Daily Briefing: Something to Tout

• Republicans in Congress settle on $70B tax-cut package as proposal for $100 gas vouchers withers; Bush “implored lawmakers to deliver an agreement he could tout.” [WP, WP, NYT]
• Immigration rallies apparently made little influence on Congress. [NYT]
• Democrats aim to pick up House seats in the Northeast. [NYT]
• Bush may have sung a Spanish version of the national anthem at a campaign event. [WP]
• House votes on lobbying reform today. [USAT]
• Administration is testing “antisatellite weapons.” [NYT]
• Democrats threaten to filibuster one, maybe two, conservative judicial nominations. [WP]
• Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) is on a one-man mission to eliminate earmarks from the emergency spending bill. [WP]
• The Supreme Court under John Roberts has become more contemplative and patient. [NYT]
• Blogosphere bloviates about Stephen Colbert’s performance. [NYT]

READ MORE: 2006, Campaigning, Democrats, Republicans, SCOTUS, blogosphere, congress, earmarks, emergency spending, filibusters, george w. bush, house, immigration, john g. roberts, lobbying, national anthem, stephen colbert, tax cuts, tom coburn, whca, whcd

DomePunks, DomePunk’d: Which Way Did They Go?

We briefly noted their disappearance yesterday. But after Jessica Cutler emailed us to complain about the matter — “I was trying to read some shit about myself, but was stymied when the links didn’t work” — a full-fledged investigation is warranted.

So here’s the $64,000 question: What the heck happened to DomePunks?

DomePunks, which promised “Drenched, Moist, and Soaking Wet Gossip From INSIDE the Capitol,” is all dried up. When you go to its former location on the web, http://domepunks.com, all you see is a random collection of links, along with an announcement that “This page is parked free, courtesy of GoDaddy.com.”

The gossipy and irreverent DomePunks was started back in November 2005. If you miss the site, or if you never saw it but are curious, you can access some of it through Google cache (although not the most recent entries).

Not everyone is heartbroken over the blog’s demise. One reader who asked us about the matter added, “Not that I really care—the site sucks pondwater.” But we feel a certain small measure of gratitude towards DomePunks, since it’s where we first read about the salacious tale of one Stormie Janzen.

So back to the original question: Who or what is responsible for the demise of DomePunks? Did the Capitol Hill powers-that-be crack down upon them, just as they cracked down (pun intended) upon Jessica Cutler and Stormie Janzen? Were the DomePunks subjected to extraordinary rendition, packed off to a prison in Uzbekistan? If you have answers to any of these questions, please email us.

Earlier: Remainders: How Do You Solve a Problem Like the Press Pool?
Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Go Back in the Blogosphere

READ MORE: blog, bloggers, blogging, blogosphere, blogs, capitol hill, dome punks, domepunks, jessica cutler, washingtonienne

Putting Stormie To Bed: A Final Post on the Scandal That Never Was

Yes, we know, you’re sick of reading about it. Well, we’re sick of writing about it! Hence this postscript to the whole saga of Stormie Janzen — the hot young Senate staffer whose sexy blog got shut down recently.

We’ve followed Stormiegate fairly closely, even obsessively, and now we’d like to close the loop on it. We wouldn’t want to leave you in suspense over the fate of the vivacious young blogress who gave rise to this pseudo-scandal (emphasis on “pseudo”).

To quote the Bard once again, “All’s well that ends well.” Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts offer this entertaining update in their Reliable Source column:

Stormie Janzen, 34, did not return calls yesterday. [Sen. Jeff Sessions’s] spokesman Michael Brumas confirmed that Janzen still has a job: “We have dealt with this matter, and it’s closed.”

Oh, come on! Hasn’t anyone called offering a book contract? “I have no idea,” Brumas said wearily. “I doubt it.”

Okay. Has Playboy called? “Why are you asking me these questions?” he groaned.

Well, because we’re always on the lookout for the next Washington sex mini-scandal. Granted, Janzen’s page at MySpace.com isn’t going to get her there. Those who saw it say her writing was pretty PG-13, nothing nearly as spicy as the famous “Washingtonienne” diary that caused Jessica Cutler to lose her congressional staff job but gain a book contract. Then again, she does have a great name…

“If I can do it,” Cutler told us, “why not Stormie?”

