Stayin' the course, adapting to win
Violence in Iraq leaves at least 52 dead.

A suicide bomber unleashed a blast in a Baghdad fish market Tuesday and two Shiite families were found slain north of the capital as violence across Iraq claimed at least 52 lives.

The US military, meanwhile, announced the deaths of nine soldiers and two Marines in what has been a deadly period for American forces in Iraq. The announcement brought to at least 15 the number of service members killed in fighting since Saturday.

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Oh good God
Conservative commentators: it's the homos' fault.

The funny thing is that you would think the left — particularly the gay left — would be a bit more interested in not having 16 and 17 year old teenagers classified as young children for legal/sexual/political purposes.

- doughy pantload Jonah Goldberg of the National Review. ThinkProgress has more.

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RNC head homo Ken Mehlman swallows his second antacid in as many minutes.
****

Whoaho!
Ultraconservative Richard Viguerie charges that 'Hastert and others around him have put political expediency above principle,' says Hastert should resign.

"They have engaged in whatever activities it took to hold onto power here," said Viguerie, arguing the GOP leaders have betrayed many of the promises they made when they took control of Congress in 1994, such as raising ethical standards.

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Frist calls for appeasing the enemy
CNN's John King tries to make some sense out Senate Majority Leader/douchebag Bill Frist's plan to embolden the enemy and endanger our troops:

KING: You raised some eyebrows at your previous stop in Afghanistan. I want to read you the lead of an "Associated Press" story from yesterday. "Senator Bill Frist said Monday the Afghan war against Taliban guerrillas can never be won militarily and urged support for efforts to bring 'people who call themselves Taliban' and their allies into the government. The Tennessee Republican said he learned from briefings that Taliban fighters were too numerous and had too much popular support to be defeated on the battlefield."

Now the House Minority Leader Democrat Nancy Pelosi put out a statement today as you traveled saying this, quote "We went to war in Afghanistan five years ago to crush the Taliban for the role it played in the 9/11 attacks. Senator Frist now suggests that the best way forward in Afghanistan is to coddle the Taliban by welcoming Taliban members into a coalition government, as if 9/11 had never happened." What do you say to that, sir?

FRIST: Well, to Nancy Pelosi I say your rhetoric is really just a frenzied attempt to give purpose to a party that has absolutely no agenda. I'm over here with our troops in Afghanistan. I was in southern Afghanistan yesterday. The Taliban is on the rise in Afghanistan today. But that doesn't mean now, I guess she's implying, cut and run in Afghanistan.

She did nothing of the kind. Way to ratchet up the rhetoric, fuckwad. And your agenda is to what, enable the terrists? Is that what you're saying? You don't want to fight 'em over there so we don't have to fight 'em over here? We're not going to stay the course? Idiot.

Gpuke junkie gasbag: Dems threatened or bribed pages to 'titillate' pervert
Fucking psycho.

LIMBAUGH: I’m just thinking out loud here. What if somebody got to the page and said, you know, we want you to set Foley up. We need to do a little titillating thing here. Keep it and save it and so forth. How would you get a kid to do that? Yeah, who knows? You threaten him or pay him. There’s any number of ways given the kind of people that we’re dealing with and talking about here.

The kind of people you're dealing with??

- m

Create your own board here.
*****

Katherine Harris: Foley scandal not the GOP’s fault
The repugs were totally innocent in this - we really have to be looking to the media, and those on the other side of the aisle!! Because :: sob :: won't anyone think of the children?

Hastert: Foley scandal is a liberal conspiracy to ‘get to me’ and ‘affect our election’
Your election??

Yerp. Caught us. Even though Dems were not told of Foley's penchant for hot gay pederasty, it was a lieberal conspiracy to plant some poor kid, wait for Foley to do something - or maybe force him to! - then cover up his sick predations for a few years, just so we could influence the 2006 midterm elections. Hell, maybe we even got that priest to allegedly molest him when he was a kid! Yeah, that's the ticket.

Jebus, Denny, you sound just as unhinged as your rabid hate-radio druggie friend Rush Limpbaugh. You're the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States, man - not some drooling, tinfoil-hatted schlub with three teeth and a car up on cinderblocks in your front yard. Shame on you.

It's not my fault!
It was the alcohol! No, it was a priest!

Unfuckingbelievable. Now the party of personal responsibility is trying to pawn this whole dirty episode off to - horrors! what will evangelists say?! - the church.

