Perhaps AZ-08 Will Be The Reddest Seat To Flip Red To Blue This Year

Trent Franks was a crackpot extremist-- and a pervert. When he got caught in a sex scandal this year, the GOP House leadership forced him to retire immediately. Not many people in Congress were sad to see him go. And his uptight suburban little district in Phoenix's West Valley has been too confused to absorb what happened to their 7-term congressman who never had a serious challenge for reelection. In fact there ws no Democrat running against him in 2016, 2014 or 2012. The district includes Sun City, Surprise, Peoria, Surprise and Litchfield Park and the PVI is R+13. Trump beat Hillary there by a massive 58.1% to 37.0%.

This cycle, with Franks out and in disgrace, there are two serious Democrats competing for the Democratic nomination, Hiral Tipirneni (a self-funder who gave her campaign $93,443) and progressive Brianna Westbook. The Republicans, on the other hand, have 14 candidates in the hunt! The three raising serious money (over $200,000) are former state Rep. Phil Lovas, former state Senator Steve Montenegro and former state Senator Debbie Lesko. Montenegro is about as right-wing as you can be without actually running around in clothes adorned in Nazi symbols. Franks picked him to run and he's been endorsed by every right-wing crackpot from the neo-fascist wing of the GOP interested in the race, from Joe Arpaio, Steve King (R-IA), and JD Hayworth to Ted Cruz and Rick Santorum. He's running on a Make America Great Again Platform and was considered the frontrunner-- until yesterday.

Montenegro is a married man and a "minister" in his father's church whose campaign emphasizes all the typical mealy-mouthed pious GOP hypocrisy about his "virtue, honor and integrity." But his own little scandal just broke and it will derail him-- either now, for today's primary, or in the general. A series of text messages between Montenegro and a female staff member in the legislature puts the lie to all the integrity nonsense. After the staffer sent Montenegro a topless photo via text message, he responded by encouraging her to use a messaging app [Snapchat] where photos vanish after being viewed by the recipient.

Montenegro hid from the media and the public for a few days, deleted his Snapchat account and then emerged to term the charges "tabloid trash." This was his pathetic statement on Facebook:

Tonight I saw a despicable example of the tabloid trash that conservatives around this country have to deal with on a regular basis.

As a Hispanic conservative I knew they would stop at nothing to prevent me from going to Washington DC and fighting for the working families of our district just like I fought for the people at the State Capitol. They have always worked hard to stop me and I knew that this race would be no different. But I assumed the distortions would be limited to my votes or positions on issues.

I am blessed with an amazing wife and marriage. The media wants to drag us down with just a week to go, but we are not going to dignify this false tabloid trash with any further response.

I am proud of my campaign and team of supporters. We will carry on in a manner that respects the process and the voters, and we are confident that our message and commitment will win the day.

UPDATE

Montenegro lost.

At least the Secret Service is aiming to become more media-savvy

"The Media Relations course prepares executives for television and radio interviews, and encounters with the media on routine matters as well as during crisis situations. . . ."

-- from the Secret Service's posted brief for media consultants

by Ken

As we all know, the U.S. Secret Service has of late had more than its share, or at least way more than it would like, of media attention to its boys-will-be-boys agents. Now we don't know for sure that no effort has been made to explore and remediate the behavior of its boys, but we do know that another apparently crucial aspect of the agency's media-relations problem is being addressed. And not a moment too soon.

Earlier today washingtonpost.com reported (links onsite):

Secret Service seeking media relations trainers

By Carol D. Leonnig, Tuesday, May 13, 11:29 AM

The U.S. Secret Service is looking for a few good people — to train them in how to handle the press.

The elite law enforcement agency has been beset by bad news over the past two years, including several incidents of agent misconduct, questions about whether the service is suffering a leadership failure and a heap of congressional investigations.

The agency has been trying to recover from a series of unflattering reports since 2012, when a dozen agents were implicated in bringing prostitutes to their hotel while on a presidential trip to Cartagena, Colombia. This week, The Washington Post revealed that agents protecting the White House perimeter were ordered to abandon their posts for at least two months in 2011 to help provide security for the Secret Service director’s friend, an assignment they called “Operation Moonlight.”

But also this week, the agency finalized its request for media consultants to help the agency’s top leaders get more comfortable with answering reporters’ questions, appearing on television and generally handling media attention.

