00 a.m. When Jackie got pregnant, Newtie married her over the objections of his adoptive father. His biological father, Big Newt, took off when Newtie (as his 16-yr-old mother called him) was a baby.

Newtie stayed married to his first wife long enough for her to support him through his nine years at Tulane, where he finally earned a Ph.D. in history. There was a war going on at the time but Newtie had other priorities.

Beware radical, left-wing, San Francisco liberal values. We should all want to emulate typical GOP family values such as those practiced by 2008 Republican presidential hopeful, Newt Gingrich. Run, Newtie! Run!

[Ninong]

Trent "Dixiecrat" Lott, Larry "Own Private Idaho" Craig and John "Crisco Kid" Ashcroft singing their little GOP hearts out. I wonder what happened to Jim Jeffords? Did they kick him out after he switched to Independent? Maybe somebody just cropped him out of the picture?

Oh, well... It was fun while it lasted.

[schrocat]

Trent "Dixiecrat" Lott, Larry "Own Private Idaho" Craig and John "Crisco Kid" Ashcroft singing their little GOP hearts out. I wonder what happened to Jim Jeffords? Did they kick him out after he switched to Independent? Maybe somebody just cropped him out of the picture?

Oh, well... It was fun while it lasted.

Must be pros.

They look like seasoned hands holding those mikes.

[Ninong]

Not all Republican congressmen are into show tunes. Here are a couple of soon to be former GOP congressmen who had "other priorities."


Rep. Jerry Weller (R-IL) and former Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL)

What's that? You've never heard of Jerry Weller? You will soon. The bad news for the GOP is that it involves a 16-yr-old page, the good news is that at least it's not another male page. I wonder if Weller's new bride will leave him? I wonder if John Pavich will become the youngest member of the 110th Congress?

:eek3:


P.S. -- Just remember that whatever happened, the Democrats made him do it. I'm not saying anything happened but if something did, it was all part of a vast left-wing conspiracy to embarrass the Republican Party less than three weeks before the mid-term elections.

If he resigns immediately, I wonder if Illinois law allows the GOP to name a replacement?

[Ninong]

The priest who molested Mark Foley nearly 40 years ago has admitted he did it. He blames "the combination of tranquilizers and too much alcohol."

P.S. -- His attorney released a statement saying that Fr. Mercieca is a gay man and that he was molested by a Republican when he was a teenager. No word yet on when he will enter rehab.

[Ninong]

Photo of Guatelaman Congresswoman Zury Rios-Montt de Weller when she was a little girl. That would be her parents and her two older brothers.

(P.S. -- Damn! Zury took down her website! I knew I should have stored that picture on our server.)
(P.P.S. -- Cool! Zury's website is back up again.)

Zury's father is a former dictator, accused of genocide, with an international warrant for his arrest [5]. General Efraín Ríos Montt, 18-month term in office was characterized by a scorched earth policy that some observers believe to have amounted to many thousands of deaths the country's indigenous Maya people. [6] The U.S. State Department calculates the death toll under the Ríos Montt presidency at about 200,000. [7] Zury Ríos Montt has been quoted calling her father "her inspiration". [8]

I wonder if she will consider her husband an inspiration, too?

P.S. -- Guatemala has always been one of our favorite banana republics and President Efrain Rios Montt was one of our favorite dictators, or, as Ronald Reagan said during a 1982 official visit, "President Rios Montt is a man of great personal integrity and commitment. I know he wants to improve the quality of life for all Guatemalans and to promote social justice." Yeah, right!

[Ninong]

Must be pros.

They look like seasoned hands holding those mikes.

"Larry Boy" issued a statement saying he has no idea what you're talking about.

[Ninong]

What people are searching for:

1. Larry Craig
2. Jerry Weller

Those are the two top searches according to Technorati.

:eek3:

[schrocat]

"Larry Boy" issued a statement saying he has no idea what you're talking about.

Oh I'm sure he did.

I note the "sanging windbag brigade" participants always seem to have one hand hidden from the audience.

I'd also like to know how many of the sanging windbags in that pic have supported or authored legislation on American flag desecration.
You know.
Like turning the flag into a barbershop trio pantsuit ensemble with fru fru matching jackets.
Some things are better left in the closet.

[Ninong]

Oh I'm sure he did.

Sen. Craig said to tell you that he thought he took care of all these totally unfounded, salacious rumors 24 years ago, back when he was "unmarried." Now that he has gone to all the trouble of getting married and having children he finds it despicable that people should question his sexual orientation just because of what four or five guys have said about their "contacts" with him in places like the Union Station men's room.

