Wonkette

Well “my friends” it is Friday and this is precisely the sort of headline that will either make people click the clicky to READ MORE or just go “ugh” and vomit quietly in their shoes. Because seriously who wants to know about Ted Stevens’ long love affair with former Secretary of State Colin Powell, a man who has built a career defending the veracity and reputations of unreconstructed crooks? MORE »

Uncle Ted Stevens, the elderly fraud who “gets hysterical when he has to spend his own money,” will soon be going to trial for various lies related to the renovation of his Alaskan Sex Cabin in the wilds of Girdwood. The good people of the Alaska Wilderness Political Fund will be liveblogging the whole agonizing ordeal, from jury selection to the part where Ted Stevens snaps on the witness stand and declares “This whole court’s out of order!” and gets wheeled off for shock treatments while his Inuit pal throws a marble wash station out the window. Catch it all here. [A Bridge to Justice]

Today, a federal grand jury indicted Alaskan Sen. Ted Stevens on seven counts of “filing false financial disclosures.” Stevens is the biggest catch in a four-year-old corruption investigation involving pretty much all Alaskan politicians, one that’s complicated not because of the crimes committed — lots of bribery, basically — but because there was so freaking much crime to investigate. His indictment comes almost exactly a year after federal agents raided his home, and now he will go to jail and lose his Senate seat and remind everyone how evil the powerful Republicans are. MORE »

An Oklahoma sheriff has quit his post after being charged with committing pretty much every sexual crime in the book against a number of female prisoners. For example, “rape by instrumentation.” If he’s convicted, he may serve up to 467 years in prison. Join us on a terrible sex tour of all the foul horrors former Custer County Sheriff Mike Burgess may have committed! MORE »

Congressman John Doolittle of California — Tom DeLay’s scumbag buddy who took a bunch of dirty money from Jack Abramoff — might be wussing out after all. Doolittle’s chief of staff denies it, but the re-election campaign is already almost broke and he nearly lost his 4th District “safe seat” in the ‘06 midterms that swept away his crooked sweetheart Richard Pombo, from California’s 11th District. [TPM Muckraker, Politico, OpenSecrets]

It seems like ages since Jack Abramoff and his BFF Bob Ney got sent to the slammer, which must be why Bush’s Department of Justice seems to have totally forgotten about Jacky-boy’s other crimes and bribe-takers, right? I mean, they’ve totally got, like, religious discrimination cases to prosecute and Democratic voter fraud to uncover and stuff, and that’s hard. But someone hasn’t forgotten about an incident at the end of the Clinton Administration in which Jacky was working to get these two boobs (Don Young of Alaska and Dana “Don’t Make Any Sudden Moves” Rohrabacher of California) to help him discredit a U.S. diplomat… on behalf of the country in which that diplomat was serving.

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The federal government today filed papers outlining more allegations against Congressman William Jefferson (D-Louisiana) but doesn’t plan to file any further charges. The charges, unsurprisingly, include performing official duties for money (like, writing a letter to NASA) and arranging meetings for a lobbyist with high-level Nigerian officials in exchange for a lobbying contract for a relative. It’s entirely likely that the only reason the federal government isn’t prosecuting the new charges is that the federal court made them give back all the papers they raided his office for last year. [CQ Today Midday Update]

Because we can never resist an opportunity to run a picture of the hottest Governor in all 50 states (and my total girl crush), the Washington Post is reporting that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin called Alaskan legislators back to Juneau for a special session to re-vote on an oil tax bill — those legislators that haven’t been convicted of or charged with taking bribes to pass the bill, that is. Oh, those innocent days when the scandals were all about money and power. Come and relive the early days of a scandal that may end up taking down a sitting U.S. Senator, after the jump.

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Nobody could find Ted Stevens at the Capitol today because he kept disappearing whenever they caught a glimpse of him, but CNN’s Dana Bash chased him down a stairwell or something and this is the hilarious transcript of the videotaped interview, which we’ll try to find for you later. Or just watch CNN; they’ll repeat it soon. MORE »

As the longest-serving Republican Senator ever, Ted Stevens has obviously committed enough crime to make Dutch Schultz blush. He’s less ostentatious than your Duke Cunninghams and less perverted than all those under-70 whippersnappers who keep fucking whores and little boys, though, so we never thought we’d see him go down in our lifetime. Which means it’s a pleasant surprise to see the FBI and IRS raiding his huge ski resort home. MORE »

* America’s mayor took some pretty shiny payola from America’s team. [Political Wire]
* Lack of a major league club in Jersey just means they hand him an envelope stuffed with electoral delegates instead. [Atlantic Online]
* James Sensenbrenner: still the biggest asshole on The Hill. [TPM Muckraker]
* Tom Tancredo’s failures as a presidential candidate contribute to already substantial failures as a congressman. [Denver Post]
* Terrorists continue to target nations’ hand-release infrastructure. [Passport]
* Intelligence agencies maintain “it’s easier to get forgiveness than permission.” [Secrecy News]
* Fox News wrongly accused Hillary Clinton of only recently starting to dress badly. [Media Matters]

March 26: Tom Vilsack endorses Hillary Clinton.
March 27: “Sen. Clinton To Pay Off Vilsack’s Campaign Debt” MORE »

* On 4th anniversary of Iraq war, President Bush reminds everyone how great it is, why we should stay. [WP, NYT]
* Meanwhile, Democrats move towards “a withdraw-the-troops bill, not a fund-the-troops bill,” one greased congressional palm at a time. [WP]
* Justice Department considers shutting up one of the fired attorneys with a new job. Hopefully, he’ll also demand a hush-corner office, a hush-oak desk, and a giant hush-jar of only green jelly beans. [WP]
* Patrick Fitzgerald was on the DOJ “enemies list” released in yesterday’s document dump. [WP, NYT]
* Flunkies for Barry O. and Hill Rod have a little spat in front of some college boys over “who would have been more against the war if 2003 was a Presidential election year.” [WP]
* Supreme Court hears “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” case, finds a lack of any bong hits or any Jesus. [NYT]
* Rudy Giuliani: it’s almost as if he’s a real lawyer. [WSJ]