Wonkette

This forbidden-lobbyist-love scandal is a stroke of good fortune for John McCain. Revelations that he may have landed a sizzling hot blonde half his age have brought a new aura of virility and sex appeal to the Spanish-American war hero’s ancient carcass. He is also being hailed by Christian conservatives for having the good taste to conduct a heterosexual extramarital affair. And now we learn the scandal has brought conservative talk radio’s most lovable personalities flocking to his bosom. According to Politico, “they have a common enemy” now. Meaning, of course, the terrorists. At the New York Times. MORE »

So ha ha, funny story, this “McCain” guy had a press conference where he said he was in bed with all sorts of lobbyists, including firemen and policemen and senior citizens, and not just the blonde kind. Alas we were too distracted by the earthquake that decimated the meth-generating segment of Northern Nevada to notice. More footage coming soon, but for now please enjoy the CNN highlights. [CNN]

This whole “presumptive nominee” thing must be serious, because the New York Times just dumped a million-word “investigative report” on how John McCain is the sleaziest sack of scum since, uh, all the other Republicans who already dropped out of the race. Also: Did he have a Dirty Sex Affair with some lobbyist broad who looks suspiciously like his current wife? Let’s find out! MORE »

GOOD-BYE, CROOK! Dirty little Congressman John Doolittle is retiring from the House, GOP spies said today. But you can’t retire from being the target of a massive corruption investigation! [AP/Yahoo]

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]

Last week, Jacob Zuma beat Thabo Mbeki in a race to run South Africa’s African National Congress, which sorta set him up to take Mbeki out as the President. Mbeki is the President who said that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS, pregnant women should stop taking AZT to prevent transmission, the white people spread it through Africa on purpose and HIV could be cured through traditional remedies. Zuma was fired by Mbeki in 2005 when his financial adviser was caught soliciting a bribe and is now facing charges that he took hundreds of thousands of dollars of bribes from French arms dealers, not that that prosecution is at all politically motivated. Sometimes, even our bad leadership choices can be made to seem better. [Yahoo News]

Stuart Bowen was appointed by the Bush Administration to be the Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, which means it was his job to root our fraud and abuses in the Iraq reconstruction efforts. I know, funny, right? Unfortunately for the Iraqis (and us), Stuart was a little bit too busy committing his own frauds and abusing the system to bother investigating anyone else’s.

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The government of China had been forced to issue explicit [Ed: Huh-huh} instructions to firefighters about what they are not allowed to take in exchange for services. These things include: cash gifts, free or reduced housing, school admission for their kids, or sexual favors from third parties. The state news agency opined: "For every 10 corrupt officials, nine are involved in illicit sex. This old tune has already been proved by statistics from disciplinary organs many times."

They said "organs." [Yahoo News]

So, a bunch of employees in the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue have been stealing money from D.C. taxpayers for years. We’ve been ignoring the story because we weren’t sure anyone would be surprised that some D.C. government employees are corrupt and/or incompetent. But, in order to hide the fact that they were stealing (at least, that they know about so far) $31 million over the last 7 years, these enterprising embezzlers created (at least) 92 different fake corporations. Just to fuck with us, they called one Bilkemor LLC. [Washington Post]

Mean people in Congress totally made Condoleezza Rice interrupt her usual routine by making her sit down and answer a bunch of boring questions about, you know, Iraqi government corruption, murderous Blackwater mercenaries, and a bunch of other stuff that she doesn’t know anything about. Ooooh… why does Waxman keep pestering Condi?

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The funniest thing about CREW’s annual (only annual? We feel like we’ve seen four of these lists this year alone) list of the most corrupt congresspeople is that you can apparently make the “Dishonorable Mention” list just by fucking a whore or trying to fuck a cop. And congratulations to the token Democrats on the list, William Jefferson, Alan Mollohan, John Murtha, and David Scott. HOW COME TWO OF THEM ARE BLACK, HUH? Congratulations also to California, our most corrupt state. Better luck next time, New Mexico!

Beyond DeLay

Developer gives Bill Richardson more than $100k and a private plane, suddenly gets contract for New Mexico Transportation Department headquarters project. Funny how that happens, isn’t it? Also, boring. Richardson can’t even get involved in an interesting scandal. Except for all the womanizing stuff which we’d presumably be hearing about if he was actually polling above like 3% or whatever. [ABQjournal]

Now that Ted Stevens’ son Ben is no longer a corrupt Alaskan state Senator, he needs to find some way to feed the kids he may or may not have. Thankfully, father Ted pulled some strings and got his wayward son a gig with the transportation company Lynden, who, coincidentally, have received $300 million in federal contracts over the last six years, thanks to Ted being a ranking member of the Senate Defense Appropriations committee. Now, how about this job? Cushy desk gig, no doubt? MORE »