If you want to know what then Representative Craig had to say about such rumors back in 1982, then check out both of the video clips in this post. In both of those clips, Rep. Larry Craig (R-ID) came forward to deny rumors that he was involved with male pages. Please pay no attention to the rest of that post as it is obviously a dirty trick encouraged by Bill Clinton's operatives.

I'd also like to know how many of the sanging windbags in that pic have supported or authored legislation on American flag desecration.
You know.
Like turning the flag into a barbershop trio pantsuit ensemble with fru fru matching jackets.
Some things are better left in the closet.

I agree with you completely on that point but it seems that the Flag Code is no longer enforced. I never, ever saw anyone wearing clothing replicating the flag when I was a kid a long, long time ago but times have changed.

United States Code Title 4 Chapter 1 — The Flag

Para. 8j:

"No part of the flag should ever be used as a costume or athletic uniform. However, a flag patch may be affixed to the uniform of military personnel, firemen, policemen, and members of patriotic organizations."

When I was a kid in grammar school, we had to run outside and lower the flag whenever it started raining. And the flag was never flown at night unless it was lit with spotlights, which means it was almost never flown at night.

P.S. -- When I was a kid in grammar school, we were at war. There were no spotlights at night. In fact, during air raid drills, you couldn't even smoke outside at night. I still remember the sound of air raid sirens to this day. And I remember running through the house to lower all the blackout shades on the windows. And I remember ration coupons. And I remember seeing how happy all the German prisoners (sailors) were at the local Algiers Naval Base. When we were little kids, we used to wave to them and they always smiled and waved back. They used to hang their laundry on clothes lines outside their barracks and tend little vegetable gardens. Even German POWs had Victory Gardens then. I asked my grandfather if the German prisoners might not escape and harm us. He told me that there was no way in hell they were going to escape because they loved it here. Navy SPs with white leggings used to patrol up and down outside the single 8-ft high page link fence that was topped with about 2-ft of barbed wire.

[Ninong]

A Republican congressman who is the GOP's gubernatorial candidate in Nevada has managed to get himself some unwanted publicity. Shades of Don Sherwood.

:eek3:

[Ninong]

Jerry Weller supports the Congressional page program.

P.S. -- Help me out here. Is it considered an insult to the family's honor if your daughter's husband is caught fooling around on her and it becomes public? What if the news sort of goes global? What then? What are former Latin American dictators expected to do to defend their daughter's honor?

[zhenya]

Jerry Weller supports the Congressional page program.

P.S. -- Help me out here. Is it considered an insult to the family's honor if your daughter's husband is caught fooling around on her and it becomes public? What if the news sort of goes global? What then? What are former Latin American dictators expected to do to defend their daughter's honor?

Me thinks... off with his head...

[zhenya]

Please pay no attention to the rest of that post as it is obviously a dirty trick encouraged by Bill Clinton's operatives.

Ninong, this "Clinton's operatives" thing.., it wouldn't be one of Pat's favorite expressions? Would it? Sounds just like him.

[Ninong]

Ninong, this "Clinton's operatives" thing.., it wouldn't be one of Pat's favorite expressions? Would it? Sounds just like him.

Gene, the "Clinton's operatives" comment is a dig at Speaker Hastert, who famously said that the Mark Foley scandal was the result of a campaign funded by George Soros and involving former Clinton operative, Dick Morris, who was fired by Clinton 10 years ago. In fact, it's hard to keep up with all of Denny's various excuses. He really came unglued when he was talking to Rush Limbaugh. He desperately wanted absolution from the high priest of the right-wing of the Republican Party and Limbaugh did not disappoint him.

If by "Pat" you mean Pat Robertson, no he hasn't referred to "Clinton's operatives" lately as far as I know. Hell, he hasn't even called for the assassination of Hugo Chavez in more than a month now. Pat does happen to be a dear friend of the former Guatemalan dictator who is charged with genocide. Pat has a thing for genocidal dictators, Latin American and African. Jerry Falwell is another close friend of former Guatemalan President Efrain Rios Montt. Rios Montt's friendship with Robertson and Falwell goes back to 1978.

P.S. -- Denny Hastert's days are numbered. He may even be forced to resign before the elections. Or maybe he'll simply fire his senior staff members, starting with his counsel, and place the blame on them? At the very least, his chief of staff and his counsel will have to go once all the latest revelations come out and they will come out before November 7th.

[Ninong]

Who is this guy?

Clues:

"He had every social disadvantage imaginable. Physically immature, no athletic ability, wasn't good with the girls, nothing." -- This is the recollection of the high school's student body president.

Grooming his public image, he posed for a yearbook photo holding hands with the senior class president's girlfriend. "I found him endearing, but he was too flippin' geeky," she recalls. "The truth is, he grabbed my hand just before the photo was taken."