You pathetic bastards.

Umm, you sure that's what you want to go with, guys?
Did anyone get a screen grab of CNN around 5:30 this evening, that showed Denny Hastert and Mark Foley with the words "Snowballing" in big letters underneath?

Foley erect
This is priceless - the Daily Show covers the Foley affair.

Morals and integrity
The Party of Family Values strikes again: Bush, Boehner, Cheney and Hastert to campaign for alleged mistress strangler, Congressman Don Sherwood of Pennsylvania.

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Stayin' the course, adapting to win
Nine US soldiers and two Marines have died in attacks in and around Baghdad, the US command said Tuesday.

50 more mutilated bodies found in Iraq.

And in Afghanistan, where things are going swimmingly, two US soldiers were killed Tuesday in a clash with insurgents.

- m

A disaster by any measure
The preznental legatudicity -

George W. Bush, on the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, looked more than ever as though he'll finish his term as the most disastrous president in American history.

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Dem pummels right-wing mouthpiece
Democratic strategist Cliff Schecter rips repug strategist Cleta Mitchell a bloody new cornchute on MSNBC:

"That's just hysterical. I'm not sure what planet you're living on, Cleta…You're saying there's one incident on the Republican side? Let's see, you've got Randy 'Duke' Cunningham who's in prison. You've got Bob Ney who's going to prison. You've got Tom DeLay who's probably going to prison. You've got Bill Frist being investigated for insider trading. You've got Denny Hastert, who covered up what Mark Foley was doing and who's being investigated for it now. You've got Tom Reynolds who covered it up and is being investigated. You've got Bob Corker being investigated in Tennessee over shady land deals.

"You've got George Allen being investigated for the fact that he might have stuffed a deer's head in an African-American couple's mailbox back when he was a younger man. And I could go on and on. Let's see Jack Abramoff. Scooter Libby. You want me to take this whole show? I mean, what a joke, Cleta. What you say is laughable on its face. One person? Your whole party is a party right now that is basically a party of criminals and pedophiles."

- more at Bob Geiger's place, plus the video.

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Repuke gasbag: it's all Clinton's fault
From NewsMax, so no link:

The Democratic Party's handwringing over the unfolding scandal involving former Rep. Mark Foley is part of a carefully coordinated attack designed to help the Democrats this coming election. That's the verdict of Rush Limbaugh. During Monday's show, and on his web site, pastyfatassedjunkie.com, Rush suggested that the Foley scandal was part of a larger effort by the "Clinton War Room" to hurt the GOP's chances just weeks before election day.

He also said that Democrats "do not find what Mark Foley did to be repugnant." We're the party of Barney Fag and Jim McGreasey, after all.

- m

RNC head homo Ken Mehlman needing an apres' lunch antacid.
*****

Foley pederasty scandal actually a Dem ploy
According to some knuckledraggers, this whole repugnant scandal is the work of demoncraps and their evil bloggy minions:

But first, let's get right to Mark Foley, because you guys are getting rolled by a compliant mainstream media doing the bidding of some obviously ill-intentioned bloggers and Democrats...

- Hugh Hewitt, to Congressman David Dreier yesterday. He goes on:

I have also watched a concentrated effort to ignore that fact over 48 hours, an attempt to confuse e-mails which were possibly inappropriate and a little bit weird, but nothing criminal, with these criminal IM's. And I just think it's a purposeful attempt to slander Hastert, Boehner, and other Republicans.

Accountability, moral values and integrity...

- m

Prominent Democrat resigns in Clintonlike sex scandal!!
Newshounds, on how Fox News would have reported Mark Foley's resignation if he were a Democrat.

- m

Seen on the intarwebs.
*****

Bush says Democrats shouldn't be trusted
No, really. This is rich. Despite the newly-released NIE reports, despite the UN reports, despite reports from the Saudis, despite the revelations in State of Denial, the scandals, the lying, the coverups, despite the fact that it was his own administration that totally ignored warnings from his predecessors, the CIA, and the PDB 'Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the US.' ... What a fucking joke.

"If you listen closely to some of the leaders of the Democratic Party, it sounds like - it sounds like - they think the best way to protect the American people is, wait until we're attacked again," Bush said Monday at a $360,000 fundraiser in Reno, Nevada.

"That's not the way it's going to be under my administration. We will stay on the offense. We will defeat the enemy overseas so we do not have to face them here at home. I'm just telling you we're dismantling Al-Qaeda one person at a time. We're on the hunt."

