THREE ROTTEN WING NUTS BOWING OFF THE NATIONAL STAGE: BROWNBACK, HASTERT, ROBERTS... BUT NOT CRAZY ANN

Last night, just a few hours after he was named as a recipient of major bribes in the Wilkes/Cunningham bribery trial in San Diego, Republican ex-Speaker Denny Hastert, let it be known that he would resign from Congress imminently.

Kansas Senator Sam Brownback is withdrawing from the parade of pygmies™ for less nefarious reasons. He's broke and his race has garnered no interest from any quarters. Imagine how humiliating it has been for someone who has worked so hard and for so long to distinguish himself as one of the most extreme and far right kooks in the Senate Republican caucus to keep hearing from the GOP base how unhappy they are about Giuliani, Full O'Mitt, McCain and Frederick of Hollywood not being "real conservatives" and if only there was one... Look for him to run for governor of Kansas in 2010. Brownback's "thunder" was stolen by... Huckabee... because he's a Baptist minister-- although today's Washington Post is reporting that even the evangelical, religionist right wing of the Party of Hatred and Greed isn't happy with any of the pygmies™-- including Huckleberry.

But the first thing I saw this morning when I woke up and turned on the news was that Oral Roberts Buy Bull College head honcho was "taking a leave of absence" from the family business after he was caught chin deep in monkey business. Buy Bull "University" President Richard Roberts "will continue to live in his university-provided house and be paid his $228,000 salary" and his hand picked board will decide when it's safe to bring him back "based on the outcome of its own and an independent auditor's investigations into the allegations... Roberts will continue to work as chairman and CEO of Oral Roberts Ministries, stick with his television work, keep teaching and preaching, and continue to write letters and books. The decision was in 'the best interest of my family and the university,' Roberts said."

They're claiming his leave of absence isn't an admission of guilt. "Three former ORU professors filed the lawsuit, claiming that they had been wrongfully fired or forced to resign. The lawsuit alleges that Roberts involved ORU in politics in violation of tax laws. A report-- which the professors claim cost them their jobs-- attached to the lawsuit alleges that the Roberts family misspent ORU and Oral Roberts Ministries money on themselves, among other allegations."

One Republican the public has seen more than enough of who is not going away is Republican Party spokeswoman/propagandist and Mitt Romney supporter Ann Coulter. On Monday Coulter was on a GOP radio show hosted by right-wing fanatic Michael Medved talking about her outrageous and anti-Semitic assertion from last week that "we Christians... just want Jews to be perfected." Chatting amicably with Medved she claimed, lying as usual, that it was the Jews who were insulting her religion. "The Jews believe that my savior, a Jew, was a raving lunatic, and you don't see me sniffling and crying." Just like there were a few self-loathing and somewhat stupid Jewish people who voted for Hitler's party in 1930's Germany, there are actually Jews in America who vote for Coulter's party today (or for Al Wynn)..




UPDATE: ANOTHER REPUBLICAN FLEEING IN HORROR FROM A HOPELESS TASK

Florida Senator Mel Martinez has had it with the hateful, bigoted, party he was supposed to be leading. He announced his intention of resigning as Chairman of the RNC. Although the failure of most of the pathetic pygmies™ to show up at an RNC fundraiser may have been the straw that broke the camel's back, the camel's been saggin'-- badly-- for a long time. Many Republicans didn't want him from day one when their lame duck president appointed him but when he backed a pro-corporate stand on immigration instead of the bigoted, racist Know Nothing demands most of the GOP base embraces... it was just a matter of time. Well, time has come today.


UPDATE: MARTINEZ-- THE DIRT STARTS COMING OUT ON WHY HE REALLY QUIT THE RNC

Yesterday Republicans tried to make light of Senator Mel Martinez' (R-FL) abrupt resignation as chairman of the Republican National Committee. Today's L.A. Times plays it up as more of a big deal.

The Republican Party's highest-ranking Latino official abruptly resigned Friday, marking the latest casualty in the GOP's bitter internal fight over immigration and dealing another setback to President Bush's years-long effort to court Latino voters.

The announcement by Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida that he was quitting as general chairman of the Republican National Committee came after he had expressed frustration over the tenor of the immigration debate within his party. Martinez will remain in his Senate post.

"Mel Martinez was a symbol of the party's outreach to Latinos, and that seems to be disappearing," said Lionel Sosa, a longtime Republican strategist and advisor to GOP presidents since Ronald Reagan. "It is not a good day for Latino Republicans, that's for sure."

Republicans of Hispanic decent are frustrated, worried and angry. Robert Posada, head of the Latino Coalition says "The radical conservative base has a temporary victory right now." He's a Republican.