The Secret Service issued its request for price quotes and proposals from media advisers May 2, and explained its request in more detail Monday. That was the same day the Secret Service was answering questions concerning revelations about Operation Moonlight, and the media reported that Director Julia Pierson was calling for the agency’s inspector general to fully investigate the allegations to ensure public trust in the service.

The agency’s search for media consultants emphasizes its wish for a media relations training course that would be provided to up to 30 top agency leaders each year, in a contract that could last five years. It was first reported by Time magazine early Tuesday.

The posting describes what the agency wants for its media classes: “The Media Relations course prepares executives for television and radio interviews, and encounters with the media on routine matters as well as during crisis situations. The executive becomes more comfortable as they learn how to conduct themselves during interviews and press conferences and giving speeches, and deal with both positive and negative subjects as they learn the fundamentals of media and techniques. The course exposes the executive to the media environment – microphones, lights, cameras, tape recorders, news media personalities and their questions, so that they become more accustomed to that scene. In turn, they become more confident and less apprehensive in addition to becoming better prepared for an event with what they can say, and how they should say it.”

No, please don't send your résumés here. Just follow the appropriate links to the actual posting. Meanwhile, it's comforting to know that we can look foward to Secret Service personnel eing "more confident and less apprehensive in addition to becoming better prepared for an event with what they can say, and how they should say."

(I would say "how they should say it" (emphasis added), but maybe that's just me.


I'm not the media guy, but while it's probably OK media-wise that the Secret Service guys aren't smiling for the camera (that might send out the wrong signal), do we really want all those bald agents? Is that really media-savvy? And should we be having pictures where the Secret Service guy looks like twice the size of the president? Is this good for morale?

#

Inappropriate Sexual Behavior By Our Privileged Elites

Perverts: Father Denis Lyons of Orange County & Don Vito Lopez of Brooklyn

When you want to talk about corruption in Brooklyn the discussion begins with Party Machine Boss and Bushwick Assemblyman Vito Lopez. The Ethics Committee found that he had sexually harassed two female employees (yes, he's a Democrat, so it wasn't underage boys) and unanimously recommended that he be removed as chairman of the Housing Committee. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Lower East Side) fired him and stripped him of his seniority. Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) went further, calling on him to resign from the Assembly and as chairman of the Brooklyn Democratic Party. “In light of the reprehensible conduct revealed by the Ethics Committee, I call upon Assembly Lopez to do the only honorable thing by immediately resigning his positions as a Member of the Assembly and as the County Chair of the Brooklyn Democratic Party."

Lopez tried kissing one and made a dirty grab between her legs. Apparently there was no rape that we'd need to ask Todd Akin about being legitimate or otherwise. The NY Daily News summed it up by explaining Lopez had "created a hostile work environment through 'unwelcome verbal and physical conduct' that escalated over time, including one instance where he placed his hand 'as far up between [a staffer’s] legs' as he could go, according to an Assembly ethics committee report made public Friday."

Driving Lopez out of Democratic Party politics will be the bright side of this sordid story. Brooklyn progressive activist George Martinez is well acquainted with Lopez's corrupting influence on local politics. "What so many of us have known for far too long in Brooklyn has come to light once again," George told us Friday afternoon. "Politics in Brooklyn is a cesspool of corruption embodied in the powerful Democratic County machine and its leader, Vito Lopez. Lopez was one of the power brokers working to marginalize my congressional candidacy through his proxy City Councilman Erik Dilan.

"This latest scandal however, is not the run of the mill landlord extortion, judicial bribery, campaign embezzlement or other 'political scandal'. This time Vito, the Don, crossed the line of sexual harassment, in a case so egregious, even his long time political ally and Speaker of the Assembly, Shelly Silver, had to get tough with him and stripped him of his leadership positions in the Assembly. Worst of all, this is another damaging blow to the public trust which is already been shattered by these by types of scandals. I am calling on Vito Lopez to step down as the Democratic county chair and to resign as a member of the NYS Assembly. But if he is unwilling to do that under his own integrity, then I am calling on the Democratic district leaders and the voters of his district to 'bum rush the vote' and remove him with the power of the vote."