Here’s our take on the whole matter: At the end of the day, what a government employee does in her private life is nobody’s business but her own. As long as Stormie is doing her job, and doing it well, the fact that she maintains a somewhat racy blog about her personal life — or, say, a whimsically irreverent, completely non-substantive blog about federal judges — has no bearing whatsoever on her employment.

Our polemic continues after the jump.

Because Stormie was not blogging about her work for Senator Sessions, the contents of her blog were of no concern to his office. So what if some random Alabama constituent couldn’t handle a little thong? That’s the constituent’s problem, not Stormie’s. It’s not like the constituent was tied to a chair in Guantanamo, eyes taped open, forced to stare at Stormie’s bare midriff…

The “blogging while at work”/”misuse of government resources” argument is a makeweight contention. Every job, and especially every government job, has lots of downtime. If Stormie wants to use her downtime to do a little creative writing, while other Sessions staffers use theirs to buy crap on eBay, what’s the harm in that? As for the computer use, federal government employees “may use Government resources for personal purposes,” as long as the use involves only “de minimis” — that’s legalese for “really really little” — additional expense to the government.

Merely working for the government should not prevent you from expressing yourself on matters not directly related to your employment (with direct relation construed narrowly). To adopt a contrary rule would exert an unwanted chilling effect, deterring anyone remotely interesting, creative, witty, or fun from entering government service — which, if the current Congress is any indication, has already happened.

In the words of Judge Richard Posner, speaking from the perspective of a government employee, “We have free speech too, don’t we?”

Okay, we’re stepping off our soapbox — back to the gossip…

Stormie’s Blog, Too Hot for the Hill [WP]
Last Word (and photo) on Stormie-Gate [AlabamaElections]
BUMPED: STORMIE is SMOKING Hot! [DomePunks]

Earlier:
Stormiegate: A Bit of Meta-Commentary
BREAKING (Despite the Elastic): Stormie Janzen’s Thong!
Stormie Janzen: Tempest in a Teapot?
Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Go Back in the Blogosphere

READ MORE: blog, bloggers, blogging, blogosphere, blogs, capitol hill, jeff sessions, jessica cutler, michael brumas, pseudo-scandals, sex, sex scandal, stormie janzen, thongs, top, washingtonienne

Stormiegate: A Bit of Meta-Commentary

Here at Wonkette, we don’t permit reader comments (yet). Some things, like the Washington Post’s recent unpleasantness with comments, make us less enthusiastic about the idea.

But sometimes we’re reminded of what we’re missing out on. Over at the AlabamaElections blog, which has also been covering Stormiegate, readers have been commenting up a storm. Here are some highlights:

Anonymous: this is no surprise at all. have any of you ever had dealings with [Senator Sessions’s] staff? they are the most churlish, immature, pious, serf serving brats I have ever come across in government dealings.
Anonymous: I believe her First Amendment Rights were pressured, and she had to cave in to maintain her job. Personally, I would have quit working for Jeff. In fact, I wouldn’t work for him to begin with!

Additional vitriol and snark — all from anonymous commenters, of course — after the jump.

Anonymous: “[M]en in button-fly jeans.” That line will follow that poor girl the rest of her life. It may explain why at 34 she is still single as I don’t know any men who wear button-fly jeans. But then I too am a Taurus.
Anonymous: This is low. I don’t even know that it’s right to call MySpace profiles blogs. They are more like personal ads. So the scandal here is that an unmarried 34 year old woman had a singles ad? And that she had a PG-13 photo on it? This is pathetic. MySpace is a members only community, and the person looking at this would have had to search specifically for this person, once logged in. Comparing this to Jessica Cutler is ridiculous.
Anonymous: This was a cheap shot. The Advertiser ran the story Saturday on its front page with a photo. It claims to have received an e-mail from someone about the “blog” and thus found it. Unduly embarassing people has unfortunately become part of the “gotcha” mentality of politics today. Both sides do it. No wonder people are so cynical about government. Is this really news? Questionable. But front page news on a weekend? Give me a break. They owe her an apology. I hope the media, and the Senator, will close the book on this and move on.
Anonymous: i checked out the friendster site for stormie. the really intersting thing there is her friend “laura” who is listed as a state representative from mobile alabama who wants relationships with women and men… go figure?????