Pre-September 11 mentality. Stay th' course. Huntin' 'em down. Dead or alive. 9/11. Good grief.

- m

State Dept confirms CIA meeting with Rice
"Oh. THAT meeting!"

After a stonewalling Condoliar Rice said she had no recollection of what she called "the supposed meeting," the State Department confirmed that George Tenet met not only with the then-National Security Adviser, but with Don Rumsfeld and former Attorney General John Ashcroft as well.

"OK, OK, we did meet - but we only talked about shoes," a visibly agitated Rice said yesterday. "There was nothing that related to an attack in the US," she added, lying, "only one on Filene's!"
Disgraceful.

- m

Clicky.
******

Breaking: Foley had internet sex while awaiting House vote
Mmmmmmmm, intarweb tubes.....

Mark Foley (R-Predator) interrupted a vote on the floor of the House in 2003 to engage in Internet sex with a high school student who had served as a congressional page, according to new Internet instant messages provided to ABC News by former pages. ABC News now has obtained 52 separate instant message exchanges, which former pages say were sent by Foley, using the screen name Maf54, to two different boys under the age of 18.

Maf54: ok..i better go vote..did you know you would have this effect on me
Teen: lol I guessed
Teen: ya go vote…I don't want to keep you from doing our job
Maf54: can I have a good kiss goodnight
Teen: :-*
Teen: *kiss*

The House voted that evening on HR 1559, Emergency War Time supplemental appropriations.

- m

Putting party over damn well everything else
Why do republicans hate America's children?

"At the White House, Tony Snow, President Bush’s press secretary, initially characterized the scandal as 'naughty e-mails,' drawing a blistering response from Democrats who said his words suggested that Republicans did not understand the gravity of the situation."

Rep. Tom Reynolds on Monday called the Mark 'sexual addiction' Foley emails "overly friendly chit-chat."

Uh-huh. And Bill Clinton just had a thing for 'freedom cigars,' right? You hypocrites make me sick.

Escalating scandal forces gpuke leadership to return to DC
Pressure grows for Republicans over Foley, coverup scandals.

GOP facing intensifying questions over what has become a political debacle.

Escalating scandal... intensifying questions... political debacle... public revulsion... oh, baby. Where's that towel...

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DC's dark underbelly, tumescent private parts
Joe Scarborough, republican and host of ‘Scarborough Country,’ tears the GOP leadership a new one:

Where was the Republican leadership over the past year? They knew of Mark’s inappropriate e-mails to a former page but never informed Democratic leaders so they could warn those pages they had brought to Washington.

How could the Speaker of the House not remember being told by the Chairman of the Republican Congressional Committee that Foley had been confronted with his inappropriate emails to a male intern? Does this happen so often in Congress that it was no big deal to Denny Hastert?

Why did Republicans allow Mark Foley to continue as chairman of the Committee on Missing and Exploited Children? Why did they let him lead the charge on their bill to stop the exploitation of minors on the Internet?

And who was hiding these explosive instant messages over the past year?

- m

Pa - thet - ic
Rep. Reynolds squirms in light of Foley scandal, uses children as human shields.

Flanked by about 30 children of supporters, craven pederast-enabler and chickenshit Tom 'wehhhh!' Reynolds defended his actions at a news conference late Monday in Amherst.

The congressman said that like anyone who hears a complaint about a co-worker, he alerted his supervisor, in this case House Speaker Dennis Hastert.

"I don't think I went wrong at all," said Reynolds. "I don't know what else I could have done. What's a good citizen to do?"

Besides, Pickles still loves me!

More from the Daily News:

The upstate media today is all about Tom Reynolds' bizarre press conference yesterday, at which he surrounded himself by small children. At one point, reporters asked if he could make the children leave so they could as adult questions, and he refused.

What a man. What a creepy little man.

- m

"Don't pick on me! Not in front of the kids!"
*****

Religious Right on the gpuke page pederasty scandal
"It's not the time to be talking about politics."

The ultraconservative Family Research Council:

Abortion is evil!

Gary Bauer's American Values webste:

Homos are evil!

Conservative James Dobson of Focus on the Family:

:: crickets ::

- Bob Geiger has more.

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Pro-Bush paper: take a hike, Hastert
The pro-'puke Moonie Times calls on Denny to resign...