Way across the country, in good ole Orange County, there was another kind of sexual harassment case finally coming to a conclusion. Denis Lyons, a Roman Catholic priest, was sentenced to a year in prison for molesting a 14 year old alter boy at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Costa Mesa from 1992- 1995. Lyons, who pleaded guilty to "lewd acts with a child" would have faced 14 years without the plea deal. He's now 78. He finally left the priesthood in 2004, a decade after sexually assaulting a boy on two occasions in the rectory and two different occasions in the sacristy. The D.A. read a statement from the victim: "I have spent the last 16 years living in pain, living in shame. He took away my innocence as a child. This man has ruined my life and many others besides me." Other boys-- as young as 7-- have also complained that Father Lyons molested them as well. Two cases were dismissed of rapes in 1978 and 1981 because of the statute of limitations. The Catholic Church protected Lyons for years and paid off his victims in return for non-disclosure. Is there anyone anywhere that would still allow their underage child to be alone with a Roman Catholic priest under any circumstances?

Of course, as far as I know, there's nothing inherent about being a priest that has anything whatsoever to do with child molesting. It's all about the frustration and mental illness that comes from being forced to live a life in the closet. That's probably the reason most child predators are Republicans, priests and other conservatives. They're the ones menatlly torn apart about their sexual identities. Normal gay people are cool with it and accept themselves and don't molest young boys-- at least not usually. There are still some Democratic politicians with the Republican problem of living in the closet, not many... but a few. Minnesota state Rep. Kerry Gauthier (D-Duluth) isn't one of them. He's not in the closet. Wednesday he ended his reelection campaign because of a rest stop encounter with a 17 year old boy. (The boy had told Gauthier he was 18 and, in any case, the legal age of consent in Minnesota is 16, so there are no criminal aspects to this story. Gauthier had advertised on CraigsList for a sexual encounter and there was no money involved.)

When the scandal first broke Gauthier said he wouldn't resign and would, in fact, seek reelection. That announcement went badly. He wound up in a hospital after overdosing on painkillers.

"I took an overdose of pills to not feel any pain and this resulted in my hospitalization," he said in the statement, adding that he has been in recovery from chemical dependency for 30 years with one relapse.

Gauthier told the station his unwillingness to accept he is gay led him to engage in the inappropriate liaison in a public place. He said he is getting counseling. He also said he feels badly for the teen and wouldn't talk specifically about the incident to protect the boy.

"I can change my behavior, but I cannot change the fact that I am a gay man, and have known this since my college days. I simply must act like a mature gay man would act, and not as the incident portrays me," the network quoted him as saying.

His decision drew condemnation from Democratic leaders including Dayton, who urged Gauthier to drop out of the race. Democrats need to gain at least six House seats in November to take control of the chamber. Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party Chairman Ken Martin and House Minority Leader Paul Thissen said Gauthier would get no support from the party or the House DFL caucus.

"It's a terrible mistake on his part," Dayton told reporters at the Capitol. "I think it's just something that goes beyond the morals of Minnesotans-- to solicit on Craigslist sex with a minor and do it in a public area, publicly owned area, as a state legislator, and come back to the parking lot with his clothes disheveled. It's not about whether it's a same-sex or a heterosexual act. It would be the same if it were the same circumstances involving a heterosexual individual."

Sen. Roger Reinert, DFL-Duluth, who shares a district with Gauthier, earlier urged Gauthier to skip a Friday special session on flood relief for his district and surrounding areas hit by severe flash floods in June. Reinert said Gauthier would be a distraction and could end up being censured by majority Republicans, or even blocked from taking his seat in the House chamber.

"That's not what we need right now," Reinert said. "What we need is all eyes and efforts focused on recovery."

Republican leaders called on Gauthier to resign immediately, but Dayton and other Democrats have not.

Dayton said his signed agreement for the special session with top Republican and Democratic legislative leaders would preclude a House vote on Gauthier's conduct because it limits the scope of the special session. A spokeswoman for the GOP House caucus had no immediate comment.

Rep. Tom Huntley, a Democrat whose Duluth district adjoins Gauthier's, told the Duluth News Tribune he considers Gauthier a "child molester."

"Why would anybody support someone that did what he did?" Huntley said in an Associated Press interview. "I am a strong supporter of gay rights, but that does not mean 55-year-olds with 17-year-olds. And I just can't imagine the public would approve of that."

But Gauthier has support from labor activists, including Alan Netland of the Northeast Area Labor Council.

"He had a personal problem but it doesn't affect the fact that he's a great representative for working people," Netland said.