Ooooh… Blog or no blog, this Laura character sounds like she’s worth investigating!

Jeff Sessions and the Case of the Sexy Blog [AlabamaElections]
Profile of “Laura” [Friendster]

Earlier: BREAKING (Despite the Elastic): Stormie Janzen’s Thong!
Stormie Janzen: Tempest in a Teapot?
Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Go Back in the Blogosphere

READ MORE: blog, bloggers, blogging, blogosphere, blogs, capitol hill, friendster, jeff sessions, montgomery advertiser, sex, sex scandal, stormie janzen

BREAKING (Despite the Elastic): Stormie Janzen’s Thong!

Earlier today, to paraphrase Sisqo, we asked you to “let [us] see that thong.” We requested a screen capture of the infamous photograph showing Senate staffer Stormie Janzen’s bare-midriff-cum-thong.

One of you kindly complied with our request. We have posted this photo to the left, for your viewing pleasure.

Yes, the pic is tiny; but beggars can’t be choosers. And yes, you can barely see the vaunted thong; but isn’t reduced visibility the whole point of a thong?

After all, the telos of the thong as an undergarment is elimination of the dreaded visible panty line (“VPL”). If the curve of the thong seems to disappear as it asymptotically approaches the line of Janzen’s jeans — well, it’s just doing its job.

And so are we, in blogging so extensively about this ridiculousness…

(On a completely unrelated note, but while we have your attention, be sure to check out the first edition of Chatology: Digesting the Sunday Spew — featuring the one and only Ana Marie Cox!)

Earlier: Stormie Janzen: Tempest in a Teapot?
Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Go Back in the Blogosphere

READ MORE: Funny Pictures, blog, bloggers, blogging, blogosphere, blogs, breaking, capitol hill, funny screen caps, jeff sessions, sex, sex scandal, stormie janzen, thong song, thongs, top

Stormie Janzen: Tempest in a Teapot?

Okay, fine, we’ll admit it. We believe that the whole Stormie Janzen blog controversy is a bit overblown. Indeed, our view is reflected in the title we’ve given to this post. (And yes, we briefly considered the triple-pun headline “Stormie Janzen: Temptress in a Teapot,” before rejecting it as way too “busy.”)

But the recognition that this is all “much ado about nothing” — as Stormie herself, a one-time Shakespeare scholar, might say — won’t prevent us from serving up yet another post about Sen. Jeff Sessions’s steamy staffer. It’s what you’re clearly clamoring for, and we aim to please!

For those of you who missed yesterday’s coverage, Stormie Janzen is a gorgeous, 34-year-old scheduler for Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.). Until recently, Stormie Jansen [sic; intentional misspelling to capture Google traffic] maintained a bawdy blog on MySpace, where she raved about the sexiness of men in button-fly jeans and treated visitors to a tantalizing glimpse of her thong, a la Monica.

Unfortunately for Ms. Janzen, as well as all thong-loving members of MySpace, the powers-that-be in Senator Sessions’s office eventually got wind of her literary exploits. And when they did, they forced poor Stormie to change into a pair of granny panties — and to take down her blog. (But the chastened Janzen is keeping her job, as reported by Roll Call.)

So you’ll probably never get to see that ridiculously delicious photo of Stormie in her partially unbuttoned jeans (unless someone emails us a screen cap). But you’re still dying to know: “Who is Stormie Jansen? And how is she related to the Halle Berry character from X-Men?”

On the jump page, the results of Wonkette’s detailed investigation into those questions.

This Montgomery Advertiser article about Stormie Janzen provides some basic facts about her:

• she’s 34 years old;
• she is, by her own description, “single, straight and a Scorpio”;
• she’s a 1994 graduate of the University of South Alabama in Mobile;
• she works as a scheduler for Senator Jeff Sessions; and
• for her Senate work, she was paid $64,139 between October 1, 2004, and September 30, 2005 (so, with that healthy if not enormous salary, she has no need to supplement her income, Jessica Cutler-style).

