It's no longer about Mark Foley, Part II

The Grand Old Pederast Party has closed ranks around their rotund Speaker, ensuring his continued leadership all the way to January (when he will likely be replaced by Nancy Pelosi anyway).

I noted the first calls for him to step down, but never advocated his doing so myself. My feeling from the outset was: meh, let him stick around if he chooses. Hastert is a much heavier albatross around the necks of the GOP than even Tom DeLay would have been at this point, and as a result becomes the icon of a Congressional scandal entering its second week as a top news story.

See, among the reasons it stays in the news -- besides the MSM's sexual obsession -- is that the history of Foley's child predation has been extended once again; it now goes back as far as 2000. Which means that when the Republicans say 9/11 changed everything... well, they didn't mean "everything."

Here's a talking point:

More protection was given to a sexual predator among their ranks by Republican leaders than to our soldiers in Iraq (body armor), than to our national security (ports, nukes in North Korea), than even to our childrens' health care (millions -- in Texas alone the number is 1.4 million -- abandoned, uninsured).

Pretty sweet if you're one of the elite, that conservative agenda.

The Congressional page-sex scandal, as of this moment, rightfully deserves to be pushed from the headlines. And it needs to be replaced with the threat of a nuclear showdown looming with Kim Jong Il, or the second weakness exposed in our national food supply in a month (this news suggests that the terrorists understand that they could terrorize us with it), or even -- God forbid -- the 32 soldiers killed in the first eight days of October in an increasingly unstable Iraq and Afghanistan.

Yet, perhaps the so-called liberal media still take their cue from the White House in a perverse way. What would Our Dear Leader be most upset about lately?

Disloyalty.

There's a lot of very important things that the Bush administration simply doesn't give a shit about, North Korea being only the latest example of the consequences of electing (sic) a moron President.

And I have to think that a Democratic Congress in 2007 is going to be able to help him focus on a few of the real issues.

(thanks to ThinkProgress, one of the very best places on the Internets, for the leads)

Blogger scoops traditional media (again)

Rep. John Davis, a Republican representing the Clear Lake area in the Texas Lege for the past eight years, has been revealed to be woefully inept at best -- and criminally negligent at worst -- regarding his expense report filings. One hundred thousand dollars' worth of campaign expenses lack sufficient documentation. That's a violation of Texas election law.

So reports KHOU today.

But Muse is the one who broke this story weeks ago; her painstaking gumshoe investigation revealed the ethical lapses that finally drew the attention of the Texas Ethics Commission and the so-called liberal media.

John Davis is so incompetent that he was declared a piece of "used furniture" by Texas Monthly in 2003.

Though the results of the TEC investigation into Davis' finances will not be made public until after November 7, the voters of District 129 can cast a vote for good government by electing Sherrie Matula to the Texas House.

They deserve it. Hell, we all deserve it.

Sunday Postpourri

That big blonde digging out a kill attempt happens to be my niece. She is the star on the University of Arkansas volleyball team.

Last evening the two candidates competing for the US Senate held a debate at Rice University. My birthday buddy Barbara Radnofsky and Scott Jameson, the Libertarian candidate, talked substance for 90 minutes before an assembly of about fifty voters and a few media. Kay Bailey Torture was too scared to show up, and after watching Barbara tear her into little pieces in absentia, I can understand why. Senator Perjury Technicality alleges she will show for another debate scheduled for October 19, in San Antonio and to be broadcast on all statewide PBS stations. We'll see.

The conglomerate that owns the Los Angeles Times fired its publisher because he refused to cut staff. This is amazing to me, because I spent a decade in corporate newspaper management and never met a single man nearly brave enough to do this. I'll have more to say at a later date.

One of the best restaurants in New Orleans is finally open again. I'm not a candidate for the turtle soup, but most everything else on the menu -- including the jazz brunch; they invented that -- is worth the drive over. Right across the street from Commander's Palace is the Lafayette Cemetery, one of the Crescent City's oldest burial grounds. Lots of interesting history when you take a ghost tour and lots of movies filmed there. Here's a good picture of it.

The old I-10 bridge over the Trinity River -- between Houston and Beaumont -- is finally going to be replaced.

If you have ever sold a used car to another person and conspired to report the selling price as lower than reality when you recorded the title change at the courthouse... well, you can't get away with that any more. The state estimates that they will collect an additional $35 million dollars from eliminating the "liar's affidavit", and the county tax assessor-collectors estimate that many will be pissed off about it. Way to go again, Rick Perry and the Republican Texas Lege. At least they haven't raised your taxes, right?

TIME declares that the Republican Revolution is over. Stu Rothenberg says "a true blowout is now possible".

And don't miss the Moral High Ground Mudslide edition of this week's Sunday Funnies.