Duluth firefighter Erik Simonson launched a bid as a write-in Democratic candidate for Gauthier's seat Tuesday. Duluth City Councilor Jay Fosle also has filed paperwork to run as a write-in candidate. Republican Travis Silvers already is on the ballot.

We could talk about the Supreme Court and health care. Nah, instead let's talk about sex -- at least sex Village-style. Plus: Al Ross (1911-2012)

A New Yorker sendoff for cartoonist Al Ross

"Winning is crucial to my retirement plans."

In his newsletter-blogpost tribute, New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff offers this cartoon and two more (one reproduced below) to back up his claim: "[W]hile Al is the record holder for age among New Yorker cartoonists, it’s not his longevity we admire so much as the spontaneity of his art, achieved by drawing directly in ink with no preliminary sketching in pencil." See below for more.

AND NOW, BACK TO SEX . . .

"[Governor Palin] was a total charmer, very friendly. The few things she said were intelligent."

-- former Sen. Arlen Specter (without citing any of the "intelligent"
things she said), quoted in Al Kamen's WaPo "In the Loop" column

by Ken

I had it in mind to write about today's final round of Supreme Court health-care oral hearings. After all, from those hearings -- or rather from the attitudes displayed by the soon-to-be-majority deciders of the Roberts Court 5 (the traditional Crackpot 4 plus frequent ally "Slow Anthony" Kennedy, who seems squarely in lockstep with the CP4 -- it should be possible to foresee at least in outline the immediate future of federal health care law, since today's subject was what happens to the rest of the so-called Affordable Care Act (ACA) when if the individual mandate is struck down, as we learned from yesterday's jesting and japing by the RC5 (with Slow Anthony emphatically onboard with the CP4) it will be.

Naturally the actual merits and demerits -- constitutional, legal, and health-care-delivery-wise -- will hardly figure in the outcome. Which is perhaps fitting, considering that the ACA was intended to do hardly anything for actual affordable health care, and its opponents have shown no interest whatsoever in it. For the reasons Howie outlined yesterday, I'm certainly not here to defend the dreadful ACA. At the same time, there's something special about knowing that to the extent that the ACA is dismantled, it will be done by the wrong people for the wrong reasons with likely disastrously wrong results. And any congressional "fixes" in the foreseeable future are likely to be down the line wronger still.

SO INSTEAD, LET'S TALK ABOUT SEX

Okay, not sex exactly. More like Sex in the Village. And not so much actual sex, which as practiced among the Village privileged seems to be unimaginably tiresome and yet lurid.

Va-va-voom! We have new insight into what may have been going on in the mind of then-Sen. Arlen Specter, seen here on Princess Sarah's left. (Sorry, I don't know who the old coot on the princess's right is. Perhaps a homeless crank who wandered onto the platform unmolested by normally crackerjack Republican security? For what it's worth, to the extent that his clearly limited faculties permit he seems to be enjoying the little "clapping game" they're playing.)

I'm thinking that Village Sex exists in three dimensions: (1) what Villagers claim to believe; (2) what they actually believe; and (3) what they actually do.

I don't think we dare venture into the miasma of (3), which in any case is likely to prove as tedious as it is disgusting. And goodness knows we're all sick of hearing (1). Which leaves (2), what Villagers actually believe about sex, into which we get occasional moments of insight like this one drawn from Al Kamen's Washington Post "In the Loop" column. (WARNING: Although there's no actual sex in the following report, the nausea-inducing quotient may be dangerous for the queasy of stomach.)

Take a knee, senator

Former senator Arlen Specter’s new memoir, “Life Among the Cannibals,” recounts his party switch and his votes for President Obama’s stimulus package and the health-care plan.

But it’s not just about politics.

For example, in one steamy passage on Page 156, he recalls riding on the campaign bus of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in 2008 with then-Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska.

"She was a total charmer, very friendly,” Specter writes. “The few things she said were intelligent." He doesn’t mention what they were, maybe because he was distracted.

"We were sitting virtually knee to knee in the cramped bus," he writes. "She radiated sensuality. Her skirt rode above her knees -- not exactly short, but close."

The excitement builds . . .

(The "excitement" referred to here would correspond to the "nausea-inducing quotient" I alluded to above.)

By the way, I have intentionally not included a link for Senator Specter's book. If you really want it, I expect you can find it easily enough on your own.