In our quest for additional information about Stormie Janzen, we started at ground zero: we Googled her. This yielded up a ton of references to her work for Senator Sessions, as well as mention of her work on University of South Alabama Alumni Association, but not much else. (For those of you seeking to ask Janzen out on a date, however, Google will helpfully provide you with her office email address and work phone number.)

We then turned to Friendster, which was also a disappointment. Janzen’s profile has no photo — just that stupid Friendster smiley face — and it doesn’t tell us much about Stormie. We learn that she enjoys travel, writing, and dance, and that’s pretty much it. There’s also a somewhat banal testimonial from Stormie’s one friend, Laura, who raves about Stormie as “one of the nicest people I have ever known,” “who makes me laugh when I need it most.” Um, thanks, Laura. Can we be BFFs forever?

Of course, we also tried to locate Stormie Janzen on MySpace. That proved even less fruitful: it appears that Stormie’s profile disappeared along with her blog.

Then we turned to Lexis/Nexis. (Yes, dear readers, Wonkette research is a full-service operation. Don’t forget — people used to pay over $300 an hour for this!) And that’s when we finally started to get the good stuff.

First, we encountered an article about personnel changes among the Sessions staff from The Hill, on July 5, 2000. It had this to say about Janzen:

Janzen began working for Sessions on his campaign for attorney general of Alabama in 1994. After Sessions’ election, she served as his special administrative assistant in Montgomery, Ala. In 1997, she moved to Mobile, Ala., to work in Sessions’ district office as a field representative. A native of Madison, Janzen received her B.A. in philosophy and English from the University of South Alabama in 1994, and attended the University of London (King’s College) in 1992, where she studied Shakespearean literature. Janzen succeeds Kate Hollis, who has returned home to Montgomery.

That study of Shakespeare may explain how Stormie got to keep her job. We can already imagine Stormie Janzen making her impassioned plea to Rick Dearborn, Senator Sessions’s chief of staff: “The quality of mercy is not strained…”

Second, we found a Roll Call article from July 10, 2000, which contains essentially the same substance as the piece from The Hill. But the headline for the Roll Call piece about Janzen’s arrival in Sen. Sessions’s office is priceless:

SESSIONS SUPPLEMENTS D.C. STAFF WITH FOURSOME

Write your own punchline. People, you cannot make this shit up!

Update: BREAKING (Despite the Elastic): Stormie Janzen’s Thong!

Thunder Over Stormie [Roll Call]
Sessions’ Aide Agrees To Shut Down Blog After Complaint [AP]

Earlier: Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Go Back in the Blogosphere

READ MORE: blog, bloggers, blogging, blogosphere, blogs, capitol hill, dome punks, foursomes, jeff sessions, jessica cutler, kate hollis, montgomery advertiser, rick dearborn, self-writing jokes, sex, sex scandal, stormie janzen, threesomes, top, washingtonienne

Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Go Back in the Blogosphere…

This morning, via DomePunks, we learn the story of Stormie Janzen (porn name: Stormie Janzen). Until recently, the comely Ms. Janzen — a 34-year-old scheduler for Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) — maintained a racy, sexy blog on MySpace. Janzen’s blog featured midriff-baring photos of the curvaceous blogress, as well as paeans to men in button-fly jeans.

We know what you’re thinking right now: “Washingtonienne: The Sequel. Heaven help us!”

Thankfully — or disappointingly, depending on your point of view — it’s not that bad. Although Stormie, as noted by DomePunks, “did appear with her pants opened and showing her thong tha thong thong thong,” she was a vestal virgin compared to Jessica Cutler of Washingtonienne notoriety. Stormie did not blog about sexual liaisons with other Hill staffers — to say nothing of receiving cold hard cash in exchange for said liaisons (replete with ass-fucking). Nor did she blog about congressional affairs business.

Still, even if the blog’s content may rise only to the PG-13 level, you’re still dying to see it, right? Unfortunately, it appears that Rick Dearborn, Senator Sessions’s chief of staff, ordered Janzen to take her blog offline — a directive with which she has complied.

Take it from us, honey, ‘cause one of us knows a thing or two about the subject: Blogging on government time is not such a hot idea!

Update: Stormie Janzen: Tempest in a Teapot?

