Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) says the US under Obama is like Germany under the Nazis.
Remember last week we learned that that goofball deputy from San Diego County Sheriff’s Department had flipped out at that small Democratic fundraiser hosted at a home in the suburbs, spraying pepper spray into people’s eyes, throwing people to the ground and calling in a fleet of police cars, a canine unit and even a police helicopter. And we got to thinking, are these guys in the habit of flipping out like this? Sending in the helicopter at a moment’s notice, like an underutilized toy?
That was a bit hard to figure out. But we did find out that the Department’s website has a special section devoted to para-militaryish photos of its helicopter force, with even some beef-cakish photos of the pilots with assault rifles … I guess ready for some local community policing. Shocking these guys would fly off the handle. Take a look.
People outside Louisiana marveled that former Rep. “Dollar” Bill Jefferson (D-LA) could get re-elected in 2006 even after he was indicted and accused of hiding $90,000 in bribes in the freezer in his house. But to anyone from Louisiana, it was pretty typical. Taking your share of the pie is accepted, even expected. (Jefferson was eventually defeated in 2008.)
But what we didn’t know then and what would probably have ended Jefferson’s political career immediately was another thing he kept in that freezer of his: veggie burgers. The incriminating evidence emerged yesterday in Jefferson’s corruption trial (we have more pictures here):
I’m a little curious why this is not getting more attention. We’ve known since last month that Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) admitted to an affair with a former senate staffer and claimed that the woman’s husband had tried to extort money from him to keep the affair secret. That we know about.
But now it appears that Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) may have urged Ensign to pay the woman and her husband off to literally and figuratively get out of town.
As Zack Roth explains here, this is the claim made last night by Doug Hampton, the cuckolded husband. Yesterday Coburn and his representatives would not deny the claim and actually seemed to concede that he had urged Ensign to pay the Hamptons money. To the Politico, Coburn’s spokesman John Hart “categorically” denied Hampton’s claim but seemed to be pegging the denial to the dollar amount not to the general issue of advising him to pay money. (See the quotes in Zack’s post and judge for yourself whether it amounted to an admission.) In one extra piece of humor, Hampton refers to the money as ‘restitution.’
But now — just since I started writing this post — Coburn has come out with a new line entirely. Now he’s categorically denying urging Ensign to pay any money at all. And now — and here’s the kicker — Coburn is saying that he won’t answer questions about this from the Ethics Committee or anyone else because his conversations with Ensign are constitutionally protected since he was providing counseling as a physician and a Church deacon.
Now that Sen. Coburn (R-OK) has said he will not answer any questions about his conversations with Sen. Ensign (R-NV) because he was acting as his physician (and spiritual counselor), TPM Reader DE reminds us that Dr. Coburn is an OB/Gyn.
A deeper scandal than we’d ever imagined?
Sen. Coburn (R-OK) is moving quickly to walk back earlier statements from his staff that appeared to concede that Coburn had advised Sen. Ensign (R-NV) to pay off his mistress and her husband. Here’s the latest.
We’ve known for a while that Sen. Ensign (R-NV) gave a ‘severance’ payment of at least $25,000 to his ex-mistress and her husband. Now it turns out it was $96,000. But it gets better. Ensign’s lawyer is pointing out that he didn’t pay any money — his parents paid them off.
From TPM Reader TO …
I had a quick thought about the new Ensign revelations that I found amusing.
So first there was John Ensign with his affair. Shortly thereafter, Mark Sanford steps up to take the spotlight with his affair (and did he ever take the spotlight, with comments about true love and tragic love stories) Now John Ensign counters with some extra added financial impropriety to spice up his indiscretion.
I can’t wait to see what Sanford does next to one up Ensign.