Either he was grossly negligent for not taking the red flags fully into account and ordering a swift investigation, for not even remembering the order of events leading up to last week's revelations -- or he deliberately looked the other way in hopes that a brewing scandal would simply blow away.

Mr. Hastert has forfeited the confidence of the public and his party, and he cannot preside over the necessary coming investigation, an investigation that must examine his own inept performance.

... and nominates Rep. Henry "youthful indiscretion" Hyde to take his place as speaker.

- m

Hastert owes America an apology
House Speaker Denny Hastert is probably more responsible than Mark Foley (R-NAMBLA), because 'while Foley can claim he was sick or deranged, Hastert clearly made a conscious decision to remain silent,' says Ray Hanania of the Chicago NewsHerald.
- m


"Bathe him - and bring him to me."
*****

Stayin' the course, adapting to win
Iraqi lawmakers extend state of emergency as gunmen kidnap 14.

Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, things are going swimmingly. If you're a recruiter for the Taliban:

Afghanistan a disaster: "Sheer desperation is driving many Afghans back into the arms of the fanatical Taliban movement. Once again, the holy warriors have taken control of entire regions and are seeking to ensnare the Western allies in a bloody guerilla war."

- m

Note to Dems
Talking points, from Josh Marshall:

"How can we trust [republicans] to protect America when they can't even protect the summer interns on Capitol Hill?"

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GOP tried to make a deal to cover up Foley story
Foley's former chief of staff tried to work out a deal with ABC to cover up the worst of the Foley scandal from the public, AmericaBlog reports.

On Friday afternoon, a strategist for Rep. Mark Foley tried to cut a deal with ABC's Brian Ross.

The correspondent, who had dozens of instant messages that Foley sent to teenage House pages, had asked to interview the Florida Republican. Foley's former chief of staff said the congressman was quitting and that Ross could have that information exclusively if he agreed not to publish the raw, sexually explicit messages.

"I said we're not making any deals," Ross recalls.

- m

"Masturgate"
The 'Grand Old Perverts Edition' of DU's Top 10 Conservative Idiots.

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Foley may face federal charges, assproinging in prison
In addition to explicit sexual language, gay republican pederast and lousy speller Mark Foley's internet messages also include 'repeated efforts to get the underage recipient to rendezvous with him at night.'

"I would drive a few miles for a hot stud like you," Foley said in one message. Federal law enforcement officials say attempts by Foley to meet in person could constitute the necessary evidence for a federal charge of "soliciting for sex" with a minor on the Internet.

And from the NY Times:

Mr. Foley is not the only person who could possibly face prosecution, Professor Berman said. “If there were people who knew about him or protected him, some sort of complicity or conspiracy charge is certainly viable.”

- m

Moral leadership an' integritude
"There's nothing like rich, lathery irony discharged into a hot towel" - comment on the intarweb.
Foley fallout spurs finger-pointing among Republicans.

The cover-up scandal over the Mark Foley scandal is growing, just like Mr Foley's "totally stiff wood."

"Obscene breach of trust": rethug leaders are shocked - shocked! - over Foley's behavior that they - ummm - knew about a year ago.

Top House Republicans knew for months about e-mail traffic between Rep. Mark Foley and a former teenage page, but kept the matter secret and allowed Foley, R-Fla., to remain head of a congressional caucus on children's issues, Republican lawmakers said Saturday.

- m

"So, Joey, ever see a grown man naked?"
******

But... but... but... Clinton!
'Foley's Sick, But Democrats Shouldn't Cast Stones' - headline at NoozeMax. Ummmm, fuckwit: Bill Clinton didn't have sex with underage boys - or girls, for that matter. Also, though the Monica thing may have been distasteful, it wasn't illegal. Oh, and 'sick'? The word you're looking for is - no, not 'naughty' - 'perverted,' I think. Jerkwad.

- m

FBI examining Foley's overtly sexual e-mails to underage boys
"How's my favorite young stud doing? Did any girl give you a handjob this weekend? Or did you spank it yourself? It must feel great spurting in a towel."

And then it gets worse.

With GOP leaders scrambling to contain the political fallout from the latest Washington sex scandal, the FBI is examining Republican Rep. Mark Foley's sexually explicit e-mails to teenage boys to see if any federal laws were broken. The exchanges have proven to be too graphic for broadcast networks to mention or even quote.

