More Republican Sex Allegations

As one investigation led to another, it appears that more Republican sex may have taken place in Alaska. And, as is often the case, this typically GOPish sex scandal includes minors:

Allen teen sex inquiry reopened

Allen pleaded guilty in May to bribing Alaska lawmakers. Once the chairman and an owner of the oil field services company Veco, he was forced to sell the company and now faces a lengthy prison term. That's a stunning fall for a power broker who handed oil-policy decrees to a stable of bribed legislators and who regularly socialized with senators and other national political figures who came to Alaska as guests of Sen. Ted Stevens.

At the time the Boehm investigation was developing, from 2003 to 2004, Allen was still a major player in Alaska politics, as he had been for decades, and was a reliable source of campaign money for state candidates, members of Alaska's congressional delegation and other national politicians. In 2000 he was Alaska co-chairman of President Bush's election campaign.

In an interview in October, Vandegriff wouldn't name Allen's alleged victim or victims. He said Allen was not a direct subject of the Boehm investigation. But he said there was one person involved in both the Boehm case and the investigation of Allen: Bambi Tyree, one of Boehm's co-defendants.

Vince Blomfield, Tyree's boyfriend starting around 1999 when he was 36 and she was 18, said in an interview with a private investigator working for Boehm that Tyree claimed to have had a sexual relationship with Allen when she was 14 or 15. Allen would have been in his late 50s at the time. The interview with Blomfield was cited in a court filing by Boehm's attorneys, who were trying to portray Tyree as having a history of preying on older men with money.

It has become clear that in the modern dictionary "Republican" and "GOP" have become synonymous with "Pedophile". And before anyone starts with the "Both sides do this!" crap:

This summer’s political conventions are expected to be “a boom in business” for “the sex and adult entertainment industries,” but according to one veteran sex worker who spoke to the Rocky Mountain News, the GOP conventions are “a lot better for the sex workers.” “We get a lot more business,” Carol Leigh told the paper. “I don’t know if they’re just frustrated because of the family values agenda.”

Obviously, the party with all of those family values hypocrites do it a lot more, whether it involves minors or not.

Internet Media Internships At TPM

It is the last week to get your applications in for Talking Point Memo's spring internship program:

From January 14th:

Job Opening at TPM

Starting today, we're announcing a job opening for a reporter-blogger at TPMmuckraker. The new hire will be one of two full-time reporter-bloggers for the site. There is no deadline for applications. We'll be hiring as soon as we find the right person. If you're interested please send a resume, two clips and a letter describing your interest and qualifications for the job to talk (at) talkingpointsmemo.com with the subject line "TPMmuckraker Job".

This is a full-time position, with health care. The reporter-blogger will report from either New York or Washington, DC., depending on the applicant.

If you've already expressed interest in the position informally, please submit an application as described above.

To learn more about what we do at TPM and what we've accomplished in the last year, see these news reports on TPM from 2007. And thanks to our readers who make all of this possible.

Internships

TPM interns are vital to our operation and have a hand in everything we do. They work alongside our reporters to write and break stories, help our editors keep a finger on the pulse of the news day, and produce all kinds of digital media from youtube clips to mash-up photographs. Some of our interns have gone on to jobs here at TPM, others have moved on to jobs in new and old media alike, working for Think Progress, The Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, The New York Sun, and more. To learn more about what we do at TPM and what we've accomplished in the last year, see these news reports on TPM from 2007.

Because each intern is encouraged to work in multiple parts of our operation, it's important that applicants have a basic understanding of new media technologies (blogging, youtube, etc.) and a desire and ability to learn quickly. All internships are unpaid and based in TPM's New York City office.

To apply for any of our internships, send an email to talk at talkingpointsmemo.com with a cover letter, resume and two references. Include in the email subject "TPM Internship."

Spring 2008 Internship

Our Spring 2008 Internship runs from mid-March to early June. We will be accepting three or four full time interns. Part-time interns may be considered.

Applications are due on February 8th.