A NEW YORKER SENDOFF FOR AL ROSS (1911-2012)

"Here is the way it works: We take from the rich and give
to the poor -- keeping only enough for salaries, travel,
equipment, depreciation, and so on, and so on."

This is the second cartoon cited by Bob Mankoff in his newsletter-blogpost remembrance of Al Ross (there's one more onsite) as evidence of "the spontaneity of his art, achieved by drawing directly in ink with no preliminary sketching in pencil."

Bob's post has pictures from Al's 100th-birthday party, about which he writes: "I'm sure there was a lot of nostalgia at that party, but probably not too much from Al, who was always more interested in what he was going to do tomorrow than in what he did yesterday. We published this cartoon of his in 2000, when Al was nine-tenths of the way through his century, just as a new one was beginning."

"Stroll down it alone -- I'll wait here."

#

Trust the Right-Wing Lie Machine to roar into gear over the Penn State sex scandal, ignoring the fact that the alleged perp is One of Their Own

"There are good people and institutions at the university and in State College who still need our support and involvement. Don’t walk away. Give your time, money and talents to those who are making a positive difference." (Kevin Naff, to "disillusioned and angry" Penn State alumni)

" 'Many child molesters don’t really have an adult sexual orientation. They have never developed the capacity for mature sexual relationships with other adults, either men or women. Instead, their sexual attractions focus on children – boys, girls, or children of both sexes,' according to experts at University of California-Davis.

"And Sandusky was married with two grown children, an inconvenient fact that further undermines [right-wing blogloon Peter] LaBarbera’s labels. Surveying the faces of the Penn State scandal -- Sandusky, Paterno, Spanier, coach Mike McQueary, athletic director Tim Curley, vice president Gary Schultz -- all are straight men. This scandal isn’t about gay men; it’s about greed and a culture that prized money over doing the right thing."

-- Washington Blade editor Kevin Naff, in
"A gay alumnus reflects on Penn State tragedy"

by Ken

It's safe to say that both eons-long Penn State head football coach Joe Paterno and university president Graham Spanier know they didn't do enough with the reports they received of the incident of sexual predation of a 10-year-old boy by then-defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky. Judging from reports of on-campus revolt in the making over the firing of Paterno, who would have been coaching his last home game tomorrow, the university doesn't seem to be doing a bang-up job of educating.

It's a horrific story, this trail of boys now known to have been assaulted by Sandusky. But trust the lying scumbags of the Doody-Brained Right to make it worse, seizing on it as an occasion to launch a spree of gay-bashing. Off the shelf comes their old shrill song about gays and lesbians being unfit parents. Put the whole gaggle of these shrilling scumbags together and among them you couldn't find a single functioning brain cell, or a shred of honesty. But of course since the Right has been allowed to function not just with total disgregard of facts but in open-war defiance of them, they feel free, as usual, to ignore every shred of fact. Among which the one that keeps pounding at me is this one:

Jerry Sandusky is one of them -- yet another member of the species of Card-Carrying Right-Wing Married-with-Children White Males, apparently belonging to two heavily represented subspecies, the Closet Cases and Sexual Predators. If not for his, er, indiscretions [note: everyone gets that I'm being sarcastic, right?], he would have remained a poster boy for those old-time Crap Christian Family Values.

I'd like to call attention to an outstanding piece on the subject by Kevin Naff, the editor of the much-respected LGBT-oriented newspaper the Washington Blade, "A gay alumnus reflects on Penn State tragedy." Kevin writes with special anguish as a Penn State alum -- and a gay one, who has witnessed remarkable changes in the campus culture since his student days.

I’m a Penn State alumnus and have served on the board of the campus LGBTA Student Resource Center for several years. The Center is an important and even life-saving resource for students there. Many Penn Staters come from rural parts of the state where acceptance and understanding can be tough to find. Some are disowned by parents after coming out. The Center is there to help and support them, offering a safe space on campus to meet and socialize, educational programming and scholarships and other resources. Only about 7 percent of the nation’s colleges and universities operate such LGBT centers on campus and I’m proud that Penn State has emerged as a national leader in this area.