Democrats demanded that investigators determine whether Republican leaders tried to cover up Foley's actions for political reasons.

"The attorney general should open a full-scale investigation immediately," Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said in a statement, including whether GOP leaders "knew there was a problem and ignored it to preserve a congressional seat this election year."

Nancy Pelosi spokeswoman Jennifer Crider late Sunday said that [House Speaker Denny] Hastert "seems more concerned by who revealed the Republican leadership coverup of Mr. Foley's Internet stalking of an underage child than he was about ensuring the children entrusted to the House were protected."

And now, from the Aw, gee, it wasn't his fault, poor guy! department: Gay pedophile and republican pervert Foley has checked into alcohol rehab. Next: ex-Rep. Foley finds Jebus.

Speaking of accountability, check out this unbelievable piece of crap spewed by Newt Gingrich:

"[H]ad they [GOP Congressional leaders] overly aggressively reacted to the initial round, they would have also been accused of gay bashing."

Quite a stretch, there, Newt. Be careful you didn't rupture something. Like your dignity.

Meanwhile, constituents in Foley's district weighed in:

"It's the result of society's acceptance of homosexuality," said enraged Republican Fred Cisewski, 72, of Palm Beach Gardens.

Ernest Williamson, 62, a Palm Beach Gardens donor to the Republican Party, said the timing of the scandalous revelations makes him want to contribute more to the party in its time of need. He said he's disgusted with Foley. But he's also convinced that Democrats orchestrated the timing of the news.

"Sure he did something he shouldn't have done, but I'm also sure the Democrats did their dirtiest to dig this up right before the election," said Williamson, as he sipped espresso with his wife, Ursula, a fellow Republican, while reading a Sunday newspaper about the scandal. Both voted for Foley and plan to vote for whoever takes his place.

Jebus fucking Christ. These people fucking scare me.

- m

Mark Foley couldn't have done anything - after all, his dick is only this big!"

Sludge defends Congressman "Do I Make Ya Horny" by demonstrating that, even with a double dose of Viagra, he couldn't possibly get it up enough to accomplish anything . . . .

-- L

Another Shooting . . .

. . . by an adult at a high school. This is not remotely funny, and I can't snark about it. This time, it's an Amish school - as many as ten female students shot, with at least three dead, plus the 32-year-old gunman.

Jesus wept. (And I mean that literally.)

-- L

Speaking of "Parts" . . . .

Our new improved U.S. Supreme Court strikes again. Methinks Roberts and Alito have been spending too much time with John Asshat Ashcroft - you know, he of "Oh, my goodness, cover up Lady Justice's tits with a blue drape" fame.

The Court today refused to hear an appeal brought by some poor schmuck in El Paso County, Texas (why did you know it was gonna be Texas?) who was convicted of trying to sell a dildo to two undercover officers at - get this - an adult bookstore. (Now I ask you, why would you go into an adult bookstore and assume that they don't want to sell you sex toys?)

Apparently the appeals court had ruled that not being allowed to "promote" so-called "obscene devices" (that's "sex toys" to you and me) does not infringe a person's right to use them in the privacy of his or her home. In other words, you can own them - you just can't have anyone sell them to you so that you can own them in the first place.

Lends a whole new meaning to the term "wankers," no?

-- L

Too bad he's lying about the wrong part

"If I catch anyone who leaks in my government," Bush tells Chrétien in March, 2002, "I would like to string them up by the thumbs -- the same way we do with prisoners in Guantanamo."

--From a new book by one of former Canadian PM Jean Chrétien's close advisers.

(via Andrew Sullivan)

"A ring-tailed lemur looks at a fennec fox at Sunshine International Aquarium in Tokyo October 1, 2006. REUTERS/Yuriko Nakao (JAPAN)."

I want one!
- m

Hastert in trouble over pedophile scandal, cover-up
House speaker in increasingly deep shit -

Denny Hastert was notified early this year of inappropriate e-mails from former representative Mark Foley to a 16-year-old page, a top GOP House member said yesterday -- contradicting the speaker's assertions that he learned of concerns about Foley only last week....

Yesterday's developments revealed a rift at the highest echelons of House Republican ranks a month before the Nov. 7 elections, and they threatened to expand the scandal to a full-blown party dilemma.

With his statement, [GOP Tom] Reynolds, who is locked in a difficult reelection campaign, signaled he was unwilling to take the fall alone amid partisan attacks that were becoming increasingly vituperative....

