What is it with Republicans and sex

post from Left on 49 - Cabarrus County blog on 13 July 2007 11:54:23 PM. © Left on 49 - Cabarrus County blog

A republican state representative from neighboring Stanly County has resigned.

Rep. David Almond resigned Thursday from the state Legislature due to an unspecified personnel complaint filed with House leadership, a day after the chamber's GOP caucus said it was looking into allegations of "serious, improper behavior."

"Sadness" was the response to the complaint by Paul Stam the House Republican leader, which he said he first heard about late Monday afternoon, and to Almond's resignation.
Stam, R-Wake, said Republican leaders asked Almond to resign "if the allegations were true," but that Almond resigned on his own.

House speaker Joe Hackney said he received "a personnel complaint" involving Almond last week, but said state and federal confidentiality laws bar him from giving any details.

Now the mainstream media isn't reporting at all what those allegations were. They seem to think it was a "personnel/personal matter" and hence they don't want to report any details. The problem is that this "improper behavior" happened in Mr. Almond's office on taxpayer's time, so that's why I'll tell you what supposedly happened.

This is what allegedly happened:

Rep. Almond was in his office and called his Legal Assistant in to help him with something.

She found him masturbating.

That Legal Assistant has since quit and the Republicans called an emergency caucus and apparently told Almond he needs to resign or face the penalty of the civil suit and or criminal case.

Seems to me that a lot of republicans have such unhealthy repressed feelings about sex that at one point they can't hold back anymore and start doing something stupid.
We had Mark Foley and his fondling of congressional pages and we just had Senator David Vitter, (R-LA), getting in trouble because he frequented a prostitute in Washington DC.
It's also a public secret that there are several high ranking republicans consistently pushing an anti-gay agenda while they are secretly gay themselves. Just a matter of time until those skeletons fall out of the closet (no pun intended).

It is also interesting to know that Rep. Almond is a vice chairman of the House committee on children, youth and families. Nice!

Is it just a matter of time until we find Coy Privette or Robin Hayes with their pants around their ankles?

At least when Clinton got a hummer it was between 2 perfectly consenting adults.

Read The Full Article:
http://www.lefton49.com/2007/07/what-is-it-with-republicans-and-sex.html

Digg this

Even Later Night

post from Eschaton on 13 July 2007 11:50:00 PM. © Eschaton

It's actually really hard to find decent classical music clips on Youtube, at least for anything other than really popular stuff.

Here's Mahler's 2nd Symphony, first movement, in 3 parts.

video details and more

video details and more

video details and more

Read The Full Article:
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_07_08_archive.html#3742420787240666795

Digg this

More on Warner-Lugar

post from Daily Kos on 13 July 2007 11:44:07 PM. © Daily Kos

The folks at TPM have the text of the Warner Lugar amendment, and on a full reading, it doesn't appear any less goofy than the broad outlines available in earlier media reports suggested it was.

Greg Sargent really sums it up well:

[I]n many ways, this amendment . . . is just a bad joke. It would require Bush to come up with a plan to reduce the troop presence in Iraq – but he wouldn't be required to come up with it until October, which of course is after Petraeus' report is due. This is in keeping with exactly what Bush wants, of course. He's asked Congress not to act until he can parade General Petraeus before the cameras in September to ask for yet more time. So it's not hard to imagine that this amendment could actually end up helping Bush, by letting him say to other antsy Republicans: "The very respectable and serious Warner and Lugar are skeptical of the war, and even they think in all their seriousness that Congress shouldn't act until after Petraeus speaks. So cool out."

Lugar himself gave away the game in his floor speech today, in which he actually characterized his own plan as follows:

I am hopeful that my counsel and that of many others who are weighing in with the President will lead to policy changes. But I have no illusions that what the Senate does during the amendment process to this Defense Authorization bill is now likely to affect the President’s decision about his strategy during the next two months.

It really doesn't get any clearer than that.