I’ve watched the incredible changes on campus since my graduation in 1992 with a sense of excitement, optimism and relief. There’s so much good in Happy Valley — from the pioneering work of those at the LGBTA Center, to the student athletes whose graduation rates rank No. 1 among the NCAA’s top 25 teams. Paterno wasn’t a stereotypical college football meathead. He emphasized education; the school’s library bears his name. In four years there, I met him just once. On the morning of my graduation, I stepped outside my apartment at 6 a.m. for a cup of coffee. And there, standing on the street corner alone, was JoePa. The street was deserted at that early hour and I introduced myself. He asked about my graduation, what I’d studied and my future plans. He was a grandfather figure to everyone on campus.

All of which makes these latest developments even more "unimaginable" to him, and even though he has no doubt that "Paterno, Spanier and the rest got what they deserved," the many questions that remain make him suspect "that we don't have the full story yet."

"The scandal," Kevin suggests, "raises deeper questions about our society." He notes the widespread "indignation" at the presumed failure to intervene of then-graduate assistant Mike McQueary, said to have witnessed the Penn State shower-molestation incident (he's now a Penn State assistant coach, and is as Kevin notes conspicuously not fired, at least so far), leaves Kevin wondering about commentators who "insist they would have intervened." He recalls the recent case of a toddler in China "struck by two vans on a busy street" and then ignored by 18 pedestrians and cyclists before a passerby attempted to help. And he recalls a lecture he attended at Penn State.

My political science professor was talking about nationalism and the rise of the Nazi party in Germany. It was a frigid February morning and just before class started, she walked to the back of the room and opened a window. As she spoke, the classroom grew colder and colder and students began donning coats and hats. As the professor talked about the circumstances under which societies turn to nationalism and xenophobia, student after student expressed their doubt and indignation — "That could never happen in the United States." Finally, when the cold became too much even for the professor, she said, "How can you be sure you would stand up to the government and its weapons and tanks, when none of you even had the nerve to ask me to close the window?"

This prompts all kinds of questions from Kevin, including:

Were senior officials afraid to call police because they wanted to protect the lucrative revenue stream provided by the football team? Were custodial staff who reportedly witnessed Sandusky’s crimes deterred from reporting him out of fear for their jobs?

In the end, Kevin points, out, "an entire network of adults failed [that 10-year-old boy]."

And he concludes with three exhortations:

To the students at Penn State: The eyes of the nation are upon you this weekend, so demonstrate the grace and compassion and leadership that was so lacking in your coaches and administrators. The anti-gay protesters headed your way are clowns who picket the funerals of fallen soldiers and AIDS patients. Ignore them and cheer on your team to victory.

To Penn State alumni who are disillusioned and angry: There are good people and institutions at the university and in State College who still need our support and involvement. Don’t walk away. Give your time, money and talents to those who are making a positive difference.

And to everyone else shaking your heads on the sidelines: Let this sad spectacle remind us of the need to be better people, to look out for one another and, especially, the most vulnerable among us.

#

In Terms Of Republican Sex Scandals, Mark Sanford Is Just A Sad And Pathetic Pipsqueak

Yesterday South Carolina First Lady Jenny Sanford filed for divorce against tango-crazed Governor Mark. The grounds: adultery. Fortunately, no one ever took Sanford's fake quest for a Biblical state-- with a sort of a South Carolina version of Sharia law-- seriously. Otherwise he might get stoned-- and not the way his former Treasurer Tom "Teabagger" Ravenel gets stoned.

The news comes the same week as Gov. Sanford was censured but spared impeachment by a House subcommittee investigating allegations that Sanford misused campaign money, and state planes and other assets. Those allegations came to light after the governor secretly left the state for five days in June to visit his Argentine lover.

...In her court filing, Jenny Sanford said “the defendant has engaged in a sexual relationship with a woman other than the plaintiff (Jenny Sanford). The plaintiff has not condoned that relationship and is informed and believes that she is entitled to a divorce ... on ground of adultery.”

The first lady’s filing said she “is informed and believes that all ... matters between the parties”-- custody of the couple’s four sons and division of their assets-- ”will be resolved by agreement, which agreement will be presented to the court for approval and adoption. ...”

While both Sanfords-- who married in Florida in 1989-- regularly are described as multi-millionaires, Jenny Sanford is, in fact, the wealthier. She is an heir to Skil saw fortune, while his wealth is largely based on illiquid land holdings.

