Sex-having Sen. John Ensign hauled in a whopping $33k for himself and his Republican Party last quarter, down approximately $300,000 from the previous quarter, when he was still a virgin. This is great news for the corporates! Ensign’s vote-selling fee is spiraling down down down to a farthing’s worth: “Most of Ensign’s contributions since news of the affair broke came from individual donors, although he did receive $1,000 from the BlueCross BlueShield Association in September, just as the Senate Finance Committee — on which he sits — was considering its health care bill.” In a few months, John Ensign will be living in an Anacostia dumpster soliciting Dixie cups of urine and cigarette butts from Goldman Sachs in exchange for a vote against financial regulation. [Politico]

Senatorial grumpus Chuck Grassley really wants a solid, bipartisan health care reform bill to pass, you guys. This is why he has been refusing to compromise on a single thing for eight months — and more recently, spreading toxic falsehoods and suggesting he’ll vote against his own bill — in his role as chief Republican health care negotiator! We can gauge his powerful commitment towards reaching a satisfying agreement in the near future, too, by reading one of his recent fundraising letters, dated August 10: “I had to rush you this Air-Gram today to set the record straight on my firm and unwavering opposition to government-run health care… And ask your immediate support in helping me defeat ‘Obama-care.’” (It’s his hasty ellipsis — he was really rushing to send that Air-Gram!) MORE »

Paultards were so sad when their Hobbit-King, Ron Paul, finally quit running for President sometime earlier this year. They had nobody to whom they could send their precious money-bombs of Liberty! Fortunately, his son — Ayn “Rand” Paul — is running for Senate in Kentucky, and he raised many moneys yesterday in one of these bombing events. MORE »

• PAUL BROUN IS A RESPONSIBLE CONGRESSMAN: This is the Georgian asshole’s own obnoxious underlining scheme in a fundraising letter, not ours: “In other words: When mama falls and breaks her hip, she’ll just lie in her bed in pain until she dies with pneumonia because her needed surgery is not cost efficient.” You know he means it, because that’s one bitch of a sentence to format. [TPM]

O Holy Day, look what just dropped in ye olde “Wonkett” tips box! Cougs is back for more: “Will you follow this link to sign the birthday card? There’s even a special space to leave a personal message of encouragement for John. After you’ve signed the card, I hope you’ll make a generous contribution to John’s reelection campaign, so he can continue his service to our country.” We will do one of these things! MORE »

Last year, even some Democrats liked Mike Huckabee for two and a half seconds because he had “ideas” that went beyond “grind up the bottom 2 percent of earners into Hamburger Helper and give Fred Thompson another tax cut.” He said novel things about looking after the Poors and probably some other shit, who can remember really, it was so long ago. Anyway, after he lost the Republican nomination to an enfeebled Navy guy with a hair-trigger temper and a grifter sidekick, Mike Huckabee formed a political action committee and everybody assumed he was laying the groundwork for another presidential run. But that PAC and its attendant “think tank” organ are now looking pretty sad. MORE »

Will Sarah Palin appear at a fancy fundraiser tonight for the National Republican Congressional Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee? No way in hell, unless she changes her mind! First she was invited to headline at the event, and she said yes, but then she said no because she was so “overexposed,” so events organizers booked Newt Gingrich instead because Newt Frigging Gingrich is a less “controversial” speaker. But the drama was just beginning! MORE »

WELL THAT IS CERTAINLY ONE WAY TO RAISE MONEY FOR A CAMPAIGN: History proves that there is no faster way to accumulate quick cash than by setting up a cocaine ring. (Thanks to “Dip from Philly” for the tip.) [Politics PA]

All right, Jonathan Martin, you WIN THE NIGHT and ALSO THE FOLLOWING MORNING for this explosive exclusive thing on a truly boneheaded scheme to foster some sort of political alliance between the Clintons and Sarah Palin. The perpetrator: John Coale, prominent Palin pal, husband of Greta Van Susteren, and Clinton supporter who got his panties in a bunch when Hillary didn’t win the nomination. The victim: Sarah Palin, who just wants to be left alone and limit huge public embarrassments to, say, a mere thrice-weekly occurrence. MORE »

As eternal punishment for sending him $50 one night last summer, when you were drunk, Barack Obama sends a new email every day, demanding more money, for god knows what. Sometimes he makes Michelle send it, or David Plouffe, or Al Gore, or Joe Biden, or even Bill Clinton. As long as the email goes out with a famous political name in the From: spot, that’s good enough for Mr. Online Marketing. MORE »

If there’s one thing the Clintons have absolutely zero compunctions about, it’s raising money to fund their Presidential porn collections, nefarious parking-lot murder plots, and cynical seduction of “hard-working white Americans.” So it’s kind of amazing that Hillary Clinton isn’t just sending out her own goddamn fundraising letters and leaving our precious Barry and Joe out of her shameful shillery, but there you have it: Vice President-elect Joe Biden is issuing a fundraising appeal for the Secretary of State-to-be, who needs dollars to pay off the “hard-working individuals and small businesses” (read: Mark Penn and the Bilderberg Group) who helped her tour Florida and Michigan shouting about DISENFRANCHISEMENT long after she’d lost any realistic hope of winning the Democratic nomination. MORE »