A non-Mormon in a mostly Mormon town, the bespectacled nerd carried a briefcase and wore three-piece suits everywhere, even to football games, classmates tell James Ross Gardner in November's GQ.

P.S. -- The photo above was taken in 1968 or 1969.

[schrocat]

Who is this guy?

Clues:

"He had every social disadvantage imaginable. Physically immature, no athletic ability, wasn't good with the girls, nothing." -- This is the recollection of the high school's student body president.

Grooming his public image, he posed for a yearbook photo holding hands with the senior class president's girlfriend. "I found him endearing, but he was too flippin' geeky," she recalls. "The truth is, he grabbed my hand just before the photo was taken."

A non-Mormon in a mostly Mormon town, the bespectacled nerd carried a briefcase and wore three-piece suits everywhere, even to football games, classmates tell James Ross Gardner in November's GQ.

P.S. -- The photo above was taken in 1968 or 1969.

Karla.

[Ninong]

Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner!

[Ninong]

Jerry Weller's office officially denies The Rumor. We'll see.

ABC News certainly thinks something's about to pop. How else do you explain their choice of photo for a story that was strictly about Mark Foley. Of all the hundreds of photos available, they just happened to go with one that included Jerry Weller??? Coincidence? I think not. They certainly expect something to break soon.

[Ninong]

The House Appropriations Committee had hired 60 extra investigators to deal with the unprecedented level of corruption in federal appropriations these days.

Jerry Lewis, Chairman of the Committee (who's himself being investigated and has racked up $800,000 in legal fees) just fired them all.

That should slow them down some -- at least until after Speaker Pelosi takes over control of the House.

As chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Lewis oversees nearly $900 billion a year in federal spending -- but anyone looking for a slice of that money has to deal with his best friend, lobbyist Bill Lowery. "If you want an earmark from Lewis, you have to hire Lowery," says Melanie Sloan of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "There's a direct exchange." In return for the business, Lowery and his clients made more than $480,000 in contributions to Lewis -- more than a third of the congressman's total campaign money since 2000. Lowery's firm, in turn, tripled its revenue to $5 million -- and his clients pocketed hundreds of millions in federal pork projects from Lewis.

The revolving door spins so fast between Lewis and Lowery that their offices operate almost as a single machine to swap taxpayer dollars for corporate donations. Jeffrey Shockey, who worked as a staffer for Lewis, left to join Lowery's firm -- and then returned to work for Lewis as deputy chief of staff of appropriations. As a parting gift, Lowery hired Shockey's wife as a lobbyist and gave him nearly $2 million -- a down payment on the firm's future earnings. Another Lewis staffer, now a Lowery partner, does such brisk business with her old boss that she's known as "K Street's Queen of Earmarks." Even Brent Wilkes -- the defense contractor whose payoffs sent Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham to prison earlier this year -- has complained about the shakedown operation. "If you don't want to make the contributions," Wilkes recalls Lowery telling him, "you will get left behind." Wilkes also claimed that Lowery threatened to cut him off from Lewis and his lucrative earmarks unless he forked over $25,000 a month in lobbying fees.

Lewis, a former insurance salesman elected to Congress in 1978, has long tapped corporate interests for campaign cash: In one of his early races, all of his money came from just forty-three donors -- and twenty-two of them were lobbyists.

The FBI has issued ten subpoenas involving Lewis' current operation, and Lowery's firm has scurried to report more than $2 million in undisclosed income. The lobbyist, in fact, is an old hand at the abuse of public trust: A former congressman himself, Lowery lost his House seat in 1992 thanks to an ethics scandal. The man who beat him? None other than Duke Cunningham.

P.S. -- In case you're too young to remember Nixon's Saturday Night Massacre, it refers to the fact that President Nixon, when Archibald Cox, the Special Prosecutor investigating the Watergate break-in was getting too close to the truth, called his Attorney General late on a Saturday night and ordered him to fire Archibald Cox. The Attorney General refused and resigned. Nixon then called the Deputy Attorney General who refused and was fired on the spot. Finally, around 2 a.m., Nixon called the Solicitor General, Robert Bork, and ordered him to fire Cox. He did. Bork was later nominated to the Supreme Court by a different Republican president in recognition of his loyalty to the Republican Party. He was famously NOT confirmed by the Senate.

If you are old enough to remember Watergate, you might remember that one of the bumper stickers that came out right after the Saturday Night Massacre was: Impeach the Cox Sacker! Firing Cox was a death blow to Nixon's chances for survival. Members of Congress, both the House and the Senate and from BOTH political parties, went berserk when Nixon pulled that stunt.