A little hanky panky charged to the taxpayers down in Buenos Aires is small potatoes compared to some of the stuff I've been reading in David Rosen's new book, Sex Scandal America. Although "powerful congressmen," writes Rosen, "are protected by certain privileges," sometimes things go startlingly wrong, even for them.

In February 1989 [Donald "Buz"] Lukens was outed by an Ohio TV station reporter on a Columbus woman's charge that he had been paying her daughter for sex over the past three years. The girl, Rosie Coffman, was only thirteen years old when the affair with the congressman began. Lukens was eventually indicted and found guilty, not for rape but for contributing to the delinquency of a minor and given a slap-on-the-wrist sentence of thirty days in jail. Refusing to resign in the face of the scandal, he was defeated in his re-election bid. While completing his lame-duck term in Washington, Lukens was accused of inappropriate sexual conduct, this time fondling a Capitol elevator operator. He resigned in disgrace.

Lukens was caught on camera trying to make a deal with Rosie's African-American mom at a McDonald's. Lukens, who had paid Rosie $40 for sex, appealed his conviction on the grounds that she was already a delinquent when he seduced her! Appropriately enough John Boehner, one of the most blatantly corrupt men to ever serve in the House of Representatives, beat Lukens in the Republican primary and followed in his political footsteps. (He was later convicted on bribery and conspiracy charges for actions he took while in Congress; not Boehner, Lukens.) But Lukens' story is nothing compared to one going on at the heart of the Republican Party simultaneously. Ever hear the name Craig Spence, Craig J. Spence? Although just a big shot Republican operative and lobbyist and not a member of Congress, he was kind of the Patrick McHenry of his day, in terms of providing powerful gay Republicans with boy-toys. Like McHenry's business/love partner, Spence was found dead in a hotel... suicided. Back to Rosen's book:

One of the biggest-- and least reported-- scandals of the late-eighties was broken by the Washington Times, the conservative, Moon or Unification Church-backed newspaper. The first inkling of a scandal was a report about a male prostitution ring operating in the DC area. Additional reports kept expanding on the story. The paper claimed that Craig Spence, a Republican lobbyist, took youthful prostitutes (one fifteen years old) and clients on late-night tours of the [Reagan] White House. It claimed that Reginald de Gueldre, a Secret Service agent, arranged the tours [at the order of Vice President Bush aide Donald Gregg]; it also reported that the Secret Service "furloughed" three White House guards tied to the episode. It reported that Spence hosted lavish parties for the Washington rich and powerful at which cocaine and other illicit pleasures were provided. Also named in the scandal were Paul Balach, White House political personnel liaison for Labor Secretary Elizabeth Dole, and Charles Dutcher, the Reagan administrations' associate director of presidential personnel; both charged prostitute services to their credit cards. [And you thought that Salahi thing was a big deal!]

However, the story took a bizarre twist when the paper linked the Washington goings-on to a ring that was trafficking children from Nebraska orphanages for sex orgies with Republican officials and other social worthies. It identified Lawrence King, Jr., an African-American Republican who operated the Omaha-based Franklin Community Credit Union, and Harold Anderson, then publisher of the Omaha World-Herald, as the ringleaders. The scandal reached its "climax" when Spence, who had been indicted on [crack] cocaine and gun possession charges, was found dead in a Boston hotel room.

Many of these people are dead or retired. Not so with a sick and corrupt current Republican congressman, Ken Calvert, who represents an Inland Empire district, CA-45. Calvert is widely considered one of the most hypocritical members of the California Republican congressional delegation. Rosen looked into his case as well:

Hypocrisy was one of the social virtues that underscored the Clinton era and no one better expressed it than Calvert. A tireless supporter of the Christian Coalition and "family values," he took a principled stand against Clinton: "We can't forgive what has occurred between the President and Lewinsky." However, in 1993, this upstanding citizen was caught naked in his car getting a blowjob from a hooker, only to be apprehended by the police when he attempted to flee. He later pleaded for mercy, complaining that his father had recently committed suicide, his wife had left him and he did not know that the woman was a sex worker. Adding insult to injury, his ex-wife denounced him for refusing to meet his child-support payments.

Last year voters nearly retired Calvert-- even after Boehner came to his rescue by assigning him to the Appropriations Committee, where he was able to amass a huge war chest. Last year Calvert spent $1,150,432 in his re-election campaign, while grassroots Democrat Bill Hedrick only managed to spend $191,461, though nearly getting as many votes. This year the two will face off again.