Stormie Weather [DomePunks]
Sessions’ Aide Revealed on Sexy Internet Diary [Montgomery Advertiser]
Jeff Sessions and the Case of the Sexy Blog [AlabamaElections]

Earlier: For the Record, We Turned Down Playboy (a collection of Washingtonienne-related links)

READ MORE: blog, bloggers, blogging, blogosphere, blogs, capitol hill, dome punks, jeff sessions, jessica cutler, rick dearborn, sex, sex scandal, stormie janzen, top, washingtonienne

Inside the Bubble: Newspaper Nicknames

• From the “New York Slimes” and the “Washington Compost” to the “San Francisco Comical” and the “Portland Snore-egonian,” all the nicknames fit to print. [The Corner]
• NYT realizes that blogging has “its own special power.” [LA Observed]
• BREAKING: Cheney not fond of reporters! [Fishbowl DC]
• Unclear on the concept: “For ABC to use virtual unknowns [to anchor WNT] instead of stars is blasphemous.” [NYO]
• Rummy on reporters in Iraq: Poor confused adorable scribes! No wonder they only report the bad news. [CJR]

READ MORE: blogosphere, dick cheney, donald rumsfeld, inside the bubble, new york times, washington post

Ted Kennedy, Technophile

We read today about Sen. Ted Kennedy’s off-line-only love affair with blogs. He has no Berry, no computer, no email — it must be nice to be so rich that everyone does that for you — so he keeps up with them via a weekly memo about “what progressive blogs, especially Daily Kos and MyDD.com, are saying on key issues.” We got a sneak peek at these memos and have transferred them from their hand-lettered vellum scrolls to this pixel form:

10/28/05: Iraq war bad. Bush lied. Stupid Bush. MERRY FITZMAS.
11/04/05: Election was stolen. Iraq war REALLY bad. Bush stupid, a liar.
11/11/05: Lying stupid Bush stole the election. Bad goes the Iraq war.
11/18/05: JACK MURTHA ROCKS.
11/25/05: Iraq war bad.

Kennedy :)’s on Political Bloggers

READ MORE: blogosphere, liberals, ted kennedy, top

S&M at the NYT

Does the New York Times have a secret crush on blogs? Over at the Blogometer, William Beutler says Judy Miller’s retirement may have been influenced in part by the digital trench coat mafia:

In Miller’s case there’s no question the blogosphere’s chatter was a significant part of the Times’ reaction, insofar as they’re concerned with repairing the paper’s reputation. There are no publicly named blog readers at the WH, but the New York Times makes no secret about taking blogs seriously.

Read more disturbing NYT facts after the jump
Judge Judy [Hotline’s Blogometer]
— Eric Pfeiffer

According to Nexis, blogs have made their way into nearly 500 stories in the New York Times. (At the Washington Post, about 430; at the Los Angeles Times, not quite 340). And few have disputed that the blogosphere has been a driving force in earlier media scandals — such as the resignation of former Times editors Howell Raines and Gerald Boyd, following the Jayson Blair fiasco.

READ MORE: blogosphere, judy miller, new york times

BREAKING: Andrew Sullivan Hacked!

Andrew Sullivan has been broken into, and not in a good way. As of right now, AndrewSullivan.com dispays a couple of broken jpgs and the message: “sorry i hacked you,” as well as the signature, “HackeD bY revie_perizh #carderx on DALNET.”

UPDATE, 9:30 AM: Still no sign of the blue-and-white digital noodlings of Washington’s hairiest gay conservative pundit. Perhaps it’s intentional? A performance art piece about how the far right has “hacked” the GOP?

UPDATE 10:36 AM: He’s back! Rove did it.

Cyber-Catharsis: Bloggers Use Web Sites as Therapy [WP]

READ MORE: andrew sullivan, blogosphere, breaking, hackers

Metro Section: Mostly Useful

• Let us do something useful for you: Google DC Metro map. [Metamonkey via Unrequited Narcissism]
• AU students protest former president Ladner. Our current favorite superfluous perk? “His use of university security guards to fetch his morning newspapers.” [DCist]
• Stuff that’s filming around here. [GW Hatchet]
• Some lawmakers have blogs. Or, uhm “blog-like pages.” [WP]

READ MORE: american university, blogosphere, metro section, movies, roundups