There are no specifics in this amendment to dictate what numbers of troops would need to be withdrawn, or by when. And the amendment actually contains this hilariously toothless line: "We recommend that the President and the Administration design plans to be executable beginning not later than December 31, 2007."

We recommend that the President do this? In other words, "Please, Mr. President, can you hurry up and start talking about pulling out? We're getting politically killed out here – pretty please"?

In other words, this amendment is exactly in keeping with the President's argument that Congress shouldn't dictate war policy lest it be "tying the hands of our generals" or "micromanaging the war" or whatever bogus and vacuous phrase you want to use.

Sargent concludes that it's better than nothing--that GOP Senators are introducing legislation to tell Bush that they'd really feel a lot better about things if maybe he would think about possibly changing his mind about one or two itsy-bitsy little things in Iraq might actual move the debate forward. It does do that in the sense that until now only two GOP Senators had done that, but they did by acutally supporting Democratic efforts that had some teeth.

And it does help to inoculate the Dems from taking on too much ownership of this war. The completely obstructionistic GOP of a few months ago threatened to make that happen, but now they're starting to take on at least a bit of the burden for a policy shift. Is that enough? Not if we're talking about really ending this debacle. Because it most certainly doesn't force Bush's hand on anything.

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/133553455/903

Digg this

Open Thread

post from Crooks and Liars on 13 July 2007 11:38:23 PM. © Crooks and Liars

Conservative Cartoon All-Stars To The Rescue!!!How much you wanna bet that Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity LOVE this?

Read The Full Article:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/07/13/open-thread-530/

Digg this

Late Night

post from Eschaton on 13 July 2007 11:08:00 PM. © Eschaton

Reader s sent this in.

video details and more

...it's Glenn Gould, late in life, performing the first 7 of Bach's Goldberg Variations.

Read The Full Article:
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_07_08_archive.html#7317480854469491410

Digg this

C&Ls Late Nite Music Club with Little Feat

post from Crooks and Liars on 13 July 2007 11:04:49 PM. © Crooks and Liars

I wanted to show a Lowell George-era Little Feat, so here they are, circa 1975:Fat Man in the Bathtub, available on Hotcakes & Outtakes, 30 Years of Little Feat Congratulations to ‘g.brogan’ for winning the House of the Rising Sun newscast contest. You can read the winning entry at Howie’s blog. Thanks for being part of [...]

Read The Full Article:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/07/13/cls-late-nite-music-club-with-little-fea
t/

Digg this

The Kabuki Correction

post from Firedoglake on 13 July 2007 11:00:10 PM. © Firedoglake

Every time I watch Bill O’Reilly’s lame “correction” of his insanely misbegotten reportage about pistol-packing gangs of lesbians, I feel like I’m watching an art form taking birth.It’s a form of the non-correction[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/07/13/the-kabuki-correction/

Digg this

WH Claims Executive Privilege Over Tillman
Documents

And the disgraceful Pat Tillman saga continues.. How’s this for “supporting the troops” and respecting their families?Seattle Times:The White House has refused to give Congress documents about the death of former NFL player Pat Tillman, with White House counsel Fred Fielding saying that certain papers relating to discussion of the friendly-fire shooting “implicate [...]

Read The Full Article:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/07/13/wh-claims-executive-privilege-over-tillm
an-documents/

Digg this

GOP Presidential candidates could care less about
the NAACP

Tom Tancredo, who has the same shot of becoming U.S. President as I do, was the only GOP candidate to show up at the NAACP GOP Presidential Candidate Forum.The only one.John McCain wanted to go but couldn't afford to, sources say.In all seriousness, however, there's really just one reason the ...

Read The Full Article:
http://www.williamkwolfrum.com/?p=652

Digg this

Bush Pardons Entire GOP

From notes and errata:Bush Pardons Entire GOPPrez "pre-emptively" saves all Repubs from becoming "prison bitches." Dems: "Can he do that?"Allegedly reacting to some sort of hallucinogenic fever dream following an overlong bubble bath during which he[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://librocrat.blogspot.com/2007/07/bush-pardons-entire-gop.html

Digg this