Headlines - Saturday May 14

 

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Republicans in the news

John Ensign Proposed To His Mistress At the National Prayer Breakfast

 

Does anybody care about this John Ensign affair/bribe thing anymore? Probably nobody cares about this John Ensign affair/bribe thing anymore, but the details of this thing are just ridiculous. Here's a thing John Ensign did: He took his mistress, the wife of his friend and mother of his children's friends, to the National Prayer Breakfast to propose marriage to her. How romantic! God strolled into the National Prayer Breakfast, saw Ensign on one knee, said "Oh fuck this shit" to himself, and walked right back out. There are enough things in the Senate Ethics Committee report to embarrass Ensign's children and those of his mistress' for many lifetimes, but they already know that, because Ensign was pretty much doing it right in front of them, and then all the adults in the situation destroyed their own lives. This all sounds really hott!

It didn't take long for Doug Hampton to discover the affair. It happened a couple days before Christmas 2007, when he and Cynthia were headed to the airport to pick up their son. His wife was picking up their son's girlfriend when Hampton looked at her cell phone. He noticed a text message from Ensign which "made it clear an affair was occurring" — press reports indicated it read "How wonderful it is. … Scared, but excited."

When she (and presumably, their son's girlfriend) got back in the car, Hampton said he knew what she and Ensign were up to and called Ensign to tell him as well. Ensign was also on his way to the airport to greet the Hamptons' son, and when the their two cars were in the airport parking lot, Hampton jumped out of his car and chased Ensign.

Cynthia went into the airport and stayed there for hours, later taking a taxi home. She set up a time for the two couples to discuss what happened. On Christmas Eve, they met in Ensign's home office where the senator cried and both he and Cynthia said the affair would stop. Both couples told their children, and the next day, the families celebrated Christmas together.

AHH! THAT SOUNDS LIKE THE WORST FAMILY GATHERING IN THE HISTORY OF HUMAN SOCIETY. The Baby Jesus probably called them up and was like, "Yo, maybe we can reschedule? You don't have to celebrate my birfday today. I don't get off work until six anyway, and I'll probably be tired after."

Yeah, the affair didn't stop. It went on for months. And now everyone is going to prison for bribery or some such. Do you enjoy your present, Jesus? It's called misanthropy. Try it! You'll enjoy it! And need you'll need it. (Tom Coburn helped, btw.) [U.S. Senate [PDF]/TPM]

These people are all nuts, whether it is their repressed homosexuality, the love auto-erotic asphyxiation while wearing two wetsuits and a dildo, the fetus in a jar fetish, the bathroom blowjobs in parks, the toe tapping, or whatever.

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Rick Santorum alerted Sen. John Ensign in 2009 that the husband of Ensign's mistress wanted to go public with the affair that ultimately ended the Nevada Republican's Senate career, according to a Senate ethics committee report released Thursday.

After Doug Hampton — then a top Ensign aide whose wife was involved with the senator — emailed Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly seeking a meeting to discuss the affair, Hampton also shared the email with Santorum seeking his help. Santorum quickly passed the email onto Ensign, according to the ethics committee report.

 

Here's Rachel Maddow's report.

 

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Roger Bybee: Corporate Demands, Federal 'Reform,' Keep Shifting Healthcare Costs to Workers

 

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Do we really need to know this?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A stash of pornography was found in the hideout of Osama bin Laden by the U.S. commandos who killed him, current and former U.S. officials said on Friday.

The pornography recovered in bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, consists of modern, electronically recorded video and is fairly extensive, according to the officials, who discussed the discovery with Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Even our prudish Supreme Court cannot decide on what is porn and what is not. Even adult entertainment expert Clarence Thomas is well versed in getting his robes lifted if you know what I mean and I think you do. So what was it Reuters, you can tell us! We won't tell anyone.

Camel toes? Camel knuckle? Was it camel? Would Rick Santorum (American Taliban) faint? Come on, tell us!

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Souffle? Isn't that French?

I believe the correct term is "Freedom Custard".

Former President George W. Bush made his first candid public comments on the killing of Osama bin Laden during an appearance Wednesday at a conference of hedge fund managers in Las Vegas.

"I was eating souffle at Rise Restaurant with Laura and two buddies," Bush said when asked what he was doing when he received the call from President Obama, according to an ABC News contributor who attended the event.

"The cognitive dissonance. It HURTS!"

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American FAMILY Association: Muslims Are Stupid Because Of Inbreeding

And a reminder:

The American Family Association says that yoga practitioners are evil and anti-Christian. Oh, and Hindus and Buddhists? Also evil!

 

 

 

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"Now that it's become clear that the Republicans, the fiscally conservative, strong on defense party, are neither fiscally conservative nor strong on defense, they have to tell us what exactly it is they're good at. Because it's not defense. 9/11 happened on your watch. And you retaliated by invading the wrong country. And you lost a 10-year game of hide-and-seek with Osama bin Laden. And you're responsible for running up most of the debt, which, more than anything, makes us weak. You're supposed to be the party with the killer instinct. But it was a Democrat who put a bomb in Gaddafi's bedroom and a bullet in bin Laden's eye like Moe Greene. Raising the question: How many Muslims does a black guy have to kill in one weekend before crackers climb down off his ass?" – Bill Maher

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ThinkProgress: On Wednesday, ConocoPhillips CEO Jim Mulva outraged many on Capitol Hill when he released a statement calling it "un-American" to end subsidies to the Big 5 oil companies — ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips. A press release referencing the subsidies posted on the company's website was headlined: "ConocoPhillips Highlights Solid Results and Raises Concerns Over Un-American Tax Proposals at Annual Meeting of Shareholders."

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Michael Moore: Some Final Thoughts on the Death of Osama bin Laden

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