Summer 2008 Internship

Our Spring 2008 Internship runs from early June to late August. We will be accepting four or five full time interns. Part-time interns will not be considered.

Applications are due on March 21st.

Rolling Internships (Intern now!)

At any given time, it is always possible that we could use a smart person in the office to replace a lost intern or help us manage the ever-growing mountain of muck and news. If you're available to come in sooner than the beginning of the next internship cycle begins, let us know.

There are plenty of you Connecticut Bloggers that could bring a lot to their pages in filling these positions. And the trade off? Learning from one of the best media outfits on the intertubes...

DANGERstein Idiocy Alert!

Dan Gerstein's own brand of right wing propaganda, from BooMan at the The Booman Tribune:

For those of you keeping score at home, the Baby Boomer Generation is made up of people born between 1946 and 1964, meaning that they are currently between 44 and 62 years old. The Blog Reader Project shows the following demographic breakdown for Daily Kos readers:

Age:

Less than 18: 0.3%
18-20: 1.2%
21-34: 26.3%
35-45: 22.8%
46-55: 25.7%
56-65: 18.0%
66-75: 4.6%
Older than 75: 1.0%

The results show that the majority of Daily Kos readers are not Baby Boomers. The largest category (the plurality) is the 21-34 contingent, and more than 50% of readers (the majority) are too young to be part of the Boomer generation, while more than 5% are too old. This doesn't prevent senior adviser to Sen. Joe Lieberman's vice presidential and presidential campaigns, Dan Gerstein, from asserting:

The Kossacks and their activist allies -- who skew toward the Boomers -- believe that Republicans are venal bordering on evil, and that the way Democrats will win elections and hold power is to one-up Karl Rove's divisive, bare-knuckled tactics. Their opponents within the party -- who skew younger and freer of culture war wounds -- believe that the way to win is offer voters a break from this poisonous tribal warfare and a compelling, inclusive vision for where we want to take the country.

Technically, Gerstein said 'Kossacks and their activist allies', so I guess he can try to defend himself by claiming that the 'activist allies' skew to the boomer generation, thereby tilting Kossacks in that direction. I don't know, Gerstein is an asshat. But it's kind of important that he's screwed up the generational profile of Daily Kos because his entire essay depends on Kossacks (and by extension, the blogosphere as a whole) being about the politics of the past, in distinction from the hopeful, post-partisan politics of the future (as embodied in Senator Barack Obama).

Gerstein might be onto something about Kossacks (and the blogosphere more generally) but not because of the age distinctions, i.e., because non-Kossacks/Blogopshereites are "freer of culture war wounds." Ironically, Gerstein hits on a better explanation (though he skips right over it) while he is in the process of distorting the history of the Lieberman/Lamont battle.

Read on...

Yes! More asshat idiocy from Dan Gerstein...

Soldier Suicides Skyrocket

Meanwhile, suicide attempts and self-inflicted wounds are rocketing alongside the suicide rates:

Soldier suicides reach record level, study shows

"I'm very disappointed with the Army," Whiteside wrote in a note before swallowing dozens of antidepressants and other pills. "Hopefully this will help other soldiers." She was taken to the emergency room early Tuesday. Whiteside, who is now in stable physical condition, learned yesterday that the charges against her had been dismissed.

Whiteside's personal tragedy is part of an alarming phenomenon in the Army's ranks: Suicides among active-duty soldiers in 2007 reached their highest level since the Army began keeping such records in 1980, according to a draft internal study obtained by The Washington Post. Last year, 121 soldiers took their own lives, nearly 20 percent more than in 2006.

At the same time, the number of attempted suicides or self-inflicted injuries in the Army has jumped sixfold since the Iraq war began. Last year, about 2,100 soldiers injured themselves or attempted suicide, compared with about 350 in 2002, according to the U.S. Army Medical Command Suicide Prevention Action Plan.

The military is broken and all the idiots in the criminal administration do is offer lip-service:

Increasing suicides raise "real questions about whether you can have an Army this size with multiple deployments," said David Rudd, a former Army psychologist and chairman of the psychology department at Texas Tech University.