Republican insiders said Reynolds spoke out because he was angry that Hastert appeared willing to let him take the blame for the party leadership's silence.

- more at AmericaBlog.

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Pic via Monkeyfister and Watertiger.
******

The Bushies knew - and did nothing
Bob Woodward's 9/11 bombshell suggests a coverup:

It describes how, on July 10, 2001, CIA Director George Tenet met with his counterterrorism chief, Cofer Black, at CIA headquarters "to review the latest on Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda terrorist organization. Black laid out the case, consisting of communications intercepts and other top-secret intelligence showing the increasing likelihood that al-Qaeda would soon attack the United States. The mass of fragments made a compelling case, so compelling to Tenet that he decided he and Black should go to the White House immediately."

Tenet called Condoleezza Rice. "For months," Woodward writes, "Tenet had been pressing Rice to set a clear counterterrorism policy… that would give the CIA stronger authority to conduct covert action against bin Laden…. Tenet and Black hoped to convey the depth of their anxiety and get Rice to kick-start the government into immediate action.

"Tenet had been losing sleep over the recent intelligence. There was no conclusive, smoking-gun intelligence, but there was such a huge volume of data that an intelligence officer's instinct strongly suggested that something was coming....

Woodward describes the meeting, and the two officials' plea that the U.S. "needed to take action that moment -- covert, military, whatever -- to thwart bin Laden."

The result? "Tenet and Black felt they were not getting through to Rice. She was polite, but they felt the brush-off. President Bush had said he didn't want to swat at flies."

He was doin' enough fly-swattin' on his one-month vacation at the Lazy W!
- m

"The goal has never been to get bin Laden"
Jack Abramoff knew the Bushies would invade Iraq seven months before Congress authorized Awol McLiar to go war.

From: Jack Abramoff
To: 'octagon1'
Monday, March 18, 2002 8:31 AM
Subject: RE: Sunday

I was sitting yesterday with Karl Rove, Bush's top advisor, at the NCAA basketball game, discussing Israel when this email came in. I showed it to him. It seems that the President was very sad to have to come out negatively regarding Israel, but that they needed to mollify the Arabs for the upcoming war on Iraq.

Conclusion--this is yet another piece of evidence that the invasion of Iraq was long-before conceived as absolutely inevitable and necessary by the Bush administration.

- m

Pic from BartCop. I think.

*link to quote in headline.
******

Well whaddaya know about that!
It looks like there might be an oil shortage right after the November elections! Go figure!

- m

"Bush's men snarled like wild animals"
In the lead-up to the Iraq war, Preznit Poopypants' grownup advisers were at one another's throats in "surreal" meetings as GameBoy McDumbass constantly fidgeted but otherwise sat there like a total stupe and did nothing.

After Saddam fell, all Bunnypants got from his advisors were "some upbeat stories, exaggerated good news and a good time had by all," while vice president and frothing cyborg Dick 'dick' Cheney complained to his good oil buddy Saudi Prince Bandar Bush "Who do they think they are? I was reelected, too."

- m

"You gotta be playful with Unca Rummy, Condo!"
******

Foley scandal spreads after GOP leader calls Wash comPo to change story
Party of values, morals, and integrity covered up underage gay sex scandal ofone of their own.

Top House Republicans knew in 2005 about e-mail traffic between Representative Mark Foley and a former teenage page, but kept the matter secret and allowed Mr. Foley to remain head of a Congressional caucus on children’s issues, Republican lawmakers said Saturday.

Did the Republican leadership in Congress attempt to cover up its lack of oversight and action when tipped off about possible ethical problems related to Rep. Mark Foley, who resigned [Friday]?

House Majority Leader John Boehner originally told the Washington Post that he had learned this spring of inappropriate 'contact' between Foley and a 16-year-old page. Boehner said he then told House Speaker Dennis Hastert.

Boehner later contacted the Post and said he could not remember whether he talked to Hastert.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi proposed to the House that its ethics committee investigate and make a preliminary report in 10 days. She demanded to know who knew of the messages, whether Foley had other contacts with pages and when the Republican leadership was notified of Foley's conduct.

Instead, majority Republicans engineered a vote to allow the ethics panel to decide whether there should even be an investigation.

“It is an obscene breach of trust. His immediate resignation must now be followed by the full weight of the criminal justice system," the House Republican leadership said in a statement last night.

Look! Lower gas prices!

- m