On Monday night, as President Bush delivered his State of the Union address and asked Congress to "improve the system of care for our wounded warriors and help them build lives of hope and promise and dignity," Whiteside was dozing off from the effects of her drug overdose.

Blumenthal investigating sub-prime mortgage crisis

Blumenthal is looking into the sub-prime mortgage crisis as millions of Americans are looking at losing their homes, a little less than a half a million of them in Connecticut:

It is estimated that more than $100bn (£50bn) was been wiped off the balance sheets across the financial sector, in losses and asset writedowns. Share prices have also fallen heavily.

The SEC is already conducting a clutch of civil investigations into the scandal.

Some US states have launched their own legal action. Yesterday, Connecticut state attorney general Richard Blumenthal said his office has issued subpoenas to all major rating agencies and bond insurers in a widening probe of industry practices related to the sub-prime mortgage crisis.

He said this includes MBIA and Ambac, the two monoline insurers who guarantee municipal loans whose shares plunged last week over concern they do not hold enough capital to guarantee their ratings, after getting caught in the sub-prime chaos.

Blumenthal also told Reuters that Connecticut was cooperating with the state of New York over its investigation.

Senator Chris Dodd had some words on this:

The House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a $146 billion economic stimulus package on Tuesday. Parts of the package would allow the Federal Housing Administration and housing finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to help prop up the mortgage market.

These measures "will enable homeowners with larger mortgages to refinance, lower their monthly payments, and avoid foreclosure," said Rep. George Miller, a California Democrat, after passage of the package.

Sen Christopher Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, urged the Senate to take similar action swiftly and spend billions of dollars more to help distressed homeowners.

"Unlike past recessions and slowdowns, the epicenter of this economic crisis is the housing crisis," the Connecticut Democrat said on the Senate floor.

"Reckless, careless, and sometimes unscrupulous actors in the mortgage lending industry essentially allowed loans to be made that they knew hard-working, law-abiding borrowers would not be able to repay," said the former presidential candidate.

He accused the Federal Reserve and the Bush administration of doing "absolutely nothing" to stop these practices.

Imagine that? Preznit bush doing nothing to help the little people. How republican of him!

John McCain's Campaign Platform

Joe Scarborough and Pat Buchanan sum up the John McCain campaign platform pretty effectively:

BUCHANAN: Here’s a guy, basically, what does he say? The jobs are never coming back, the illegals are never going home, but we’re gonna have a lot more wars.

SCARBOROUGH: We’re gonna start a lot of wars! He has promised, for the record Keith, John McCain’s platform — and it certainly looks inviting for the fall — he has promised less jobs and more wars. Now that’s something we can all rally behind.

According to Think Progress:

While campaigning in Michigan earlier this month, McCain said some Michigan industries cannot be resurrected. “I’ve got to give you some straight talk: Some of the jobs that have left the state of Michigan are not coming back,” he said.

And just this weekend, McCain told a crowd of supporters, “There’s going to be other wars. … I’m sorry to tell you, there’s going to be other wars. We will never surrender but there will be other wars.”

And the McCain Silly Walk Express stumbles its way into the lead through the shear incompetence of the other GOP presidential candidates. His likely campaign motto?

John McCain in 2008!
The best of the worst the GOP has to offer!

According to ctblogger the Silly Walk Express will be stumbling through Connecticut with his neoconservative brother in eternal arms, Joe Lieberman:

McCain is coming to Connecticut... with Lieberman attached to the hip.

McCain, the front-runner in the Connecticut GOP primary, is appearing Sunday at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, the site of an appearance before winning the state's primary in 2000.

The Arizona senator will appear with Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman and U.S. Rep. Chris Shays, says a well-placed source.

I wonder how those "stick with Joe" Democrats feel right about now?

My guess is that they feel pretty darn dumb after we, in Connecticut's left Blogosphere, warned them over and over again...